Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2011 October 2

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October 2

privitization of government services and operations

Law and medicine are public services that have long since been privatized to an extent that only the upper middle class and the rich benefit from high quality service and specialization or have access to high quality service and specialization at all. Consequently law and medicine serve as a working model of a worst case privatization of public services scenario.

Despite this warning privatization is being sold as a solution to the current economic crisis because the private business model is to maximize profit and minimize cost while the public government model is to reduce services or raise taxes.

Whereas public government can only reduce services and operations or raise taxes, private business can minimize or eliminate:

1. taxes
2. regulation of the environment and industries like telecommunications.
3. programs that assist persons living below the poverty line
4. cost of living increases for government workers and pensioners

and guarantee maximum profit by charging whatever business desires for:

1. government administration
2. mail
3. electronic communication
4. transportation and parking
5. police, fire and military protection

to the joy and benefit of the rich while destroying and eliminating the poor.

Is this an accurate assessment of the current effort to privatize government services and if not what might make this assessment more accurate? --DeeperQA (talk) 00:13, 2 October 2011 (UTC)

Which government? I think you need to be a bit more specific. Examples might help. HiLo48 (talk) 00:24, 2 October 2011 (UTC)

In the present in the State of Florida. Although registered Democrats outnumber registered Republicans the Governor is a Republican bent and determined on privatization and deregulation backed by his Republican legislature. One bill that passed and became law in July, 2011 is the deregulation of the telecommunication industry. It is aggressively eliminating analog telephone service requiring cable, FIOS or cellular. The Lifeline poverty discount has been eliminated for cable and FIOS while cellular offers only 250 minutes at 2 cents per minute per month Lifeline poverty discount. Full discount on unlimited service, the equivalent of analog Lifeline discount, is not available. The poor are therefore being cheated by telephone menu and hold times that can consume ten time as many minutes as the conversation or message. --DeeperQA (talk) 03:35, 2 October 2011 (UTC)

Privatisation of services in general is the path to the Dark Side - it leads to oppression, which leads to anger (at the bourgeois), which in turn leads to hatred (of the capitalist system) which in turn leads to suffereing (revolution). →Σ ⚑  ☭  03:09, 2 October 2011 (UTC)

While I am far from republican, I do question your statement that the poor are being cheated by the removal of free unlimited phone use as I can't see unlimited phone access as being a right. The poor are still, from your information, recieving free phone use for ~9minutes a day at $0.18 a day, I do not see how use over this is not purely recreational. I also don't see why the government should be forcing companies to provide for out of date technology such as analog telephones. When I think of deregulation I think of minimum wage laws, which force businesses to become efficient per worker, disappearing, or Competition laws disappearing allowing inefficient monopolies to tyrant a market, building standards disappearing, allowing skyscrapers to topple over, accreditation for doctors disappearing, allowing a medical school drop out to perform heart surgery on anyone who will let him (he swears he knows enough and is half price!), etc. These things hurt the public, you're just talking about change.

"eliminating the poor" - isn't that a good thing? Public awareness (talk) 05:00, 2 October 2011 (UTC)

No. Poor people are entitled to unlimited service because that is what is being replaced. They are not asking for free unlimited service because that is not what they had. What they are asking for is unlimited service that everyone else has, only with a government assisted discount sufficient to allow then to have it.

Since you are not Republican we can assume you are poor and disabled. Lets start with unlimited analog service. Without government assistance you can not afford unlimited analog telephone service which is available to everyone at the same basic minimum cost which will allow the hospital to monitor your condition and you to communicate with your doctor, hospital, pharmacy, electric company and make and receive other necessary calls.

Unlimited cellular plans, along with fixed minute plans at fixed cost, come into existence.

Telecommunication service is deregulated.

Cellular service takes the place of analog service. Unlimited service for either analog or digital is 43,200 minutes of service per month.

You still need the same unlimited service and government assistance.

Instead of coming out of deregulation with the equivalent services you had under unlimited analog prior to deregulation you are given 250 free minutes, which is insufficient even to handle the time required for call interruption and redial, phone menus and hold times and unanswered calls.

Consequently, after your allocated minutes are gone your medical monitoring equipment can not inform the hospital you just had a heart attack and died; fulfilling the desire of the rich if you are poor, the desire of the Republicans if you are Democrat and the desire of people looking for empty handicapped parking spaces if you use a wheelchair. --DeeperQA (talk) 07:14, 2 October 2011 (UTC)

Ah, you're not talking about privitization or deregulation, you're talking about service cuts, particularly cuts to services for the poor. What can I say, that's what Republicans do, if you're not a fundemental christian or have millions of dollars there's no reason to vote Republican. Public awareness (talk) 08:09, 2 October 2011 (UTC)

I'm talking about what the office of a legislator told me. The office of Sen. Joyner said that deregulation was part of the Governor's privatization plan which lower business costs and taxes by eliminating or decreasing tax paid service to the poor. The Republicans and the rich do not want to pay taxes so the government can provide services but rather to provide government services themselves from which to maximize profit. First step is deregulation so the need for taxes can be eliminated and second step is privatization so profit can be maximized by commanding necessities. One alternative is to run government as a non-profit business in place of taxes. --DeeperQA (talk) 10:34, 2 October 2011 (UTC)

The Neanderthals had the best free social services ever. Back then in the caves, government was omnipotent and all-encompassing. One had free education from nursery to post-post-post-grad level. Beef grew on trees. People ate CO2 and shat diamonds and farted oxygen. All due to the laws passed by the European Parliament. Then came Margaret Thatcher, and people started having to pay for prostitution in the Netherlands. All due to the blue meanies and The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, you know. Damned effing capitalists. Damned privatizers. Wish were were still in the garden of Eden. μηδείς (talk) 05:38, 2 October 2011 (UTC)

So even with the modern capability to mitigate social inequality even for the most basic human needs, we still should live as selfishly as our ancestors did? No one's asking for the total removal of incentive that capitalistic competition provides, but when it becomes more important to protect the right of a billionaire to obtain just one more limo at the expense of someone else dying from a disease that could have been cured with a fraction of the money, don't you ever wonder about priorities? Or is the concept of humanity too commie? -- Obsidi♠n Soul 13:49, 2 October 2011 (UTC)

Under laissez faire capitalism you are free to donate as much of your own money as you wish to whomever you like and to convince others to do so as well. Just not with either your guns or those of the tax man as a threat. If your noble schemes will only work with government guns and other people's money then maybe "selfish" is not such an appropriate word for you to use as criticism. μηδείς (talk) 00:40, 3 October 2011 (UTC)

I agree μηδείς, helping the disabled to afford to just scrape by day to day is wrong. Public awareness (talk) 03:04, 3 October 2011 (UTC)

Mein Gott in Himmel! 60,000 Reichmsarks?!!! I retract my previous post. That money could have been better spent nuking Bikini Atoll again, just to make sure it really works.-- Obsidi♠n Soul 14:21, 3 October 2011 (UTC)

The truth is that we have no reason for everyone not to be rich and have the highest possible standard of living because the Solar Mass we call our Sun keeps throwing money at us like we were on a never ending hot streak at Las Vegas. --DeeperQA (talk) 07:21, 2 October 2011 (UTC)

Sounds like communism to me... but really, you guys should consider making Jesusland a reality, and the few sane people from the Jesusland states should move to the better states. Public awareness (talk) 08:09, 2 October 2011 (UTC)

Yeah, China is a Communist state funded by Capitalism. Go figure. --DeeperQA (talk) 21:10, 2 October 2011 (UTC)

List of porn-viewing ages

Can anyone find a list of the legal ages to view porn in different jurisdictions? I can't find such a list either via Google or on Wikipedia. Wiwaxia (talk) 00:25, 2 October 2011 (UTC)

Pornography by region, though I'm not sure there is a legal age to view porn in most places, just a legal age to buy porn, ie. You have to be 18 to buy porn where I'm from, yet 99% of 16 year old males have viewed porn, and that's legal. Public awareness (talk) 01:50, 2 October 2011 (UTC)

Of note, that article also touches on the differences between what is considered "porn" from region to region. -- kainaw™ 01:53, 2 October 2011 (UTC)

Really? I'm pretty sure that it's illegal to view porn if many places if you're under 18, even though that law is almost certainly never enforced. Ragettho (talk) 13:49, 3 October 2011 (UTC)

Are you sure of that? I did a quick search and found a lot of confusing not particularly reliable stuff on Yahoo Answers and the like. The few more reliable looking stuff which actually mentions laws like [1] seem to suggest there's often no law against a minor viewing or possessing porngraphy in the US (federal or state) although someone selling or making it available to a minor may be committing a crime. Unfortunately a search isn't easy due to the plenty of stuff discussing child pornography.

However you may have broken other laws to obtain your pornography. For example, if you went to one of those websites which ask you your age then you potentially committed a crime by lying, although I'm not sure in the US as the courts had some recent rulings coming down against criminalising stuff just because you violated someone's TOS. (But this isn't so clear cut since it's to do with age and websites attempting to prevent minors accessing their material as they may be required by law.) Of course if you presented a false ID or stole the pornography from a store you've probably broken the law. Similarly if you downloaded something without the copyright holders permission, this may be illegal in some cases (either way the copyright holder could likely bring a civil case against you) although again things don't see so clear cut in this area in the US. If you used some sort of P2P when you downloaded the materially you very likely uploaded/distributed it which is more likely to be illegal.

And of course if make your pornography available to a friend/sibling who is a minor you may be guilty of making it available/distributing it to a minor. The ultimate no-no, which some minors have gotten in to trouble for, would be any pornography involving a minor such as stuff sent via mobile phones of school mates or even the minor themselves since there are plenty of laws against possessing and I think viewing child pornography. While this does I think (from case histories) sometimes include pornography only involving yourself, I don't think the laws against making pornography available to a minor are likely to be interpreted as meaning it's illegal for a minor to possess or view pornography since they're making it available to themselves, a minor. But I could be wrong....

By comparison, in the case of alcohol there are laws making it illegal for minors to consume alcohol in some states in the US although that's 21 (see Legal drinking age) and in NZ [2] where it's 18.

Don't BTW think this means if you're a minor you can go around boasting to everyone including cops and teachers about your porngraphy collection and nothing can be done about it. If you're a minor, you would normally have a parent or guardian who is responsible for you who would likely be entilted to confiscate/delete your collection. And if they fail to do so when they've been told you're boasting about it, they could potentially get in trouble.

Nil Einne (talk) 20:25, 3 October 2011 (UTC)

Native Kerguelens

Hey everyone. I recently read that the Kerguelen Plateau sank and that the only remains were the Kerguelen islands and the Heard Island and McDonald islands, and that there were no native inhabitants living on either of them. But if the Kerguelen plateau didn't sink, is it likely that natives from South Africa or perhaps even the Austronesians could have traveled to the plateau to inhibit it? 64.229.181.189 (talk) 03:11, 2 October 2011 (UTC)

It's a large microcontinent, so possibly, provided ocean currents are correct. Early Austronesian sailors were able to colonize Madagascar in the same way. It would really all be conjecture though. It also sank 20 million years ago, long before modern humans arose. -- Obsidi♠n Soul 04:20, 2 October 2011 (UTC)

Hmmm... could any of them have gotten to Belgium? We should find out... Surely someone is eventually going to ask us how many native Kerguelens are living there. :>) Blueboar (talk) 04:55, 2 October 2011 (UTC)

LOL. -- Obsidi♠n Soul 05:46, 2 October 2011 (UTC)

Ok, funny, but why do you keep picking on that question? Rwanda, Burundi, and DR Congo were Belgian colonies, so it makes sense to ask about Rwandans, Burundians, and... Deeahrcongolese living in Belgium :D 92.81.28.53 (talk) 14:35, 2 October 2011 (UTC)

To give a serious answer for once: I pick on that particular question because it refers to Belgium. The word "Belgium" has become an English humor trope (I think it goes back to Douglas Adams and The Hitch-Hikers Guide to the Galaxy.) Belgium (as a word/name) is considered humorous, while the names of other European nations are not. Blueboar (talk) 15:09, 2 October 2011 (UTC)

It goes back to at least Monty Python, "can't think of a more derogatory name than Belgians" etc. (Although Douglas Adams did write for them too...) Adam Bishop (talk) 19:30, 2 October 2011 (UTC)

The Dogger Bank is a one-time significantly-sized human-inhabited island which sank (the later chronological stages of Doggerland)... AnonMoos (talk) 12:50, 2 October 2011 (UTC)

It's just as possible that people from South Africa or Madagascar could have traveled to the existing Kerguelen as it is that they could have traveled to a larger continental Kerguelen. While the distance is great and the seas are treacherous, it is possible that people did travel to Kerguelen. However, its climate is so forbidding and so different from the climates of likely travelers' homelands that it is difficult to imagine them having the cultural resources to survive after they arrived there. The only plausible means of livelihood would be foraging the marine and terrestrial flora and fauna, since the climate would not support significant agriculture. Yet no foraging people is known to have developed the technology to undertake long sea voyages. Marco polo (talk) 00:57, 3 October 2011 (UTC)

Not quite. As mentioned, the Austronesians who colonized Madagascar, basically sailed there in outrigger canoes from more or less, halfway around the world. There are actually plenty of ethnic groups in Southeast Asia which have cultures based almost entirely on itinerant marine harvesting, sometimes collectively called 'Sea Gypsies'. And let's not forget the Kon-Tiki and Tangaroa. Nevertheless, yes, the island would have been pretty much forbidding. But that hasn't stopped humans before, heh.-- Obsidi♠n Soul 14:06, 3 October 2011 (UTC)

The Austronesians who colonized Madagascar were not foragers, they were agriculturalists. None of the sea gypsy peoples are currently equipped for long-distance sea travel. Their boats can't hold enough food to live for weeks far from land, which is how long it would take to get to Kerguelen by sail from the nearest settled lands. Still, it is conceivable that a group of sea gypsies might have developed a long-distance sailing capacity. Even so, their culture involves exploiting tropical or subtropical waters, and none of the possible jumping-off points, such as Madagascar or South Africa, would have enabled them to develop the cultural competence needed to live sustainably in a subpolar environment. It is true that people settled Iceland and then Greenland, where climates comparable to Kerguelen exist, using premodern navigation, but life in Iceland prepared colonists to survive (tenuously and ultimately not sustainably) in Greenland, and life in Norway prepared colonists to survive (also rather tenuously in premodern times) in Iceland. No inhabited land area within a reasonable range of Kerguelen would offer a similar preparation for life on Kerguelen. Marco polo (talk) 14:23, 3 October 2011 (UTC)

The sailing technologies of the sea-based Austronesian peoples are basically the same as that of the other more agricultural Austronesian cultures. The relatively simple boats may seem rather unseaworthy when compared to western large ocean-going vessels, but remember, Hawaiians and other Polynesians are also Austronesians, and catamarans with its carrying capability and speed were an Austronesian invention. Austronesian boats influenced both the Chinese interest in building large trading ships and the introduction of ships built with nails (rather than lashed together) in African and Middle-Eastern boat designs in the Indian Ocean. But yeah I guess. It would have been a pretty hostile place for people more used to tropical islands.-- Obsidi♠n Soul 15:01, 3 October 2011 (UTC)

Malietoa

Who was the Malietoa during the United States Exploring Expedition to Samoa? This article seems to suggest Malietoa Moli but Moli wasn't Malietoa till 1858. Malietoa Vaiinupo, Moli's predecessor, died in 1841 according to this [3]. So who was Malietoa during this time between 1841 and 1858 and who was the Malietoa that was met by Americans in the United States Exploring Expedition and drawn by Alfred Agate. Also Agate drew a women named Emma Malietoa, who was she?--KAVEBEAR (talk) 07:20, 2 October 2011 (UTC)

brotherly inspiration

Now that Mark E. Kelly has retired from the U.S. Navy, by any chance might his twin brother, Scott J. Kelly, do the same thing? (Please note I'm not using this site as a crystal ball or anything like that.)24.90.204.234 (talk) 07:31, 2 October 2011 (UTC)

More than a chance. I think we can say with certainty that Scott "will" retire from the US Navy. At some point. :>) Blueboar (talk) 16:00, 2 October 2011 (UTC)

Does being drowned constitute retiring, then? 128.232.241.211 (talk) 23:10, 2 October 2011 (UTC)

What does drowning have to do with Mark E. Kelly's retirement, or whether or not Scott J. Kelly "will" retire?24.90.204.234 (talk) 08:12, 3 October 2011 (UTC)

I think the point 128 was making is that there is no certainty he'll retire. He may drown. He may be dishourably discharged. He may be kidnapped by aliens and never be found again. It's a pedantic point, but it has some merit. --Dweller (talk) 13:52, 3 October 2011 (UTC)

I doubt most of that. But I'm siding with Blueboar.24.90.204.234 (talk) 06:06, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

You doubt it's possible he won't retire because of something else hapenning which prevents him doing so? That's just silly. I would agree it's most likely he will retire, but there's no certainty as Dweller and 128 have said. Despite their statement, I'm not sure whether even Bb intended to suggest there was no possibility he won't retire. The original question itself is fairly silly anyway. Their twins, not duplicates and there are clearly things going on in Mark's life that made retirement far more likely that don't apply to Scott. So the recent retirement of Mark has limited relevence to Scott. And it's fairly unlikely there are any sources where Scott discusses whether he plans to retire soon so there is no way we can answer it on the RD. (This isn't Scott's private e-mail.) Nil Einne (talk) 14:25, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

Timeline of Daylight Saving Time Adoption

I'm looking for a timeline of daylight saving time adoption worldwide. Ideally it would be a list of what years countries started using DST and, if applicable, stopped using it. --CGPGrey (talk) 10:08, 2 October 2011 (UTC)

See Daylight saving. For the UK, British Summer Time was adopted as an emergency wartime measure on 21 May 1916.[4] Apparently, Germany beat us by a few weeks, as they introduced it on 06 April 1916. [5] Alansplodge (talk) 15:13, 2 October 2011 (UTC)

Daylight saving time around the world has more of the details you want. Unfortunately, it's not as simple as "Country A adopted DST on Date X and nothing's ever changed since". In some places it goes in and out of fashion. In some countries like Australia, it's governed on a state-by-state basis, not nationally. The detailed history of DST in Australia alone would fill a book. Doris Chase Doane wrote such a book, "Time Changes in the USA", followed by "Time Changes in Canada and Mexico" and "Time Changes in the World (except the USA, Canada and Mexico)". She's dead now, and I don't know if updated versions of her books are available. -- Jack of Oz ^{[your turn]} 19:41, 2 October 2011 (UTC)

See Time in Indiana for an annoying example of the state-by-state basis in the USA; if it weren't for Mitch Daniels, it would be 9:30 PM right now for me instead of 10:30 PM like the rest of my time zone is. Nyttend (talk) 02:27, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

Oligarchy

It seems to me that a lot of people throw around the term Oligarchy as just some epithet, but what would an actual oligarchy look like? Would it just be a democracy with a franchise restricted to the well off? Would it be rule by some central council that elects its own members? Or is it just a vague descriptor that doesn't refer to a form of government at all? Rabuve (talk) 15:08, 2 October 2011 (UTC)

Oligarchy actually answers some of these questions pretty well. One example could be the Central comitee of the SED Party of East Germany. --Abracus (talk) 15:16, 2 October 2011 (UTC)

Excellent question. An oligarchy occurs when a particular corporate group in society (or even within a micro-society like an organization) promotes its own welfare by exploiting others. Aristocrats and monarchs have existed since almost forever and for all of that time they have been in a position to control and coordinate those groups, and therefore they have also been in the perfect position to exploit them.

The expectations of the individuals in all these other groups (i.e farmers, smiths, etcetera) was limited to their own requirements and processes because of the need to focus on their own work. Having no other work than government, the oligarch is able to focus on the society as a whole, and how it should fit together. This vantage point is very useful for exploitation.

If you are looking for examples of societies that are oligarchies, well there is a sense in which they all are still, and there is a sense in which none of them are anymore really. Societies that exemplify an "oligarchical culture" have existed historically, however their historical placement is not of primary significance. These cultures have existed in some form in varying degrees for thousands to years, and still exist today.Greg Bard (talk) 01:06, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

Ethnic groups in Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Burkina Faso, Sierra Leone, Senegal, Nigeria, the Gambia, Côte d'Ivoire practising Islam.

I was told that Yoruba people of Nigeria practice Islam and Wolof people of Senegal practice Islam. In Nigeria, is there any other ethnic groups that practice Islam and is there any ethnic groups in Senegal that practice Islam? What about ethnic groups in Guinea; which ethnic group practice Islam? Which ethnic groups in Guinea-Bissau practices Islam? Which ethnic groups in the Gambia practices Islam? Which ethnic groups in Côte d'Ivoire practices Islam? Which ethnic groups in Burkina Faso practices Islam? Which ethnic groups in Sierra Leone practices Islam? Please answers my questions and thank you. This is no homework question. I am curious about this issue. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.31.17.129 (talk) 15:52, 2 October 2011 (UTC)

In each of the articles about those countries, there's a section devoted to religion. Please take a look at them first. I have wikilinked them all for you.-- Obsidi♠n Soul 16:29, 2 October 2011 (UTC)

Before others answer... religion and ethnicity do not necessarily go hand-in-hand. While most Yoruba may practice Islam, there are at least a few that adhere to other faiths. And there are Muslims among ethnic groups that are mostly Christian. Perhaps what you are really asking is: "Which ethnic groups in West Africa are predominantly Muslim?" Blueboar (talk) 16:28, 2 October 2011 (UTC)

These days we need to think a lot more about what is meant by "practising Islam", just as we should with "practising Christianity". Such terms are old and possibly outdated. I know less about Islam, so I'll use the Christian example. If I go to church most Sundays, but never pray otherwise, and eat steak on Fridays, am I a practising Christian? I have great difficulties with defining the numbers of adherents to particular faiths. Figures that have long been held to be meaningful can be very deceptive. HiLo48 (talk) 19:58, 2 October 2011 (UTC)

It's only Roman Catholics in certain specific times and places (not universally) who had an obligation of "meatless Fridays", and not complying was considered to make you a sinful Catholic, not a non-Catholic. And large-scale measures of religious membership count external signs of affiliation more than individual definitions of faith (something which requires long personal interviews to get at, and can then be tricky to reduce to simple dichotomous categories). So I think that most researchers or census-takers would consider you to be a practising Christian under those conditions... AnonMoos (talk) 21:35, 2 October 2011 (UTC)

And there we have a problem. You see, that post of mine describes me maybe 30 years ago. My views haven't changed, but now I don't even attend church. I like the term "Social Christian", or "Social Muslim", meaning that one participates in the rituals of one's society's religion because that is what is expected, rather than because of any strong belief. I'm pretty sure there's plenty of such people in most places. Are such people in a so-called "Muslim" country actually practising Muslims? HiLo48 (talk) 23:08, 2 October 2011 (UTC)

Well, I did know a fundementalist christian (homeschooled) once, she "knows" that only Christian fundamentalists are christians, and the rest of those called christians are going to hell. I than proceded to bring up the fact the bible condones slavery in front of her and my strongly (but non-fundementalist) christian black friend, that was funny. So yes, there are multiple levels of dedication to a religion. I practice opening presents on Christmas and enjoy having Good Friday off work, that's my level of christianity. Because of these different levels, stats on religion don't show the reality that much. Public awareness (talk) 02:08, 3 October 2011 (UTC)

My understanding is that Yorubas are predominately non-Muslims. The Wikipedia article Yoruba people states that 50% of Yorubas are Muslims, but I'd take that statistic with a grain of salt. The large Muslim ethnic group in Nigeria is the Hausa people. The Fula/Peul people is another group that is virtually 100% Muslims (spread across West Africa). In Guinea-Bissau, they would be the main Muslim group. I think in Burkina as well, not sure. In Guinea, all major ethnic groups are Muslims. The main non-Muslim populations are the Forestiers, the different groups living in the interior regions, as well as a minority in the capital Conakry. Likewise, in Senegal and Gambia 90+% of the population is Muslim, so a better question would be which ethnic groups are non-Muslims. --Soman (talk) 14:38, 3 October 2011 (UTC)

Helen Stratton

fl. 1892–1925 [6], but when did she die? -- Cherubino (talk) 16:23, 2 October 2011 (UTC)

Are you asking for the exact date? Blueboar (talk) 16:30, 2 October 2011 (UTC)

I just want to know if her work is in the public domain. UK, Life + 70 years. Exact dates (birth, dead) might then be helpful for a category on commons. -- Cherubino (talk) 16:40, 2 October 2011 (UTC) PS: "fl." (flourished) only refers to a person's known period of activity

According to this site, she died on 4 June 1961, aged 95. Ghmyrtle (talk) 20:37, 2 October 2011 (UTC)

So no PD for 20 years, thanks. Cherubino (talk) 16:50, 3 October 2011 (UTC)

Education requirements accelerating?

I know that the formal education required for the average job in the industrialized world is increasing. Is this increase accelerating? Also, if it ever reaches a cognitive or economic limit (even with any advances in cognitive enhancement), is this likely to slow technological acceleration? NeonMerlin 20:40, 2 October 2011 (UTC)

This is called credential inflation. It's probably impossibly to say if it is accelerating, because it isn't possible to measure it accurately. I see that our article says it can hamper innovation. I suppose the mechanism is that people who should be out in the real world making innovations are instead shut up in classrooms mugging up on outdated facts they need to pass exams. But the world is more complicated than that. Itsmejudith (talk) 21:32, 2 October 2011 (UTC)

If it helps, the rates of high school and 4-year college completion in the US (according to Census table HS-22) from 1940-2002 (points before 1940 are estimates according to the footnotes) fit linear and exponential curves about equally well.

Itsmejudith, do you mean that the increase doesn't reflect an actual increase in knowledge? NeonMerlin 22:06, 2 October 2011 (UTC)

The average BA holder can be equally well(or badly) educated than many years ago. Maybe we are just educating more people .... Quest09 (talk) 22:58, 2 October 2011 (UTC)

Part of the issue is that more people have the higher certifications, but it is not always readily apparent that having those certifications necessarily means one is well suited for a particular job. Educational certifications (degrees, diplomas, etc) act as "gatekeepers" for certain jobs. Most people will still have to be trained for their specific job by the company that hires them, regardless of their degree, so it isn't the educational training per se which matters. The degree acts as a sort of "is this person an idiot" test; people with higher degrees have a better chance of being trainable (and thus hireable) for whatever job one is offering. It isn't that there is a guarantee that every single Bachelor's Degree holder will automatically be better at the job than every single High School Diploma holder; it is that there will be less idiots with Bachlor's degrees (not zero, just less) than hold merely a High School Diploma, if only because there are less of them. The first goal of someone hiring for a job is to narrow down the applicants to a managable group. They know ahead of time they are likely getting rid of a number of good applicants when they, say, eliminate all people who don't have a Bachelor's Degree. They don't care about that, but they are also getting the list down to a more reasonable number of interviewees. The more people get higher degrees, the higher up a company will raise its bar for applicants. If as many people today get Bachelor's Degrees as got High School Diplomas, say, 50 years ago (made it up, but you get the idea), then a Bachelor's Degree today will be worth what a HS Diploma was worth 50 years ago, because hiring managers will still need to cull their list of applicants, and they need to use the higher qualification to do that. If, in another 50 years, there are as many Master's degrees as there are Bachelor's degrees today, then that will become the new cutoff. It has nothing to do with what you may or may not have learned, it is how you, as an applicant, can distance yourself from all other applicants. If everyone else has a Bachelor's degree, you aren't special and thus you don't stand out as an applicant. This will always be true, so the more educated the population becomes, the less important that education will become when applying for a job. --Jayron32 19:27, 3 October 2011 (UTC)

Jayron's argument is a standard one on this topic; that education is a positional good. My earlier post was meant to sum up why someone might think that the increased average length of full-time education hinders innovation. I agree with it only to a certain extent. People do learn something in the years they continue in education. Most importantly they learn the confidence to think for themselves. On the other hand they would also have learnt a lot if they had been out at work. The solutions may include the following: not to value education unduly and reject the benefit of work experience, to allow people to choose how and when they study, to provide opportunities so people can study part-time while they are working and allow people to come back to education in later career. A lot of nonsense is said about these questions. This afternoon I heard Chris Woodhead say on BBC Radio 4 that children should be allowed to leave school at 14 because they couldn't read and write at 11 and there was no point in trying to teach them now - and then they could go onto to train as plumbers. A plumber who can't read or write isn't going to be a lot of use. Itsmejudith (talk) 19:50, 3 October 2011 (UTC)

Conspiracy theory

is there any conspiracy theory that was proven true??? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.112.82.2 (talk) 21:08, 2 October 2011 (UTC)

Plenty of conspiracies have been proven, try Watergate for starters. The issue here is that the term "conspiracy theory" is usually used to refer to paranoid concepts of grand conspiracies encompassing large portions of history. These have not been proven true _{and wont as long as the reptilians are in control}. --Daniel 21:11, 2 October 2011 (UTC)

See Conspiracy Theory for more information. The fact is, the term 'conspiracy theory' has come to mean 'speculation without any evidence whatsoever'. This is the main reason that they continue to be theories (see theory and hypothesis - and then think why there is no such thing as a Conspiracy Hypothesis). Watergate was indeed a cover-up, but in no way would it be called a conspiracy theory now. It wasn't even called that then. KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 23:31, 2 October 2011 (UTC)

Err, most conspiracy theories have plenty of evidence. God, do they ever have evidence! The question is not whether they have evidence, but whether the evidence is being marshaled correctly, whether they have succumbed to various cognitive biases (often the case), or whether the evidence for their theory is in any way relevant to the evidence against it. But it's not that they have zero evidence. Even the goofiest of conspiracy theories can bore you to tears with their volumes of purported evidence. --Mr.98 (talk) 16:06, 3 October 2011 (UTC)

I've thought about this a bit, in part because there was a lot of discussion about whether there could be some kind of List of conspiracy theories that were true on here at some point. There were two different ways of thinking about what would populate a list:

1. Any scary government or non-governmental thing that was hidden but turned out to be true

2. Any theories about said conspiracies that percolated for a long time and were denied/covered up, but turned out to actually be true

The first was too broad a category, I thought. If nobody on the "outside" theorized it, then it wasn't a "conspiracy theory" in my view. It was just a "conspiracy." There have been plenty of conspiracies. ("Conspiracy" is an exceptionally broad term.)

The second was more what I had in mind. It rules out most secret things, because they were usually not speculated about much. The Manhattan Project is a nice borderline case. During World War II there was a lot of speculation amongst newspapermen, politicians (including Truman, when he was a Senator), and various other folks (scientists who were not part of it, for example) that the US was engaged in producing a uranium-based weapon. It was hushed up by the Office of Censorship to a large degree (but not perfectly), by the War Department, and even by the White House (e.g. calling up the Truman Committee and telling them to take a hike). Eventually it came out that the US was indeed doing just that. Of course, after the fact, the bomb was described as a huge surprise for everyone, which was only partially true. But was there a large movement of "conspiracy theorists"? Not really. Was there an official story they were challenging? Not really — it was more of a suspicion. So I don't know, does that count? I'm on the fence about it. --Mr.98 (talk) 00:33, 3 October 2011 (UTC)

The P2 conspiracy probably qualifies. The conspiracy that masonic lodges are the secret masters of government has been around since there have been freemasons. This one time, it happened to be right. gnfnrf (talk) 03:26, 3 October 2011 (UTC)

Not quite... What is beyond doubt is that there was a conspiracy involving members of the P2 Lodge (there is a lot of debate as to when that lodge was or was not legitimate, and thus whether we can legitimately say "the Masons" were behind it.) There is also some skepticism as to whether all the people purported to be members of P2 actually were members. And, as is common with the genre of conspiracy theory in general, the tale has grown in the telling. A lot of frigne claims are made about P2 ... many of them don't pass close examination. So... it is true that there was a conspiracy involving P2... but that does not mean that everything stated by the conspiracy theory is true. Blueboar (talk) 19:12, 3 October 2011 (UTC)

It's worth pointing out that ordinary collusion such as price fixing can sound as wacky as any popular conspiracy theory, but there have been plenty of collusion convictions when the parties involved were not aware that they were colluding. Because no intent is involved, if RAM manufacturers, for example, price their product at what they think is a competitive point, but that information comes from other vendors, even if it is conveyed by customers, that counts as a bona fide conspiracy. 69.171.160.45 (talk) 08:08, 3 October 2011 (UTC)

Also there are some conspiracy theories which depend on actions predicated by the zeitgeist or collective subconscious (e.g., some forms of racism, sexism, ageism, etc.) which are statistically obvious even when all individuals deny them. Ask a black teen if there's a conspiracy by the cops to harass him when he drives through the wealthy suburbs, and you know what he will say and why he will say it, just as surely as the cops will all deny it vociferously. Similarly, "separate but equal" and Jim Crow were bona fide conspiracies against blacks as much as whites would pretty much all deny it in some areas. 69.171.160.45 (talk) 08:15, 3 October 2011 (UTC)

I'll put forward Reichstag fire as a close one. We'll probably never know what has really happened, but it certainly is a conspiracy theory and mainstream opinion seems to be pretty much fifty-fifty divided between believing the official version and the conspiracy claim. 109.149.83.20 (talk) 22:47, 3 October 2011 (UTC)

I don't think it's 50/50. I think the preponderance of historical opinion is that the Nazis took advantage of the fire, but didn't set it themselves. Unless that wasn't the conspiracy you meant... --Mr.98 (talk) 14:25, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

"Conspiracy" is a felony in the US. So every instance of that law resulting in a conviction is an instance of a conspiracy being proven true. Also, any misdemeanor can rise to the level of a felony, if it was perpetrated by more than one person who planned to do it. In the college town I used to live in, the police charged some student protesters with "conspiracy to jaywalk" when they blocked a state highway (it was 1969 and they were protesting the fact that a state highway running through campus was unsafe). Later the charges were dropped and the road was closed through campus and rerouted. The postmodern interpretation of conspiracy theories is that they are attempts to make sense of a world that makes no sense. The world doesn't always make sense, so therefore they are very often not proven, because they aren't true at all. I.e. Oswald really did act alone, there was no complicity by the US on 911, etcetera.Greg Bard (talk) 19:41, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

The Bible Verses Where the Devil Spoke to Men

Hi. Does anybody know where in the bible say that the Devil had spoken to a man or to a woman other than to Eve and Jesus? 99.245.76.117 (talk) 23:32, 2 October 2011 (UTC)

It doesn't seem so, read Christian teaching about the Devil. Flamarande (talk) 03:19, 3 October 2011 (UTC)

There are some implications that the devil will tempt individuals, but nothing explicit that this involves speaking with words as opposed to communication by way of a big juicy steak, a big jug of wine, and a lusty attractive member of the appropriate sex, for example. What is the passage where one of the prophets refers to errors in scripture as the result of temptation? That's a convenient self-reference to explain a few things. 69.171.160.45 (talk) 08:26, 3 October 2011 (UTC)

The Bible doesn't mention the Devil speaking to Eve - that's an interpretation. --Dweller (talk) 13:28, 3 October 2011 (UTC)

It is clear that she was spoken to. Whether "the serpent" is the same as the Devil is another story. —Akrabbim^talk 13:39, 3 October 2011 (UTC)

If you believe that Jesus was a man, then he conversed with the Devil during his sojourn in the wilderness. Luke 4: 1 - 15 is the reference. I had thought that perhaps you could find instances in the book of Job, but it seems that Satan's dealings with Job were confined to being a goddam nuisance! --TammyMoet (talk) 18:06, 3 October 2011 (UTC)

Now by that do you mean a man who existed at one point (unproven yet)? Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie | ^{Say Shalom!} 6 Tishrei 5772 22:22, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

I assume Tammy simply meant to cover her bases in case a somewhat gnostic contributor wanted to dispute Jesus having been a man when he spoke to the Devil in the desert. There are those who deny his human status, just as there who deny his divine status. 86.163.1.168 (talk) 14:44, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

So there is no bible verses that say the Devil spoke to any human beside to Eve and Jesus who was on Earth in a human form. You guys can't find any verses, am I right? 99.245.76.117 (talk) 00:38, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

What they are saying is that they haven't found a reference for a Bible verse where the devil speaks to any man other than Jesus. That's what we search out: references. Bielle (talk) 02:06, 6 October 2011 (UTC)