Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2011 September 11

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September 11

Question about communism?

So if communism is supposed to be a society where everyone is equal, then why are communist governments so totalitarian and undemocratic? Why do they have poor human rights records, massive censorship and lack of freedom of speech and (some) have cults of personality? Wasn't communism supposed to be a Utopian society where there are no rich or poor and everyone is equal? Narutolovehinata5 ^tccsdnew 00:05, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

It's the classical case where everyone is equal, but some are more equal than the others. Quest09 (talk) 00:12, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

No, my question, is why are communist countries so totalitarian and undemocratic? Narutolovehinata5 ^tccsdnew 00:17, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

It's the classical case where absolute power corrupts absolutely. Quest09 (talk) 00:20, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

Conversely, why do the rich get richer and the poor get poorer in capitalist countries? It's the classical case of "man... dominating man to his injury." Schyler (exquirere bonum ipsum) 00:47, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

That's not the question of the OP. Quest09 (talk) 01:10, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

You may want to read Communism first, and then Utopia, and then try to think how neither is unobtainable without a huge change in human nature, and then work out why certain totalitarian governements have used the desire for both as an advert to get them into power. However, not all Communist countries do badly, in terms of what you say. --KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 01:55, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

The rich get richer but fortunately so do do the poor in capitalist countries. Any 18th century king would probably love to trade places with someone "poor" in the US or EU now. He would love to fly, he would love to get medicine that do work, he would love to be able to communicate with someone on the other side of the globe within seconds. Communism focuses on moving wealth from the rich to the poor so we can all be equal which is a sad and childish way of looking at how people behave or think. A communist country needs to constantly force people to behave in a way that's not natural to human kind. People like having money. People don't care about things they don't own themselves. That's the basic problem with communism, and that's what leads people to poverty.Joepnl (talk) 03:38, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

Or as Frank Zappa once said, "Communism doesn't work, because people like to own stuff." ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 04:17, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

Reading the article on Marxism-Leninism (which has been more or less the dominant strain of "Communism" with regards to actual governments, as opposed to people who write pamphlets and stand on street corners) might give you a clearer indication than the Communism article, just because the latter is full of a lot of totally philosophical or unsuccessful strains of the ideology. Just take it for what it says about itself (even just the first paragraph), without worrying about even what happens when it gets corrupted, or a paranoid guy ends up at the top of the hierarchy for some reason, or even a guy who isn't paranoid but sometimes makes mistakes. Note that it is not strictly Communism — it is about creating the conditions for a communistic society. Communism is that wonderful utopia at the end of the tunnel, the one that never quite shows up. --Mr.98 (talk) 02:41, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

The utopia idea probably refers to something more akin to the Federation in Star Trek or to a society where everyone is wealthy and poverty has been abolished. If electricity were too cheap to meter (expected to be the result of fusion power) then that might be the start to achieving the utopia but then you will still have to deal with people who base their sense of worth on money instead of their freedom for the need of it to have and acceptable standard of living. Cuba by the way has climate which all enjoy but then also secret police who can assure that you are never heard from again. I would not call Cuba a utopia but only a nation that has reduced the gap between rich and poor to the point where wealthy American business men can [no longer] come to find young poverty stricken girls and boys for sex - the situation in Bangkok now. --DeeperQA (talk) 04:13, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

The statements you make Naruto may be largely based on your education/indoctrination. Children of capitalists may be taught they have the ability to rise to be the head of state or very rich, while Communism is evil and everyone suffers as you can't be uber-rich and they use censorship to control the populace. Children of communists may be taught that their society is fair and all man are created equal and are equal in life and this is great for ethical reasons, while capitalism is evil and a large portion of the society suffers from wage slavery, lack of education (post-secondary), health care, homelessness, and so on and the governments use a form of censorship to control the populace.

I also hope the op knows that there has never been a true communist state, and of those who claim(ed) to be partly communist, Cambodia, Vietnam, North Korea, Cuba, USSR, PRC, are all VERY different in their governments. Also these nations didn't just switch over to leftist and were accepted by the world, most of these nations had to fight very long and expensive wars as the USA attacked them, and the US has launched economic warfare against them all (who's totalitarian now?). Public awareness (talk) 08:40, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

OP if you really want to know, here are two very readable works of fiction that will enlighten you. Animal Farm by George Orwell for how it went wrong, and News from Nowhere by William Morris for what if it goes right. Or any textbook on 20th century world history. Itsmejudith (talk) 14:13, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

Stalinism, as its article states, is dismissed by the Trotskyites as a corrupt means to power while using Marxist rhetoric; but even Trotskyism holds that the communist revolution has to be worldwide, or all the capitalist countries will attack (with armies or economics) the Communist countries out of fear that communism will spread. Communist state is our article about the so-called Communist countries of the 1900s, by the way. Comet Tuttle (talk) 18:15, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

The short answer is that there is very little in common between working class self-emancipation through communist politics aimed at all society governing all society, and highly centralised militarised party organisations made up of middle class intellectuals bent on seizing control of the bourgeois state. This analysis goes back to Trotsky's critiques of V.I. Lenin's thoughts on the party go back in 1905, and even earlier criticisms of the role of middle class intellectuals in socialism in general. The long answer is long. Fifelfoo (talk) 05:59, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

Historically most communist countries were formed after long periods of crisis and war, e.g. the USSR, China, Afghanistan, East Germany. Such circumstances tend to breed authoritarian regimes of either left or right - note that democracy is recent and tenuous in most parts of the world. If you have a society sufficiently unstable to produce a communist revolution, it's unlikely to be in a good condition after the revolution.

Arguably there were "nicer" communist/socialist-leaning countries, but like Allende's Chile they were unable to resist destabilisation by right-wing forces, or like present-day Venezuela were forced to take increasingly totalitarian measures when faced with attempted coups and external influence. Moderate/reformist communists in Eastern Europe following WW2 were crushed by Stalin and successive Soviet leaderships. Power tends to corrupt, and to hold on to it in an unstable part of the world, you don't get far by being a nice guy. Nobody questions why fascism led to war and tyranny, but it too was often formed with more-or-less good intentions of ending crisis, instability, and weak government. --Colapeninsula (talk) 10:16, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

"Under Capitalism, man exploits man. Under Communism, it's the other way around." Seriously though, the idea is that the dictatorship is the people's, i.e. proletarian dictatorship. This would be like Apple saying "You own this ecosystem, it's yours." Meanwhile, they lock it down in your name... 82.234.207.120 (talk) 10:33, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

Marxist-Leninism was never a fluffy peaceful shiny-happy-people ideology. It was all about the "proletariat" crushing the "bourgeoisie" to establish a "dictatorship of the proletariat," and since the proletariat wasn't going to spontaneously rise up as a class, the Party, as the "vanguard of the proletariat," was authorized to do all the crushing. With such a confrontational basis, it was to be expected that Lenin and his successors would establish a totalitarian state that would go to extreme lengths to squelch real and imagined enemies for decades. All of the Communist Bloc dictatorships were established through confrontation; the spread of Marxist-Leninism was not generally a consensus-building exercise. -- Mwalcoff (talk) 03:36, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

I think all posters who try to pretend that the self-declared Communist nations were equivalent to� the self-declared Capitalist nations really do have their heads in the sand. There is no comparison between DDR and GDR; there is no comparison between the USA and the USSR. Yes, the capitalist nations did some nasty things, but their nastiness was never as systematic and widespread and horrible as the self-declared Communist nations. The Cold War ethos that considered Communism (as expressed, not theoretical) to be essentially equivalent to fascist totalitarianism was correct to a large degree. Capitalism has its deep problems and inequalities but has basic assumptions about liberty, freedom of speech, and due process that simply never existed in the Marxist-Leninist/Maoist states. To be sure, the self-declared Capitalist states did some real awfulness in the name of anti-Communism (propping up essentially fascist states, for example), but that doesn't let the Stalinists off the hook. One doesn't have to be rabidly anti-Communist to be clear-eyed about such a thing, just as one doesn't have to be a Royalist to think that Robespierre went too far. --Mr.98 (talk) 23:50, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

Libyan flag?

So in almost all the articles that I have gone to which have an icon of the flag of Libya, the flag shown is the flag of the National Transitional Council or the old flag of Libya. But I thought that there were two governments that claimed to be the de jure government of Libya, although the NTC is pretty much the de facto government, as Gadhafi (or Gaddafi, or Qaddafi, however you spell him) is on the run and almost all of his stongholds have been defeated. Is that the reason? Narutolovehinata5 ^tccsdnew 00:16, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

See National Transitional Council#Foreign relations. Most countries now recognize the NTC as the sole legitimate government. The editors at Template:Flagicon and it's related pages decided that this was reason enough to change the default Libyan flag to that of the NTC. —Akrabbim^talk 01:47, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

(EC) Yes, as you say, it is the recognized government presently. Therefore that is the flag used in our articles. --KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 01:48, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

Why isn't the date of Jesus' crucifixion or birth known?

So if he really did cause a commotion in the temple and the authorities were after him, then why isn't the exact date of his crucifixion recorded? Was it simply not important enough to be recorded, or if it was indeed recorded, then these records have been lost, or is it related to the fact that Jesus never really became well-known and important until long after his death? And another related question, why isn't the birth date of Jesus known either? Narutolovehinata5 ^tccsdnew 02:07, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

What makes you think the Romans kept records of any of the many thousands of people they executed or killed (such as in the gladiator arenas with lions attacking tied-up Jews, etc.) on an annual basis? He will (if he existed) have just been considered yet another criminal element by the Romans. Keeping records of all those they executed would have cost far too much, and would have been irrelevent. --KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 02:26, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

I would guess that they did keep records, but just on papyrus, not carved into stone. Such records were unlikely to last very long. StuRat (talk) 02:29, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

Possibly, but such records would likely have consisted more of the actual number of people for the day's crucifiction (after all, it was not an unusual form of execution), or some such, rather than people's names and what they'd done. The reason for the records would be more likely be to record the pay due to the executioners (all of the people involved in putting the people up on the cross), rather than to record the people who were actually being executed. Papyrus was expensive. --KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 02:49, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

I don't know, I thought the Romans would want records of births and deaths, for tax collection purposes, if nothing else. StuRat (talk) 03:16, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

Yes, that's what the census is for. --KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 14:08, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

And would Romans trust the Jews to report their population correctly, or would they insist on keeping records themselves ? StuRat (talk) 22:40, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

Even the birthdates of people famous in their own lifetimes, and even some from recent history, are not necessarily known with certainty. And the death date of Jesus is implied by the timing of Passover, but it's not certain if it was the first or second night of Passover, hence the year can't be determined with absolute certainty. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 02:30, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

(EC) - There is the question of the census he (and his family) was supposed to have attended in Jerusalem when he was 12 (leading to him astounding the priests at the temple). Records of this census have been lost. --KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 02:35, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

Of course another possible explanation for those dates not being recorded is that maybe Jesus never existed. (Believers need take no offence. After all, you believe.) HiLo48 (talk) 04:17, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

Aye, and another possible assumption is that he may have been some invisible alien, but neither this, nor yours, are assumptions that our OP is bringing here to this table. The OP is asking from the point of view of if Jesus existed, though not explicitly saying his/her own beliefs. Seriously, to be asking a question like this, our OP must have already ruled out the assumption that Jesus never existed and is asking the question to get answers from an archaeological point of view, not a theistic/philosophical point of view. --KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 05:00, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

I actually tried quite hard hard to work out the "assumptions that our OP is bringing here to this table", but couldn't be certain. They weren't obvious to me. Maybe our OP is being quite objective about the matter. HiLo48 (talk) 05:23, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

There's plenty of evidence that Jesus existed. The supernatural aspects are the debate. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 05:24, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

There's none from his lifetime. See Jesus myth theory. Comet Tuttle (talk) 17:37, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

Seems reasonable to me that if you needed to eradicate a person claiming to be God it might also be a great idea to eliminate any record. --DeeperQA (talk) 05:40, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

There were quite a few "false messiahs" running around, and most of them were dispatched and hands-washed of them. In the case of Jesus, they guessed wrong, but, hey, why blame the entire program just because of a single slip? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 05:45, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

OK, ladies and gents, let's get back to the OP's question of archaeological evidence? Can we? Really? Go on, be a good doggie. Or do we just faff around on the unending debate on Jesus' and God's existence? Come on, guys, this is an archaeological question. Focus! Oh...my buddha.... --KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 05:50, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

The calendar used back then by the Romans was not accurate; today scholars believe Jesus was born in February or September 4 BC. The 25 December date was invented by the early Christian church to coincide with the pagan winter festival.--Jeanne Boleyn (talk) 05:55, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

What do those scholars use to calculate those two possible dates? --KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 06:01, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

The appearance of Halley's Comet. The comet did not appear in the year 0.--Jeanne Boleyn (talk) 06:06, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

So, why is this not revealed to us by our teachers? I went to a catholic school, and the overwhelming majority of us did not care about Jesus. The overwhelming majority have also grown up to be skeptical of Jesus' existence (as we went to a school where education and educational achievement was expected of us, despite being a catholic school run by priests). The RC church must know certainly that they are losing their flock (in Europe), so why not give us this 'proof'? --KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 06:15, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

The birthdate of Jesus is just not important.

—Wavelength (talk) 06:05, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

It appears to be important to the OP, hence the question. --KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 06:25, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

Evidently, whoever authored the Bible considered knowledge of the birthday of Jesus to be unnecessary for Christians.— http://multilingualbible.com/2_timothy/3-16.htm; http://multilingualbible.com/2_timothy/3-17.htm.

—Wavelength (talk) 14:24, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

A perfectly detailed and unforgiving explanation of the exact relationship between Harry Potter and Hermione was never given by J.K.Rowling, but there are still people who want to know. Just as the OP wants to know the exact date of Jesus' birth, whether the original author(s) intended their readers to know or not. --KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 16:04, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

I think Wavelength means to say that the answer to the question posed by the OP, "why isn't it known?" is "because it was not important enough to keep track of". 68.54.4.162 (talk) 02:36, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

See Star of Bethlehem for some attempts to work out his date of birth from the astronomical evidence.

@ Jeanne Boleyn: Halley's Comet is usually discounted as being close to a decade too early, but it is one of the possiblities. -- Jack of Oz ^{[your turn]} 06:47, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

Narutolovehinata5 -- Jesus really did not make much of a stir beyond Judea and Galilee and closely-neighboring areas during his lifetime. From the Roman point of view, he was a strictly-local troublemaker who presented more problems to the subordinate Jewish local authorities (Sadducees etc.) than he did to the Romans themselves. Therefore there was no reason why high-ranking Roman imperial officials would have paid much attention to him (except Pilate for a few days), and any "records" would have almost certainly been very local and ephemeral. Jesus' birth date is known with a fair degree of confidence to within seven years and his death date within three years, which is not at all unusual or greatly worrying for figures of ancient times -- the dates of Buddha and Zoroaster aren't even known to within a century! AnonMoos (talk) 08:01, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

The First Jewish–Roman War in the AD 60s led to the destruction of the Jewish state, and there were many subsequent wars in the area, so any records kept by Jewish authorities would be even less likely to survive than Roman records. --Colapeninsula (talk) 10:26, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

More recently, while the death date of Thomas Becket is known, his birth date is not, and he caused quite a commotion with the authorities. Googlemeister (talk) 14:23, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

An older Frontline program called From Jesus to Christ: The First Christians[1] does a pretty good job of explaining what was going on in the first century. It incorporates some archaeological and textual evidence and includes some interviews with scholars. The article on New Testament apocrypha states that it was in the 2nd Century when Christians wanted more detail about Jesus's life. The Infancy Gospel of Thomas, not actually part of the bible has a bunch of myths associated with a child Jesus which are reminiscent of pagan mythology such as the infants Zeus, Hermes, and Dionysus. The hypothetical Q Document would have no details of Jesus's life at all. Biblical criticism contains some info on a more historical and scholarly approach to the bible. Gx872op (talk) 18:24, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

abuse of 911

I have several neighbors who are tired of Jehovah Witnesses and salesmen pounding at their door. In some cases they have posted notes saying they can only be reached by email or phone. However, there have been several cases of cell phone calls for help that triangulate to these properties. When the police arrive and get no response at the door they then take the liberty to break into the home.

Is this 1) the results of the Patriot Act, 2) preventable abuse of 911 call system, 3) an open door for the State to ignore: a) due process, b) invasion of privacy, c) the need for search warrants that protect citizens from abuse by the State, and 4) is there a way a genuine emergency can (must) be distinguished from a hoax before the police break in? --DeeperQA (talk) 05:33, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

The 911 operator would typically try to discern what's really going on. If it sounds genuine, the police could well bust the door down on the grounds of a crime in progress, a legal justification that existed long before 9/11/01. And if it was a hoax call, I wouldn't be surprised if the caller would get a good-sized bill in the mail. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 05:43, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

What? No other means of preventing a government hoax perpetrated to intimidate (or worse) a member of the opposing party? --DeeperQA (talk) 09:05, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

I am not sure what the question is. Can the question be restated in a simplified form? Bus stop (talk) 10:22, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

What real and absolute safeguards prevent a 911 call from being used by the authorities to sidestep things like probable cause? --DeeperQA (talk) 16:06, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

Even the original question doesn't make sense. Who is it that's calling 911? I assumed it was the folks being visited by the JW's, but I'm not altogether sure. In any case, the followup suggests that the OP is merely trying to foment a debate. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 13:58, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

A debate with whom and about what? --DeeperQA (talk) 16:07, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

Here's my interpretation if your rambling question: You suspect that someone (a neighbor?) is calling 911 to report some sort of crime or accident or what have you in another neighbor's house, or calling for help with their phone near the property, or something like that. The other neighbors are not home or do not answer the door, so the police break in.

To answer your specific questions, this has nothing to do with the Patriot Act. It's not clear it's actually abuse. If police have reason to believe a crime is in progress, or people are otherwise in danger (e.g. a gas leak), they can break in. This is not an abuse of due process, invasion of privacy, or the need for search warrants; it's an emergency-based principle that has been held up by judges again and again. What matters is if the police have probable cause to enter the establishment. This has a rather precise legal definition and there are things that do or do not stand up as probable cause.

The emphasis when it comes to answering 911 calls is to assume good faith, because if it is not a hoax, and they treat it like a hoax, that opens up the door for huge legal liabilities, bad P.R., and so on.

Abusing 911 is itself a crime. It is probably not too hard to figure out if someone is abusing 911 regularly, calling it on the same house again and again. So I suspect the police are not just doing this for kicks. --Mr.98 (talk) 14:14, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

Okay Mr, 98 you are close to understanding the question. Consider the context as one in which the police look for ways around probable cause and may themselves fabricate a 911 call so they can enter without probable cause. Another example of such behavior is reading someone their Miranda Rights and then asking the person if they understand their rights and if the person answers either yes or no then the police are able to say the person was read their rights and voluntarily forfeited them by not remaining silent or if the person remains silent then charging them with resisting arrest without violence. This happens more often than you think in cases where a person may offend police ego or other sensibilities. The police are rewarded by the DA for convictions and for upholding the letter rather than the spirit of the law. --DeeperQA (talk) 16:01, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

Eh? Just because someone didn't remain silent on one thing doesn't mean they've somehow 'waived' their Miranda rights on anything other then that specific issue. They can say yes and then remain silent on everything else. If they don't that either indicates they didn't understand their Miranda rights so shouldn't have said yes or they didn't wish to remain silent. Nil Einne (talk) 16:32, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

It seems my understanding of how the Miranda rights works in the US was a little bit wrong although I still don't understand what you were saying about the 'waiving rights' part. Miranda warning#Waiver notes the waiver must be 'clear and unequivocal'. It further notes most LEAs use written waiver forms for this purpose. I think it's quite clear a suspect simply answering yes or no to whether or not they understand their rights has not clearly and unequivocally waived their rights. It is true once a waiver has been granted, reenvoking the rights requires a 'clear and unequivocal' statement but as I said earlier, if the subject believes they've permanently waived the rights then they clearly didn't understand their rights (and if the subject wishes to remain silent they could just choose to remain silent, the interviewers may not leave but there's not much they can do if the person doesn't say anything). Our article notes without a source one state requires it be explicitly noted that Miranda rights are not a one time thing. Nil Einne (talk) 02:20, 17 September 2011 (UTC)

In this particular case, however, the occupant was suspected of being a closet Muslim or atheist and so someone decided the only way to find out was to get a look inside the person's house. What better way to perpetrate this cause than to dial 911 on a cell phone while on or close to the property and report an emergency so at least the police could get a look inside, one of which might be a local JW. --DeeperQA (talk) 16:21, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

How would a meddling neighbor find out if a closet Muslim or atheist lived in a residence if they called the police? The police would immediately determine that there was no emergency present. The police would not stick around trying to find out what the occupant's religious leanings were, and even if the police did see evidence of some religious affinity, it is not certain that the police would reveal this to the meddling neighbor. Bus stop (talk) 16:34, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

Perhaps the OP thinks Jehovah's Witnesses police officers reveal everything to other members of their religion? If they do, I suggest they withdraw their comments ASAP as that's an extremely offensive claim. Nil Einne (talk) 16:48, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

Eh? Wikibooks:US Criminal Law/Searches without a warrant#The emergency exception suggests an anonymous call by itself usually isn't sufficient evidence for an emergency without corroborating information so at the very least said meddling neighbour is probably going to have to identify themselves, and risk being prosecuted if police decide they were just making it up. It also says, in case this wasn't obvious, they can only seize items in plain view. From reading it, said closeted individual may be at risk of having their property legally searched to determine if their is an emergency if when the police come said individuals tells the police to 'fuck off you stupid jw pigs' rather then explaining their is no emergency and politely answering any question. But if your meddling neighbour really wants the police to see whats in the house, a better bet is to break in to it himself and call the police that way they can see what in it when they come to arrest said neighbour [2] [3] [4]. Of course since despite all the problems in the US, it isn't illegal to be a Muslim or atheist, the police can't actually arrest the person who's house it is, even if he or she had big signs declaring they were a Muslim or atheist in their house, so only the neighbour would be going to jail. Nil Einne (talk) 16:39, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

Bottom line to the question is what kind of ways can 911 call system be abused to escape the upholding of civil rights but which are in general not listed anywhere by a judicious review of cases. --DeeperQA (talk) 17:00, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

No, that was not your original question; and the above question can be restated as "Please list the ways to abuse the 911 call system that have not yet been exploited", which is outside the scope of this reference desk. Comet Tuttle (talk) 17:31, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

Here's a real-life anecdote: I once lived in a shared house where I became quite suspicious that the people on the top floor were running a meth lab. (They were continuously running a fan in the window, even in the coldest winter; there were all sorts of awful chemical smells; they were active up there at all hours; they didn't appear to actually live in the unit, just visit it; I once saw a huge amount of Sudafed in the seat of their car.) I talked to a lawyer I know about this (a defense lawyer, if you are curious — and not talking to me "as a lawyer," to be sure), and he said that if I really wanted someone to make sure it wasn't a meth lab, that I ought to call 911 and report a possible gas leak, whenever the neighbors weren't there. The firefighters would arrive, work the door open, and if there was a meth lab, call the police. Now this is a pretty round-about way to get something investigated, and calling 911 under false pretenses is a crime, so I decided not to do this. (I instead made contact with law enforcement in a more traditional fashion, and they performed a bunch of stakeouts, and eventually the people in question left the building anyway, so I don't really know what happened in the end. The law, incidentally, had been watching these guys already for other reasons.)

If I were to have done the 911 route, it wouldn't have been law enforcement or the fire department that were doing the wrong thing — it would have been me doing it. Morally I probably would have been in the right, but legally, no way. It might have been an abridgment of civil rights, for sure — but it would have been an abridgment by me, not the state. That's a significant difference. --Mr.98 (talk) 18:29, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

Okay again Mr. 98. I agree and I would not make such a call because I try to subscribe to the Golden Rule. But where I live dirty tricks between the Republicans and Democrats takes up about 99.99% of their time. A fake 911 call would be nothing by the standard that governs their behavior. To make matters worse one party may populate the courts from County Civil to the State Supreme Court so that whatever they do they know they can get away with it if caught. It's not like the game of chess where you cannot get away with breaking the rules but far more sophisticated where getting away with breaking the rules is part of the game. --DeeperQA (talk) 23:16, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

The OP describes suspicion of a fairly believable and very annoying exploit: pay cash for a prepaid mobile phone, store or trade it with a faraway friend to reduce the odds of archived video surveillance from the market, walk into your mark's front yard and dial 911, providing such suggestive stimuli as your imagination devises. Then turn it off, leave, watch hilarity ensue. Repeat as desired. Obnoxious indeed, but certainly not 100% foolproof especially if the mark invests in a videocamera of his own. I can't seriously picture passing the reform you'd need to prevent this from being possible - namely, a reform under which if you saw someone being raped in a mall bathroom, 911 would tell you you had to call the mall owner and get him to make the 911 call. It is clear that calls to police do come out of premises owned by others. It might be that the reform of some legal provisions regarding "good faith searches" could rule out certain types of evidence gotten pursuant to such a prank call, but that doesn't undo the disruption and intimidation. Wnt (talk) 20:12, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

Still it seems like for the most part that while there needs to be freedom to contact the 911 operator and get emergency response without any hindrance whatsoever and tolerance for genuine errors and mistakes that calling 911 so the police will surprise your wife and her boyfriend in bed at the motel will be rewarded with the caller spending some time in jail, forfeiting a big chunk of cash and lousing all chance of the incident being used against his wife in court. --DeeperQA (talk) 23:29, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

Well, it's a crime everywhere in the US to make a false 911 call, punishable with fine and/or jail, so you get that part of your wish for free. As for the evidence being inadmissible in court, I think that's a bad idea because that itself would be gameable. (Imagine the crack dealer who thinks he's about to be caught, making a fake 911 call, and getting all the cocaine in his house excluded from evidence.) By the way, I found this publication on the US DOJ website that notes another 911 abuse: Diversionary calls, where a drug dealer calls 911 from a remote location to get the cops away from his criminal activity. Comet Tuttle (talk) 23:43, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

And adultery isn't illegal in the US so the only chance of the wife getting in trouble with the police would be if she were sleeping with someone underage or something else illegal. Of course her infidetally could come in to play in any divorce if the husband is able to get evidence but the husband faking a 911 call isn't going to help his case and if he's waiting to take pictures when the police break in, he's kind of given himself away. And he would be an idiot to do something like that when he could probably just pay the clerk at the motel to open the door. In case it isn't obvious to the OP, the legality of the police entry is largely a moot point since it isn't a criminal case and the police aren't the ones providing the evidence. Nil Einne (talk) 02:58, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

Actually what truly surprises me is that no one has developed a virus that dials 9-1-1 and provides a convincing soundtrack of screaming and shots fired, whether using a DSP modem or nowadays as an actual cell phone virus. It would seem like such a virus would first cause tremendous mayhem and then essentially neutralize the 911 system for at least several days. Wnt (talk) 20:14, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Don't_stuff_beans_up_your_nose is appropriate here. Quest09 (talk) 23:05, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

What you're proposing is essentially a Distributed Denial-of-service attack. The operators would quickly get accustomed to the fake soundtrack and screen it out, methinks. If necessary, one would implement a Reverse Turing test. Yes, DDOS attacks can cause chaos. However, there exists a large body of r&d on resisting such attacks. 58.168.131.194 (talk) 05:57, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

Lawrence v. Texas is a textbook example of a neighbor misusing 911 in circumstances almost identical to the above (consensual homosexual conduct) with the hoax call made by an alleged ex-lover. However, the plaintiffs chose not to dispute the legality of the police entry into the house, so I don't know how helpful a case it is. Any thoughts? 58.168.131.194 (talk) 05:33, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

Last Queen of Rimatara

Who was the last Queen of Rimatara? Pictured here, center--KAVEBEAR (talk) 02:00, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

See here. The date given on the file page would seem to indicate Tamaeva IV, but the presence of a regent in the photograph suggests that it's probably Heimataura Tamaeva V, who seems in fact to have been the last queen. Deor (talk) 11:53, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

What language does the Rimataran speak? Tahitian? Because I was wondering why there seem to be a variation Temaeva and Tamaeva.--KAVEBEAR (talk) 18:34, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

Autism/philosophy/psychedelia

Do you think, in a way, the autistic individual lives the perfect 'psychedelic' life? Upon thought we do realize that a psychedelic experience is very much internal, and very much constant... as such, considering that they're the most inwardly people, do you think autistic people get the 'full' experience? 62.255.129.19 (talk) 10:50, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

No. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 13:58, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

It says at the top of this page: "The reference desk does not answer requests for opinions or predictions about future events. Do not start a debate; please seek an internet forum instead." --ColinFine (talk) 14:01, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

I've really no idea what you are referring to as a "psychedelic" life, but if you are curious about how autistic people perceive the world, one of the most vivid descriptions from the point of view of one high functioning autistic can be found in the works of Temple Grandin, who is extremely good at communicating her subjective states to neurotypical people. --Mr.98 (talk) 14:16, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

Some psychedelic drugs have been dubbed by researchers as psychotomimetic or even "schizophrenomimetic"^[5], and schizophrenia has been argued to exist as an opposite extreme from autism controlled by some of the same genes. So in theory (my back of the envelope theory that is, not mainstream medicine...) administering a light dose of psychedelics should reduce autistic tendencies. I would be very curious to see what happens if this is actually tried on autistic children, especially those having trouble communicating otherwise, but beyond doubt such an experiment would be viewed by many as monstrously unethical. In any case the odds that so many rank generalizations really add up into a causative chain rather than disintegrating in a web of unrelated effects is probably pretty small. Wnt (talk) 19:57, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

Praise for competitors

Which commercial entities (persons or organizations) have publicly praised their competitors?
—Wavelength (talk) 14:32, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

Both Microsoft and Apple Inc. have said many good things about one another over the past many years. Of course, some are backhanded compliments, but others are serious. In general, Microsoft has praised Apple's fine-tuned product development and advertising strategy. Apple has praised Microsoft's ability to constantly push to support everything, not just hardware produced in-house. -- kainaw™ 17:03, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

I imagine that the most common scenario for this is professional sports teams; it is routine for every team's owners, coaches, and players to praise their counterparts after every game. Comet Tuttle (talk) 17:28, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

Didn't Bill Gates own stock in Apple? That might explain why he would praise them. As for sports teams, they are to some extant also partners. Hot Stop talk-contribs 21:39, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

Microsoft copies ideas of Apple (a form of praise) and even develops software for Mac's: Microsoft Office for Mac 2011

Microsoft worked with Apple frequently in the past. Applesoft BASIC was a port of Microsoft BASIC made for the Apple II computers, and Microsoft Works began as an Apple Macintosh software suite and predated the Microsoft Office line of productivity software. While consumers represent a rivalry of "PC vs. Mac" (and by extension of Windows vs. Mac OS), the two companies don't actually compete directly on much except the operating systems. Apple has long been a consumer electronics company primarily; it doesn't even sell its OS on the open market. Microsoft has mainly been a software company (XBOX not withstanding), and its software has been availible for use on many platforms, from UNIX to Mac OS to its own operating systems. There actually isn't many items you can walk into a store and comparison shop for a "Microsoft" vs. an "Apple" version of; they really don't sell the same stuff at all. --Jayron32 04:44, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

Be it in sports or conventional business, praising your competitors gives them nothing they can rally around to try and defeat you. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:54, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

Macy's in Miracle on 34th Street is the archetypal, if originally fictional, example. 69.171.160.26 (talk) 04:45, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

It's common at awards ceremonies. Most industries these days have awards ceremonies. --Colapeninsula (talk) 10:32, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

If by "Publicly praising" you mean "knowingly hurting your own business", i've never seen it. "Publicly" is an important word in your question. Between competitors, representatives will genuinely compliment other companies for having a nicer product, lower prices, fantastic sales, etc. Towards possible clients any compliment will be something like "Apple really beat us implementing a mouse! (but we did a better job including right click so if you'd have to choose now...)" or "IBM was so good, nobody ever got fired for buying IBM equipment (but times have changed)". Saying "Our product X is worse and more expensive than Y sold by our competitor (and there is no "but", please have us go bankrupt)" is something only Francisco d'Anconia would say. Joepnl (talk) 21:56, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

The Internet Explorer team has a tradition of sending cake to the Firefox team when they release a new version of Firefox (not sure if this will continue now there's a new version every fortnight). --Kateshortforbob _talk 11:21, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

Indibilis and Mandonius - ancient Spain

How many tribes did Indibilis and Mandonius directly control during the Mutiny at Sucro in 206 BC?--Doug Coldwell ^talk 14:55, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

When you asked about that mutiny earlier it came out that the only account is by Polybius, and we pointed you to a full version of it. What are you hoping for here? Looie496 (talk) 15:33, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

Yes, and I appreciated that as I was able to develop an article from that. However there is no article on Indibilis and Mandonius. Polybius talks of Andobales and Mandonius and the Mutiny at Sucro in Book 11.28 however did not indicate how many tribes they may have controlled. Scipio Africanus indicates he could have easily conquered Andobales' army, but how many tribes did he have control of and how big would the potential army be? I imagine there would be some ancient sources that talk about Andobales and Mandonius (Mandonius and Indibilis), but so far I have not been able to find them.--Doug Coldwell ^talk 16:10, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

Ironworkers and window installers on One World Trade Center

What's the average hourly wage of the guys walking across the beams (not the crane operator) installing more beams? How about the ones installing the windows? 69.243.220.115 (talk) 22:53, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

For New York, the average steelworker made

$34.15 an hour and the mean annual salary is $71,030. www.ehow.com/facts_6915469_average-steelworker-salary.html Rmhermen (talk) 17:56, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

I bet they get some overtime too... Googlemeister (talk) 18:24, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

I expect that overtime is common, since it gets the job done and shortens the need for construction financing, before the revenue stream from rentals or completion payments happens. Ironworkers rarely work 52 weeks a year, unless they have a job such as maintenance staff at a facility. They might work for months, then be collecting unemployment for months until they get hired for the next big project. Edison (talk) 19:32, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

Country of origin of Northern Irish Protestants

Our article on the Plantations of Ireland states that most of them came from the Scottish Lowlands and from England. I would like to know how many of them were Lowlanders and how many English, whether it be 80% Scottish and 20% English or whatever. --Belchman (talk) 23:47, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

That's impossible to tell, Scottish people are in so many ways intermingled with Englishmen, that you can't count them apart. That's like Catalans and Andalusians, they are so mixed together that nobody know who came from where. Quest09 (talk) 00:26, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

I meant: Where did the original settlers come from? In the case of Catalonia after the wave of Andalusian migration in the 1960s the population more or less doubled; so one can say that, roughly, half of Catalonia's population is of mostly Andalusian descent. --Belchman (talk) 00:32, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

Our article Plantation of Ulster states that in the 1660s, Scots were 20% of Ulster's population, but 60% of its British population. By 1720, however, Scots were an absolute majority in Ulster. If we assume that the native Irish and the English-derived populations of Ulster each grew by 50% during this period (a period of population growth throughout Europe), and if we assume that in 1720, Scots had grown to 55% of Ulster's population through immigration, then an algebraic solution suggests to me the English-derived population would have been just under 10% of Ulster's total in 1720. In terms of the British (or in effect Protestant) population of Ulster, this suggests that it was about 18% of English descent and 82% of Scottish descent as of 1720, when the main period of the Plantation was complete. Marco polo (talk) 01:00, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

Does your algebraic solution contemplate the case that someone could be both (regarding origin) - Scottish and English? That's the same case of Catalonia: if the population increased in the 60s by 100%, mainly of Andalusian descend, the present population of Catalonia is not 50% Andalusian, but something much higher than that. Unless you assume that each group of people interbreed within its borders. Quest09 (talk) 01:04, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

It is true that by the late 18th century, generations of intermarriage would have made it difficult to distinguish those of English from those of Scottish descent. However, during the early generations after immigration, these groups would have been distinct, and religious differences (Presbyterian Scots versus Anglican Englishmen) would have tended to maintain some separation. (Families would have discouraged children from marrying members of the other community and attending a different church.) The facts in our article, anyway, suggest that officials gathering numbers were still making a distinction in 1720. Marco polo (talk) 01:05, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

There was also considerable French Huguenot immigration to Ulster as can be borne out by the French names one finds in Northern Ireland such as Molyneaux, Camplisson, and Marchant, etc. It was the Huguenots who had set up the linen mills. There were also Welsh immigrants and let us not forget the huge amount of intermarriage that took place between Catholics and Protestants from the earliest days of the Ulster Plantation. Another thing, many Protestants today are the descendants of Irish Catholics who converted to Protestantism to avoid persecution and to inherit property under the draconian penal laws that were enacted against Irish Catholics following the victory of William III at the Battle of the Boyne. Hence today one finds in Northern Ireland Protestants bearing Catholic surnames such as Kelly, Murphy and O'Neill and Catholic bearing planter surnames such as Adams, Morrison and Crawford. Like all aspects of Northern Ireland, nothing is completely black or white. It's far more complicated.--Jeanne Boleyn (talk) 06:40, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

Nozick and racism?

I am writing a little paper but I have stumbled in a discussion which bothers me: If justice is defined as a situation where a good has been aquired in a correct manner (as Robert Nozick does), would the transaction still be just (according to nozick) if the society is plagued by inequality based on social norms such as heterosexism, racism etc? In theory, this could mean that the transaction is in some way inherently unjust despite being based on free will. Has Nozick written anything about injustices based upon social norms? could anyone point me in the right direction? /Marxmax (talk) 23:57, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

AFAIK, transactions produce inequalities, which is fine, according to Nozick, if the transaction was a free exchange among informed participants. Further transactions, after inequalities have arisen, should be fair too. Quest09 (talk) 00:13, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy has an article on "Equality of Opportunity", section 7.1 of which is entitled "The Libertarian Critique: Robert Nozick’s Version.". Gabbe (talk) 10:47, 12 September 2011 (UTC)