Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2022 March 13

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March 13

Are these sources reliable?

-- Karsan Chanda (talk) 06:34, 13 March 2022 (UTC)

References

It would depend on what statements in the book were being cited for what purpose.

The publisher looks at first glance to be respectable, but the book is a study of art, and the author Jiwan Sodhi is likely a trustworthy authority in that area, but not necessarily so on questions of history incidental to art and mentioned only in passing – it would help to know more about Sodhi's academic background.

It would be better to cite historical matters to works written by historians about the relevant history. If a historical point is valid, it seems unlikely that it would be mentioned only in a book about art and not in actual history texts.

The paragraph in the book that you have flagged has 3 citations, but one is unable to read them in this limited-access view. Ideally, one would obtain full access (if necessary by buying a copy or obtaining it via a library), follow up the cited sources, and cite them if they support the point in question. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 90.209.122.108 (talk) 08:47, 13 March 2022 (UTC)

Another question about the Russian Dead Hand machine

I was reading the Dead Hand article after the discussion following my earlier question above. From what it says in there:

- it's *not* fully automated and can be manually overridden

- it can be turned on and off as required

- plans to make it fully automated were considered, but then rejected as insanity

Just one thing that wasn't clear. Was the whole concept of "any attempt to disable the machine, once activated would trigger the machine" ever seriously considered - IOW, that the Dead Hand was completely beyond human control and the Russians themselves would be unable to switch it off, let alone the enemy?

I suppose that the logic being that in a time of war, spies or rogue elements within the Russian military would be unable to stop it, or even IDK, say if the most senior military officers, or even the Soviet Leader himself was captured in some sort of commando raid and forced to give up the codes to shut it down. --Iloveparrots (talk) 22:40, 13 March 2022 (UTC)