Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2012 September 20

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September 20

Is the difference of philosopher to metaphysics/ethics/epistemology writer just lies with the entitlement

A simple yes or no with a brief explanation would do. I am a bit confused of this matter because when I was browsing I've come across this "writers of____ like "James Frederick Ferrier" who made significant changes to philosophy and others if not, certainly is philosophical. So again does the difference lie with just the entitlement but not the nature of the doer? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Rt56h3 (talk • contribs) 01:36, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

I believe we've made clear before, when you've asked similar questions, that we aren't going to provide you with the justification or validation you seem to be seeking to call yourself an autodidact philosopher, or whatever you'd like to call yourself. --Jayron32 01:43, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

Well, Rt56h3, as Hegel said, quoting from memory, 'Man is a born metaphysician. He does metaphysics before he learns to walk or talk....' Think he said this in several ways in several places, I think this is from the Encyclopedia Logic; misplaced my copy. You're a philosopher. Everyone is. You'll be a better one if you go read some Hegel, or many others, most even longer dead, some a bit easier to read.John Z (talk) 09:03, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

City planning and trees that line the street

I live in the NYC Metro Area and was wondering about the trees that line the streets. The small ones look like they were planted in the designated little squares of dirt but there are some trees that line the streets that appear to be many, many decades old. In some New Jersey towns I see ridiculously large trees! Now, it could be that these little towns (such as Clifton) are really old (1917, as in the case of Clifton) and the trees are humongous but still less than 95 years old. Or perhaps there were vast forests everywhere and the city planners had the foresight to cut down all the trees to make room for the roads and the houses but left the ones that were in particularly specific locations to serve as street-lining trees. As a side point, I notice that the trees lining the streets in Manhattan appear to be at regular intervals, while the ones in Clifton tend to be spread out somewhat haphazardly, leading me to speculate that the little NJ towns were built around the trees even if NYC was not. Just wondering if anyone had any knowledge of such a thing. DRosenbach ^{(Talk | Contribs)} 01:41, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

I've occasionally encountered a tree "grandfathered in". You can tell because they are usually not the typical offset from the street, and the sidewalk often takes a jog around them. I suggest you look at those "haphazardly placed" trees and note if they are all the same offset from the street or not. If they are, then it's likely they were planted there. The haphazard spacing might be because many trees have since died and been removed or were removed for other reasons (to make way for a new driveway, etc.). Also, when trees are planted along a road, they often are all the same species and age (although this is a bad idea, increasing the chances of spreading tree diseases and pests). StuRat (talk) 02:12, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

New York has a tree commission, I recall the NY Times has had an article on them from time to time (they were planting gingkos a few years ago, but only the male ones which do not fruit). As for New Jersey, the state is so balkanized with municipalities (600 or so I think) that it's hard to give a hard and fast rule. It may well have been the developer's decision.--Wehwalt (talk) 08:15, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

Quite interesting that you mention ginkgos -- over the past 10 years or so I've come to realize that there are so many gingko trees in Manhattan and it certainly seemed like there was an inordinate number of them localized at institutions or higher education, such as Pace University, Columbia University (both campuses), Yeshiva University, Fashion Institute of Technology, etc. A year and a half ago I emailed the NYC Parks Department about this, but they said that gingkos account for only 2% of their trees and that there is no move on the part of the parks department to localize their numbers in any particular spot. DRosenbach ^{(Talk | Contribs)} 17:25, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

I can't find the specific article I remember reading, but if you check the NY Times web site, there are a fair number of articles which at least mention the gingko as a street tree. As for the question of Clifton, I think StuRat summed it up fine.--Wehwalt (talk) 17:36, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

Clifton may have been incorporated in 1917 but surely some of its streets are much older. People have been living in the general area for centuries. Nearby Passaic, New Jersey dates back to the 1600s. At StuRat said, if the trees are "street trees" it seems likely they were planted on purpose, perhaps long ago. He mentioned disease, which was my first thought about gaps and "haphazard" spacing. Throughout the US Northeast, and elsewhere, American elm trees were perhaps the most commonly planted street tree. Many streets in many towns were lined with nothing but elm street trees, which in many places had grown to large sizes and made the streets strikingly beautiful. In the early 20th century Dutch elm disease wiped out most of these street trees. I'm not sure if American chestnut trees were widely used as street trees, but they were also wiped out by Chestnut blight—even worse than the elms, some of which survived. The American chestnut tree is practically extinct. Our Ulmus americana page has a bit of info about the use of elms along streets, for lawns, etc. Pfly (talk) 19:29, 22 September 2012 (UTC)

'combo' copy of the LDS Doctrine and Covenants and Pearl of Great Price - use?

I went to 2nd & Charles, a used book/movie/music/games/electronics store in my area. There I brought a 'combo' edition of the Doctrine and Covenants and the Pearl of Great Price. The book has a 1989 date on the title page, but a 1982 copyright date. The binding is a dark blue soft cover that one would find on a Book of Mormon. (An image of the cover is here: [1]). I've seen the Mormons advertise the Bible and the Book of Mormon on TV, but not the other two. So I'm left wondering, what is the usage of this edition in the Mormon church? - Thanks, Hoshie 04:16, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

Have you looked at Doctrine and Covenants and Pearl of Great Price (Mormonism), and their sources? 130.88.73.65 (talk) 08:23, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

passage about locomotives mating (in the carnal sense) from Samuel Butler?

at least I think it was Butler - a great piece of writing, I remember, but can't seem to google it up out of the internet. Can anyone help? Thanks Adambrowne666 (talk) 05:18, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

Sounds steamy. I certainly hope they got hitched before forming a train or "taking it up the old caboose". StuRat (talk) 05:39, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

Sounds like it would be Erewhon or something next to that. DRosenbach ^{(Talk | Contribs)} 05:39, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

It sounds like the part of Erewhon that deals with the Book of the Machines, an imaginary treatise quoted by Butler's narrator at some length, dealing with the application of Darwinian evolutionary theory to machinery and Man's relationship with it. For example: "It is said by some .. that the machines can never be developed into animate or quasi-animate existences, inasmuch as they have no reproductive system, nor seem ever likely to possess one. If this be taken to mean that they cannot marry, and that we are never likely to see a fertile union between two vapour engines with the young ones playing about the door of the shed, however greatly we might desire to do so, I will readily grant it.". The ideas for this material appeared earlier: in Darwin Among the Machines (text here), he says: ... there is nothing which our infatuated race would desire more than to see a fertile union between two steam engines. - Karenjc 09:31, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

Wonderful, thank you for your accuracy, Karenjc!

Resolved

Homer

How do we know that Homer wrote the Iliad and Odyssey. I know that until to this day, we don't know anything about Homer beside his name. How did people think he wrote Iliad and Odyssey in the first place?65.128.190.136 (talk) 08:44, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

Just because we know nothing of a person's life, doesn't mean it was impossible for him to have done certain things. It may be that he really didn't write them, but they've been attributed to him for millennia. Literally. We can't prove the attribution is true, but we can't prove it's false either. Unless we have evidence someone else wrote them. But we don't. -- ♬ Jack of Oz ♬ ^{[your turn]} 08:51, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

My question is what made we think that Homer is an author of the Iliad and Odyssey? How they've been attributed to him for millennia? Was there something in the Iliad and Odyssey says Homer is the author?65.128.190.136 (talk) 09:12, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

At this point, I think the word 'Homer' means "the author of the Iliad and Odyssey". There's good textual evidence that they are by the same author, so such a person clearly existed. AlexTiefling (talk) 09:05, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

Actually, Homer did (or did not ;-) compose the Iliad and Odyssey, but he almost certainly did not write them. Both show strong evidence of a long oral transmission before they first were written down. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 09:07, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

Who wrote them then if it wasn't Homer?65.128.190.136 (talk) 09:12, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

I'm not sure we know who first wrote them down. In general, our knowledge of pre-classical Greece is fairly sketchy, and we have depressingly little texts even of classical Greek authors, and even those often only via quoted or borrowed texts by later writers. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 09:24, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

Homeric Question should address your questions (or not). Heck, some people (JackofOz among them, as I recall) don't believe Shakespeare wrote what is commonly attributed to him, and he was a lot closer to our time. Clarityfiend (talk) 09:09, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

The article doesn't really answer my question.65.128.190.136 (talk) 09:14, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

Yes, it's been about 30 years since I stopped believing that Will Shakespeare from Stratford wrote the works attributed to him. But that's because there's strong evidence a certain other person was behind them. I'm not going to get into that here as it's OT. There is no such credible alternative in the case of Homer. -- ♬ Jack of Oz ♬ ^{[your turn]} 12:31, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

Since we don't know anything about Homer other than that this name is the label for whoever wrote the Iliad and Odyssee, the reference of the name "Homer" is, by its very definition, "the person who wrote the Iliad and Odyssee". Thus, asking, "did Homer write the Iliad and Odyssee?" is tautological – the answer is "yes", by definition. (Put it this way: if "some other person" wrote them, then by definition that other person would be "Homer".) The only conceivable way in which the answer could be "no" is if nobody wrote those works – i.e. if they were created by two different people, or created in a way that didn't involve individualized "authorship" at all (purely through anonymous oral compilation, etc.) But as far as I know, the current predominant opinion in scholarship is still that there was an individualized act of creation by a single individual (but see Homeric question for details).

Another, legitimate, question to ask would be: "how do we know the person who wrote the Iliad and Odyssee was called Homer?" To this, the answer is: ancient Greek sources, from the classical era, which must in turn be based on a few centuries of oral transmission of the name (along with his works). Fut.Perf. ☼ 09:16, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

Alright let me get this all straight. Let say at some point in the past, someone wrote the Iliad and Odyssey. From that time and on, it was passed down that Homer was the author. So basically we know Homer is the author from the fact that is was from oral transmission. Is that right?65.128.190.136 (talk) 09:25, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

Yes, basically. To answer another detail question you asked above, there is no reference to the name Homer in the text of the works themselves; it's a matter of external attribution. Fut.Perf. ☼ 09:43, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

(ec) Yes, that is probably what happened. See also Ancient accounts of Homer. The first known literary reference to Homer is in the work of Xenophanes in the late 6th century BC (source), which is about two centuries after he lived. There may also be a reference to Homer by Callinus in the 7th century BC, but that is disputed (source). - Lindert (talk) 09:46, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

It's fair to ay that we don't know Homer composed the Iliad and Odyssey in the same sense that know that Agatha Christie wrote Murder on the Orient Express. This is much more an attribution question on a par with the authorship of the Gospels, or the works of Sappho. AlexTiefling (talk) 09:47, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

As far as I understand it, the Iliad and the Odyssey were first written down in the 6th century BC, based on the best oral traditions (this was during the rule Peisistratos in Athens). The texts as we currently know them were established in Alexandria in the 2nd century BC. But the earliest surviving copies of the text are from the 10th century AD (i.e. approaching 2000 years after Homer was supposed to have lived). So while they have always been attributed to someone named Homer, Homer did not have any influence on the poems as a text. Adam Bishop (talk) 10:21, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

That would be the earliest surviving complete copies, but there are more incomplete fragments dating back to 3rd century BC. See Haslam, "Homeric Papyrus and the Transmission of the Text" [2] for some neat information on textual transmission. See also The Homer Multitext Project for a lot of resources.

As for the original question, one thing which is often mentioned is that within the early oral tradition of the Iliad and the Odyssey the poems were probably partly improvised and would change from one rendition to the next. In this case, the poems, as they were eventually written down, would be a text that had many authors who each contributed a little to the final form. That can still be consistent with there being a real "Homer" poet who took some previous material and added a great deal and so was the most significant and famous contributor, while his text may have been further added to by later singers of the poems as well. --Atethnekos (Discussion, Contributions) 04:11, 21 September 2012 (UTC)

The American fighting machine

Why the US army with all the armaments and all the money in the world has been totally beaten by a bunch of Afghan peasants who have zero artillery zero aircraft and zero armoured vehicle and zero transport? --78.107.220.203 (talk) 11:03, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

1) That's not a fair characterisation of the Taliban. They're not peasants but semi-professional militiamen. They have a range of armaments, including some heavy weapons 'liberated' from the Soviets, or supplied covertly by their friends in the region. It's not necessary to have aircraft to fight aircraft - good AA capacity and a naturally defensible terrain will do fine. And they have plenty of transport, as well as less need of it (seeing as it's their own land they're fighting in).

2) The Americans and their allies aren't 'totally beaten', but merely fought to a standstill.

3) This is a classic asymmetric conflict. Napoleon faced a similar problem fighting the Peninsular War, where the Spanish irregulars (from whom we get the word guerilla) fought the massed forces of Imperial France to a halt for long enough for their allies to land in Portugal and establish a beachhead. America suffered a similar bloody nose in Vietnam, which also had in common with Afghanistan the problem that it's a very long way from home. Afghanistan is also landlocked and mountainous, which makes any ground deployment very difficult indeed. And the British Empire and the Soviet Union both foundered in attempts to control Afghanistan too.

4) America's military objectives are dependent on being able to created a more congenial political environment. It would be fair to say that Afghan politics in the past decade have not been marked by a sudden whole-hearted conversion to western-style democracy. AlexTiefling (talk) 11:14, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

See guerrilla warfare and asymmetric warfare. Gandalf61 (talk) 11:18, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

The infiltration of traitors into the Afghan forces being trained by the US and its allies isn't helping. They shoot their trainers. Very unsporting. And demoralising. HiLo48 (talk) 11:49, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

Technically, using drone warfare on tribesmen is pretty "unsporting" by most definitions of "sporting." But I digress. --Mr.98 (talk) 13:20, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

Sporting is a very funny thing at times, see fox hunting. Fifelfoo (talk) 22:00, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

• To the original question: Part of the answer has to do with the U.S. objectives in the war. The U.S. trivially has the ability to exterminate almost every man, woman, and child in Afghanistan, or enough of them to destroy any resistance to the U.S. within Afghan boundaries. Doing so is unlikely to have a very good effect on the security of the U.S. in the long term, nor does doing so further the expressed goals of the U.S. in Afghanistan. The war has a greater goal than "kill'em all and let God sort'em out", and insofar as it does, that gives the Taliban and other opponents the ability to avoid direct conflict and to build resistance and support for themselves. --Jayron32 11:56, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

• The main problem is that elements within the Pakistan ISI continue to support the Taliban, giving them financial support and a (relatively) safe place to which they can withdraw when threatened. The US would thus need to declare war on Pakistan to win in Afghanistan, but seems unwilling to do so. StuRat (talk) 16:28, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

That would be a bit like squashing a mosquito with a hornets nest. And Pakistan is, at least nominally, a US ally. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 16:47, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

They certainly pretend to be, but having Osama bin Laden hiding out by their military academy, and then arresting the Pakistani who help the US find him, makes it clear that they are not. StuRat (talk) 16:54, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

Among the many reasons the US is not willing to declare war on Pakistan might be the fact that Pakistan has nukes. The US is more interested in reforming its relationship with Pakistan that it is in trashing it. --Mr.98 (talk) 17:10, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

That (StuRat's) is a somewhat naive view. The US performed an illegal (at least under international and Pakistani law) operation, killing several people under Pakistani jurisdiction. The Pakistani government acted to restore and defend its sovereignty. Compare this e.g. to the sinking of the Rainbow Warrior, an illegal act by the French secret service on New Zealand soil. The New Zealanders caught, prosecuted, and imprisoned some of the French agents, but both are still SEATO members and on generally cooperative terms. Not all organs (much less citizens) of any state act in accordance with official policy. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 17:23, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

The Taliban and al Qaeda operating freely from within their nation would represent a far greater threat to their sovereignty. That is, unless they are acting under the control of elements within the Pakistani government, which is the case, at least in the case of the Taliban. StuRat (talk) 18:32, 21 September 2012 (UTC)

War are won by infantry men carrying small weapons. Being motivated and able to blend with the local, which seem to support them in many occasions is also an advantage. OsmanRF34 (talk) 16:45, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

Putting this in more political science/military lingo, territory is won by "boots on the ground", not planes, not drones, not missiles. War from the air can kill people and eliminate bases, but it can't hold territory. Afghanistan is a large country and the number of boots required is very large. The radical differences in culture don't help either — it's hard to win "hearts and minds" when your way of life is considered inherently decadent and sinful by the people you're trying to convince. No historian would have found any of this surprising; no military man ought to have. But neither historians nor military men really run wars — politicians have proven themselves entire daft at setting realistic military goals. --Mr.98 (talk) 17:15, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

We MUST stay the course. We can't just cut and run! (Sorry. Just thought I'd throw in a couple of the "daft" clichés routinely used by politicians in my country to justify stupid wars.) HiLo48 (talk) 20:38, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

But equally loopy is the debate we have to have all over again every single time an Aussie loses their life there. This is a real live shooting war and it's absurd to expect no casualties. Sure, many people objected to us ever going there in the first place, and that's a perfectly respectable position. But given that we are there, the loss of any single life, no matter how regrettable, is no argument for pulling up stumps and leaving. The reasons countries participate in a foreign war, or choose not to participate, are above individual lives. The people who argue we should not have gone there, do not base their argument on the possibility that Australians might get killed. Otherwise, they'd be arguing for the abolition of car, train, bus and air travel and lots of other things. No, it's a question of principle. But that principle is chucked asunder whenever a life is lost, and the argument becomes one of saving lives. -- ♬ Jack of Oz ♬ ^{[your turn]} 22:01, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

Wars are not always necessary, but cars are. I don't see the point of comparing deaths in car accidents to deaths in wars. ListCheck (talk) 22:55, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

The point is that the fact that people have been known to die while using cars or planes is never a rational argument for not using them. Neither was the possibility of casualties used as an argument for us not to be involved in Afghanistan, before we went in. Now that we are there, when someone dies it does become the argument why we should pull out. The goalposts get changed every time someone dies. And the politicians get sucked in every time, and defend why these regrettable events will not deter us. It's fine to express regret for the loss of lives, but that's as far as the commentary should go. The decisions about whether we should/should not have gone in; and now that we're there, whether we should/should not pull out, have nothing to do with loss of life. That is a given in a war, just as it's a given that sometimes people get into planes and cars and don't survive the journey. -- ♬ Jack of Oz ♬ ^{[your turn]} 23:59, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

This is a ridiculous point of view. Of course the question as to whether sending people to die for a given purpose is a good one to raise. The costs of war are tangible — they are not abstract. Lives are highly important to people. If the cause is just, then people say the lives were given for a good reason. If the cause is unjust, then the loss of life is a severe indictment to whomever squandered them. The idea that you can separate out the loss of life from the debate about the goodness of the war is totally, totally asinine, I am sorry to have to say. The fact that wars cause loss of life is a great reason to avoid pointless wars. --Mr.98 (talk) 02:20, 21 September 2012 (UTC)

How about just presenting an opposing viewpoint, rather than describing mine as "ridiculous" and "totally, totally asinine"?

In any case, let's pretend this is a reference desk. I'd like to see an argument against us being involved in Afghanistan, that was (a) presented before we went there, (b) couched in terms of the possible loss of life to our soldiers, and (c) made by a significant commentator. And the response from the other side. -- ♬ Jack of Oz ♬ ^{[your turn]} 05:04, 21 September 2012 (UTC)

Jack, just because maybe no one explicitly said that many would die, that doesn't mean people were not considering it. War is loss of life. OsmanRF34 (talk) 12:00, 21 September 2012 (UTC)

Because I took strong umbrage with the way you automatically dismissed the alternative point of view yourself, as if actually caring about the consequences of a war as it plays out is an unacceptable position. If you are going to throw rocks preemptively, they are going to get thrown right back at you in response. I'm not here to debate the Afghan War with you — but I am not going to stand by quietly while you belittle the position that the deaths of people involved should not constitute a good reason to debate the continuance of a war. Yours is a shallow position and I'm going to call it out as such. --Mr.98 (talk) 12:42, 21 September 2012 (UTC)

... maybe no one explicitly said that many would die, that doesn't mean people were not considering it. War is loss of life. Well, exactly. But they weren't arguing that we shouldn't go in because people might get killed (because that was always going to happen), or because all war is unthinkable and wrong (which it ought to be), but because this particular war was not appropriate for us to be involved in. That was their argument for why we should keep our noses out, and it ought to remain their position regardless of whatever happens there. You call my position shallow, but I call it principled. But maybe I place too high a premium on principle. Wars have been fought over less. I wasn't dismissing anything (automatically or in any way), and I'm certainly not belittling the loss of life (ours or any other country's). I feel these losses as much as anyone who isn't a family member or friend does. I've made my point and I understand and respect yours. -- ♬ Jack of Oz ♬ ^{[your turn]} 21:59, 21 September 2012 (UTC)

As a high school teacher I quite often encounter students telling me of their plans for a career in the military, because they see it as a good way to be trained for a trade (or almost anything really), and the pay is good (for a teenager). All true. But I feel it's important to point out to them that members of someone else's military will be trying to kill them, and some seem incredibly amazed at the thought. HiLo48 (talk) 23:21, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

In the US, at least, the military recruiters work hard to make potential recruits think the military is about anything else but being shot at. Thus we get ads on TV showing the military assisting a US community hit by a hurricane, etc. I believe much of the dissatisfaction, depression, and suicide in the military is due to people joining with unrealistic expectations. StuRat (talk) 18:25, 21 September 2012 (UTC)

When a student brings that up, the question you should ask is, "Are you willing to die for your country?" If the answer is flat-out "No", you could suggest that maybe the military is not their best career choice. Note that "willing" does not equate to "eager". ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 12:48, 21 September 2012 (UTC)

I want you to remember that no bastard ever won a war by dying for his country. He won it by making the other poor, dumb bastard die for his country. (mistakenly attributed to Patton, but invented for Patton). Dying for ones country is often mixed in an unholy alliance with "My country, right or wrong", when it would be better served with a healthy dose of "Are you fucking mad? No way!". --Stephan Schulz (talk) 13:08, 21 September 2012 (UTC)

Maybe "die for your country" is more an American perspective. Australians historically have often died for other countries. World War I didn't involve our country in any direct way, but we joined it because the UK was involved. Same happened in WWII. No threat to Australia in 1939, but our PM declared that because the UK was at war, so were we. (Of course, once Japan started bombing our towns, things changed a lot.) Since then, many of our leaders have pointed at treaties, the real worth of which to us has, of course, never been tested, as a reason to join in. HiLo48 (talk) 18:05, 21 September 2012 (UTC)

Seems to me that the same applies to the US. The US wasn't directly threatened in WW1. In WW2, while the US wasn't directly threatened early on, there was the sense that, if it didn't stop Japan and Germany, they would eventually threaten the US. StuRat (talk) 18:19, 21 September 2012 (UTC)

But the US didn't "officially" join WWII until Pearl Harbor. That was a pretty direct threat, wasn't it? HiLo48 (talk) 18:29, 21 September 2012 (UTC)

Yes, but that only happened because the US participated in a trade embargo against Japan, in attempt to reduce the future threat there. Had the US not participated in the embargo, there would have been no immediate threat. Then Japan would have been content to attack everyone in the Pacific except the US. Of course, once they had conquered the Pacific sans US, the US would be their next logical target. StuRat (talk) 20:26, 21 September 2012 (UTC)

Ah, yes, the time-honored "look what you made us do" argument, the trigger of many a war. The Japanese had ideas about doing to Asia what Germany wanted to do to Europe, and they thought by bombing our Pacific fleet, we would leave them alone. They thunk wrong. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 17:17, 22 September 2012 (UTC)

You say "the US army with all the armaments and all the money in the world". But the US is only willing to use a relatively small part of their resources in Afghanistan. And their willingness to risk the lives of their people is limited for a war (around a millionth of the American population is killed yearly), so they try to use their superior armaments from a distance where it's hard to identify the enemy. Like in Vietnam they do inflict much larger losses than they incur, but the enemy seems more committed. PrimeHunter (talk) 23:54, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

Why the US army with all the armaments and all the money in the world has been totally beaten by a bunch of Afghan peasants who have zero artillery zero aircraft and zero armoured vehicle and zero transport?

Totally beaten? Are the Afghan peasants keeping the manufacturers of the armaments, the aircraft, the armored vehicles from making money? Are the officers not getting promotions? Are intellectuals not getting paid for writing about how we must not cut & run? Are congressmen not getting campaign warchests & other nice things from the nice people they direct money to? Business as usual seem to be going along smoothly, as usual.John Z (talk) 20:17, 21 September 2012 (UTC)

"Totally beaten" would mean the US surrenders to, and is occupied, by the Taliban. At worst the US might lose Afghanistan once again to the Taliban. Since Afghanistan's strategic importance is quite low, that's not much of a loss. In this context, Afghanistan often manages to repel invaders, because it's "more trouble than it's worth", keeping in mind that it's worth very little. StuRat (talk) 20:31, 21 September 2012 (UTC)

A bit late to the party, but the OP should read up on the Soviet war in Afghanistan. That not only demonstrates how a small nation can sometimes hold off a superpower; it also explains how the Afghanis are so well-trained in guerrilla warfare. — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 18:46, 24 September 2012 (UTC)

Is there a deadline to stop persecutinginvestigatin the whereabout of any nazis?

The 'youngest' nazi, some 15 year old German boy at 1945, would be 82 today. And at 15, you probably aren't very high in any hierarchy, although you could denounce some Jews hidden somewhere. So is someone going to draw the line and say there are not more nazis left? (at least old nazis). OsmanRF34 (talk) 16:30, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

I believe the Wiesenthal Center still maintains a list of people who might be alive whom they would like prosecuted. Most are in their late 80s or early 90s, where they are believed or known to be alive.--Wehwalt (talk) 16:34, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

(e/c)If they are wanted for war crimes, then according to customary international humanitarian law there are no statute of limitations for such crimes. --Saddhiyama (talk) 16:35, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

(ec x3)In practical terms once the suspect would be 120 years old there is no point in keeping the case open. In some jurisdictions unsolved cases with no statute of limitations are "automatically" closed after 100 years. I don't know the specifics of German practice. Roger (talk) 16:46, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

I know that it's legally possible and morally necessary, but logically some year, maybe at 2020, couldn't you draw the conclusion that all big fish should already be dead. OsmanRF34 (talk) 16:40, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

(ec)The last First World War veterans died last year - 92 years after the event. Roger (talk) 16:55, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

What would be the point ? The only way the issue would come up is if you actually captured a high enough ranking Nazi to qualify for prosecution, which is extremely unlikely to happen then. Note that Germany passed a law at some point basically saying that the statute of limitations had passed. I'm not sure if that was ever repealed. It was done decades ago, though, allowing former Nazis to hold positions in government and industry. (Note that they weren't all murderous thugs, some simply joined the Party because it was expected of them.) StuRat (talk) 16:51, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

Rank isn't relevant, ordinary low ranking Nazi death-camp guards have been successfully prosecuted. The German government decided that just having been a party member was no longer a reason to prevent someone from holding certain positions in government or public service - the decision had nothing to do with war criminals. Roger (talk) 16:58, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

I wonder what kind of source StuRat and Roger relate to? Is this wikipedia? --Pp.paul.4 (talk) 23:38, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

According to http://motlc.wiesenthal.com/site/pp.asp?c=gvKVLcMVIuG&b=394973: "In 1968 a change in the law made conviction far more difficult. By that time, the statute of limitations had expired on all Nazi crimes except murder. Each time the statute of limitations threatened to expire on murder, the legislature extended it after long debates. But the statute does not mention murder or manslaughter. Instead, it defines murder as a crime punishable by life imprisonment and manslaughter as a crime punishable by fifteen years imprisonment. The statute of limitations on the latter expired in 1960. The former, which has not expired, applies to the perpetrator; it also applied to the accomplice, who seldom received a life sentence but who could have received it. In 1968, a change in §50 of the Penal Code made the reduction of sentence mandatory for the accomplice if he did not share the base motives of the perpetrator. Such a reduction to no more than fifteen years meant that the statute of limitations would have expired in 1960 for this kind of accomplice to murder." (I believe this passage refers to West Germany.) StuRat (talk) 07:58, 21 September 2012 (UTC)

For Germans, like Pp.paul.4 it comes as a surprise how soft the new Germanies were on the nazis. Only starting at the seventies, and only on West Germany, you would see some serious steering away from the ideology. OsmanRF34 (talk) 14:14, 21 September 2012 (UTC)

I don't think that's accurate or in any way fair. Exactly what "ideology" did the West Germans maintain until the 1970s, and the East Germans continue?--Wehwalt (talk) 14:18, 21 September 2012 (UTC)

Well, they seem to have treated genocide just like an ordinary crime, with the same statute of limitations and such. To the rest of the world, this is a far more serious crime, requiring more serious investigative efforts and penalties. StuRat (talk) 18:36, 21 September 2012 (UTC)

Well II, the denazification, starting by the Americans after the war was followed by a the German Vergangenheitsbewältigung in the 70, which is mainly a byproduct of the way of thinking of the sixties. During the perido 1945-1970, West Germans didn't show much interest in their past, they were actually trying to pass the page. OsmanRF34 (talk) 19:33, 21 September 2012 (UTC)

I wonder if you don't mean prosecute. I don't think Nazis qualify for the term persecution. Mingmingla (talk) 16:43, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

yes, persecute is not quite right. OsmanRF34 (talk) 16:47, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

It would not be against the law for a child to report Jews to the police. It would be expected for all citizens to do that.
Sleigh (talk) 20:27, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

Wtf is wrong with you... Or am I reading something wrong here??? --Activism1234 22:25, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

I was going to comment too, but I figured it's just unfamiliarity with English tenses. I think Sleigh meant "It would not be have been against the law for ..." , and "It would be have been expected for ...". He's talking about what he thinks would have been the case back then, not what he thinks should be happening today. -- ♬ Jack of Oz ♬ ^{[your turn]} 23:42, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

Oh I see... Wow, what a perfect example of where grammar comes into play... I apologize for my overly harsh language - such overt espousals of racist views on an international forum flares my nostrils. --Activism1234 05:15, 21 September 2012 (UTC)

My immediate assumption was that the user was getting his tenses confused, as Jack said. It's not necessarily bad to have your antennae up, but a bit of reflection is good. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 12:44, 21 September 2012 (UTC)

Are you or Sleith being just grammar nazis? OsmanRF34 (talk) 11:53, 21 September 2012 (UTC)

Yea, I don't see the problem. The "would" made it clear to me they were talking about the time in question, WW2. StuRat (talk) 18:39, 21 September 2012 (UTC)

In this context, that would be the only reasonable or AGF interpretation. But the mere presence of the word "would" does not signify past tense. I just used it in my first sentence, and that's not past tense. Sleigh's sentence is grammatically incorrect if it's meant to mean what he is assumed to have intended, but it's saved by the context, and only by the context. Take it out of that context, and you'll get the reaction it did get from Activism.

Lessons: The dangers of confusing moods (subjunctive) with tenses (past); and the dangers of reading things out of context. -- ♬ Jack of Oz ♬ ^{[your turn]} 21:31, 21 September 2012 (UTC)

hedge fund

can someone xplain in simple terms what a hedge fund is. 80.1.143.5 (talk) 21:22, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

• See Hedge fund. Very simply: It is privately controlled investment vehicle, where the managers control both what they invest in, and who gets to invest. If you have an open investment model (like a mutual fund), the fund is heavily regulated, and the fund managers can only invest in certain types of investments, and can only do certain things. Hedge funds, because they aren't traded on the open market, allows the managers to invest in more exotic investments. Hedge fund investors tend to be high-net-worth individuals (i.e. not you or I), or commonly institutional investors like pension funds and large corporations. Ostensibly, a Hedge fund is supposed to make money whether the open markets are rising or falling (hence the term "hedging ones bets"), but because of the nature of some of the exotic investment vehicles and strategies they use, like short selling and things like that, they can provide some of their own risk. Remember all the shit that went down about five years ago with Mortgage backed securities and Credit default swaps and all that stuff? The people who invested in those were largely hedge funds, and when they went bad they went very bad. --Jayron32 21:37, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

Thanks, Jayron, for that succinct answer (rather than beating around the bush). StuRat (talk) 07:48, 21 September 2012 (UTC)

More succinctly, it's what the Mitt Romneys of the world invest in when they are willing to accept greater risk in their pursuit of more profit. Clarityfiend (talk) 21:43, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

Yeah. What happens is a few rich people will pool their cash and hire someone to invest it. That pool of money that is called a "hedge fund" and the guy investing if for them is called a "hedge fund manager". Since it's a closed club, the investing isn't regulated like with mutual funds, so they get to play "fast and loose". When its rich people playing around with their extra yacht money, that's one thing. Where hedge funds cause problems is when large institutional investors started to get involved. Before, major United States financial institutions were forbidden from playing with their cash this way, by the Glass–Steagall Act, which was put in during the New Deal era to prevent banks from all going belly up as happened during the Great Depression. During the 1980s and 1990s, banks saw hedge funds take off, and were (from their perspective) losing lots of money by playing by the rules, so they agitated for the restrictions to be taken off. The Gramm–Leach–Bliley Act removed the restrictions on banks from playing around in hedge funds, and many financial analysts have placed the recent financial crisis on the exposure of commercial banks to the risks that hedge funds carry with them. Part of the problem is that the massive influx of banking capital into the hedge fund market ate up all of the "safer" investments quickly, so hedge fund managers were forced to invest the banks money in riskier and riskier vehicles, because the safe options were already saturated. There was an award winning episode of This American Life called "The Giant Pool of Money" which explains how the change in regulatory structure led to forcing hedge fund managers to take riskier investments. It's quite good and easy to follow for the lay person, you can listen to it here. --Jayron32 21:59, 20 September 2012 (UTC) Edit: It may not have been that specific episode, per se. That was the first of the series on the financial crisis, and looking at the syopsis, the role of bank deregulation may have been covered in a later episode, there were 5 in the series. They are all very good to listen to, and I recommend them all, but the Giant Pool of Money one started it all off. They're all availible online from the site I posted. --Jayron32 22:04, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

A friend of mine who works at one explains it like this: basically you can invest in the stock market, or bonds, or other things. Or, if you have a lot of money, you can give a lot of it money to him and he'll try to make it into lot more money. How will he do this? It depends on the fund — most think they can "beat the odds" one way or the other. Some are just relatively straightforward investment companies. Some have magical formulae or intelligence sources. Some just claim to hire really, really smart people. One guy came up with an algorithm that analyzed Twitter chatter and tried to guess which way various stocks would go based on it, and then founded his own hedge fund based on the principle. And so on. Either way, the only way you get to play with a hedge fund is if you have a lot of dough, and are willing to take on a lot of risk — because in general, you shouldn't expect to beat the odds every day of the week, but this is what these funds are trying to do. They are a very high-stakes form of investment. --Mr.98 (talk) 02:13, 21 September 2012 (UTC)

Actually, what they're more likely to do is not so much make a lot more money, but (in proportional terms) a little more money, very safely, and ideally a little more money than other investments could get you, that safely. Some of their individual investments may be very high-risk, but they are balanced ("hedged") by other ones that reduce the net risk (and also the net return, of course). See statistical arbitrage. --Trovatore (talk) 05:14, 21 September 2012 (UTC)

I remember reading somewhere that you need half a million dollars minimum to even attract the attention of the average hedge fund. Clarityfiend (talk) 11:24, 21 September 2012 (UTC)

I work with hedge funds (among other investment vehicles) in my day job. Traditionally the term has not had any standard definition. I think of a "hedge fund" as, essentially, an investment pool that is not publicly registered and that invests in liquid investments, such as publicly traded stocks and bonds, commodities, and currencies. There is now a standardized definition on page 57 of the PDF of Form PF, but I won't quote it because it is not responsive to the "simple terms" request.

The term "hedge fund" is an historical anomaly. Hedge funds may or may not engage in hedging transactions. They vary greatly in the amount of risk they take.

Investors in hedge funds generally must be accredited investors. In addition, hedge funds characteristically pay performance fees, so investors generally must also be qualified clients under Rule 205-3, which is a somewhat higher standard and typically would require net worth of $2 million, excluding your primary residence. Some hedge funds require all of their investors to be qualified purchasers, which is a higher standard still and essentially restricts investors to the truly wealthy. John M Baker (talk) 16:23, 21 September 2012 (UTC)

Read about investment too much and it seems the ultrarich are all so spoiled their biggest worry in life is a microscopically higher risk they won't get their money back from diverse AAA corporate bonds than from US Treasuries. Yet some ultrarich throw it in the riskiest, highest yield thing they can find. Go figure. 96.246.70.87 (talk) 04:46, 23 September 2012 (UTC)