Talk:Cui bono?

indirect usage
A german lawyer proverb says "Es kommt nicht darauf an wem es nützt sondern wer vorher glaubte daß es ihm nützt" which roughly translates into "It doesn't matter who benefits but who thought it might benefit him". Cui bono is pretty much considered inferior logic in central europe. Example: Mr. White burns down his house for insurance fraud but gets caught. To pay his lawyer he sells the estate to Mr Black. Cui Bono would lead to suspicions of Mr. Black even though he is only a passive beneficiary of a false belief by Mr. White.

NPOV?
''Extremist groups (or just groups with a very different social background) may pursue some goal that we do not consider valuable. To them, a particular act that appears nonsensical to us can carry a benefit that only they understand. This may involve concepts of honor, religion and ideology incomprehensible to us. For examples of codes of honor that seem odd to our system of values, see the entries on seppuku and counting coup.''

This paragraph appears to be a massive violation of NPOV. A neutral article should not talk about "us" and "them" like this.

Relax, I fixed it. --adaxl 19:51, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

I fixed the article again, even though I do not accept many of the points raised by MilitaryTarget.

@MilitaryTarget: Please try to improve articles yourself instead of asking other people to do this for you. None of the issues you raised requires any special knowledge that you could not supply yourself. --adaxl 14:09, 28 January 2006 (UTC)
 * If you think any of those informal, imprecise, arbitrary, or culturally-specific terms/expressions are acceptable and appropriate for Wikipedia, that's your concern, but their rubbish all the same. And your instructions are absurd: you seem to refute the very purpose and role of templates. If you were some kind of power contributor to the project I could defer to your exhortation to muck in and contribute more frequently and substantively, but given your own conspicuous lack in this regard, what are you on? MilitaryTarget 14:07, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

Tov Says, "Since no particular POV is stated, the us & them seem quite nuetral to me. I think it would read equally well to a chicom or a neocon."

It is an interesting read but I didn't sense a NPOV problem. On the other hand, it doesn't feel quite right for Wikipedia.Earthlyreason (talk) 04:41, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

Literal Translation of "cui bono"
I don't agree with the most recent rendering of "cui bono" published by Thecardiffgiant. I believe we're dealing here with an ablative absolute, rather than with that preposterous "double dative" which Thecardiffgiant suggests. I propose the following translation: "'[being] good to whom'," where "bono" and the elliptic present participle of "esse" ("ens") are both in the ablative case: "bono [ente]". Nivaca 17:03, 29 January 2007 (UTC).

I've modified Nivaca's translation a touch. Being good for someone is the idea we want to convey in English. Being good to someone means something else entirely, I think. And while this is surely "inside baseball" of interest to relatively few, it is Nivaca's grammatical analysis that is "preposterous." "Cui bono" is indeed a double dative construction: bono being a dative of purpose and cui a dative of reference. "Bono" cannot be shorthand for "ente bono" for the simple reason that the present participle "ens" suggested by Nivaca does not exist in Classical Latin. Maybe it does in some Medieval text wherein we find Latin devolving into Italian or French. In proper Latin, however, the verb of being only has the future participle futurus, -a, -um. Ifnkovhg 04:36, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

Add IPA please. White Mage Cid

Motion to rename page or at least have redirect to this page from...
I don't represent everyone, or even the average Internet user - but I'm a fairly simple, reasonable guy. I had no clue what "cui bono" meant until wikipedia taught me. I *did* have an idea that "who benefits" in relation to conspiracy theories was a logical fallacy. I would theretofore (trying to sound all official and wiki-like) motion that the page be renamed "Cui bono/Who benefits?" or similar - possibly including the term "fallacy." Or at the very least redirect to this page (fine, you can keep your Latinphile name that no average person will ever automatically know means what it means so you can feel smug and superior in your "oh, that's so obvious" snide academic/legalspeak tone) - from something like "who benefits logical fallacy." All I'm really after is that THIS page should be the landing point for a whole lot of people who aren't sure exactly what the fallacy is called, but search for a few keywords like "fallacy" and "who benefits." Currently, it's not exactly top of the list in google. Searching for "fallacy who benefits conspiracy theory" should also pop this up. But it doesn't. Someone smart and wikiable, help me (the poor non-Latin-speaking Neanderthal), ...please? It's not exactly easy to figure out around here how to make something to redirect to this page. Cheers. OH AND WHILE WE'RE AT IT... shouldn't this be in a "Conspiracy Theory" portal instead of (fine - in addition to) a Legal Portal? For the greater good of average, non-lawyer non-legalese-speaking people like humble hardworking bluecollar military diver me? Pär Larsson (talk) 16:31, 29 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Thank you all for your help. No, no, I really do mean it. Don't all speak up at once now. Hello? Anyone here? *echo* ...Anyway, section "Use in politics & conspiracy theories" maybe should be split and re-jiggered and re-paragraphed and cleaned up. Sorry if I messed it up, I really think that this page should link to a whole lot more anti-ignorance conspiracy-theory stuff. Fighting ignorance is what we do, right? Hello? Anyone there? *echo* Pär Larsson (talk) 00:13, 13 February 2011 (UTC)

Who cares what some comic book says
Really now, wikipedia is looking more and more stupid. I literally cannot look something up without finding a "referenced by comic book" entry shoved in somewhere near the end.

Considered as specimens of art, culture or philosophy, 99.999 percent of all comic books are stupid, juvenile trash and are utterly un-noteworthy and un-encyclopedic. And yes, I mean you Superman, Spiderman, and all your stupid, juvenile, un-noteworthy colleagues. If the guy who writes Superman comic books deserves a mention in wikipedia because he threw "cui bono" into one of his juvenile productions, what's next? Perhaps someone who collects Bazooka Joe comics can spend a few months adding the plot points and cultural references into every single possible page of wikipedia. What did Bazooka Joe have to say about science or jurisprudence? Have enough pages been updated yet on wikipedia to fully reflect the wisdom of the comic strip "Garfield" ? Or do superhero-worshipping nerds actually think that the writing contained in a comic book featuring a guy in shiny blue tights with x-ray vision is somehow more deep and meaningful than the wit and wisdom of Archie Andrews and Jughead. LOL.

Just because there are a handful of losers and nerds who collect millions of superhero comic books, memorize their contents and then spend hours every week regurgitating their trivial, pointless, juvenile, ephemeral plot points and cultural references on the internet, does not make them even the slightest bit interesting or relevant to the rest of the world.

Comic books themselves may be interesting and noteworthy, for what they are (juvenile fantasies for children and grown-up nerds). But can we keep the Superman references mostly on the comic-book related pages? The grownups have an encyclopedia to write (and use). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 206.248.162.120 (talk) 02:47, 5 May 2011 (UTC)


 * Keep your comments relevant to the situation at hand. Wikipedia is not a forum. As to your actual point, no examples of this phrase's usage in popular culture would be acceptable. They've all been removed since your post. TaintedMustard (talk) 10:58, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

Why the "original research" tag?
It appears to me that this article, which is little more than a stub, contains nothing but one or two statements that are absolutely common knowledge plus a couple of interesting and relevant quotations, both very properly sourced.

Time to take that tag off it, if you ask me.

I pretty much hate this Wikipedia game of slapping tags on things anyway. To me it's nothing but laziness.

Poihths (talk) 21:24, 8 October 2012 (UTC)

Impact and usage of Cui Bono
I referred a colleague to this page for information on one of the uses of this phrase.. only to find that a lot of valuable encyclopedic information on the usage, development, and value of Cui Bono has been deleted. Objections to re-including this information? Provides valuable linkages across pages, and concepts, as well informing the user of the value of this concept itself in our thinking. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.39.115.224 (talk) 19:26, 28 August 2013 (UTC)

Yes, it seems that a lot of information was removed in May 2011 by user TallNapoleon. The removed information was not source/citated (and some of it was a rather random assemblage of comments of dubious value -- yes "qui bono" can be abused, JUST LIKE ANY OTHER ARGUMENT). But the end result was a rather "bare bones" article. It would be fantastic if someone would spend the time to re-add some of the information deleted in 2011 but properly source that information. To me, the ideal article would reference the usage of this maxim in journalism in the sense that alleged public benefits are often professed to conceal or obscure a motivation based on private/personal benefit and a key function of journalism is to question alleged motivations and benefits to reveal possible self-serving motivations to lie, distort, or omit crucial information. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 38.104.197.154 (talk) 18:06, 3 January 2023 (UTC)