Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2009 July 23

= July 23 =

Minors Viewing Pornography
Is it illegal for teenagers to view pornography in the United States? I'm not talking about child pornography. Alittlemoneybill (talk) 02:57, 23 July 2009 (UTC)
 * The sale of pornography to minors is illegal. Note: 19 year olds are not considered minors but are still teenagers, so your question has some ambiguity to it. Dismas |(talk) 03:03, 23 July 2009 (UTC)
 * And what about minors viewing pornography with no sale involved? I suspect the OP is thinking of viewing it on the Internet, for free. Vimescarrot (talk) 09:05, 23 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Most internet porn sites require the viewer to click a link that certifies they're 18 or older. If they're not, I guess they could be had up for providing false information (IANAL).  Whether legally this is the same offence as viewing the porn, which is the logical consequence of the minor providing that false information, I couldn't say.  --  JackofOz (talk) 09:30, 23 July 2009 (UTC)


 * I believe—though am not sure—that pornography is something where the distribution, sale, and etc. of it to minors is illegal. The possession of it by minors is not—e.g. if a 10-year-old steals a pornographic magazine, there is no liable party. (This contrasts with, say, cigarettes and alcohol, which in some states is illegal to sell and possess by minors, and minors can receive citations for possessing it.) I'm not a lawyer, though, and I imagine this varies state-by-state anyway. --98.217.14.211 (talk) 13:08, 23 July 2009 (UTC)
 * lol wut if he steals it there's got to be something illegal about that :P 80.123.210.172 (talk) 16:01, 23 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Not if he's under the age of criminal responsibility. AndrewWTaylor (talk) 17:54, 23 July 2009 (UTC)
 * If an adult leaves it around where the minor could easily find it and steal it, the adult could be charged with contributing to the delinquency of a minor, or even criminal mischief. Who then was a gentleman? (talk) 01:59, 24 July 2009 (UTC)


 * I guess it comes down to a similar deal as with cigarrettes and alcohol. In many jurisdictions it's illegal to sell them to people under the legal age, but it's not illegal for them to consume it. On the other hand, the same jurisdictions often have laws regarding provision of illegal material (be it cigarrettes, alcohol or pornography) to minors. Anyone considering anything like this should check their own jurisdiction's rules. Summary: The viewing may not be in itself illegal, but the provision of it usually is. 130.56.65.25 (talk) 01:11, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

International occupation of Jerusalem
Given the very long-standing dispute over who has the rights to live in / own / administer / control Jerusalem, I was wondering: has it ever been considered to declare Jerusalem extraterritorial (similar to the status of the UN building in New York), administered by an international organisation (such as, but not necessarily, the UN)? Please note that I am explicitly not looking for a debate about the merits of this solution (or any other solution to the political problems in that area of the world). Thanks in advance! &mdash; QuantumEleven 11:53, 23 July 2009 (UTC)


 * An episode of The West Wing featured an Israeli-Palestinian peace conference at Camp David, which I think countenanced designating a small part of the city (I think just the Temple Mount and environs) as something like the territory of an embassy. -- Finlay McWalter Talk 12:00, 23 July 2009 (UTC)


 * I just watched the relevant episode, "The Birnam Wood", and in it (in an attempt to solve the logjam that the status of Jerusalem is having for their discussions) Kate Harper says "After the Six Day War, the Israelis offered to give the UN diplomatic status and immunities over the holy sites in Jerusalem", and she suggests this same status could be given to the Palestinians (so the Israelis retain sovereignty, but would be bound not to enter the Haram al-Sharif under the terms of the Vienna Convention). That's a different solution than that suggested by corpus separatum; did Israel make this offer, or is this just a WW writer fantasy? -- Finlay McWalter Talk 14:06, 23 July 2009 (UTC)


 * I seem to remember (this was way back in 1995 or something, may be before Yitzhak Rabin was assasinated) some talk of a proposal for jointly administering Jerusalem. Not quite the same thing but related Nil Einne (talk) 12:11, 23 July 2009 (UTC)
 * UN control was proposed (and passed, only to be nullified by war) under the Partition Plan for Palestine (Resolution 181 (II) of 29 November 1947), accorrding to this site (which is part of the UN) and the wikilinked page. - Jarry1250 [ In the UK? Sign the petition! ] 12:43, 23 July 2009 (UTC)


 * See Corpus_Separatum... AnonMoos (talk) 12:56, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

music instruments
I am trying to find information on a French violin factor, Gaggini, active in the town of Nice in the XXth C. I could not find anything in Wikipedia. Thank you CV —Preceding unsigned comment added by Chrisv73 (talk • contribs) 14:38, 23 July 2009 (UTC)
 * All I could quickly find was this: Pietro Gaggini, Nice 1943. Gaggini was the nephew and student of Alberto Blanchi in Nice and took over his business in the 1930's. --jpgordon:==( o ) 15:13, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

Nautical chart lines
What is the point of the seemingly arbitrary lines, which seem to be at regular numbers of degrees from certain points on charts lik e this one? Distance measurement? - Jarry1250 [ In the UK? Sign the petition! ] 14:49, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

Great question. Hopefully someone will know for definite but from a bit of searching it kinda seems like they might be a series of Compass rose for ease of use with a parallel ruler but i've no idea if that's true (i've no boating or nautical knowledge - it's just based on a bit of guesswork from articles I could find that seemed to fit the bill). ny156uk (talk) 15:58, 23 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Rhumb lines? Deor (talk) 18:27, 23 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Rhumb_line seems to confirm that. As noted, good question.. --Tagishsimon (talk) 18:37, 23 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Cf. the file description here. Deor (talk) 18:43, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

history of racism in Toronto
How racism started in Toronto and the rest of Canada? Is there any website about history of racism in Toronto and rest of Canada? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.64.53.160 (talk) 15:06, 23 July 2009 (UTC)
 * How about the first result when searching "history of racism in Toronto"? That gives this link which is, in turn, a list of possibily relevant links to other sites (relating to Canada in general, for the most part). A number of the links I checked were out-of-date, but the material may still be available on the web. For example, "A History of Race/ism" can be found at this location. Some of the other search results may also be useful. -- Kateshort forbob  15:55, 23 July 2009 (UTC)


 * As for "how racism started"... As soon as someone showed up who looked different, racism started. There was well documented racism among the Native Americans, so it predates anything current. --  k a i n a w &trade; 18:36, 23 July 2009 (UTC)


 * That depends on how you define racism. Native Americans (First Nations) engaged in ethnocentrism and persecution of people from other ethnic groups.  Native American ethnocentrism was based on identity and cultural traits. That is something different from modern, pseudoscientific racism, which involves a belief that there are biological entities called races, and that the genetic makeup of one race makes it naturally superior to another.  Native Americans certainly did not have such a belief.  This belief or ideology first arose during the 19th century in Europe, though it was based on earlier ideas about superiority based on physical appearance, which date back to the European conquest of the Americas and the transAtlantic slave trade.  Again, this earlier racism based on appearance was very different from Native American ethnocentrism, which existed between ethnic groups indistinguishable from each other in appearance.  The earlier version of European racism was already in place among the first French visitors to the Toronto region, who viewed the Iroquoian people of the region as inferior savages.  The later pseudoscientific version of racism, based on (false) beliefs about genetics, gradually spread to Toronto along with the rest of North America during the late 19th century.  Marco polo (talk) 20:04, 23 July 2009 (UTC)


 * Incidentally, it isn't true that something like racism was inevitable when premodern people encountered others of different appearance. For example, ancient Egyptians were darker in complexion than ancient Greeks or Romans, but there is no evidence at all that Greeks or Romans considered them inferior, except to the extent that ethnocentric Greeks thought that any non-Greeks (regardless of appearance) were inferior.  Marco polo (talk) 20:06, 23 July 2009 (UTC)


 * There are three kinds of humans: those whose culture is less successful than ours, who are subhuman monkeys that God hates; those whose culture is more successful than ours, who are effete degenerates that God hates; and those whose culture is much the same as ours, who obviously stole all our ideas and are using them in a way God doesn't like. Race, nation, and what football team we support are back-formations we make up to justify our intrinsic (and, once, genetically well-founded) tribalism, something we've been carrying around since we all really were monkeys.  Unless mitochondrial eve lived in Cabbagetown, none of this is native to, or peculiar to, Toronto. 87.114.144.52 (talk) 22:40, 23 July 2009 (UTC)


 * We had a question the other day about the Riot at Christie Pits in the 1930s. There were also Catholic vs. Protestant riots in the nineteenth century (the Jubilee Riot, for example, which we don't seem to have an article about). There hasn't been a lot of racism against blacks, as much as there has been against Jews and the Irish, which is not surprising given Toronto's Protestant English history. Adam Bishop (talk) 00:22, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

I know I know; I know I don't know; I don't know I know; I don't know I don't know
Do you have any references that encompasses these statements? Has there been any philosophical essays dealing with these 4 statements? Here they are again:

There are things I know I know,

There are things I know I don't know,

There are things I don't know I know,

There are things I don't know I don't know

Rfwoolf (talk) 21:41, 23 July 2009 (UTC)


 * Well, Donald Rumsfeld was (undeservedly) hammered by the press and the Plain English Campaign for talking about unknown unknowns. --ColinFine (talk) 22:17, 23 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Well, I can't guarantee there haven't been any philosophical essays specifically about your 4 sentences, but as far as I can tell they are simple english sentences each with a clearly recognisable meaning. Unless you were thinking of a specific essay, it does sound like something would Hegel would warble on about.
 * However for more on known, and unknown things see Knowledge, and Epistemology - which adds to your list - ie "there are things I know, but aren't true..", you might also read A priori and a posteriori (or alternatively maybe you were thinking of 'Intrinsic and extrinsic knowledge'). Apologies if I've missed some obvious and well known essay that is the answer.83.100.250.79 (talk) 23:04, 23 July 2009 (UTC)
 * It looks like you could clarify the lines by replacing the first "knows" with "aware of"
 * eg "There are things I'm not aware that I know" ie things you didn't realise you knew. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.100.250.79 (talk) 23:23, 23 July 2009 (UTC)
 * There's a model used in teaching, which I know as the 4-stage mastery model, which roughly corresponds to Rumsfeld's burblings. The 4 stages are, in ascending order of competence: unconscious incompetence (you don't know what you don't know), conscious incompetence (you know what you don't know), conscious competence (you know what you know but still have to think about doing it), and unconscious competence (you know what you know and can do it without conscious thought). If anyone can give me the source of this model, I'd be very pleased because I've been trying to remember it since 1993! --TammyMoet (talk) 07:52, 24 July 2009 (UTC)
 * No source that I can see but we do have an article on that: Four stages of competence. --bodnotbod (talk) 13:28, 24 July 2009 (UTC)


 * Knots by R.D.Lainge —Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.172.58.82 (talk) 14:48, 25 July 2009 (UTC)

African American Money Donation to Africa
How much money do African Americans donate to help the people of Sub-Saharan Africa each year? 174.114.236.41 (talk) 23:07, 23 July 2009 (UTC)


 * This may be estimated via surveys, but there will be no way of directly knowing, as charities don't ask the race of donors. Tempshill (talk) 23:46, 23 July 2009 (UTC)