Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2010 November 29

= November 29 =

website to calculate inflation adjustment
looking for website to calculate price adjusted for inflation. for example, S$10,000 at 1998 prices, is worth how much now after inflation adjustment? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 59.189.216.172 (talk) 08:57, 29 November 2010 (UTC)
 * This page has a list of them. 213.122.68.179 (talk) 12:18, 29 November 2010 (UTC)
 * This is an excellent site. Dalliance (talk) 12:51, 29 November 2010 (UTC)

The two sources cited are fine for the economies they cover, but will not help at all in gauging the real (current, inflation-adjusted) value of S$10,000. The tables in this [|source] will allow you to work out the GDP deflator. That will show 12.83% cumulative inflation in 1999-2009, which is as good a proxy as five minutes work will yield. The answer is that S$10,000 in 1999 would be worth S$8,908 in 2009. DOR (HK) (talk) 09:41, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

Saving the Euro
Who's chipping in to save the Euro? Only those countries with the Euro as currency or all EU countries? Quest09 (talk) 13:07, 29 November 2010 (UTC)


 * Your question appears to rest on an assumption that the European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF) and efforts such as the recent one to rescue the Irish financial system are only about saving the euro. This is certainly an important part of their purpose.  However, these efforts are also made because they aim to prevent European governments and banks from defaulting on their debt.  Such defaults could imperil the financial systems not only of countries that use the euro but also of the United Kingdom, which has lent a great deal of money to the euro zone.  So the United Kingdom, or at least financial interests in the City of London, have a strong interest in the success of these efforts.  That said, funding for the EFSF comes from debt it issues, which is backed only by countries using the euro as currency.  Marco polo (talk) 16:50, 29 November 2010 (UTC)
 * The loan to Ireland AIUI, is a combined one from the EFSF (described above) which is funded by the Eurozone members, the European Financial Stabilisation Mechanism which is funded by all the EU member states, and by the International Monetary Fund which is funded by almost all the members of the United Nations. In addition, the UK has offered a seperate GBP7billion loan, because our economies are inter-dependant especially in respect of Northern Ireland. So the answer is everybody - but I suspect Germany will be paying the most, as it is the largest contributor to the first 2 funds mentioned and third largest to the IMF (after the US and Japan; the UK is fourth). Alansplodge (talk) 09:38, 30 November 2010 (UTC)

Argentine peso
The Argentine peso is pretty unstable, so I'm not surprised that Wikipedia disagrees with itself a little bit. But I think we should get this fixed.

The article Argentine peso says the Argentine peso oro sellado (ISO 4217: ARG) was the currency in place from 1881-1969, but the article Argentine peso moneda nacional says that peso moneda nacional (ISO 4217: ARM) was the currency from 1881-1969. The strange part is I can find neither ARM or ARG in the table of codes in the Wikipedia article for ISO 4217. This leads to three questions.


 * Which was the actual currency in place at that time? (I have a 1957 coin and it simply says "peso")
 * What is the correct ISO 4217 code for that currency?
 * Why isn't that code in the various tables on the Wikipedia article for ISO 4217?

Thank you very much for your help. JamaUtil (talk) 18:54, 29 November 2010 (UTC)
 * The article on the Argentine peso, or at least its history section, looks quite unreliable to me. To begin with, ISO 4217 codes were not created until the 1970s, after the earlier versions of the Argentine peso had ceased to circulate.  I doubt that codes would have been created for defunct currencies.  I suspect that the codes in the peso article are somebody's invention.  Certainly, a citation is needed.  Second, oro sellado simply means "gold coin" in Spanish.  It is virtually inconceivable to me that Argentina remained on the gold standard without any revaluation from 1881 to 1969, as the article states, given that stronger and more stable economies such as those of the United States, Britain, and Switzerland (!) were forced to devalue relative to gold during the 1930s.  During the nearly 90-year period referenced by the article, Argentina's economy went through a number of financial crises, and it is just unimaginable that the currency retained a steady value in terms of gold.  Again, citation needed.  Marco polo (talk) 21:12, 29 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Exactly, though there do appear to be some obsolete currencies from before the 70s on that ISO page, such as the Austro-Hungarian krone. Does someone here know of/can find a nice reference that I could use to improve the article? JamaUtil (talk) 23:09, 29 November 2010 (UTC)
 * It is not completely implausible that there would be ISO codes for obsolete currencies, though the ISO 4217 article doesn't cite any sources. Meanwhile, our article Argentine peso moneda nacional looks much more reliable than Argentine peso, though the former is likewise lacking in sources. If you want to research this, a starting point might by The Crisis of Argentine Capitalism by Paul Lewis.  Though its focus isn't monetary history, it is likely to refer to sources on that topic. Marco polo (talk) 01:50, 30 November 2010 (UTC)

Ten Commandments <=> Book of the Dead
Greetings! In the article Ten Commandments "The Egyptian Book of the Dead" is mentioned in the literature, however, not cited in the text. In "The Egyptian Book of the Dead" the "inverse confession" ist found (I did not..., I did not... I did not ... etc.). In the Book of the Dead no "connection" is made to the 10 commandments.
 * Are there recent references (books, serious papers; not Eso-Stuff) of Old Testamentarians or Egyptologysts, who proove (disprove, discuss) a "connection" or "analogy" or "parallelism" or "relevance" or "non-relevance" of the 10 Commandments and the Inverse Confession in the Book of Dead? Thanks for your time. 62.241.105.149 (talk) 20:59, 29 November 2010 (UTC)


 * There may have been serious Egyptologists in the 19th and early 20th centuries who argued for a connection between the two, but I haven't seen anything about it in recent Egyptological literature (and I've read a lot of it over the past couple of years). I tend to suspect Egyptologists don't put much stock in the idea nowadays. Jan Assmann published a book several years ago called Moses the Egyptian which examines the connections between Egypt and Judaism, and the way that people have viewed those connections over the centuries. I haven't read it, but it may say something about the Book of the Dead/Ten Commandments relationship. A. Parrot (talk) 02:43, 30 November 2010 (UTC)


 * If you want to read the Negative Confession (inverse confession), somebody listed the whole thing here. A. Parrot (talk) 02:53, 30 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Thanks! I've read them before. I know one voice (Theol. Prof. 'Old Testament', still alive) who rejects the parallelism due to difference in context. And - as you say - Lit. from the 1920ies that draw parallels. So the question remains: Why is the Book of Dead listet in the 10 Commandment article, when it is not put in context? Greetings 62.241.105.149 (talk) 08:29, 30 November 2010 (UTC)


 * A lot of people insert things in articles without proper context, unfortunately. But where is the mention of the Book of the Dead in that article? I don't see it. A. Parrot (talk) 18:38, 30 November 2010 (UTC)
 * CTRL+F on the word 'Egyptian' gave me one single hit - "Budge, E. A. Wallis (1967). The Egyptian Book of the Dead. Dover Publications." - right at the bottom, in the 'Further Reading' section, leading me to believe it is not mentioned at all in the article body. --  KägeTorä - (影虎)  ( TALK )  03:00, 1 December 2010 (UTC)

Vatican and democracy
Considering the difficult relationship between the Catholic Church and virtually all democratic political movements before 1945, has the Vatican ever explicitly condoned democracy, or does it still consider it to be a facet of "modernism"? I know from personal experience that the church still officially bemoans the separation of church and state, but I suppose this can theoretically be reconciled with democracy. Obviously the Vatican threw in the towel on democracy after WWII, but did they ever make it official, say with an encyclical? If not, why not? It would seem to me that today many of their worst antagonists are non-democratic (the People's Republic of China, for instance), whereas in democracies the worst they have to put up with is the occasional gay kiss-in. L ANTZY T ALK 23:12, 29 November 2010 (UTC)
 * The Vatican is actually surprisingly closely aligned with democratic ideals, especially since the Second Vatican Council in the 1960's. Inter Mirifica is essentially a defense of freedom of the press; and of the responsibility of Catholics to remain well informed, another essential democratic ideal.  That document, and several others from Vatican II, also use the phrasology "the dignity of the individual", which is as core a principle to democracy as there is.  Nostra Aetate is another document which presents an interesting balance between the core Christian goal of making believers of all people, and of the core democratic ideal of freedom of religion.  Though I myself am no longer Catholic (but am a Christian), I have found this document to present an interesting way to consider the problem of being an evangelical Christian in a pluralistic world.  The quote from Part V, "No foundation therefore remains for any theory or practice that leads to discrimination between man and man or people and people, so far as their human dignity and the rights flowing from it are concerned.  The Church reproves, as foreign to the mind of Christ, any discrimination against men or harassment of them because of their race, color, condition of life, or religion." source.  (bold mine).  I'm not sure the Roman Catholic Church has come out, in the positive or negative, for any specific governmental system, but at least since Vatican II, they have been expressly supportive of western liberal ideals of liberty and freedom which are core values to most democratic systems.  -- Jayron  32  04:32, 30 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Some more relevent catholic documents' from Gaudium et Spes, source
 * chapter II, item 26: "Therefore, there must be made available to all men everything necessary for leading a life truly human, such as food, clothing, and shelter; the right to choose a state of life freely and to found a family, the right to education, to employment, to a good reputation, to respect, to appropriate information, to activity in accord with the upright norm of one's own conscience, to protection of privacy and rightful freedom even in matters religious." (bold mine)
 * Chapter II, item 28: "Respect and love ought to be extended also to those who think or act differently than we do in social, political and even religious matters."
 * Chapter II, item 29: "Human institutions, both private and public, must labor to minister to the dignity and purpose of man. At the same time let them put up a stubborn fight against any kind of slavery, whether social or political, and safeguard the basic rights of man under every political system." (again, as I noted above, respecting liberal ideals of freedom and liberty, without commitment to one political system)
 * Chapter III, section 2, item 71 is in general a defense of private ownership and of western democratic economic systems, especially social democracy and capitalism to some degrees, "Private property or some ownership of external goods confers on everyone a sphere wholly necessary for the autonomy of the person and the family, and it should be regarded as an extension of human freedom."
 * Chapter IV of that document is basically an attack on totalitarianism, and a demand for basic political freedoms. Without expressly defining democracy, it does a pretty good job of attacking antidemocratic systems.  In light of the OP's question, this entire section is probably important, but a few choice quotes:
 * from Item 73: "The protection of the rights of a person is indeed a necessary condition so that citizens, individually or collectively, can take an active part in the life and government of the state."
 * later in Item 73: "However, those political systems, prevailing in some parts of the world are to be reproved which hamper civic or religious freedom, victimize large numbers through avarice and political crimes, and divert the exercise of authority from the service of the common good to the interests of one or another faction or of the rulers themselves."
 * Item 74: "It is clear, therefore, that the political community and public authority are founded on human nature and hence belong to the order designed by God, even though the choice of a political regime and the appointment of rulers are left to the free will of citizens." There we have it. If that bolded clause is not a defense of democracy, I don't know what is.
 * I'll let the OP read the rest of the relevent documents. -- Jayron  32  04:59, 30 November 2010 (UTC)


 * It is also useful to remember that JPII was as zealously anti-communist as Reagan or Thatcher, if not moreso. However, he (and surely other recent popes) was not very fond of unrestrained capitalism, which is sometimes a product of democracy. Adam Bishop (talk) 05:10, 30 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Oh, yes, the document I cited directly above, in Chapter III, does seem to come out more on the side of Scandanavian-style social democracy rather than laissez-faire capitalism. While defending private ownership, it does note that of greater importance is economic responsibility towards the underprivileged, and again while avoiding naming any one economic system, it does make clear that responsible economics works towards socioeconomic equality.  They are clearly on the side of "wealth redistribution" to some extent.  -- Jayron  32  05:26, 30 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Thanks, excellent responses! L ANTZY T ALK 06:10, 30 November 2010 (UTC)

Broad/flattering self-definition
I'm trying to determine if this is an established concept with an accepted nomenclature. Often a partisan of a particular tendency, be it political or philosophical or whatever, will choose to define that tendency very broadly and "rosily", such that it embraces, if not the entire human population, at least a much larger demographic than it actually enjoys. Some examples will illustrate what I mean: Andrew Sullivan's conception of "conservatism" includes just about everyone except for the American right-wing. Libertarians are also especially prone to this practice, frequently concluding that anyone who falls short of Stalinism is a Libertarian "without realizing it". Generally it's marginal or novel political movements that practice this strategy, but I've seen parallels in religions: Scientology comes to mind, with its one-size-fits-all personality tests. The interesting thing is that many political/religious partisans do not do this, and in fact often go the opposite way. Christians and Communists, for instance, often adopt very narrow, exclusive definitions of their respective creeds. I can think of lots of possible neologisms for this phenomenon, but I was wondering if it already had an established name. It would be convenient to have a term on hand so that when this process occurs, I can point it out. L ANTZY T ALK 23:27, 29 November 2010 (UTC)


 * Big tent and populism are related, though neither is exactly what you're looking for. Also related is what my peers call the "law of social proof", which we have no article on:  If you see that many, many people like or dislike something, you are more likely to like or dislike it yourself, or at least, you're more likely to try it out if you see that many, many people like it.  Comet Tuttle (talk) 00:02, 30 November 2010 (UTC)


 * It is sort of like the opposite of the no true Scotsman fallacy. Sort of "only Scotsmen do X, therefore if you do X, you are an honourary Scotsman". Using your example of the Libertarian saying everyone is a Libertarian "without realizing it", you might want to look at this page about the World's Smallest Political Quiz, a quiz used by Libertarians in outreach to convince people that they are Libertarians. (That some Libertarians then go on to complain that everyone calls themselves libertarian without really agreeing on much ought to really prompt them into discontinuing said quiz.) The articles linked that are critical of said test might throw up useful phrases to describe the phenomena you are talking about. –Tom Morris (talk) 02:26, 30 November 2010 (UTC)

First mentions in fiction
Hi. I'm looking for a list of "first mentions" in fiction. First telephone in fiction. First cell phone. First television. Automobiles, airplanes, steam engines, clocks, wristwatch, etc. Does such a list exist? Thanks. -- Quiddity (talk) 23:47, 29 November 2010 (UTC)


 * Technology in science fiction? Also see Science in science fiction which points to articles with their own timelines, like Weapons in science fiction.  Comet Tuttle (talk) 23:57, 29 November 2010 (UTC)


 * Robert A. Heinlein is often credited with writing about waterbeds before they existed in real life. In fact, it's not the only thing.  His article has an entire section devoted to things he presaged.  Dismas |(talk) 00:16, 30 November 2010 (UTC)


 * Great idea Quiddity. I think your idea is the basis of a great new article. I suspect the information you're after is scattered all over the place. Right now I'm really busy but if anyone wants to start it I will be a contributor. H G Wells and Arthur C Clarke would both be major players I reckon. HiLo48 (talk) 01:04, 30 November 2010 (UTC)


 * Off the top of my head, I can see this running into difficulties quite quickly, unless great care was taken in matching the 'real' and 'fictional' with consistency, and defining both. Is Leonardo da Vinci's 'helicopter' drawing 'fiction'? Is it a helicopter at all? Having said that, I'm fairly sure I've seen this subject referred to elsewhere (possibly including academic works), so it should make a good candidate. I'd suggest that those interested do some serious Googleing for books etc on the subject. AndyTheGrump (talk) 01:16, 30 November 2010 (UTC)


 * Just thought of this: The Dreams Our Stuff Is Made Of. Not directly on-topic, but possibly of relevance (and a brilliant title!). AndyTheGrump (talk) 01:19, 30 November 2010 (UTC)


 * And one really cannot omit Sir Francis Bacon's New Atlantis, first published in 1624:
 * We have also engine-houses, where are prepared engines and instruments for all sorts of motions. There we imitate and practise to make swifter motions than any you have, either out of your muskets or any engine that you have: and to make them and multiply them more easily, and with small force, by wheels and other means: and to make them stronger and more violent than yours are; exceeding your greatest cannons and basilisks.  We represent also ordnance and instruments of war, and engines of all kinds: and likewise new mixtures and compositions of gun-powder, wild-fires burning in water, and unquenchable.  Also fireworks of all variety both for pleasure and use. We imitate also flights of birds; we have some degrees of flying in the air.  We have ships and boats for going under water, and brooking of seas; also swimming-girdles and supporters.  We have divers curious clocks, and other like motions of return: and some perpetual motions. We imitate also motions of living creatures, by images, of men, beasts, birds, fishes, and serpents.  We have also a great number of other various motions, strange for equality, fineness, and subtilty.

Michael Douglas's use of a cellphone on the beach in the original Wall Street was probably the first time most people ever saw a cellphone. Edward Bellamy's political sci-fi novel Looking Backward, published in 1888, imagines a sort of subscription radio broadcasting service, albeit connected to homes by telephone wires. -- Mwalcoff (talk) 02:24, 30 November 2010 (UTC)
 * All of you are having trouble spelling Hugo Gernsback. The Bacon reference is quite cool, but Hugo was the one who got modern SF rolling.  He invented sex sometime around 1926. PhGustaf (talk) 02:58, 30 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Er, if Hugo Gernsback (who he) invented sex in 1926, how did people reproduce beforehand? AndyTheGrump (talk) 04:27, 30 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Pre-sexually, clearly. --Mr.98 (talk) 14:29, 30 November 2010 (UTC)
 * The OP says fiction, not just science fiction, btw.
 * Here's a reference to "telephone" from a 1900 play:
 * C. H. CHAMBERS Tyranny of Tears I. 36: (The telephone bell rings.).. There's some one on the telephone forgive me. (Goes to telephone.)
 * –from the OED, which I am sure will be useful for this purpose (even if its efforts in first-usage tracing are not limited to works of fiction...).
 * This seems like something someone would have compiled at some point... whether or not, though, yes, we certainly should, good idea! :) or, wait, no -- I forgot about that whole "WP:NOR" thing... :(  Wiki Dao  &#9775;  (talk)  05:23, 30 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Uh, telephones were relatively commonplace in 1900 and feature in a lot of the fiction from the period. They weren't in private homes yet, but mayors and cops and such would be likely to have one. (IIRC, Sherlock Holmes uses one at some point.)  APL (talk) 08:49, 1 December 2010 (UTC)


 * There are two distinct ways to read this question. The first is, "when did the (existing) technology get mentioned for the first time?", the other is, "when did someone postulate a new technology that later happened to be developed?" The former can be made into a verifiable list without any ambiguity, like the telephone quote above. The latter will end up with tedious arguments about whether the whoosit featured in Amazing Adventures #85 should actually be considered an iPhone or not. (Incidentally, I tend to think the handheld computers in The Mote in God's Eye sound an awful lot like iPhones.) --Mr.98 (talk) 12:37, 30 November 2010 (UTC)


 * The early version of the wireless telephone was mentioned in a funny 1915 song about someone having to spend a whole month's pay to call his girlfriend overseas. Jumping ahead a bit, the 1951 Superman episode called "The Evil Three" has Perry White driving a vehicle with a car phone. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 15:19, 30 November 2010 (UTC)


 * It is not really the "first mention " of a submarine, helicopter, spaceship, or radio some ancient work contains a vague and unworkable description of something that allowed one to travel under the sea, through the air, or to other planets, or to talk to someone at a distance. This sounds like a goldmine of original research, with Wikipedia editors inserting their version of the "first mention" of something they are familiar with, unless a reliable secondary source has judged that the gadget counts as the modern invention. There is a lot of room for creative reading of some description of "far seeing" as either a telescope or television, before either had been invented, or as the supposed psychic "remote viewing" ability. We might also distinguish a science fiction description without the modern name from an account in fiction  after the term has been actually coined, perhaps when some inventor describes, demonstrates, or patents it. Edison (talk) 16:52, 30 November 2010 (UTC)


 * The Dick Tracy comic strip used wristwatch radios back in the 30s. I don't know if they were the first cell phone type objects, but they were early.  Arthur C. Clarke pretty much invented radio satellites and the space elevator.   Corvus cornix  talk  19:03, 30 November 2010 (UTC)
 * The Arthur Clarke thing is a common misconception. Look up Konstantin Tsiolkovsky and Hermann Noordung who were both decades ahead of him. Also, The Machine Stops is a short story from 1909 that sounds eerily like it's describing the Internet and recent social media (but this is going exactly into the direction Mr. 98 foresaw :) TomorrowTime (talk) 19:55, 30 November 2010 (UTC)


 * Of the two things mentioned, what Clarke actually invented was the concept that geostationary satellites would be useful as comsats, and that was in a nonfiction article. He also wrote at least one story, I Remember Babylon, about possible social/political implications of satellite television (bypassing government control, you see), but I don't know if he was the first to do that.


 * In general this is the sort of thing that Wikipedia does very badly in comparison to media controlled by a single editor who can enforce standards, so I hope this does not become a Wikipedia article. But having said that, I can't resist throwing in a mention of Murray Leinster's story A Logic Named Joe.  This was written in 1946 when the world hadn't even settled on the word for a "computer", let alone a personal computer -- that's what "a logic" in the title is.  And yet it describes a network-based information-repository search architecture that is very much like the "web search engines" invented about 50 years later.  Remarkable.  (We know it is, because I just remarked on it.)  --Anonymous, 00:00 UTC, December 1, 2010.


 * (Note that the Memex precedes this by a year, and the World Brain predates even that by a decade. Again, this is why this sort of science fiction thing is impossible, in my opinion, for Wikipedia, because the possibilities are pretty endless and we could be here all day debating.) --Mr.98 (talk) 04:28, 1 December 2010 (UTC)


 * Jules Verne foresaw a lot. 92.29.114.35 (talk) 14:09, 3 December 2010 (UTC)