Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2013 November 4

= November 4 =

Importance of F-117A shootdown? Greatest victory in the history of warfare?
In what was, without any doubt, the most uneven war in the history of the world, in which a small, 9 million people country, alone without any allies, weakened by 10 years of previous international sanctiones, faced the entire NATO pact, which included all the top military forces of the day (mind you, Russia in 1999. was very much different to Putin's Russia), so in what was an extremely uneven fight, I remember when our Air Defense Missile shot the top modern F-117A down it was regarded as a miracle and it was celebrated for days, I remember my father running to the balocony and firing a full clip in the air in celebration, the state TV ran pics of a shot down plane for months and so on...

Now, granted, Milošević and his TV had every interest to exaggerate the importance of this event, especially during the war itself, as it really improved the morale of the entire nation dramaticly. I was a kid then and obviously I was as happy as everyone. But recently, Russian president Putin, while meeting our new president, mentioned this incident and said how great of achivement this was and how examining the part of this plane helped the Russian army and so on... So I was wondering, objectively, how important this event was in the history of the military and history of the world? Would it be fair to say that, given the ratio of the confronted armies, this is one of the greatest achievements in the history of warfare? For years I considered this to be more of a propaganda tool than a serious success, but if president Putin, after almost 15 years, found this to be important enough to mention, then it might actually be more important then first thought: would it be fair to say that the shotdown of F117A is the biggest air-fight victory in the history of warfare (obviously not in scale, but in difficulty)? Was there ever a success similar to this since the war planes were invented up til present day? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.175.92.23 (talk) 00:46, 4 November 2013 (UTC)
 * 1999 F-117A shootdown for our article on the incident. Tevildo (talk) 00:56, 4 November 2013 (UTC)


 * Seems like an exaggeration to me, but in any case I'll just note that we have an article about the incident, 1999 F-117A shootdown. Looie496 (talk) 00:57, 4 November 2013 (UTC)


 * We don't answer shoot down requests for opinions, predictions or debate. Clarityfiend (talk) 02:03, 4 November 2013 (UTC)


 * It was one of the most difficult victories, NATO had total air superiority and it was able to suppress anti aircraft activity almost completely. You only had to switch on your radar for more than a handful of seconds and it was guaranteed that a HARM missile would be on your way. The Attack on H3 is an action of comparable difficulty. Of course, the military impact of that attack was much larger. Count Iblis (talk) 02:39, 4 November 2013 (UTC)


 * The answer to the OP's question would derive from the answer to this question: Who won the war? ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 14:10, 4 November 2013 (UTC)


 * As to how remarkable this was, or whether there were other air conflicts that were as or more remarkable, I could not say. However, it must be understood that this was not a development of any particular importance.  Only a single aircraft was affected, and there was no impact on the outcome of the conflict.  Its primary significance was on the morale of the nation.  Putin or his advisers were aware of this, which is why he mentioned it.  John M Baker (talk) 23:30, 4 November 2013 (UTC)
 * It was a shocking event to those who thought the Stealth was invincible, and makes for an interesting story, but it had no real impact, as the NATO bombings succeeded in liberating Kosovo. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 04:03, 5 November 2013 (UTC)

Why doesn't the Army fake Taliban chatter?
I was just watching a documentary about how soldiers in Afghanistan complain that every time they leave base, they hear Taliban spotters reporting it on the radio. Question: why don't they fake and pervert these communications? For example, they could simply record comments in an area and rebroadcast them randomly day and night. Or why don't they use NSA voiceprint/transcription capabilities and actually take conversations from other places, re-record them automatically with the voices of locals who broadcast recently? Couldn't they use drones, dropped sensors, etc. to spread this kind of confusion all over Afghanistan, and use their own secure network so that their own people can ignore the false communications? Wnt (talk) 00:52, 4 November 2013 (UTC)


 * I'll assume that you have assumed that both the American soldiers and the Taliban are stupid. There is no benefit to the Americans for faking and perverting the chatter on the radio. As soon as the Americans do this, the Taliban would use codes in their chatter and then the Americans will lose their ability to monitor the contents of the chatter. This will make the life of the American soldiers HARDER because now they will have to divert resources to breaking the new code. 202.177.218.59 (talk) 02:12, 4 November 2013 (UTC)


 * Are you asking about the legality of fakery? Or suggesting a battle plan? How is this question remotely referenceable? 71.246.157.82 (talk) 02:20, 4 November 2013 (UTC)


 * Well, it might work once. For example, if the US planned to launch a major operation, they might want to send this kind of counter-intelligence signal right beforehand, to confuse the enemy.  StuRat (talk) 04:14, 4 November 2013 (UTC)


 * Actually, both of the suggestions I made had simple codes in mind: because the Army would be rebroadcasting the Taliban's own communications, just at the wrong times, they should be properly coded. (Unless they actually have a datestamp built in)  And if the codes became really sophisticated, then the Army could still crack them, then use them to riddle out who is telling who the new code.  I mean, the spies make a routine thing out of cracking into SSL and TOR, I think they can handle Taliban on walkie talkies!  But yes, there might be a limited number of fake messages that deliver the best return because they're believed. Wnt (talk) 04:17, 4 November 2013 (UTC)

OP, is there some reason you are convinced that the Army (etc.) doesn't "fake and pervert" enemy communications? DOR (HK) (talk) 05:45, 4 November 2013 (UTC)
 * Was thinking the same thing Nil Einne (talk) 06:13, 4 November 2013 (UTC)
 * Interesting discussion, something no one has yet mentioned with all the sophisticated code technology at the military's disposal (and I am in agreement that they probably are doing this but as stated above, they realize that there are only a few very key opportunities to do so before they are playing coding games for hours on an ever more developing code, while all signals are being more verified by the Taliban et.c)
 * Anyways, given the sophisticated technology why not just . . . triangulate the radio frequencies & do what the military does best, take them out? I might not be up to date here but the one thing I would never do is expose my location via triangulation by yapping into a walkie talkie as a sophisticated and coordinated fighting force is pin pointing my exact location as I'm target painted.  Something tells me that the situation I just described is actually the event that usually happens, and yes I'm aware that it's the roof of the world without easy naval air strike access (landlocked) but as Ron White is apt to say "heck, even Poot could take him out", in many cases at least.  Market St.⧏  ⧐ Diamond Way   07:44, 4 November 2013 (UTC)


 * The Taliban would then do their broadcasts from schools, hospitals, etc., so that the US would bomb those locations. StuRat (talk) 08:05, 4 November 2013 (UTC)


 * I was confused by this at first but then realized that they could move schools and hospitals by the bases to then broadcast from them. The 'optics' of war indeed.  Market St.⧏  ⧐ Diamond Way   01:13, 5 November 2013 (UTC)


 * Perhaps. Or, if there's no hospital or school nearby, they could send a runner to the nearest one and have him broadcast from there. StuRat (talk) 19:39, 5 November 2013 (UTC)


 * Obviously, NATO don't publicise whatever it is they're doing in the way of electronic warfare and SIGINT. The British Army's specialists in this area, 14 Signal Regiment (Electronic Warfare), have had 5 men killed in Afghanistan, so they haven't been sitting on their hands. Alansplodge (talk) 08:30, 4 November 2013 (UTC)


 * One thing to keep in mind about code-breaking is that it is a time-critical exercise. If you cannot distinguish intelligence from a forward scout and someone discussing a shopping list within 10 minutes, then the value of that information is drastically lowered, as the scout may have moved elsewhere. 10 minutes is not a long time for anything that involves multiple parties and possibly a chain of command. Also, a takeout operation is not free. If you send soldiers, you risk an ambush. If you use a sophisticated smart weapon, or a large enough dumb weapon, you are expending significant resources, and you risk collateral damage. And it would be quite easy to fake signals and provoke such strikes. As an aside, I keep remembering the Vincennes engagement with some outrigger-powered rubber dinghies that preceded her shooting down Iran Air Flight 655. If she engaged the boats with her 5 inch guns (probably the cheapest adequate weapon system they had on board), and even if every shot kills a boat, she was still costing more in ammunition than she destroyed in rubber boats. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 11:33, 4 November 2013 (UTC)

That's why I think this question isn't really referenceable. But here's a hot question that a lot of people are wondering about now, that maybe someone here can shed some light on: Isn't it ILLEGAL to take Gaddafi's stockpile of weapons and give them to Jihadist rebels fighting in Syria? 71.246.157.82 (talk) 15:00, 5 November 2013 (UTC)


 * I would expect recognition codes to be changed daily to prevent what OP suggests.--Wikimedes (talk) 20:25, 5 November 2013 (UTC)

search for the meaning of life
Is the search for the meaning of life meaningful? I am referring to the search itself. 220.239.51.150 (talk) 11:40, 4 November 2013 (UTC)
 * It has as much or as little meaning as you decide to ascribe to it. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 14:08, 4 November 2013 (UTC)
 * I can only add that the answer to life, the universe and everything is 42 .--Mark Miller (talk) 14:13, 4 November 2013 (UTC)
 * That was one of Adams' ribs. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 16:47, 4 November 2013 (UTC)
 * I came across a great quote last night, from Pablo Picasso: The reason for living is to find one's passion. The purpose for living is to share it.  He had no comment on the meaning.  But the Sufis had only two rules about the search for enlightenment/meaning: 1. Begin; 2. Continue.  --   Jack of Oz   [pleasantries]  18:52, 4 November 2013 (UTC)
 * I would amend step 2 by adding "until further notice." ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 19:28, 4 November 2013 (UTC)
 * I'm sure the world community of Sufis is indebted to you for that improvement. Are you at all related to King Alfonso X of Castile, known as "El Sabio" ("The Wise")?  He once said: Had I been present at the Creation, I would have given some useful hints for the better ordering of the Universe.  --   Jack of Oz   [pleasantries]  19:37, 4 November 2013 (UTC)
 * The 21 employees of a small linoleum firm shared with me just now that they are passionate about my vinyl flooring. I wish I had attained such enlightenment myself. Card Zero  (talk) 19:59, 4 November 2013 (UTC)
 * The more you search, the less you will find. Count Iblis (talk) 19:31, 4 November 2013 (UTC)


 * You might be thinking of the platitude that the search for the meaning of life is itself the meaning of life. (I most recently heard this offered as a rebuff to Q (Star Trek).) It's a temptingly easy way to get rid of the problem. It's interesting that the opposite conclusion seems to get rid of the problem even faster: if the search for meaning is not meaningful, we might as well stop. However, the meaning of life is probably a massively complex and open-ended idea as described in the article (particularly Meaning_of_life), and the search for it is meaningful but is not in itself the meaning of life. Card Zero  (talk) 20:14, 4 November 2013 (UTC)


 * That depends whether you're looking from a secular or religious perspective. From a secular approach, there is no meaning: life exists because the universe is conducive to it, life's sole end is to cause more life. A particular life is just a probabilistic outcome. As a result, morality is just an evolutionary byproduct. Hence, its definition is not absolute, nor does anyone have the absolute right to condemn you for any amoral action. Moreover, the universe doesn't care about our accomplishments, or lack of. "Do what you want, if you can get away with it." Thus secularly speaking, since there exists no meaning, the search for it is also meaningless. I can't speak about the other religious perspectives, but from a Christian perspective, there is a meaning of life. Discovering it, is quite revealing and rewarding, and I would recommend anyone else to also discover it. It's beautifully simple really, but it bears no effect unless you trust it's veracity. Plasmic Physics (talk) 21:36, 4 November 2013 (UTC)
 * Well, no, because the morality which "is just an evolutionary byproduct" is still real and meaningful. For a minority of people (those few atheists who are authoritarian enough to think they have hold of absolute truth) it can also be seen as absolute: many others consider morality to be purely relative (pure moral relativism), and opposed to that is another viewpoint: that we are continually accumulating knowledge about morality, making it an imperfectly grasped absolute to be aspired to but not reached. The various values listed in the Meaning of Life article under "To do good, to do the right thing" are not selfish (not a matter of "what you can get away with"), but do not entail religion. Card Zero  (talk) 21:52, 4 November 2013 (UTC)
 * Then I posit this: secularly, what reason is there to not be selfish, why should you care about "doing good, or doing the right thing"? Plasmic Physics (talk) 22:28, 4 November 2013 (UTC)
 * Because it is good, and the right thing. And because we don't need imaginary beings telling us so. AndyTheGrump (talk) 22:33, 4 November 2013 (UTC)
 * You miss the point of my question: why should doing the right thing matter to the secular? Plasmic Physics (talk) 22:38, 4 November 2013 (UTC)
 * I need no God looking over my shoulder to act in accordance with who I am. That is built in to me by evolution and my upbringing. There are psychos around the place, I am not one. I doubt that they are reformed by religion - they'd simply see it as something to use. Dmcq (talk) 22:46, 4 November 2013 (UTC)


 * That is what I'm saying, secularly, morality is an evolutionary byproduct, and thus to live a moral life is a moot idea, in relevance to the objective of life. Plasmic Physics (talk) 22:55, 4 November 2013 (UTC)


 * It's a fine question.
 * First, let's agree that it's untrue that human behavior is controlled by an individual's genes. (Nobody mentioned this yet, but I can sense the idea "genes force us to be selfish to further their own reproduction" lurking around, and I want to head it off at the pass).
 * Now, an easy observation: the lack of a reason not to be selfish is not a reason to be selfish.
 * The Ayn Rand followers who see unselfishness as emerging rationally from selfishness probably deserve a mention. They continue to call the result "selfishness", which I think is misleading.
 * It seems relevant to mention the idea of knowledge as non-hierachical (there's surely some Karl Popper reference for this): there's no fundamental fact from which all other facts can be deduced. This gives knowledge a web-like structure, which must also apply to knowledge about morality, so when you ask "from what do you derive your attitude to life in general" I can say "from all my other preferences, feelings and attitudes, and the things they seem to signify". I know that's something of a cop-out, but it's a personal matter and my answer is unlikely to be completely transferable to another person; and a discussion of it is unlikely to be encyclopedic in tone. In essence I believe in a sort of bootstrapping where impersonal values like valuing knowledge (for everyone) emerge gradually from childish attractions to things that are shiny or sweet or fun.
 * Finally: I'm tempted to say I don't know. I have thoughts, but this is not a forum and I'd struggle to provide anything like a reference.
 * Card Zero (talk) 22:52, 4 November 2013 (UTC)


 * I wasn't concerned with your first point on the idea. My objective is to discredit living a moral life, as a valid meaning of life. It is a means to an end rather than an end in itself. Plasmic Physics (talk) 23:02, 4 November 2013 (UTC)
 * That sounds subtle. I was taking "morality" as analogous to "meaning of life" in this context (and "meaning of life" as analogous to "purpose of life"). I generally understand morality to equate to the answer to the question "what to do next?". You are likely understanding the terms a bit differently.
 * If your point is that various forms of unselfish behaviour (such as the generic "helping others to attain their goals") lead to circularity when applied as the sole purpose of life, I completely agree. Card Zero  (talk) 23:12, 4 November 2013 (UTC)
 * "why should doing the right thing matter to the secular". Our brain evolved in a certain way, it executes an algorithm to determine what we should be doing. The concept of "the right thing" and "the wrong thing" are derived from that. Count Iblis (talk) 00:36, 5 November 2013 (UTC)
 * Technically yes, but I think that gives genes undue credit. Technically all other concepts, such as (to pick three at random) "jet engine", "cocktail", and "grandmother" also derive from the evolution of the brain, in that the evolution of the brain provided minds, and minds were capable of creating these ideas; but by the same reasoning you could give the credit to the sun as a vital root cause, or to early bacterial life, or a gas cloud that became the solar system. Really, no, it's minds that did it. (But perhaps you meant to include the evolution of ideas within culture when you say "our brain evolved"?) Card Zero  (talk) 00:51, 5 November 2013 (UTC)


 * Ayn Rand makes some interesting arguments. First, only living beings can actually have values or states of beings that matter to them by nature.  Objects that cannot be destroyed have no reason to act one way or the other.  An indestructible robot would have no natural values--any we programmed into it would be our values parasitically.  Objects like stones cannot act, so even though they can be destroyed, it would be anthropomorphism to attribute values to them.  Hence a system of values can only make sense for living, especially rational animals; and moralities based on the whims of God or categorical imperatives are [my words]unscientific poppycock.


 * She asserts further that an individual's own life is his highest value. This may make some psychological sense, but organisms for which reproduction is not ultimately the highest value go extinct.  Rand did not understand evolution, which she viewed as an open question, and was not a lover of children or family.  Most people either live through their children or sublimate that into their creations or causes.


 * Rand also made two versions of the following argument. The weak version is that if you want to live, and only if you want to live (in the successful long term) is it necessary to pursue certain values in an if, then relationship.  She also tended to more strongly argue that living the rational life was the only moral choice, with rational usually implying sharing her personal values.  That is putting the cart before the horse, and she seems to have used it mainly to browbeat her associates into following her dictates when necessary.  The weaker argument is much more persuasive.  If all you care about is being a great painter, you still need to keep up your health, avoid being jailed, obtain your needed materials and skills through effort, and so on.  In that sense, each person is free to find the meaning of his own life.  And even if that meaning is to kill Hitler, a certain rational plan must be followed.  This is also a premise behind the show Dexter.  To fulfill his own "evil" urges in the conventional sense, Dexter is forced to do "good" so far as the overall scheme.  The weaker version also allows for people like the 9-11 bombers, whose actions were either deluded (their belief in their 72 virgins) or very short term satisfaction of their intense hatred.


 * You can read much of this covered in brief excerpts at the Ayn Rand Lexicon, available on line, and with bibliographical citations. μηδείς (talk) 02:26, 6 November 2013 (UTC)
 * There must be a whole bunch of people around with the belief that they can and should act rationally. As if we had even half a handle on what that means yet. The delusion just seems to lead to them doing stupid things and making themselves and those around them unhappy. Dmcq (talk) 18:28, 6 November 2013 (UTC)
 * Rand's not promising a rose garden. She's just saying you as an individual should pursue your own rational self-interest, as there's no reason (duty to God or the state or others) not to.  She doesn't even have a problem with you dedicating yourself to God or others if it's done in the context of a free country.  Ultimately everyone is his own arbiter of what's rational and what are his own highest values. (This is discussed at length in Rasmussen and Den Uyl's The Philosophical Thought of Ayn Rand.)  Rand (and before her, Agatha Christie) quote the "old Spanish proverb": God said, take what you want, and pay for it. But, of course, if you think robbery is a rational means of living you maybe shouldn't complain if someone shoots you in his own self defense. μηδείς (talk) 22:27, 6 November 2013 (UTC)
 * "You are like this cup; you are full of ideas about Buddha's Way. You come and ask for teaching, but your cup is full; I can't put anything in. Before I can teach you, you'll have to empty your cup." Bus stop (talk) 18:49, 6 November 2013 (UTC)


 * We can't and should. The same goes for being correct about anything else. Card Zero  (talk) 19:46, 6 November 2013 (UTC)

Survivors of the Holocaust
Why were there people to be liberated from the death camps during the Holocaust? What I mean is, the point of the Holocaust was to exterminate various groups that the Nazis felt were inferior, right? So why was there anyone left to rescue other than those who the Nazis hadn't gotten around to killing yet? The people that I often see pictures of were in no condition to do any work for the Nazis, so I don't understand why they would be kept around long enough to have been rescued. Dismas |(talk) 11:34, 4 November 2013 (UTC)
 * Killing and disposing of corpses takes resources, which by the late war, the Germans were in short supply of. It should be noted that they were killing them at a pretty alarming rate.  That the war ended before they got done doesn't mean they weren't trying to finish the job.  According to the article The Holocaust, 6 million Jewish people were killed, not counting other "undesirables".  That's a staggering number.-- Jayron  32  12:15, 4 November 2013 (UTC)
 * Life expectancy for slave labour was low. New slaves were required to replace the slaves who died. Sleigh (talk) 13:24, 4 November 2013 (UTC)
 * There was a show on maybe the History Channel which I was watching recently. One of the survivors talked about how these trains would arrive and many of the ones arriving would be killed within the hour. Presumably some who were young and strong were kept around for that slave labor you refer to. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 14:07, 4 November 2013 (UTC)
 * I think you really have to take into account the way in which the war went, the amount of resources in this particular discussion would appear to be man power. As the German Army began to lose the war and more men were lost to the fight, the very resource needed to kill such a large group of people that had survived the brutal transport to the camps. And there were no short supply of peoples that the Nazis sent to the death camps. Simply put, the output to the death camps exceeded the energy they expelled to eliminate every living person rounded up. Many were kept alive to be that manpower more and more, but by then the math was just overwhelming and you couldn't kill fast enough to just cover up the stupidity. I can't answer your question: "the point of the Holocaust was to exterminate various groups that the Nazis felt were inferior, right?" I don't know what the point of the Holocaust was. Does anyone know the accurate answer to that?--Mark Miller (talk) 14:25, 4 November 2013 (UTC)


 * Michal-Kruk-1943-execution.jpg as punishment for helping Jews, 1943]]


 * I'm not sure that I fully understand the question, which I think that you answer yourself: […] why was there anyone left to rescue other than those who the Nazis hadn't gotten around to killing […]. Some escaped: there were mass escapes from Sobibor and Treblinka, for example - and if you haven't already, you ought to take half-an-hour to read Grossman's Hell of Treblinka - and there was an uprising designed to sabotage the crematoria at Aushwitz. Jan Karski, although not Jewish, deliberately got himself arrested and into Aushwitz, and then escaped from it. In addition, Jews were hidden by their Gentile neighbours - the book 'Forgotten Holocaust' by Richard Lukas, is particularly good on this, but see also the film In Darkness, and also the article Rescue of Jews by Poles during the Holocaust - and Jews themselves hid in the forests - see the book 'Ordinary Men', which describes a German sweep through a forest, and finding Jews hidden in bunkers, and the Bielski partisans. The Polish Underground had a special section, Żegota, dedicated to aiding Jews (see also: Irena Sendler). Other Jews, including the notorious Chaim Rumkowski of the Łódź Ghetto, tried to accommodate themselves to the Nazis through collaboration (see also: Żagiew).


 * Other issues; the Jews in L'vov (which included Simon Wiesenthal) appear to have been almost extraordinarily fatalistic. There were also 'good Germans': Wiesenthal himself was helped to escape by a chap called Adolf Kohlrautz and, of course, there were individuals such as Oscar Schindler and Wilm Hosenfeld. Others, such as Georg Ferdinand Duckwitz, seem to have been motivated by distaste at anti-semitism and he was largely responsible for the almost complete preservation of the Danish Jews. Finally, some Jews escaped by chance: had the British not bombed Dresden, Victor Klemperer would almost certainly have been killed.


 * After the 1942 defeat at Stalingrad and subsequent Red Army offensives, it became increasingly obvious that there had been systematic massacres of the Jews. At the same time, huge resources were being applied by the Nazis not to wage war effectively but to continue the process of mass murder - seen most obviously in the use of rolling stock. (The historian Michael Burleigh in his book The Third Reich: A New History argues pretty convincingly that after Stalingrad the Germans became more interested in exterminating Jews than fighting the Russians.) The SS was busy first trying to destroy the evidence - at Treblinka, for example - and only the Red Army's rapid advance prevented Aushwitz and the remnants of the Łódź Ghetto being sanitised in the same way. After Stalingrad it became increasingly obvious that the war was lost and individuals started trying to use the remnants of the Jews as bargaining chips: see, e.g. Joel Brand and there is some evidence that Himmler was trying to use the Aushwitz Jews, transferred to Bergen-Belsen just in front of the Red Army (a transport that itself demonstrates the militarily absurd use of rolling stock), as some sort of gift to the advancing British.


 * The simple answer is, I suspect, along these lines: that, notoriously, the Nazi high command was always pulling and pushing against itself, as its leaders tried to interpret the wishes and curry favour with Hitler. The extermination camps were (almost) all in Poland, not Germany (which made sense as this was where the main Jewish populations were); and as the decision regarding the 'final solution' was not made until 1942 - which coincided with military reverses - that left a perilously short period in which to carry out the genocide. As it was, the speed of the Soviet advance in the summer of 1944 prevented the complete elimination of Central European Jewry. 86.183.79.59 (talk) 14:57, 4 November 2013 (UTC)
 * Dismas: remember that those in the camps weren't necessarily killed. At some camps, many people weren't killed per se; they were worked to death as slaves, making munitions or other things — killing them outright would have reduced industrial output.  Nyttend (talk) 16:12, 4 November 2013 (UTC)
 * Agree with Nyttend; the Auschwitz-Birkenau complex extended over 40 square kilometres and was vital to the German war effort. Only one part of the complex was used for extermination. The chemical firm of IG Farben had it's own camp, Auschwitz III-Monowitz, which with 12,000 prisoners supplied the labour for a huge synthetic rubber plant. Krupp and Siemens-Schuckert had camps there too - see List of subcamps of Auschwitz. These concerns were kept going as long as possible - you can't wage war without tyres for example. When the Soviets were getting close, the extermination facilities were destroyed and anyone that could walk was marched back towards Germany with the expectation that most would die on the way - see Death marches (Holocaust). The rest were left where they were to die of starvation and typhus. That story was repeated in the many camps all over occupied Poland and Germany.


 * The Allies liberated those who had either survived the death marches (15,000 died on the march from Auschwitz alone) or who were still alive when the camps were liberated - many were in such a bad state that they died after liberation despite medical aid. German efforts to get rid of surviving prisoners included marching 5,000 of them into the sea and shooting them (see Stutthof concentration camp, or packing them into an ocean liner offshore, with the apparent intention of sinking it when full - the RAF sank it anyway, killing 5,000 - see SS Cap Arcona (1927). So there wasn't any lack of effort on the German's part. Alansplodge (talk) 18:01, 4 November 2013 (UTC)


 * There's a difference between death camps (extermination camps) and work camps (arbeitslager). See the Definitions section of the extermination camps article.  Very few people were liberated from the death camps.  Labor needs of Nazi Germany changed throughout the war, and this affected whether prisoners were worked to death or killed outright (or left to die of exposure and hunger in the case of Soviet prisoners of war).  Bloodlands by Timothy Snyder describes this pretty well, though given the subject matter, it's pretty horrifying reading.--Wikimedes (talk) 19:58, 5 November 2013 (UTC)

Arthur C. Clarke
What are some of his most interesting books save for the 2001 series. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.124.224.51 (talk) 15:16, 4 November 2013 (UTC)
 * It would be a matter of opinion, and discussing our favorite books isn't really what this desk is for, however you can peruse his works at Arthur C. Clarke bibliography which lists the books he has published. -- Jayron  32  15:32, 4 November 2013 (UTC)


 * I went through a stage of reading quite a lot of his work some 20 years ago. The best, to me, were Childhood's End and The City and the Stars. 'Childhood's End', I read as a parable about the European Community; the first half in particular.


 * Clarke himself rated Stanisław Lem as the best science-fiction writer.


 * You might also like to look up Harry Harrison, and in particular his Stainless Steel Rat series which are entertaining but not particularly 'challenging', and Iain M. Banks, whose works I am currently ploughing through. His best (so far) is The Player of Games. 86.183.79.59 (talk) 15:55, 4 November 2013 (UTC)


 * Childhood's End is widely considered his masterpiece. The next two in my opinion are The City and the Stars and Rendezvous with Rama.  Beyond those I think his best work is in short stories and novellas, many of which are classics. Looie496 (talk) 16:59, 4 November 2013 (UTC)
 * Childhood's End was conceptually similar to 2001 in a number of ways, or maybe I should say 2001 was similar to Childhood's End. It's an excellent read. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 03:14, 5 November 2013 (UTC)

Oh, my. Childhood's End stank. Still stinks. Stinketh. Imagine a 200-page expansion of a 20-page short story in which demonic aliens (they literally look like devils, horns, batwings, etc.) institute worldwide socialized medicine so that human children can become personless bits of the universal mind. Kind of, "Obamacare induces autistic bliss". Zamyatin's We is positively fun in comparison. Rendezvous with Rama is excellent. That, and 2010 are worth reading. If you are really interested, Kim Stanley Robinson's Icehenge is the best book 'by' Arthur C. Clarke. μηδείς (talk) 03:51, 5 November 2013 (UTC)
 * Hence the slippery slope of the OP's question. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 03:55, 5 November 2013 (UTC)

My biggest gripe with Clarke is I see him as a bit of a one-trick pony. To me it seems that the man cannot write a yarn in which the world does not end, one way or another. That said, a couple of the apocalypses are interesting, provided they're contained within a short story rather than dragging you towards Ragnarok through a whole novel. So I recommend The Star and The Nine Billion Names of God. --Trovatore (talk) 04:00, 5 November 2013 (UTC)
 * Someone still needs to stitch the ending of 2001 with the ending of Dr. Strangelove together, to fulfill that final comments in the 2001 book. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 04:06, 5 November 2013 (UTC)


 * I rather liked Tales from the White Hart and other short stories, his novels not as much. His characters are just so unmemorable, they don't enhance his longer works. (They have to get by on plot; they do, but they could have been so much better.) The only one who stands out to me is Harry Purvis from Tales. Clarityfiend (talk) 06:40, 5 November 2013 (UTC)
 * Hm. I remember Calindy.  But that probably says more about me than about Clarke's powers of characterization :-) --Trovatore (talk) 09:33, 5 November 2013 (UTC)

Case citation help needed
I'm not sure what it is, but something seems wrong with citation #4 at Henderson County, Kentucky — I've tried to put in all the elements from case citation for Handly's Lessee v. Anthony, but it just doesn't look right. What's the correct citation of this decision? Nyttend (talk) 16:19, 4 November 2013 (UTC)
 * Indiana v. Kentucky, 136 U.S. 479 (1890) is the cite for the case at the link. Handly's Lessee v. Anthony, 18 U.S. 374 (1820) is the correct citation for Handly's Lessee.  Coding it in a template would look Handly's Lessee v. Anthony,  - hope that helps.  GregJackP   Boomer!   16:53, 4 November 2013 (UTC)
 * Um, oops; I completely failed to realise that I was linking the wrong case. Thanks for the help, especially with the template coding.  Nyttend (talk) 23:00, 4 November 2013 (UTC)
 * Don't worry even lawyers do that sometimes, and in front of judges!  Market St.⧏  ⧐ Diamond Way  00:01, 5 November 2013 (UTC)