Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2015 June 23

= June 23 =

Were Pope Francis' peace doves ever seen again?
These two. Dead or alive? Proving hard to Google. Also probably hard to tell doves apart, but if one looks pecked, probably easier.

Bonus question: Is this the same gull? InedibleHulk (talk) 05:24, 23 June 2015 (UTC)

A 20-year lightbulb
What would happen if a company started and it made lightbulbs that lasted 20 years? Anna Frodesiak (talk) 05:44, 23 June 2015 (UTC)
 * The company that made a bulb that lasted a century would be unimpressed.
 * More importantly, the 20-year company wouldn't have much to do after the first sales wave. They'd likely close up instead of riding out two decades, and when it came time for the consumers to replace, they'd better hope someone else popped up. InedibleHulk (talk) 05:54, 23 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Some folks (allegedly) didn't care for that scenario, in 1924, but we need additional citations for verification. InedibleHulk (talk) 05:56, 23 June 2015 (UTC)


 * Name one famous eternal flame businessman (not counting gas suppliers). InedibleHulk (talk) 05:57, 23 June 2015 (UTC)


 * Phoebus cartel, interesting. And I'd heard of the Centennial Light.


 * So, a company could do well with one wave of sales if every household bought a few. Why doesn't a company (even an existing company that makes other things) do it? Anna Frodesiak (talk) 06:45, 23 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Depends how you define "well". Blue chip companies prefer to increase profits every fiscal year (and quarter), especially corporations like the Phoebus fellows. Gives shareholders confidence, and pays for the overhead and growth. One could perhaps get rich quick and cash out with lightbulbs like these, but they'd take a loss selling the factory and other physical assets when they do. These things depreciate as a matter of course, and if nobody needs new lightbulbs, nobody wants to buy a lightbulb factory or its equipment. Not for twenty years, anyway. InedibleHulk (talk) 08:09, 23 June 2015 (UTC)
 * This place used to be bright. InedibleHulk (talk) 08:23, 23 June 2015 (UTC)


 * ( Edit conflict with Nil Einne below. ) A British company called Wynne Industries did exactly this in the UK many years ago (1970s I think). They advertised their lightbulbs as "everlasting", and gave a lifetime guarantee. Of course, by the time the lightbulbs started failing, the company had gone out of business. In those days, the only widely-marketed option was incandescant bulbs, and the way to increase lifetime was simply to make the filament thicker, with the side-effect that the bulb produced more heat and less light. The 1000-hour (or 2000-hour) standard lightbulb was a compromise between longevity and light output. Now that LED bulbs are available, much longer lifetimes are possible (20 years, based on six hours per day, is actually manufactured), but the same compromise is made between longevity and brightness.  D b f i r s   07:53, 23 June 2015 (UTC)
 * So, it's about company profit, okay. Well, I wonder what each person spends on lightbulbs in 20 years (A buck a person per year?). Maybe some sort of mass co-op would be the way to go. Everyone shares the cost of making a factory. Anna Frodesiak (talk) 08:47, 23 June 2015 (UTC)
 * That's basically what happens in any publicly traded corporation. For about the price of a bulb a year for twenty years (minus electricity), you can buy a piece of General Electric (I think they still do lightbulbs). As owner, you're entitled to demand better bulbs, but you have to convince the others. A controlling interest would make things simpler, but will set you back about the price of a bulb a year for 138.2 billion years (minus electricity). InedibleHulk (talk) 09:16, 23 June 2015 (UTC)
 * InedibleHulk: But a handful of people own the fast majority of shares. Buyin a share in GE wouldn't help. Couldn't it be a co-op where citizens each own a single share, or maybe a government thing? Anna Frodesiak (talk) 17:12, 23 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Sure, in theory. Wouldn't fly in the current capitalist world. And the problem of control would be even greater, with a whole country (or town or continent, or whatever) each owning equal pieces. Eventually one or two powerful blocs would form, and we'd be back where we are now. Probably. Speculation isn't great for these desks. InedibleHulk (talk) 01:34, 24 June 2015 (UTC) 01:34, 24 June 2015 (UTC)


 * You may be happy to know seven countries (six if you don't count Québec) have nationalized electric companies. They don't make the bulbs, but they make them work. America has several companies called "National Electric Company". The one in Middlesex, New Jersey has the simplest corporate website I've ever seen. Good for them, those things waste energy. InedibleHulk (talk) 03:53, 24 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Nope, no more lightbulbs. Just "Bright Stiks". $9.97 for three, "rated to last" 14 years. InedibleHulk (talk) 09:32, 23 June 2015 (UTC)
 * 14 years. Not bad. Maybe they're sick of buying up companies who make 13 year bulbs. :) Anna Frodesiak (talk) 17:14, 23 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Speaking of General Electric, their apparent infinite money hack makes it seem quite likely they'd simply buy this new company and its patents for a billion dollars or so over value, before the bulbs ever hit shelves. So long, Alstom! Never heard of you, Albeo! There was a National Electric Light Association? InedibleHulk (talk) 12:24, 23 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Note that LED lights could potentially last 10 years or more. I don't believe many LED light bulbs are likely to at the moment, particularly since they may still have poor heatsinking and many of the diodes or arrays on them are probably not the best quality. Also even if they do last 10 years, they may have faded enough by that time it's worth replacing them anyway. It gets even worse if people use them in situations they aren't designed for, e.g. in an enclosure without proper airflow. Still I can imagine some fixtures with fixed non removable LEDs lasting 5-10 years. Of course in the long term, one problem is that any manufacturer can claim they last that long, there standards they use to come up with such claims may be slack (or in some countries there may be no consequence for them claiming it despite having no real reason for it) such that the consumer doesn't have much reason to trust them. And there may be no reliable international or national that is used for such longevity claims. (And given the tremendous advances in white LEDs, such claims are likely to based on artificial aging or hoping that the MTBF remains predictable and other such things for a long time yet.) Theoretically sellers could provide some guarantee of such long lifes, but I'm not sure anyone is as there are numerous issues which make this problematic. (Again particularly for bulbs instead of fixtures, since the bulbs are far more likely to be used in situations they weren't desgined for.) A related issue is that considering the difficulty knowing who to trust, you can't really say whether manufacturer B who is twice the price of A, is twice the price because their lights are much more likely to last the promised 10 years or whatever. And even if you can be sure it, the rapid advances of LEDs means that you may not consider it worth spending double the price for the longer lasting fixture. Nil Einne (talk) 07:24, 23 June 2015 (UTC)


 * Nanoleaf bulbs have that life span. 184.147.138.101 (talk) 11:13, 23 June 2015 (UTC)


 * See our article on Planned obsolescence. Blueboar (talk) 12:30, 23 June 2015 (UTC)
 * I'd already pipelinked that, but we couldn't technically see it. InedibleHulk (talk) 12:38, 23 June 2015 (UTC)
 * That is why we should generally avoid clever piping when posting references here ;) SemanticMantis (talk) 15:29, 23 June 2015 (UTC)
 * The problem wasn't cleverness this time, just sloppiness and forgetfulness. Wrote the text first, then went back for the links when they struck me. But yeah, I pipe a lot on talk and desks. It's Cracked.com's fault, I think. InedibleHulk (talk) 01:29, 24 June 2015 (UTC)
 * I had such a incandescent light bulb. It put out a dim orange light and was filled with krypton gas.  The combo of low temperature, a thick filament, and that krypton gas filler apparently made it last a really long time.  But I just bought a bunch of CFL bulbs for 25 cents each yesterday, so I really don't care if they only last a few years each. StuRat (talk) 17:26, 23 June 2015 (UTC)


 * In terms of profitability and business model, you might try looking at other long-lasting products. Washing machines come to mind.  There may be tools that last 20 years with prices closer to that of a light bulb - screwdrivers, handsaws?  Currently I believe that lighting technology is a rapidly advancing field, so "planned obsolescence" may dominate other effects at the moment.--Wikimedes (talk) 18:25, 24 June 2015 (UTC)


 * I don't think cost is as important of a factor as convenience of replacing the item. After all, you can have very expensive bottles of wine, which are, of course, only good for one use (well, maybe you can recork it and finish it over the next few days).  It's the difficulty involved in replacement that's the issue.  With a bottle of wine, you just put the old bottle in the recycle bin and grab the next bottle off the shelf.  With a screwdriver you probably have extras, so it's no problem if one breaks.  With light bulbs, some are a bit difficult to replace, so you don't want them burning out every week, but it's not like a washing machine where you can't do any laundry, as you probably don't have an extra, and have to schedule a special shopping trip and then delivery/removal to get a replacement.  Then you have to learn how to use the new model.  You obviously don't want to go through that very often. StuRat (talk) 18:41, 24 June 2015 (UTC)

Thank you, InedibleHulk, Nil Einne, Blueboar, StuRat, Wikimedes, Dbfirs, and 184.147.138.101. Very educational feedback, and much appreciated. :) Anna Frodesiak (talk) 17:19, 27 June 2015 (UTC)

Can the Confederate States Constitution be changed?
After the Charleston church shooting there has been a big push in the U.S. to have some Confederate flag near the South Carolina capitol taken down as a racist symbol, Wal-Mart has banned sales of confederate flags, and there are probably other such pushes. The defenders of the flag often argue it is meant to honor history or local culture rather than racism and slavery. Which makes me wonder...

Is it "legally" possible for the legislatures of all the states that were part of the Confederate States of America to simply pass bills calling for the Confederate States Constitution to be changed to prohibit slavery and racial discrimination? Since it's a fork of the U.S. constitution, this basically means passing the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments to the U.S. constitution as the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments to the Confederate States of America constitution. The CSA streamlined its amendment process, requiring only a vote of state legislatures or constitutional conventions to do it, though there's one worrisome bit in the text that the Confederate Congress was supposed to "summon" them. So would it make sense, in a legal way, to change the constitution of a defeated country so that it is not associated forever with the wrong doctrines of its time?

I don't know, this idea seems like such an obvious way to put the past to rest I wonder if it's actually been proposed sometime in the past 150 years. Has it? Wnt (talk) 15:42, 23 June 2015 (UTC)
 * No, that document has no legal standing within the United States, any more than any of a number of other expired, defunct, or now invalid documents would. The CSA doesn't exist anymore, and any of its constitutional or legal documents are irrelevant in the modern world.  The Civil War in a de facto sense and the landmark court case Texas v. White in a legal sense established that the CSA was not a legal entity, even when it existed, so not only would it's constitution be irrelevant today, legally, it wasn't even considered valid when it actually existed.  So no, your proposal has no merit or standing.  It's pretty silly.  -- Jayron 32 15:51, 23 June 2015 (UTC)


 * (ec)The flag in question in Charleston was raised in 1961 as a protest against the civil rights movement. It has remained there because too many state politicians have been afraid of challenging it. But in the wake of the recent shootings, it looks like the tide is finally turning. As to the CSA, it does not exist, so amending its former constitution would be about as useful as amending the Articles of Confederation. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 15:54, 23 June 2015 (UTC)
 * That's covered at Flags_of_the_Confederate_States_of_America - apparently they moved it from the top of the capital in 2000, but had to be darn sure they still flew it, and that it would be prominently displayed. In fact, they knew people still object, so they made sure that "Current state law prohibits the flag's removal from the State House grounds without additional legislation." SemanticMantis (talk) 16:12, 23 June 2015 (UTC)


 * Even if your final sentence were a possible move, that wouldn't fix anything - see Whitewash_(censorship) and Historical_revisionism_(negationism). Nobody has to like it, but we all have to admit that the enslavement of black people played and important and pervasive role in US history. SemanticMantis (talk) 16:18, 23 June 2015 (UTC)
 * The rebel flag is a symbol of white supremacy. If someone wants to put it on their car, that's one thing. But when the state raises and refuses to lower it, the state is giving support to white supremacy. They talk about "heritage" and such, as an excuse for keeping it there. But that's not why it was raised in 1961 - it was a white supremacy statement. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 16:22, 23 June 2015 (UTC)
 * It's a symbol of whatever the viewer associates the Confederacy with. Same as any flag. Some people never let one wrinkle or fade, some spit on and burn them, some don't care at all. All decisions make total sense, but never to the others.
 * Anyway, the excuse this time isn't heritage or such, only a law prohibiting it, which the area's elected representatives have chosen not to repeal. Governors are damned if they follow the laws or break them. Or whether they spend money here or there. It's not as cushy a job as it's cracked up to be. Just pays well. InedibleHulk (talk) 08:42, 24 June 2015 (UTC)
 * There was some sort of referendum in about 2001 which upheld the idea of the flag, and the supporters are now saying it's "the will of the people" to keep the flag there. Or at least it was in 2001. Just yesterday the state legislature passed a measure just to allow discussion of it. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 13:20, 24 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Yeah, legislation's a tedious process. Pretty much everything about this form of government is. Par for the course, though. It's not like this issue is particularly sandbagged. Actually seems a bit fasttracked, to me, due to the hype. I could be wrong. InedibleHulk (talk) 03:08, 25 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Also, sometimes the people are wrong. The Founding Fathers of the United States certainly thought they frequently were.  The rightness or wrongness of an idea is not dependent on how many people support it.  -- Jayron 32 03:11, 25 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Not sure what Jayron's point is here and what he is responding to. Contact Basemetal   here  12:42, 25 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Bugs used the words "will of the people" as a rationale for a decision made by a government. I was pointing out that such "will of the people" was not a primary concern of the U.S. Founding Fathers in establishing the U.S. system of governance, and linked to an article which explains why not.  -- Jayron 32 17:27, 25 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Yes but Bugs seems to mention a referendum which I presume was a legal referendum. Are you suggesting that results of referendums be ignored because "sometimes the people are wrong"? Or are you saying referendum results should be taken into consideration only if the people are not wrong? And who is to determine that? What's the point of organizing referendums in the first place then? Contact Basemetal   here  19:58, 25 June 2015 (UTC)
 * If you, my friend, can answer that, you'll have solved all of politics. Humanity has been working towards that for thousands of years, and progress has been rather incremental in answering your question regarding the balance between doing what is right and doing what is popular.  Certainly, the will of the people has a role in governance, but there are always checks and balances to ensure that the people, when they are wrong, can be stopped.  The issue of what the proper balance is has plagued humanity since the first people came down from the caves and organized society.  -- Jayron 32 02:01, 26 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Determining what's right is even more difficult that finding the right balance between what is popular and what is right (which of course requires that you know what is right in the first place). Checks and balances do not ensure that the people when they are wrong can be stopped. They simply ensure that the people can be stopped period. There's nothing and there can be nothing in the mechanism of checks and balances itself that's able to distinguish between stopping the people when they're wrong and stopping the people when they're right. It's a pretty optimistic view that every time the people are stopped it is because they are wrong. The same checks and balances are able to stop them even when they're right. So you see this problem is even more difficult than you think. Contact Basemetal   here  02:24, 26 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Well, that of course presumes that the "rightness" of every human decision, from every single individual choice you or I or anyone else makes, up to any collective vote or law or anything else, is entirely random and purely arbitrary and up to chance no better than "dumb luck". I'm not sure there's any evidence that human society is that unpredictably random, nor is the knowledge of "rightness" so arbitrary as to evade any possible understanding by anyone.  -- Jayron 32 02:40, 26 June 2015 (UTC)
 * "Difficult to determine" does not mean "random". There's essentially three attitudes to these sorts of questions: (1) relativism: there's no such thing as "right", right is completely subjective, it is random, rightness is in the eye of the beholder, etc. ("One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter" and all that); (2) dogmatism: "right" is an objective notion and rightness is actually very easy to determine, everybody knows what it is and (of course) I know exactly what it is; (3) between the two as it were (I don't know a name for it), but not really; it is really closer to (2): "right" is indeed an objective notion but it's not that easy to determine what is right, we (human beings) are groping in the dark, finding out what is right is a work in progress for both individuals and human societies, it takes a lot of effort to determine what is right and even when we think we've got it we can never be sure because we only have a limited intelligence, that limited intelligence can be clouded by prejudice, dishonesty, etc. Of course for practical purposes we need to decide what is "right" or we would never be able to choose any course of action but we should always keep in mind that we could be wrong and be ready to modify what we think is "right" when confronted to reality. What is somewhat amusing is that proponents of view (1) and (2) often mistake view (3) for view (2) and (1) respectively. Contact Basemetal   here  03:17, 26 June 2015 (UTC)
 * You're either with us, or against us. View 3...bah! InedibleHulk (talk) 03:47, 26 June 2015 (UTC)
 * They say in any war, who was right doesn't matter, only who was left. Or something like that. It'd be a shame to have another Civil War break out, leaving American schoolchildren of 2165 to wonder whether the actual cause was freedom or slavedom again. All the same pile. Can't control someone's freedom without the freedom to do so. There is no randomness and the only right way is always going to be the only way things go, because no other ways do. We're slaves to the fourth dimension, and we should be pissed off at that instead. Constantly! InedibleHulk (talk) 03:11, 26 June 2015 (UTC)

The actual cause of the civil war was over freedom, not slavedom206.87.111.137 (talk) 06:02, 26 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Confederacy apologists have long been saying that. It's a lie. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 15:51, 26 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Not just apologists. I'm a relatively uninvolved Canuck, and that's how it looks to me. Something about rebellion, and even you call it a "rebel flag". Rebels fight against their own masters, even when the contentious issue is mastering someone else. If the whole country had agreed black slavery was alright (or not alright), there wouldn't have been a civil war. InedibleHulk (talk) 21:12, 26 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Read the link below, which lays it on the line. And as I said, all roads to the Civil War lead back to slavery. There is no getting around that. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 21:18, 26 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Everything is preceded by something. What caused the slavery movement? What caused the anti-slavery movement? I'm only talking about the things that immediately caused the war, not the things that immediately caused the secessions.
 * According to Wikipedia, the Battle of Fort Sumter "started the American Civil War".InedibleHulk (talk) 21:25, 26 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Yes, it was the first battle. It didn't "cause" the war, though. As to what caused the slavery movement, it was cheap labor, eventually justified further by the invention of the Cotton gin. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 21:40, 26 June 2015 (UTC)
 * OK, then by "roads lead back" logic, money greed was the root of this evil, too. Unless you want to arbitrarily stop at another intermediate point in the chain. As far as the sources tell me, there was no war till some states tried to leave, and the Federal government punished them for it. InedibleHulk (talk) 21:46, 26 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Though yeah, sometimes it makes sense to just say "slavery". InedibleHulk (talk) 22:13, 26 June 2015 (UTC)
 * The south had had their way for a while, including some very spineless presidents ahead of Lincoln. Once Lincoln was elected, they knew their game was up, and they decided (illegally) to withdraw from the Union. They made the mistake of attacking Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor, and from that moment they were doomed - there was no way they could outlast the north. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 01:38, 27 June 2015 (UTC)
 * No argument from me. "You can't fight City Hall". Unsurprisingly, at least one "Union" colonel predicted in 2012 the same crushing defeat for the hypothetical 2016 return match. Only starts a two-hour drive from Charleston, allegedly. InedibleHulk (talk) 01:53, 27 June 2015 (UTC)


 * Here's how the State of Mississippi justified its secession from the Union:


 * A Declaration of the Immediate Causes which Induce and Justify the Secession of the State of Mississippi from the Federal Union.


 * In the momentous step which our State has taken of dissolving its connection with the government of which we so long formed a part, it is but just that we should declare the prominent reasons which have induced our course.


 * Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery -- the greatest material interest of the world. Its labor supplies the product which constitutes by far the largest and most important portions of commerce of the earth. These products are peculiar to the climate verging on the tropical regions, and by an imperious law of nature, none but the black race can bear exposure to the tropical sun. These products have become necessities of the world, and a blow at slavery is a blow at commerce and civilization. That blow has been long aimed at the institution, and was at the point of reaching its consummation. There was no choice left us but submission to the mandates of abolition, or a dissolution of the Union, whose principles had been subverted to work out our ruin. That we do not overstate the dangers to our institution, a reference to a few facts will sufficiently prove. [Beginning of the Declaration of Secession of the State of Mississippi].


 * You can find here the declarations of secession of five southern states and decide for yourself whether it is true that secession (and thus the Civil War) had nothing to do with the preservation of the institution of slavery.


 * Contact Basemetal   here  16:45, 26 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Very good. No matter how Confederate-loving revisionists try to rationalize it, every one of their reasons inevitably leads back to slavery. At least Mississippi was honest about it. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 21:10, 26 June 2015 (UTC)


 * Fun Fact: Googling "confederate lemonade" (the South reminds me of lemonade and riverboats) highlights "war" in the results. And "confederate riverboats" highlights civil war instead. Go figure. InedibleHulk (talk) 02:11, 27 June 2015 (UTC)