Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2016 June 3

= June 3 =

Why aren't World's Fairs as big as they used to be?
They overshadowed the 1900 and 1904 Olympics. They used to build enormous monuments just for them like the world's tallest structure (Eiffel Tower). I wonder if most first worlders have a clue where the last one was (Milan, Italy). Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 09:00, 3 June 2016 (UTC)


 * It depends on where it is held. Countries which have already seen two or six of them (e.g. the US) don't tend to see them as a big deal, but for countries that have not had one before, it still is. Expo 2010 in China, for example, was a huge deal for China, involving the relocation of many people, the leveling of whole neighbourhoods, the building of new metro lines, and generally a huge amount of lead-up propaganda throughout China for years beforehand trumpeting it as marking a patriotically significant moment when China takes another step onto the world stage. According to our article Expo 2010, the homes of 18,000 people were confiscated, the historic Jiangnan Shipyard, employing 10,000 people, was leveled, $48 billion was spent - amongst other ridiculous/astonishing statistics. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 09:54, 3 June 2016 (UTC)


 * Some thoughts:


 * 1) There are many other options for people who want to get together for a big event, like sports events, such as the Superbowl or the Olympics (back then the Olympics were no big deal).


 * 2) There are other options for permanent entertainment venues, like Disneyland/Disney World, theme parks, etc.


 * 3) There are travelling shows, like car shows, and bands.


 * 4) Many of the things which could previously only be viewed (well) in person at a world's fair can now be viewed on video, anywhere.


 * So, with all this added competition, the losers seem to be world's fairs/expos, and also include state fairs, camp meetings, and circuses; at least in the US. StuRat (talk) 20:25, 3 June 2016 (UTC)


 * Makes sense. No more Space Needles and Unispheres and Flushing Meadow Parks then maybe. I've never actually heard of camp meetings before. Is it a regional thing? Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 23:55, 3 June 2016 (UTC)


 * They used to be widespread in the US. If you like The Grapes of Wrath or Elmer Gantry, you will read accounts of them in both books.  There was also a Simpsons episode where Bart became a faith healer in a tent, which is reminiscent of the old camp meetings.   StuRat (talk) 00:12, 4 June 2016 (UTC)
 * The line from America the Beautiful which starts "Thine alabaster city's gleam" was specifically inspired by the Chicago fair of 1893, the "White City". ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 18:33, 5 June 2016 (UTC)

Note that for some time there have been two categories of World's Fair: see World's Fair. The larger ones used to be called "universal", though according to the article that designation is no longer official. The Milan fair was of that type, and according to Wikipedia its grounds covered about the same area as the 1900 fair, although it's true that some others have been a lot larger. --69.159.60.83 (talk) 05:02, 4 June 2016 (UTC)

Comparative Prices at Burger King
When I saw the menu, I did some quick mental math calculations to see how much money I would spend if I had swapped out the soft drink in the veggie burger meal for a bottled water. If I did that, I would have to purchase the veggie burger, fries and bottled water separately. Compared to the veggie burger meal, which includes a drink, small fries, and veggie burger, I mentally computed that I would spend about 60 cents more for separates. So, I just ordered the veggie burger meal and went to the soft drink dispenser to deliver Dasani fruit-flavored, carbonated water. Why is it cheaper to order the veggie burger meal than order the separated veggie burger with French fries and bottled water? 66.213.29.17 (talk) 18:13, 3 June 2016 (UTC)


 * That's a quantity discount. They want to sell food in quantity so they can sell more, and getting people to buy combo meals is one way to do that.  Of course, you could buy more food À la carte, but most people don't, so they don't offer a quantity discount for that.


 * Also, for some reason they seem to offer junk food cheaper than healthy food, even when the junk food seems like it should cost more. They have constant sales on fried sandwiches, fries, and soft drinks, but you almost never see sales on salads, bottled water, veggie burgers, etc., at Burger King.  I've wondered why this is myself.  Logically bottled water should cost less to produce than soda, as soda is water plus sugar and other additives.  Presumably the brand name costs money, but the same is true of Coke an Pepsi.  Bottled water is marketed as coming for "mountain springs" and such, but much of it is just tap water, so I don't see why it's so expensive to make.  BTW, you can save money by just asking for a cup for water (there's a tiny lever on the side of one of the spouts for that), or better yet, bring your own drink.  StuRat (talk) 18:38, 3 June 2016 (UTC)


 * True, but there's some circular logic at work too. That is, because it's more expensive, they don't advertise healthy foods or put them on sale, and in some cases don't even list them on the menu, all of which means they sell less, and lack a volume discount, which makes it more expensive, and the cycle continues.  Also, some healthy foods are cheap, like beans (healthy when not mixed with salt and lard), eggs (a bit high in cholesterol, but good overall), and sweet potatoes (just don't fry them and cover them in marshmallows) so you would think they could offer those as cheap sides.  A dozen large eggs are 50 cents at the grocery store here right now, so it seems to me there's considerable room for profit there. StuRat (talk) 18:42, 5 June 2016 (UTC)


 * At least in the U.S., agricultural subsidies are a very important factor. The single biggest subsidy goes to corn, which is used as livestock feed and for making HFCS. --71.110.8.102 (talk) 09:17, 4 June 2016 (UTC)

Inheritance of government by blood
When an individual inherits the power to rule over a country simply because s/he is directly related to the previous ruler in the main line of descent, what justifies his/her power to rule? Why do people value inheritance-by-blood in the first place in government? Why was this form of government so common? Are the people ever worried that the next ruler, who may be intellectually handicapped or morally questionable, may be unfit to rule? 66.213.29.17 (talk) 18:42, 3 June 2016 (UTC)


 * See divine right of kings. People used to think that kings and queens were a different, better type of person, handpicked by God.  Of course, this all seems quite silly today.  And, as a practical matter, if there weren't strict rules of inheritance of the throne, you would get a civil war every time the old ruler died, with each side supporting their candidate.  And they still had civil wars when the next person in line for the throne wasn't clear or wasn't up to the job.  There were (and are) some few places with an elected monarch, which is an interesting hybrid with democracy.   StuRat (talk) 18:44, 3 June 2016 (UTC)
 * Although that doesn't explain modern examples such as Bashar al-Assad, Kim Jong-un and Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan (the President of the United Arab Emirates). Gamal Mubarak of Egypt nearly pulled-off the same trick. I found Modern cases of inherited dictatorships, but Wikipedia doesn't seem to have an article about this. Alansplodge (talk) 23:15, 3 June 2016 (UTC)


 * It should be noted that the "divine right of kings", though it is popularly misunderstood, was really only a political philosophy of a small window of European history. It really only applied to European monarchy from about the middle 16th century through the end of the 18th century (about 150 years or so).  Prior to the 16th century, kingship was tied to either land (under feudalism), whereby the King had allodial title to the land, and granted right to the land under tenancy to his subjects.  The Kings title to the land was passed down to his heirs by either tradition, inheritance laws, or his expressed will, just as any title can be passed down.  Kings could also claim land by right of conquest instead of right of inheritance.  There was no invocation of "divine right" for centuries, merely the rights of property.  Really, the divine right was an innovation of the 16th century as a novel way to justify kingship after the end of feudalism.  There was also the concept of popular monarchy (that is the king of a people as their leader, rather than king as the owner of land).  Popular monarchy actually bookends the two other types of monarchy; prior to feudalism monarchs were leaders of groups of people, who were often mobile and not tied to a specific plot of land (pre-Norman kings of England were usually styles "King of the Anglo-Saxons" or "King of the English", for example).  After the age of the Divine Right kingships, it became a way to represent a liberalization of monarchies, such as the monarchy of the "Citizen King", Louis Philippe I of France.  Such monarchical styles were popular during the revolutionary 19th century.  These forms led eventually to the constitutional monarchy of modern times.  -- Jayron 32 01:30, 7 June 2016 (UTC)
 * When there's a heir apparent, that heir apparent tends to get groomed from an early age to assume the mantle of leadership. Doesn't mean this person is cut out to be the ruler, as we've seen far too many times in history, but I suspect that's a big part of the reason. Especially in more traditional societies, when a blacksmith's son became a blacksmith, and a butcher's son became a butcher... it just becomes too easy to assume the ruler's son becomes a ruler. As to whether the people would worry about the ruler, they probably didn't know enough about the high-level workings of their society to worry. Feudalism complicates this a lot, of course. —/M endaliv /2¢/Δ's/ 23:28, 3 June 2016 (UTC)


 * The notoriously inbred Habsburg dynasty produced some rulers that were definitely unfit to rule, I'm thinking here of Charles II of Spain. TammyMoet (talk) 16:27, 4 June 2016 (UTC)


 * We have a redirect on Habsburg lip. Another monarchist argument (besides the half century of grooming by the best tutors) is that monarchs are well bred (like Secretariat). But really they were so obsessed with royal blood like they were a superior species that they inbred till the king was too deformed to chew. At the very beginning the king may have been an exceptional leader (like George Washington) but they probably had no clue that a gene pool of under like 1-4 thousand people will become inbred even if you're not screwing your cousins (which they did sometimes). Only the upper number is for random marriages I believe. Also that was from such a violent period that what made a leader exceptional was mostly military skill, they even lead the combat themselves. This is less relevant now (especially in constitutional monarchy). It seems like the genes of men who lead armies in combat would make it easier to have cruel tyrant kings like Vlad the Impaler or overconfident idiots pop up later in the dynasty. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 18:49, 4 June 2016 (UTC)


 * I am reminded of a memo, allegedly written by Prince Charles, which was read into the public record during an employement tribunal a decade ago. The heir to the throne expresses his astonishment at people reaching beyond their station.
 * "What is wrong with people nowadays? Why do they all seem to think they are qualified to do things far above their capabilities?" the prince exclaims. "This is all to do with the learning culture in schools. It is a consequence of a child-centred education system which tells people they can become pop stars, high court judges or brilliant TV presenters or infinitely more competent heads of state without ever putting in the necessary work or having the natural ability. It is a result of social utopianism which believes humanity can be genetically engineered to contradict the lessons of history."
 * Irony does not appear to be his strong suit. Carbon Caryatid (talk) 22:14, 4 June 2016 (UTC)


 * The frequency with which stereotypes and rumors dominate this area is evident even here, where supposedly respondents are trying to give objective answers. You will hear endless citations of the Habsburg inbreeding problem attributed to Charles II of Spain or the would-be Dauphin of France François d'Orléans, due to a few generations of cousin and uncle/niece marriages, as proof that "inbreeding" rendered royalty exceptionally grotesque, degenerative, shortlived and unfit for the roles history assigned them. Those who give such cites conveniently forget the numbers of living cultures in which marriage to a cousin is the desired norm, or that the intellect, ingenuity, fecundity and allure of Cleopatra, descended from seven generations of brother-sister marriages, would argue far more strongly in favor of intra-marriage than against, if we're going to substitute anecdote for analysis. So take these old wives tales with a grain of salt. It is not that they are never true, it is that genetic variety seems to require relatively little distance in consanguinity between relatives for recessive genes to be sufficiently diluted to obviate deleterious outcomes. The real rule is: garbage in, garbage out. If your near ancestors tended to be healthy, intelligent or long-lived, you are likely to benefit from that tendency. If not, not. But tendency is not destiny. People have historically tended to ascribe leadership qualities to the relatives of leaders because it seems intuitive to do so: we tend to assume that people's salient traits are more likely to be inherited by their relatives than at random, so we tend to bet on those relatives more often than on others when seeking leaders. We do it very often in politicians (and film stars, singers, athletes, etc), not merely royalty. We are often wrong. FactStraight (talk) 00:02, 5 June 2016 (UTC)
 * All I did was give a link to our article on Charles II of Spain. Perhaps you would like to amend said article to put the record straight, if you're saying that what is in there is not the case? --TammyMoet (talk) 09:11, 5 June 2016 (UTC)
 * I think the financial aspect plays a large part in this.  Being a monarch is an expensive business.   When he dies his wealth passes to his heir, who succeeds to the throne and has the funds to pay all the expenses.   Someone else wouldn't have that advantage. 151.224.132.45 (talk) 12:09, 5 June 2016 (UTC)
 * Historically, various royal families claimed descent from a divine or heroic ancestor. (Example: Anglo-Saxon kings were supposedly descended from Woden).  This should mean that people of that family are inately, magically, better than ordinary people.  Note that this wouldn't necessarily result in the son inheriting from the father - in many societies the top nobles would get together to choose the next king, from a pool of all those eligible (e.g. [[Tanistry in ancient/medieval Scotland).  The advantage of such a system is that it avoids the problem of the next in line to the throne being mad/stupid/otherwise unsuitible, and ensures general acceptance by the people (or at least, those that count).  The problem is that it makes for a lot of infighting, as various would-be kings try to fix the vote in their favour by e.g. killing off the other candidates or their supporters.  An alternative way of choosing the successor is for the current king to choose him.  This should have the advantages of avoiding mad/sickly kings, while also ensuring continuity with the policies of the previous king.  The Romans did quite well for a while using this system, until one of them (sorry, can't remember who, and can't find a reference at the moment) decided to make his son his successor.  I think ultimately it comes down to the facts that: 1) a sufficiently powerful king is able to chose the next king; 2) people generally try to help their family, and without sufficient checks and balances, those in power will use their positions to that effect; and 3) Once somthing has been happening for long enough, people tend to just accept it. Plus, as others have already said, it can be beneficial, as it makes the succession clear, and negates (some of) the justification of would-be usurpers. Iapetus (talk) 13:19, 5 June 2016 (UTC)


 * Despite several references to the practice, no one has linked to the article cousin marriage. Carbon Caryatid (talk) 21:07, 6 June 2016 (UTC)


 * Or uncle-niece marriage or sibling marriage. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 23:38, 6 June 2016 (UTC)