Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2017 January 24

= January 24 =

Why call country communist?
Communism fall 20 years ago. China and Vietnam economy open and growing. Same for Russia. Why still call China and Vietnam communist but not Russia? --Curious Cat On Her Last Life (talk) 06:19, 24 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Because China and Vietnam are still officially run by their Communist parties, whereas Russia is not. --Golbez (talk) 06:36, 24 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Communism is, essentially, just a label. The list of things that are referred to as Communism is so broad as to be meaningless. But yeah, those two countries self-identify as communist, so there we go. Someguy1221 (talk) 08:46, 24 January 2017 (UTC)
 * I think, as I think Golbez implies, that their government parties self-identify as Communist, not the countries. I also agree with Someguy1221 that it has become "just a label" to most. The official explanation for China's economic reforms is that the country is in the primary stage of socialism, which I think somehow would eventually lead to the ultimate goal of either communism or at least advanced socialism. Star Lord  -   星爵 (talk) 20:07, 26 January 2017 (UTC)

Dependency/Territory? Any difference?
Hi all - been wondering about something for a while - Australia and the UK's territorial claims in the Antarctic are simply called Australian and British Antarctic Territory. The same is true with Chilean and Norwegian claims. Argentina's claim is regarded by the Argentinian government of part of one of the country's provinces, so it is usually simply called "Argentine Antarctica". France's are Terre Antarctique (part of the TAAF), but that could easily simply refer to the fact that they contain only one "land" (Adélie Land), unlike the other claims which include several. New Zealand's claim, though - which to me looks very similar politically to Australia's, Norway's, and the UK's - is called Ross *Dependency* (it too contains several separate "lands"). Is this simply a quirk of history because it was partially explored earlier than the others before naming was standardised, or is there a more fundamental administrative difference? Thanks in advance, Grutness...wha?  10:36, 24 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Wikipedia has articles about Territorial claims in Antarctica and the Antarctic Treaty System. They may help you on your research.  I can't find anywhere that the nomenclature of these claims has any legal bearing on their status; that is there is nothing to indicate that the words have any different meaning.  -- Jayron 32 13:30, 24 January 2017 (UTC)

I suspect it is to do with different terminologies of different nations. For us complicated Brits, see Crown dependencies and British Overseas Territories. --Dweller (talk) Become old fashioned! 13:35, 24 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Not sure that would explain the difference between the Australian and New Zealand claims. Though the form of English does vary between the two countries, it doesn't vary enough to suggest this particular difference. Grutness...wha?  23:12, 25 January 2017 (UTC)

How did people with gluten sensitivities survive in the Middle Ages?
Nowadays, there are products that are "gluten-free", and people with celiac disease and gluten sensitivites can't eat breads or dough-based foods. So, how did these people's ancestors survive in the Middle Ages, when bread formed the basis of European cuisine? If you were sensitive to gluten during the Middle Ages, then what did you eat? And if you died before reproductive age, how would you pass your genes to the next generation or make your lineage survive centuries, up to the present day? 66.213.29.17 (talk) 16:23, 24 January 2017 (UTC)
 * The article on Coeliac disease indicates it can arise at any age and it seems to be more uncomfortable than deadly. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 16:29, 24 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Celiac is a bit different from Non-celiac gluten sensitivity and other gluten-related disorders. Still, it's possible that this kind of sensitivity just didn't exist in the Middle Ages; no one seems to have noticed it until relatively recently, but there could be other reasons that gluten sensitivity has arisen lately if it didn't exist in the past (maybe a question for the Science desk). That said, if it did exist in the Middle Ages, there's no way they could have known about it. Symptoms associated with gluten sensitivity (diarrhea, abdominal pain, headaches, irritability...what other symptoms are there?) would have been seen as some other kind of disease. It's a bit of a cliché to say it would be considered an "imbalance of humours" but medieval people might have understood a gluten sensitivity in those terms. Medical treatments often included a change of diet, so they might have been able to solve it without realizing it. I'm not sure about this either, maybe another question for the science desk, but would bread that is not made out of wheat still contain gluten? What about rye bread, which was also popular in the Middle Ages? Adam Bishop (talk) 20:54, 24 January 2017 (UTC)

Coeliac disease was not recognized until the late 19th century, and was incredibly rare until recent decades. The disease is highly heritable, but that timespan is too fast for a change in population structure to explain the increased prevalence. Popular scientific speculation is that coeliac is only common as a result of modern hygiene and/or baby-feeding practices. It may have been virtually non-existent in the middle ages. Someguy1221 (talk) 00:32, 26 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Bear in mind that pre-20th century accounts commonly refer to children that are perennially sickly: not merely getting colds frequently, but kids that are never healthy. Without precise documentation, we can't say what was wrong with any individual, but if you were born with c(o)eliac disease in 1017, you might have ended up being one of those children.  Combine that with marriage at what we nowadays consider to be exceptionally early ages (even as late as the 1650s, a parishioner at Hungars Church in the Virginia Colony had a daughter who died in childbirth soon after marriage at the age of twelve), a higher percentage of c(o)eliacs would be bearing or fathering children then than they would today if they got the same diets and medical treatment.  Nyttend (talk) 04:06, 26 January 2017 (UTC)

Do Canadians ever come to the United States illegally?
1 US Dollar equals 21.37 Mexican Pesos. 1 US Dollar equals 1.32 Canadian Dollars. So, a Canadian can make more money, if he comes to America to work and sends money back to his French-speaking Canadian family. If he overstays his VISA, then will he be deported back to Canada? How often do Canadians illegally cross the border to get to the United States? 66.213.29.17 (talk) 16:43, 24 January 2017 (UTC)
 * See Illegal immigration to the United States. Short answer: yes. --jpgordon&#x1d122;&#x1d106; &#x1D110;&#x1d107; 16:45, 24 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Although I'm not sure how many of them would be French speakers, specifically... Adam Bishop (talk) 20:28, 24 January 2017 (UTC)
 * I had a Canadian flatmate, who once mentioned that he had applied for the amnesty of 198x but found he wasn't "illegal enough" to qualify. —Tamfang (talk) 08:17, 26 January 2017 (UTC)


 * 1 euro equals 9.5 Swedish krona. Should there be massive immigration from the Sweden part of the open border area to the Eurozone part then? Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 20:45, 24 January 2017 (UTC)


 * Adam Bishop eluded to this but I thought I'd be more blatant and point out that not all Canadians speak French. Speaking French is more of a Quebec thing than an overall Canadian practice. † dismas †|(talk) 01:10, 25 January 2017 (UTC)
 * He failed to understand it? I think you meant "alluded". --47.138.163.230 (talk) 03:59, 25 January 2017 (UTC)
 * The exchange rate on its own says nothing about how much money a Canadian can make - A job which would may 100,000USD in a company's Washington office might pay 132,000CAD in their Vancouver office, which results in a person earning the same amount both sides of the border. There will also be differences in tax rate and buying power to consider. MChesterMC (talk) 09:40, 25 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Your scheme is a misunderstanding of how exchange rate works. (After all, we're all in millionaires in Japan!) It's complicated, but suffice it to say that pay rates are adjusted on each side of the boarder so that people make about the same amount of money long term. But if you want to try to game the short-term fluctuations in currency conversion rates, you don't have to physically travel back and forth between the nations, you can buy and sell any currency you like. Some people make fortunes off this.  See Currency Markets
 * ApLundell (talk) 14:35, 25 January 2017 (UTC)


 * Of possible relevance to the questions of illegal border crossing, an anonymous purported U.S. border patrol agent took questions about the practicalities of the job and systems at . I have no way of confirming that he is a genuine agent, but his answers seem realistic enough. Eliyohub (talk) 14:24, 28 January 2017 (UTC)