Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2017 March 22

= March 22 =

Roman Empire in German historiography
In German historiography, what is the normal name for the Italian-based polity in the West from 27 BC until AD 476, and what are its major subdivisions? de:Römische Kaiserzeit (what's the difference between "Kaiserzeit" and "Kaiserreich", by the way?) somehow covers just until the ascension of Diocletian in 284; de:Römische Tetrarchie covers just the years of the Tetrarchy (leaving a gap from 284 until 293), and I've not figured out what comes after 305, since Fall of the Western Roman Empire doesn't have a German interwiki link at all. Speaking no German, I can't just read the articles and follow the links. Nyttend (talk) 12:20, 22 March 2017 (UTC)


 * For the "Roman Empire" in general it is de:Römisches Reich ("Römische Kaiserzeit" is more like the "Roman imperial era".) Like in English, "Roman Empire" refers to sort of an artificial period that actually covers several distinct kinds of government. The German Wikipedia also has de:Zeittafel Rom (a chronology of Roman history), de:Weströmisches Reich (the Western empire) and Oströmisches Reich (the Eastern empire, which redirects to de:Byzantinisches Reich, the Byzantine Empire. The fall of the empire is covered in de:Untergang des Römischen Reiches. Adam Bishop (talk) 12:57, 22 March 2017 (UTC)


 * Nyttend --in English, some scholars distinguish between the pre-Diocletian "principate" and the post-Diocletian "dominate" (see "Art Forms and Civic Life in the Late Roman Empire" by H.P. L'Orange, ISBN 0-691-00305-X). It seems that "Römische Kaiserzeit" is pretty much equivalent to Principate.  We have articles on Principate and Dominate... AnonMoos (talk) 15:22, 22 March 2017 (UTC)
 * Good point. I'm [insert adjective; somewhere between "familiar" and "aware of"] the Principate and Dominate divisions, but I've not much handled that time period in a good while, so that division wouldn't have come to mind.  Nyttend (talk) 15:34, 22 March 2017 (UTC)
 * Oh yeah, Kaiserzeit is being used as the term for the Principate. But that means the German Wikipedia has overlapping articles about the Kaiserzeit and the de:Prinzipat. Seems a bit messy... Adam Bishop (talk) 17:11, 22 March 2017 (UTC)
 * There's not necessarily a problem with having separate articles on the Principate as a Roman political institution vs. a general chronicle of the period of history when the Principate prevailed... AnonMoos (talk) 17:53, 22 March 2017 (UTC)

Waiving our basic rights
Do we have a right to waive some basic right? Is there a law prohibiting me (or making it void) to waive my right to life, health, freedom (and be bought and sold as a slave) and so on? What philosophers (especially liberal ones) think about it? --Llaanngg (talk) 12:41, 22 March 2017 (UTC)
 * Where? Aside from your philosopher question, the answer depends completely on what part of the world you're talking about.  Nyttend (talk) 12:46, 22 March 2017 (UTC)
 * Have you read the articles on Human rights, Universal Declaration of Human Rights and Philosophy of human rights. I don't remember anything in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights about a right to die, be unhealthy, or to be sold as a slave. However many places now do have a law allowing voluntary euthanasia and I see a first world country is now going to remove provisions to look after the health of its citizens and there's still places one can go and get enslaved if one so desires. Dmcq (talk) 13:08, 22 March 2017 (UTC)
 * There are other sets of less fundamental (but still important) rights that also can't be signed away that vary from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. For example, usually the rights granted granted under Labor Laws can't be signed away. You or your lawyer would have to do a lot of research to figure out the exact particulars in your locale. It can get complicated. ApLundell (talk) 13:18, 22 March 2017 (UTC)


 * If you have an "inalienable" right you cannot give it to someone else, but I don't think it necessarily means you can't throw it away. jnestorius(talk) 14:16, 22 March 2017 (UTC)
 * Human rights are a concept based on enlightenment ideas. One of the major thinkers of the enlightenment formulated it thusly: We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. According to Jefferson, at least these three rights cannot be "alienated", i.e. you always maintain control over them. That might mean you can chose to not enforce them (as in the case of assisted suicide), but you can always reassert them (so you might submit to a Dominatrix, but your "slavery" ends with a simple act of will). Of course, Jefferson was a bit spotty on both capitalisation and implementation of his ideas... --Stephan Schulz (talk) 14:18, 22 March 2017 (UTC)
 * In Jefferson's day, nouns tended to be capitalized, a carryover from German language roots. But he certainly used slaves - (some more than others. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 22:10, 22 March 2017 (UTC)
 * You can waive certain rights by entering a contract, say one that allows you to be randomly drug tested, have background checks done by government agencies without a warrant on probable cause, agree to binding arbitration rather than suit by law, or a non-compete or non-disclosure clause. These are all entirely voluntary, so they don't so much count as waiving one's rights, rather than expressing them in a certain way.


 * There's also the much more controversial issue of plea bargains, which are fictions where instead of facing a thousand year jail sentence you  plea guilty to something you may not have done and agree to suffer the otherwise relatively minor consequences.  There are also the less odious abilities to waive the right to legal council, waive the right to a jury trial, and probably others, for which, see below. μηδείς (talk) 15:04, 22 March 2017 (UTC)
 * I don't think plea bargaining means pleading guilty to something you haven't done. Itsmejudith (talk) 16:14, 22 March 2017 (UTC)
 * Actually, it often does. Many defendants are coerced into a plea bargain with the promise that they'd have a harsher sentence if the trial went forward, regardless of whether or not they actually committed the act for which they are on trial.  There's very little accord given to whether or not the defendant is culpable for the act for which they are charged, and mostly given to the defendant accepting a lesser punishment instead of a greater one.  -- Jayron 32 17:22, 22 March 2017 (UTC)


 * Thank you ., a lot depends on whether the "you" in "something you haven't done" is a black you or a white you, in the US. An NPR report on a study, a Slate article that may cite the same study. Drmies (talk) 18:02, 22 March 2017 (UTC)
 * The point of the trial is to determine "whether or not they actually committed the act for which they are on trial", Jayron. --   Jack of Oz   [pleasantries]  18:53, 22 March 2017 (UTC)
 * That's a very optimistic point of view in a country in which most public prosecutors are elected and more often than not run on a "tough on crime" platform. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 20:49, 22 March 2017 (UTC)
 * The "point", sure. But if you're not confident they will achieve that lofty ideal, you might be convinced to confess to a crime you hadn't committed as part of a plea bargain. ApLundell (talk) 21:01, 22 March 2017 (UTC)
 * OK, you've convinced me. The USA is SO depressing, I wonder why it was created in the first place. Britain not a joyful place today either. Itsmejudith (talk) 21:27, 22 March 2017 (UTC)
 * Just because it's flawed does not mean it's not useful. Just because it's useful does not mean we should stop trying to improve it by pointing out its flaws. Perfection is usually a goal, not the present state. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 00:13, 23 March 2017 (UTC)


 * Conrad Black has a lot to say about the plea bargaining system, which is very peculiar to the United States. Something like 95%+ of a criminal trials end in a conviction, and a huge number of those are due to plea bargaining.  It's a corruption that has entered our system through the war on drugs.


 * With so many people prosecuted for victimless crimes (and the system set up so that the penalties for possession of cocaine of the same exact chemical amount in the powder form that lawyers use, rather than the crack form that the inner city poor use) the courts have literally had men in suits with half a gram of coke (they might not even arrest you for the misdemeanor) "defending" men facing 20-year or life sentences for what is described as a gram of crack.


 * There's even case law that says the crack cocaine counts as cocaine of the same amount even if its 99% impure. The backlog of cases and the promise of a five-year sentence (with time served and half-off for good behavior) for a guilty plea rather than fifty years for a conviction where the facts don't matter and the evidence has been tampered with is why the US has the highest incarceration rate in the civilized world, and why 25% of black men are dead or incarcerated by the time they are 25 years old. μηδείς (talk) 00:52, 23 March 2017 (UTC)
 * 1 out of 9 (11%) actually, please be aware that horrific injustices are not helped by inventing statistics out of thin air as though it would help your case. Indeed, you hurt your cause when it doesn't appear you have an interest in accuracy.  Instead, the disgusting and horrible way that the U.S. justice system treats black males should be treated on its own terms, in citeable statistics.  It's horrible enough as it is, it doesn't need you making shit up to make it any worse.  -- Jayron 32 01:16, 23 March 2017 (UTC)
 * I think you are talking about subtly different statistics. Medeis talks about the cumulative probability of a black man being "incarcerated or dead" by the age of 25. One reading of this is "have been incarcerated", in which case it's borderline plausible. From your link: Lifetime chances of going to prison are 32.2% for Black males. Given that most offenders are young and adding in the dead means that 25% is correct at least to a Fermi level. The 1 in 9 is the rate of black males of the age band incarcerated at any given time (for hopefully small values of "any"). --Stephan Schulz (talk) 01:40, 23 March 2017 (UTC)
 * No, the value for black males incarcerated at any one time is 4.7%, according to same article. Regardless, this is the reference desk not the "invent shit just to make a point desk".  Don't justify the answering of a question without any sources as OK under any circumstances.  If she wants to contribute, she can add a reference.  If she creates statistics and cites no reference, she will be called out as such.  To be useful is to provide useful reading material here.  All else is worthless.  -- Jayron 32 01:54, 23 March 2017 (UTC)
 * The 4.7% is for all black men. The 1 in 11 is for blacks aged 20-34. Our article is ambiguous, but if you go to the original NYT article, it says "One in 36 adult Hispanic men is behind bars, [...] as is one in nine black men ages 20 to 34." --Stephan Schulz (talk) 02:49, 23 March 2017 (UTC)
 * That's fine, but it's entirely irrelevant to the criticism. You've done an infinitely more useful thing than Medeis did here, which is to provide links to useful reading.  The criticism I had is ultimately unrelated to the veracity or not of Medeis's invented numbers, even if they were coincidentally accurate (even a blind dog can hit a tree once in a while) it is irrelevant to the problem with her answer.  Unreferenced replies are beyond useless, and as such, should be tagged as useless.  Unreferenced answers which report an actual number that appears to have been invented out of whole cloth doubly so.  Actually correcting Medeis answer is beside the point.  It just needs to be called out as useless as it doesn't have a reference, I would expect anyone to do the same to any answer I gave without any further reading.  -- Jayron 32 02:54, 23 March 2017 (UTC)


 * I can't think of any possible way you could ever have proven my point better, Jayron. I make the faux pas of repeating 25 twice, and you speaking of my infinitely "shitting" up the place because we only really kill or cage 10% of the wogs.  Not 25%!  Only 1/11!


 * What exactly did you think my motive was? A simple cn tag would have sufficed, but you have chosen to make me a monster, either of the left or the right doesn't matter, in favor of or against justice doesn't matter.  It's a mortal sin against fractions!  Up with Decism!  Down with Fourthism!  Well, I remember the statistics from 1997 which match what I recall closely; if I find it I'll post it.  This federal report supports me regarding incarceration nationally.  Now who's shitting who? μηδείς (talk) 04:17, 23 March 2017 (UTC)
 * Doesn't matter. Your initial post cited no additional reading to verify anything.  If you had posted the above report then we'd have not had this discussion at all.  I don't really care whether or not you were correct or not.  I only care that you cite reliable sources.  I never said you were wrong, merely that your post was useless.  Those are not synonyms.  Being right (for any value of "right" you care to espouse) isn't what we do here.  What we do is provide reading for people to learn more about subjects.  Now that you've done that, you've been useful.  If you wish to continue to be useful, continue to do so.  If you don't want your future posts flagged as not useful, don't deliberately refuse to post references for them.  -- Jayron 32 04:21, 23 March 2017 (UTC)
 * I will note that you've found a report where the most recent data is 26 years old. So, thanks for finding something, but it speaks more to historical problems than to current ones.  -- Jayron 32 04:23, 23 March 2017 (UTC)
 * If you want recent data here is some raw numbers from the Federal Bureau of Prisons. Data there can be used to extrapolate some conclusions about institutional racism in the criminal justice system in the U.S, which is only a few months (rather than a few decades) old.  -- Jayron 32 04:28, 23 March 2017 (UTC)


 * Yes, the person whom I knew that was murdered by a crack dealer died at age 25 in 1996. The law debate and statistics I am recalling is from the 1990's.  Here's a sixth-cicuit court decision that argues that the actual amount of coke in a "coke" sample doesn't matter from 2016.  Your hysteria here is purely that, and I am not going to write a book on the subject to demonstrate the monstrosity of the issue to ItsmeJudith.  You need a wikivacation if you think such attacks on irrelevancies are so vital as to attack people with vulgarities for making valid arguments with memories based on imprecise data from the 1990's. μηδείς (talk) 04:36, 23 March 2017 (UTC)
 * This is still not the "Memories" desk. This is the "Reference" desk.  Your friends death is a horrifying thing.  It isn't a reference, however.  -- Jayron 32 04:41, 23 March 2017 (UTC)
 * Sorry for stirring this up. Itsmejudith (talk) 17:08, 23 March 2017 (UTC)


 * Ex-convict and Lord Conrad Black of Canada has a lot to say about the plea bargaining system, which is very peculiar to the United States. Something like 95%+ of a criminal trials end in a conviction, and a huge number of those are due to plea bargaining.  It's a corruption that has entered our system through the war on drugs.


 * For example, here's a sixth-cicuit court decision that argues that the actual amount of coke in a "coke" sample doesn't matter from 2016.μηδείς (talk) 23:28, 23 March 2017 (UTC)

Yes. Boxing, among other colourful activities, depends on it. See Criminal consent. --Dweller (talk) Become old fashioned! 13:37, 23 March 2017 (UTC)
 * Volenti non fit injuria in tort law.--Shirt58 (talk) 01:10, 25 March 2017 (UTC)

Info on a science fiction short story where child reporters discover truth about Santa Claus?
Hi there, I was hoping that any science fiction short story aficionado could remember the name/author of a short story. It was set in a world where children, like 4-year-olds, have their own news channel and uncover the horrible truth that there is no Santa Claus. It triggers a national emergency but at the end I think there was a cynical understanding achieved between the children and the grownups.

I'm going to guess it was written in the 1970s because I think I read it (as a kid) in the early 1980s in a library book, surely a collection of science fiction short stories, if I know me. Thanks much.50.89.16.32 (talk) 19:25, 22 March 2017 (UTC)
 * You might have more luck searching yourself (some tips here, or somewhere akin to Reddit's /r/tipofmytongue. Alcherin (talk) 00:27, 23 March 2017 (UTC)
 * Christmas Treason perhaps? Blooteuth (talk) 03:55, 23 March 2017 (UTC)


 * The fact that you remember it from an anthology and not from a monthly magazine is a strong clue. You might try to find it in "Best of" collections from the 70s. A good database is isfdb.org, but sadly searching by "tag" is useless because most stories are not tagged.
 * My best guess is The Santa Claus Compromise first published in 1974. I've not read it, but it matches your time-frame and it wound up in a few anthologies like 'Best SF: 75' and 'The Year's Best SF No.9'.
 * Hope this helps. ApLundell (talk) 13:27, 23 March 2017 (UTC)

That's gotta be it! I remember the pyramid with eyes book cover now. Thanks so much.50.89.16.32 (talk) 15:16, 23 March 2017 (UTC)