Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2017 March 25

= March 25 =

Tax breaks and the Equal Protection Clause?
Large corporations get tax breaks for locating their factories in a certain state, e.g. Tesla. Why isn't this a violation of the Equal Protection Clause? Wouldn't the tax code be required to treat all corporate entities equally?

To clarify, I know that it isn't a violation of the Equal Protection Clause. I just don't know the specific legal argument behind it and want to learn more about it, i.e. the mechanism of how individual companies can have special exemptions in the tax code. ECS LIVA Z (talk) 01:38, 25 March 2017 (UTC)


 * The workaround is that the law doesn't say JohnSmithCo. will get a tax break. It says that any company manufacturing X and employing Y number of people in an impoverished county shall receive a tax deferral of...  It strangely happens that the only company that meets these criteria is JohnSmithCo Inc. μηδείς (talk) 17:35, 26 March 2017 (UTC)
 * Thanks!
 * Doesn't that mean the exemption can be "double-dipped"? Company Z can read the news, learn about the new law, then go to the same county and employ Y number of people too. Has this kind of "double-dipping" ever happened? ECS LIVA Z (talk) 01:42, 27 March 2017 (UTC)
 * Here's a reading on this general topic, which you may find interesting. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 01:53, 27 March 2017 (UTC)


 * ECS LIVA Z, you asked about a basically corrupt process. Under such circumstances, the definitions and the economics will be such that no other company can compete.  Lots of small-town politicking regards zoning, limited plots of land, and exclusive deals for people with the right contacts.  I won't give the specifics, but a town in which my relatives live made a deal with a specific company exclusive rights allowing them to develop a plot of land below cost, and now there is a lawsuit between the town and the developer which is making further demands on the municipality.  No other party can take advantage of this situation.


 * But in other cases, towns build industrial parks to lure in whomever can meet the requirements to get a lease. The state of NJ has identified certain towns or areas as impoverished Urban Enterprise Zone and allows them to charge a lower sales tax than the next town over.  For a time, my choice of pharmacy depended on the fact that the town in which my doctor was located was "depressed", while my hometown, the next one over was not.  So I waited for drugs to be filled (at the cost of over a thousand dollars a month) in the other town, 15 minutes away, rather than at the store just down the street.  (Sales taxes on drugs have since been ended, but this was a while back.)  μηδείς (talk) 02:29, 27 March 2017 (UTC)


 * Yes, tax breaks for just one company always seemed patently unfair, and I've wondered why their local competitors don't all sue the state for giving preferential treatment to their competitor. One company getting preferential treatment also begs the question of who they bribed to get that.  StuRat (talk) 17:51, 29 March 2017 (UTC)

Adversarial/collaborative sectors
Why are some sectors more adversarial/collaborative than others? What determines this? 82.132.235.134 (talk) 13:41, 25 March 2017 (UTC)


 * Sectors? Bus stop (talk) 13:55, 25 March 2017 (UTC)


 * It is an easily observable fact that some Wikipedia topics (IBM System/360, The IT Crowd) attract a bunch of cooperative editors who get along fine, while other topics (Donald Trump, Age of the Earth) attract a bunch of people with pitchforks and torches ready to burn down each other's villages. Why the difference? And why, in general, are the ones that are battlegrounds more-visited? This Youtube video [ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rE3j_RHkqJc ] presents one theory. --Guy Macon (talk) 19:37, 25 March 2017 (UTC)


 * Guy Macon—the Wiki-centric focus in that response seems unjustified. The question does not imply a focus on Wikipedia. Bus stop (talk) 20:43, 25 March 2017 (UTC)


 * Sure, but the OP didn't give us any details whatsoever so we're left with asking for details and/or making guesses. My guess would have been business sectors, but as our article implies, that's just a term to refer to some portion of the economy or some group of companies. It may refer to industries, business types, ownership types, etc. Our article mentions the Three-sector theory, promptly redefines the term completely, notes the lack of citation, and then moves onto another topic. The term is meaningless without context. Matt Deres (talk) 23:54, 25 March 2017 (UTC)


 * It is known as Internet trolling. Bus stop (talk) 04:58, 26 March 2017 (UTC)


 * I also assume that the meaning was business sectors. Some possible reasons:


 * 1) Foreign competition may cause local companies to collaborate or perish. This competition is more likely in some areas than others.  In health care, for example, there's not as much fear of foreign competition.


 * 2) Some projects are simply too big for any one company to take on, at least in a timely manner. Some space programs, for example.


 * 3) The government will sometimes mandate cooperation between companies, especially during wars. One special case is where the government prohibits majority foreign ownership.  In this case, a foreign company needs to find a local company and invest in them.  The reverse can also happen, where the government prohibits cooperation, especially in the media sector, where the concern is that a lack of independent voices will reduce the freedom of the press.


 * 4) Some businesses naturally complement each other. For example, for a breakfast- and lunch-only restaurant chain, and a dinner-only restaurant chain, sharing the same facilities could dramatically reduce costs. StuRat (talk) 18:01, 29 March 2017 (UTC)

German vs English
Germans tend to combine words. For example "air force" (two words) becomes "luftwaffe" (1 word). Why? And does this mean that there are more words in German dictionary (in general). 92.19.181.95 (talk) 14:08, 25 March 2017 (UTC)
 * That happens in English too. Are you aware that "baseball" was originally spelled "base ball"? ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 14:13, 25 March 2017 (UTC)
 * See Compound (linguistics), however the Germans are particularly fond of these: Rindfleischetikettierungsüberwachungsaufgabenübertragungsgesetz means "law for the delegation of monitoring beef labelling".
 * 'In theory, a German word can be infinitely long. Unlike in English, an extra concept can simply be added to the existing word indefinitely. Such extended words are sometimes known as Bandwurmwörter - "tapeworm words". In an essay on the Germany language, Mark Twain observed: "Some German words are so long that they have a perspective."'
 * By the way, you might find some more competent answers over at the Language reference desk. Alansplodge (talk) 14:21, 25 March 2017 (UTC)
 * So is a word that means "a 3 month old skinny puppy that scratches its left ear with its hind leg but then stops?" grammatically correct? Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 21:55, 25 March 2017 (UTC)
 * See Synthetic language Wymspen (talk) 18:22, 25 March 2017 (UTC)
 * "Synthetic language" doesn't really fit this too well; that term is more commonly used with respect of the combination of grammatical morphemes in a single word with lexical morphemes. As far as compounds are concerned, it's important to keep in mind that German and English are not, in fact, fundamentally different in this respect: English is just as ready to form nominal compounds as German is, and they can grow just as complex (and I seriously doubt they are significantly less frequent) – they are just not regularly spelled without a space as they are in German. But that's a purely orthographical convention, not really a structural difference between the two languages. Fut.Perf. ☼ 18:37, 25 March 2017 (UTC)
 * The term wanted here is polysynthetic languages, in which the arguments (subject, object, etc.) of a verb and/or adverbial components are incorporated into it. μηδείς (talk) 21:45, 25 March 2017 (UTC)
 * The Duden is the de facto official dictionary of the German language. The longest German word that has been published is Donaudampfschiffahrtselektrizitätenhauptbetriebswerkbauunterbeamtengesellschaft made of 79 characters. However compounds consisting of more than three or four nouns are usually found in humorous contexts. (English also has some long words.). Blooteuth (talk) 22:30, 25 March 2017 (UTC)
 * The longest I've seen in an everyday context is Fahrtreppenbenutzungshinweise (on a placard beside an escalator). Shock Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 22:52, 25 March 2017 (UTC)
 * A placard is a signature. Many users of the escalator after reading aloud would probably change the noun into a sentence, or even drop the word "Fahrtreppen". --Askedonty (talk) 08:57, 26 March 2017 (UTC)
 * Dictionaries don't attempt to make entries for everything written without a space, but may include many things with a space. It generally depends how big the dictionary is and whether the authors view it as an established term which has a life of its own and may not be 100% understood by somebody who only knows the parts. For example, our sister project Wiktionary has an entry for boarding school. In Danish it is the unspaced "kostskole" and also in my Danish dictionary. But Danish can make lots of arbitrary compound words, for example combining animals and body parts to make unspaced words like Danish versions of dogtail or giraffeneck. Listing such combinations in dictionaries and say "A giraffeneck is a giraffe's neck" would be a ridicolous waste of space. I'm sure there are lots of both English and German dictionaries of varying sizes. It probable doesn't make much sense to ask which language "in general" has the largest dictionaries. PrimeHunter (talk) 23:56, 25 March 2017 (UTC)

I'd like to point out an advantage of the compounds in German: They make it instantly clear that those words belong together. Especially in a language with little inflection, such as English, this can well lead to confusion. Take as an example the sentence:
 * Friction locks cause throttle levers to stick.

All of the words in the sentence except "friction" and "to" are ambiguous and can belong to several word classes. I was very hard for me to understand the sentence. The subject seems to be friction. The friction locks something. What does it lock - a cause? The cause that a throttle, for some reason, levers anything to a stick, whatever this is supposed to mean? If the noun groups friction locks and throttle levers were identified in any way, reading the sentence would be much easier. --KnightMove (talk) 10:21, 26 March 2017 (UTC)
 * English permits the insertion of a hyphen to improve clarity: Friction-locks cause throttle-levers to stick., though the original would be clear to those familiar with the subject, or in an article about friction locks.   D b f i r s   11:24, 26 March 2017 (UTC)
 * I'm native to Dutch, and we see the same sort of compounding here. This way anyone can form new words while speaking or writing. Although correct, these are often one-time words. Other compounds, like verjaardagstaart ("birthday cake"), have made it into the dictionary.
 * We see this compounding in most germanic languages (German, Dutch, Danish, Norwegian, Swedish, Icelandic and perhaps more), it looks to me like English is the exception.
 * In Dutch we see a tendency to avoid compounding (by splitting words up and/or rephrasing sentences). Not sure about other languages.
 * Note that the English language has a milder form of compounding too (we would translate the Dutch verjaardagstaart into "birthday cake" and not "birth day cake"). Other examples of compounding in English: football, workman, anyone, and website (not too sure about the last one). More on this in the wikipedia article English compound.
 * Also note that most German examples in this thread are extreme, unreadable and unusable. They can (and should) easily be avoided in writing. Jahoe (talk) 13:38, 26 March 2017 (UTC)
 * At first I parsed that as verjaardag-staart "year-day-queue". μηδείς (talk) 02:37, 27 March 2017 (UTC)
 * :) I like that one. Here's the word split up into syllables: ver-jaar-dags-taart. Staart would more likely translate to "tail" than "queue". Jahoe (talk) 12:44, 27 March 2017 (UTC)
 * English is my native language, and I've studied German for 6 years. Occasionally I'll come acrost a Dutch text, and only realize it's not German when I get to a word I don't know, or see a pronoun.  I do the same with Portuguese, being fluent in Spanish.  Unfortunately the ability to read basic or familiar Dutch or Portuguese does not translate into being able to understand them as spoken. μηδείς (talk) 21:36, 27 March 2017 (UTC)
 * In my Collins German Dictionary, the German-English section is longer than the English-German section. But that's a page count, not a word count, so it doesn't answer your question about number of words. The writers of this page think that it's likely that English has the largest vocabulary of any language, though they admit it's hard to be certain. Herbivore (talk) 15:53, 26 March 2017 (UTC)
 * Something similar happens in Latin with the naming of species.  The names can be as long as you wish - for example in 1927 the Polish entomologist Benedykt Dybowski named a species of weevil Gammaracanthuskytodermogammarus loricatobaicolensis.81.151.128.189 (talk) 10:54, 28 March 2017 (UTC)

Seriousness of undesired touching
Is touching someone on the buttocks too different from touching the shoulder? Anatomically, they seem pretty much as the same type of muscle.

If a feet fetishist touches someone's feet, is that sexual harassment?

How does the US law deal with such cases. Does the law explicitly defines how bad is putting a hand here or there? --Dikipewia (talk) 19:49, 25 March 2017 (UTC)


 * It depends on the culture of the person being touched. Let go back to basics. This ref is a bit long winded but it should get the point across . What it doesn't mention (because it is about chimpanzees) is that human females often make the first move to touching. But human males don't make a song and dance about it when they think they have been touched inappropriately. Even though they might experience  it as an unwelcome contact. --Aspro (talk) 20:34, 25 March 2017 (UTC)
 * Wikipedia has a general article about Sexual harassment and specific articles about evolutions of sexual harassment laws in the US workplace and in US education. Unwanted touching is more inappropriate near an Erogenous zone of the body such as the Sacrum (bone behind the culturally sensitive buttock area) than on the Shoulder. Blooteuth (talk) 22:15, 25 March 2017 (UTC)
 * The question asks "is touching someone on the buttocks too different from "touching the shoulder" but of course it has not been established by any stretch of the imagination that "touching the shoulder" is acceptable. Bus stop (talk) 23:03, 25 March 2017 (UTC)


 * Good point.--Aspro (talk) 23:34, 25 March 2017 (UTC)


 * Do you prefer taking a pounding on the buttocks or a pounding on the shoulder? Llaanngg (talk) 23:24, 25 March 2017 (UTC)


 * Here's a series of body maps that attempt to illustrate the norms regarding touching. Broadly speaking, males are slightly more easy-going when it comes to contact, but it is highly context dependent and variable. Football players slapping each other's bums after a touchdown get a very different reaction when they try it in the shower afterwards (YMMV, of course). Matt Deres (talk) 23:59, 25 March 2017 (UTC)

Dikipewia -- every so often, there are stories in the news of men trying to do things to women's feet under tables in college libraries, and some of those individuals have definitely been arrested. On the other hand, in the late 19th century, some people considered it an extravagant gesture of gallantry for a man to drink champagne from a woman's shoe (few people did so, but those who did were very open about it at the time). AnonMoos (talk) 05:29, 26 March 2017 (UTC)


 * From a legal standpoint, Sexual harassment is essentially sexual behaviour which is unwelcome, where the perp knows (or ought to know) that the recipient is finding it unwelcome. It need not involve any touching. Sexual interest (e.g. love letters, or the like) can be enough to qualify. If the person on the receiving end genuinely doesn't mind it, or enjoys it, it's not harassment. But in practice, if you're the person doing the behaviour, I suggest being VERY mindful of how the recipient is likely to be feeling. Particularly if they are subordinate to you, and thus unlikely to voice their discontent.
 * "Indecent assault" law in my particular jurisdiction does not specify any body parts as such. It's defined as "Assault which includes an element of indecency", or words to that effect. A form of "aggravated assault", if you like. What is or isn't considered "indecent" would be subject to the Reasonable Person test, and, in a jury trial, would be a question for the jury. The jury would be told to attempt to apply "community standards" as they perceive them, not their own personal views. Other jurisdictions, I gather, take different approaches. Some do specify certain body parts, I believe. I wouldn't personally be familiar with them. Eliyohub (talk) 19:00, 26 March 2017 (UTC)


 * Why do you need to touch another human being who is not related to you? Unless it is part of your job, doctor, fireman, surgeon, sportsman, soldier, policeman. There is no reason for you to (intentionally) touch another human being. If you do need to feel the touch of another human being and you have no one related to you to give you the human touch, then you should legally hire a professional to do so. 148.182.26.69 (talk) 00:20, 27 March 2017 (UTC)


 * That's a ridiculous thing to say - and completely unsupported by references. Humans require personal contact in order to develop and function normally. Haphephobia is the clinical name for the disorder used to describe people who share that point of view. Matt Deres (talk) 00:58, 27 March 2017 (UTC)
 * Humans do need to interact - but touching requires permission. That's true whether it's a touch on the shoulder or anywhere else. Generally, unwanted touching is a violation of personal space, even when it doesn't necessarily have a sexual context. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 01:57, 27 March 2017 (UTC)
 * Not necessarily.  If someone is stepping off the kerb into the path of an approaching car you might well grab their arm to restrain them. 86.169.56.176 (talk) 11:34, 27 March 2017 (UTC)
 * That might be termed extraordinary circumstances. Bus stop (talk) 11:37, 27 March 2017 (UTC)


 * That's why I said "generally". In a life-or-death situation, necessity can override ordinary cultural norms. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 15:49, 27 March 2017 (UTC)


 * "Why do you need to touch another human being who is not related to you?" Yes, that is a ridiculous thing to say. The cultural environment plays a huge role.  I have unfortunately offended Afghan men (I am a non-Afghan man) by clearly expressing my displeasure when they invaded my space or casually touched me.  I absolutely know they meant no harm.  My point is that only some cultures impose such protocols. Hayttom (talk) 16:55, 30 March 2017 (UTC)

1992–94 Crimean crisis
National Guard of Ukraine has a link to 1992–94 Crimean crisis, but that's just a redirect to the Crimea article. What's the 1992–94 Crimean crisis? ECS LIVA Z (talk) 20:02, 25 March 2017 (UTC)
 * The page history of the redirect shows a former article [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=1992%E2%80%9394_Crimean_crisis&oldid=635127733] but the discussion at Talk:1992–94 Crimean crisis had no support for the alleged crisis. PrimeHunter (talk) 20:22, 25 March 2017 (UTC)
 * Thanks. I've gone and removed the link from the National Guard of Ukraine article. What about the redirect? I'm not sure what's the policy here. ECS LIVA Z (talk) 21:26, 25 March 2017 (UTC)
 * WP:RFD is the way to go. Clarityfiend (talk) 21:58, 25 March 2017 (UTC)

News in the United States
Where do average Americans get their news? I was reading Media of the United States and it didn't quite answer my question. Anna Frodesiak (talk) 23:19, 25 March 2017 (UTC)
 * I don't think there's any such thing as an "average American" in this context. It varies greatly depending on age, demographics, level of education and so on. Here is an analysis from a respected research center. Shock Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 23:25, 25 March 2017 (UTC)


 * DuckDuckGo has search results for Where do average Americans get their news.
 * —Wavelength (talk) 23:30, 25 March 2017 (UTC)


 * [Edit Conflict] I question the validity of the concept "average American" (or any other nationality) in this context. In political and other cultural milieux, people tend somewhat towards polarised positions on whatever axes are being considered (though a minority may adopt middling positions too). The average of an extreme conservative and an extreme liberal may be middle-of-the-road, but that doesn't mean that "on average" they read a m-o-t-r newspaper. Similar conceptual errors arise when considering questions such as the "average (mean/modal/median?) amount of tax people pay, which may not be an figure that many actual individuals actually pay.
 * My nitpicking aside :-), the quantified range of news sources employed is indeed an interesting question: to it I would add – where do non-Americans (like myself) get their news about America? {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 94.12.80.28 (talk) 23:38, 25 March 2017 (UTC)
 * These polls from the Pew Research Center are enlightening. Increasingly, the answer is "Facebook". --47.138.161.183 (talk) 23:54, 25 March 2017 (UTC)

Journalism.org is helpful. Duckduckgo is blocked in China. Okay, what I guess I am really after is: how many Americans get their news from big, corporate media compared to smaller, more independent sources, like say, DemocracyNow!. Anna Frodesiak (talk) 23:55, 25 March 2017 (UTC)


 * Here are the first ten search results from my version of the DuckDuckGo search which I mentioned above.
 * Where Do We Get Our News? | News War | FRONTLINE | PBS
 * How Americans get their news - American Press Institute
 * TV Is Americans' Main Source of News | Gallup
 * The Personal News Cycle: How Americans choose to get news
 * How Americans Get TV News at Home | Pew Research Center
 * I. Where Americans Go for News | Pew Research Center
 * How social media is reshaping news | Pew Research Center
 * Americans Spending More Time Following the News | Pew Research Center
 * Survey: More Americans get news from Internet than newspapers or radio - CNN.com
 * How people get local news and information in different communities | Pew Research Center
 * —Wavelength (talk) 01:20, 26 March 2017 (UTC)

Ooooh, http://www.journalism.org/2016/07/07/the-modern-news-consumer/ and http://www.journalism.org/2016/05/26/news-use-across-social-media-platforms-2016/ look good. Thanks for those I'll give them a good read later on. Many thanks! Anna Frodesiak (talk) 00:00, 26 March 2017 (UTC)


 * The first website I check upon waking is Drudge, which aggregates the sensational headlines with a quick turn-around and a simple format that loads quickly without a lot of clutter. I then check the aggregators RealClearScience and RealClearPolitics at lunch, and Accuweather at least once daily, or before I leave home or work if the weather is dubious.


 * I'll hear the news updates when driving, and sometimes listen to the traffic/weather/news-every-10-minutes station when driving if concerned about breaking news. I stopped buying the NYT in the 90's due to their biased agenda.


 * The straw that broke the camel's back was a human-interest story about how hard it was to be a lesbian scientist (who was either an ethnic minority or disabled, I forget which) as the lead story of the science section of the Tues. edition of the times. They had gone from objectivity to patronizing in one fell swoop.


 * I stopped buying any newspapers at all just after 9/11. I have had a longterm policy of avoiding the local TV news, since it is all about murders, fires and accidents.  I stopped watching any TV news during the Iraq War, it was all opinion and speculation, no objective factual analysis or investigation.


 * Finally, I get some interesting news I might otherwise miss (often foreign or niche news) from ITN here at wikipedia. The bottom line is that in the 80's I got all my news from TV and the papers, and now I get none of it there, yet my elderly parents still get theirs from those sources and the radio. μηδείς (talk) 17:26, 26 March 2017 (UTC)

See Nightcrawler for a nifty and on-point analysis of the focus American news channels. Also, see Fox News which is where the President of the United States gets his information on foreign homeland security policies, e.g. Sweden. The Rambling Man (talk) 19:39, 26 March 2017 (UTC)


 * Nightcrawler 's subject matter hardly a new topic; I find Paddy Chayefsky & Sydney Lumet's treatment of the American news media in Network to be timeless in this regard; it still hits nerves even 40 years on. There's also Buck Henry and Gus Van Sant's dark satire To Die For, which is actually based partly on a true story.  -- Jayron 32 14:50, 28 March 2017 (UTC)

Thank you, thank you, thank you all! Very helpful indeed! :) Anna Frodesiak (talk) 22:45, 27 March 2017 (UTC)