Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2018 February 22

= February 22 =

Psychology experiment similar to Stanford prison experiment
I'm trying to remember/find clues about a psychology experiment that was not the Stanford prison experiment. In it, people were divided into two groups, which spontaneously developed a conflict. The difference here was that they were not assigned different roles (like prisoners and guards). They were just two groups.--Hofhof (talk) 02:10, 22 February 2018 (UTC)


 * There's Jane Elliott (and some variants on what she did), though not a formal scientific experiment... AnonMoos (talk) 05:37, 22 February 2018 (UTC)


 * Muzafer Sherif did some experiments that sound a bit like what you are looking for, maybe that will lead you somewhere? -- Jayron 32 11:57, 22 February 2018 (UTC)
 * For interest, last week's New Scientist magazine (18 February 2018) ran a feature article (see here) on Sherif's experiments, but as the article says, there seems to have been some manipulation by the experimenters to achieve the results they, perhaps, desired.
 * Someone with a better overall grasp of the discipline might want to edit our article on Sherif in the light of this. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 90.220.212.253 (talk) 14:45, 22 February 2018 (UTC)


 * Sherif's Robbers Cave Experiment is described in our article on realistic conflict theory. Gandalf61 (talk) 15:03, 22 February 2018 (UTC)

U.S. Gun Control Laws & Psychological Evaluation.
(Eastern European here, so please do not assume I possess any in-depth knowledge on the subject). Am I right in assuming that the latter provides a sort of legal loophole, or is it something in the `fine print` of the first two (or perhaps other U.S. gun control laws which I did not mention), that either directly or indirectly prevent it from becoming such ? — 79.113.235.61 (talk) 03:42, 22 February 2018 (UTC)
 * On one hand, the Gun Control Act of 1968 mentions, in its fourth point, denying Second Amendment rights to anyone who `has been adjudicated as a mental defective or has been committed to any mental institution`.
 * Background checks are also stipulated in the 1993 Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act.
 * At the same time, U.S. legislation does not seem to require mandatory psychological evaluation of gun buyers.
 * The various stuff you've linked to contains the answer. Psychological evolution is a slippery slope, and is very complicated. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 04:06, 22 February 2018 (UTC)
 * And dangerous - lots of people slide right down to the bottom and stay there. Textorus (talk) 07:51, 22 February 2018 (UTC)
 * Psychological "evolution" or "evaluation"? CodeTalker (talk) 18:31, 22 February 2018 (UTC)


 * The issue is that gun sales and purchasing laws generally have exemptions big enough to drive a tank through; things like private sales from person to person, "gun shows", gifts, etc. are not covered, tracked, or documented in any meaningful way. Buying a gun from a licensed gun shop owner requires all of these legal loopholes, but (for example) a father gifting his son with a gun he had already legally purchased isn't.  See here for example of the inconsistencies here.  -- Jayron 32 18:44, 22 February 2018 (UTC)
 * I can get you a gun in the Bronx for $50 and an hour's notice. The problem with mental defective laws is that they are often overturned as prejudicial, and "being committed" is a very broad and vague issue.  I think recent proposals that a minimum age of 21 and stricter background checks are fine.  But if one can get a secret warrant on a political opponent based on a falsified document, or be reported to the FBI and banned from school grounds with no consequences, or run intelligence-bearing servers installed by pot-smokers in your bathroom, while giving military bases to china, sensationalist copycat attacks while gun violence is at record lows hardly seems at the top of the list for the involved victims.  As a "survivor" myself, of 9/11 and a murder, I'm more worried about hyperinflation, and EMP attack, and the flu. μηδείς (talk) 05:03, 27 February 2018 (UTC)

Repurposed churches in the colonial Caribbean
Many Caribbean islands changed hands several times between the Spanish, French, English, Dutch, and others, with consequent changes of predominant religion. I thought I had read elsewhere that the Anglican Cathedral of St, Jago de la Vega in Spanish Town, Jamaica, was a repurposed Catholic church - but it seems it was merely built on the ruins of a former Catholic edifice. But I wonder - does anyone know of Catholic churches that were actually converted into Protestant churches in the colonial era? Or vice-versa? Seems like it would have saved a lot of expense for hard-pressed colonial administrations. (NB - Yes, I know this happened plenty of times in Europe during the Protestant Reformation, but that's another subject.) Textorus (talk) 08:17, 22 February 2018 (UTC)


 * In the case of the British West Indies, it seems that the Protestant British allowed the existing Catholic structures to continue; “French and Spanish priests were permitted to worship God according to the dictates of their conscience" (Jamaica, 1807). The glebe land which supported the Catholic clergy was confiscated, but they were paid an allowance instead "“for the pastoral care of the papists” (Grenada, 1784). See St George's Cathedral, St Vincent & The Grenadines - History of the Church. It seems that the early churches in the West Indies were not very substantial affairs, the oldest church building in Trinidad is Our Lady of Montserrat Roman Catholic Church which was completed in 1878.    Alansplodge (talk) 09:09, 22 February 2018 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the reference. Textorus (talk) 12:26, 27 February 2018 (UTC)

A.L.R. in legal citation
Conversion (law) makes numerous citations to A.L.R., e.g. "51 A.L.R 1462." What could it be? It looks like a law code, but if I run a Google search (prefixed, "51 A.L.R.", to exclude anything and everything containing these letters) and exclude OCR errors for "51 Air", the first several results are coming from Georgia, West Virginia, North Carolina, and New Mexico. Or consider this judgement from the Supreme Court of North Dakota, which cited 51 A.L.R. 1462 on conversion, so apparently it's really stable if the same item deals with the same topic more than eighty years later. And the relevant state legal codes are the Code of Alabama, the Alaska Statutes, the Arizona Revised Statutes, and the Arkansas Code: nothing that could be abbreviated this way. Does the American Law Reports get cited in this manner? Our ALR disambiguation page doesn't mention anything else legal, aside from the Australian Law Reports that I assume to be irrelevant. Nyttend backup (talk) 13:33, 22 February 2018 (UTC)
 * It's stable because of the way the system works.  American Law Reports is a continuously updated system of annotated law reports, referenced to the originally published volume.   There are six series plus a Federal series and 2nd Federal series.   In the citation the volume number within the series comes first, then "ALR" then "2d", "3d", "5th" etc. (to indicate the series), page number and year. 92.19.172.194 (talk) 15:57, 22 February 2018 (UTC)

Translation please from German to English
Hi can you please translate the following:

Eine unklare Erwähnung von Globke, die Life auf unsere Forderung hin wegläßt

Thanks. scope_creep (talk) 20:47, 22 February 2018 (UTC)
 * "An unclear mention by Globke, which Life omits at our demand" should be the translation. 91.49.67.189 (talk) 22:22, 22 February 2018 (UTC)
 * Thanks 91.49.67.189. scope_creep (talk) 22:34, 22 February 2018 (UTC)
 * Could also be:
 * "An unclear mentioning of Globke, which Life leaves off on our demand" --Kharon (talk) 23:39, 22 February 2018 (UTC)
 * Which, however, makes considerably less sense in English.
 * "A . . . mentioning of Globke" suggests Globke is being mentioned by someone else (is this the implication of the German?); and "a . . . mentioning" is technically grammatical but not natural, "A . . . mention" would be more usual.
 * "Leaves off on our demand" is simply not coherent: leaves off what? – "Life" being presumably the magazine Life, one would leave something out of it, not off it (unless the magazine's cover was meant); "on our demand" is not a usual formation, "at our demand" would be more natural (do not be misled by the descriptive term "on demand", which cannot be expanded in the manner suggested). {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 90.220.212.253 (talk) 08:36, 23 February 2018 (UTC)
 * The context of this book quoting the phrase in question makes it clear that it's indeed a mention of Globke. The German government intervened against a news report that was to be published in Life and caused them to omit a reference to Globke from their story. Fut.Perf. ☼ 09:32, 23 February 2018 (UTC)
 * Ah, i was actually a little uncertain because of the lack of context and thought about asking about it. Obviously i did not... sorry for being a bit off, not that it was a wrong translation in isolation though. But of course in context it was wrong. So again, sorry about that scope creep. 91.49.67.179 (talk) 12:55, 23 February 2018 (UTC)

Is selling TV broadcasting rights for a % of ad revenue a thing?
Why do they usually (always?) bid/negotiate with flat fees?

If an Olympics is cancelled do the TV commercial buyers or broadcasters still have to pay? Do they get a discount if the home country boycotts?

Does the IOC have a contingency plan for if a host is so wrecked by an earthquake or hurricane or asteroid or something that it wants to delay or cancel its Games? It's kind of a tight schedule, with winter ending soon after the winter games and the US election season distracting the IOC's biggest revenue source from soon after the summer games to November, and many sports having major events the same season like the Tour de France, so close to an integer number of years late might be the only other option? Does the IOC specify a maximum games lateness above which they'll say that's too close to 4 years late, cancel them anyway?

If a Tunguska-like event's scheduled to destroy a host city late enough that most or all games infrastructure will be ready but early enough that it's unsafe or impossible to hold the games on schedule can they host the games early? In the extremely unlikely event this happens a big country that's only losing a sparsely populated evacuation zone like Winter 1980 seems much more likely to do this than say Tokyo 2020. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 21:10, 22 February 2018 (UTC)
 * It strikes me as unlikely that the Olympics would be held in a city slated to be destroyed. No matter how you slice it, that means moving people and things into an area where they should rather be taken away from. Leaving aside the science fiction aspects, if there is disaster, the IOC will pick up the pieces as best it can, as it did after WWII, in a very fact-dependent situation. For smaller events, there are often backups, I know the NCAA Mens' Basketball Final Four uses Indianapolis as a backup in years when it is not scheduled to host, and as reward it gets to host fairly frequently.--Wehwalt (talk) 22:14, 22 February 2018 (UTC)


 * Hi, you’ve asked eight questions, four about broadcast contracts and four about contingency plans. The official Olympic site has material on IOC broadcast policies. Re contingency plans, here are some references for actual recent plans: London 2012, Pyeongchang 2018. You know that we can’t answer questions about speculative scenarios. 70.67.222.124 (talk) 22:54, 22 February 2018 (UTC)


 * See 1976 Winter Olympics for an actual case. Political and/or financial turmoil is a much more likely reason than a "Tunguska-like event" for not holding an Olympics in the originally-selected location. AnonMoos (talk) 03:44, 23 February 2018 (UTC)


 * Of course. Asteroid is very unlikely but not impossible. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 04:00, 23 February 2018 (UTC)


 * A more likely scenario is the earthquake and tsunami which compelled the organizers of the 2011 World Figure Skating Championships to move the event from Japan to Russia. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 05:30, 23 February 2018 (UTC)

"If an Olympics is cancelled do the TV commercial buyers or broadcasters still have to pay?"

No idea. The five cancelled Olympics were the 1916 Summer Olympics, the 1940 Summer Olympics, the 1940 Winter Olympics, the 1944 Summer Olympics, and the 1944 Winter Olympics. The first Olympics broadcast on television were the 1936 Summer Olympics, but international broadcasting of the Olympics and selling of broadcasting rights only started with the 1956 Winter Olympics. None of the subsequent Olympics was ever cancelled, and no precedent has been set. Dimadick (talk) 10:46, 23 February 2018 (UTC)
 * Well, there was the case of the 1980 Summer Olympics, in Moscow, which were boycotted by the United States. NBC had bought the broadcast rights in advance at great cost, but almost no coverage of the games was shown on US television after the US (and several other countries) decided to boycott them. There is some information at NBC_Olympic_broadcasts. According to this article, NBC lost $34 million in the process. --Xuxl (talk) 14:20, 23 February 2018 (UTC)
 * I suspect all this is spelled out in tedious detail in the various contracts, and whoever would be left holding the bag, insures against the risk.--Wehwalt (talk) 15:49, 23 February 2018 (UTC)
 * Thus the answer to that depends on if the parties were willing to reveal that aspect of the contracts (potentially yes for some countries' or years' TV rights and not others). Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 19:43, 23 February 2018 (UTC)


 * "Well, there was the case of the 1980 Summer Olympics, in Moscow, which were boycotted by the United States." I remembered the boycott, treated as a big deal in a few 1980s works I have read, but I was not aware that there was no broadcasting. Per our article: "Eighty nations were represented at the Moscow Games – the smallest number since 1956. Led by the United States at the insistence of US President Jimmy Carter, 66 countries boycotted the games entirely because of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan."


 * According to our article 1980 Summer Olympics boycott: the absent countries were 1) Albania, 2) Antigua and Barbuda, 3) Argentina, 4) Bahamas, 5) Bahrain, 6) Bangladesh, 7) Barbados, 8) Belize, 9) Bermuda, 10) Bolivia, 11) Canada, 12) Cayman Islands, 13) Central African Republic, 14) Chad, 15) Chile, 16) China, 17) Egypt, 18) El Salvador, 19) Fiji, 20) Gabon, 21) The Gambia, 22) Ghana, 23) Haiti, 24) Honduras, 25) Hong Kong, 26) Indonesia, 27) Iran, 28) Israel, 29) Ivory Coast, 30) Japan, 31) Kenya, 32) South Korea, 33) Liberia, 34) Liechtenstein, 35) Malawi, 36) Malaysia, 37) Mauritania, 38) Mauritius, 39) Monaco, 40) Morocco, 41) Netherlands Antilles, 42) Niger, 43) Norway, 44) Pakistan, 45) Panama, 46) Papua New Guinea, 48) Paraguay, 49) Philippines, 50) Qatar, 51) Saudi Arabia, 52) Singapore, 53) Somalia, 54) Sudan, 55) Suriname, 56) Swaziland, 57) Chinese Taipei, 58) Thailand, 59) Togo, 60) Togo, 61) Tunisia, 62) Turkey, 63) United Arab Emirate, 64) United States, 65) Uruguay, 66) Virgin Islands, 67) West Germany, and 68) Zaire. Dimadick (talk) 00:55, 24 February 2018 (UTC)


 * There was very little video or film footage of the 1980 Olympics shown in America. It was as if it never happened. Then the USSR returned the favor, as it were, by boycotting the 1984 Games. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 02:17, 24 February 2018 (UTC)
 * There was hardly any print media coverage either in the U.S. It was as if the games were happening on another planet. I was actually surprised to see that the World Almanac and Book of Facts (which was an important reference source on current events in those pre-internet days) had all the event results in its 1981 edition, given how everyone else in the mainstream U.S. media were treating the games as if they never existed. --Xuxl (talk) 14:57, 24 February 2018 (UTC)
 * Mrs Thatcher wanted a GB boycott, but in fine bulldog spirit the British Olympic Association told her that they were going anyway. Alansplodge (talk) 15:09, 24 February 2018 (UTC)
 * The Prime Ministers of Australia and France were similarly rebuffed by their NOCs. --   Jack of Oz   [pleasantries]  19:49, 24 February 2018 (UTC)


 * I find the question inscrutable. A flat fee is a flat fee, rather hard to dispute in court.  Percentages of ad revenues?  What if the advertisers claim to have lost revenue?  What if the Olympics are banned at the last moment by political fiat 1980 Olympic Boycott?  That just invites litigation.  Either study economics or keep your eyes open for six decades. μηδείς (talk) 03:14, 1 March 2018 (UTC)