Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2021 June 23

= June 23 =

Metaphysics
What's the point in asking if I can never learn anything about reality that I can know to be fundamentaly true? -- 2600:1000:B05C:9A38:6DBA:179B:CC5F:C859


 * Listen to your spirit. The truth can be found in the sound of one hand clapping. 2602:24A:DE47:BA60:8FCB:EA4E:7FBD:4814 (talk) 00:59, 23 June 2021 (UTC)


 * Start with the premise that you exist, and take it from there. <-Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots-> 02:11, 23 June 2021 (UTC)
 * Worked for René. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 2.122.59.177 (talk) 07:54, 23 June 2021 (UTC)
 * "René seeks to examine if anything exists at all. Therefore René exists." --Lambiam 08:26, 23 June 2021 (UTC)


 * What's the point of asking this question if you know you are not likely to get a straight answer? If you accidentally put your hand on a surface that is searing hot, you may experience a searing pain. It is not likely that you then start wondering whether it is fundamentally true that you're experiencing pain. Rather, you may discover that it pays off to ask first, Is this plate hot? Finding out things about the world that help to foresee future experiences is pragmatically useful. I think it is generally so useful that as a result evolution has bestowed curiosity as a trait on our species. Now we can't stop asking questions whose pragmatic usefulness is less than clear. --Lambiam 08:21, 23 June 2021 (UTC)


 * You give this a much more positive spin than article Appeal to the stone does... [[Image:SFriendly.gif|20px]] -- AnonMoos (talk) 00:10, 24 June 2021 (UTC)

US commemorative stamps
I have a friend who is into Hot Wheels toy cars, and I just noticed there are some postage stamps commemorating them that were first issued in September 2018. I might buy a sheet of them as a gift for my friend. Does anyone know how long they are likely to stay available from the USPS, if I don't buy them now? E.g. a 3 year issue period would give me til September of this year. A quick look around the USPS site didn't find any info on this. Thanks. 2602:24A:DE47:BA60:8FCB:EA4E:7FBD:4814 (talk) 00:58, 23 June 2021 (UTC)
 * They're still available for sale by the USPS as part of its commemorative stamps series, but they're at the bottom of the last page, so they may not be available for much longer. It used to be - back in the days when people wrote letters - that commemorative stamps were on sale for six months or until supplies ran out, but the business model has changed thoroughly and the availability period is now much longer. After the USPS stops selling them, you can always purchase them from a stamp dealer. Xuxl (talk) 12:39, 23 June 2021 (UTC)
 * Thanks. Do you happen to know, for a typical issue that wasn't particularly rare or sought after but has been gone from the Post Office for say 5 years, what would a stamp dealer typically charge?  Like if I want some American Scientists stamps from a while back, could I likely get them for let's say a maximum of 2x or 3x their face value?  I'm not a stamp collector per se.  I save a few interesting stamps for my own enjoyment, but I mostly use them to mail letters, i.e. I like to put cool stamps on personal correspondence for the recipient's enjoyment.  Of course you are right that personal snail mail letters are now relatively infrequent, but I do send one once in a while.  I don't bother with special stamps for stuff like bill payments.  2602:24A:DE47:BA60:8FCB:EA4E:7FBD:4814 (talk) 19:34, 23 June 2021 (UTC)
 * The USPS has issued several different sets of American Scientists stamps. A Google search for "American scientists" stamps will show you that full sheets of the 2010 issue of "forever" AS stamps (if those are the ones you mean) are selling for about $20 on eBay, which I assume is roughly what a dealer would charge (and is a bit less than 2× what a sheet of 20 forever stamps cost today at the P.O.). Deor (talk) 22:40, 23 June 2021 (UTC)
 * Thanks! 2602:24A:DE47:BA60:8FCB:EA4E:7FBD:4814 (talk) 07:00, 24 June 2021 (UTC)

sports video
Not seeking legal advice, it's just a question about workings of the law, inspired by the recent Scotus NCAA decision. If I attend a college football game (or for that matter an NFL game), the ticket says I'm not allowed to film it with my phone, but let's say I do that anyway without being noticed. If I next try to put the video on the web, it surely gets taken down and I get in legal trouble if I persist. Can someone explain the nature of the legal trouble (i.e. what is the legal principle behind the trouble)? I think it can't be copyright, since the game itself is not in a fixed medium until I shoot the video. But, I'm pretty sure they do manage to enforce suppression of the video somehow. What is the mechanism? This is in the US in case it matters. Thanks. 2602:24A:DE47:BA60:8FCB:EA4E:7FBD:4814 (talk) 19:27, 23 June 2021 (UTC)
 * It's possible that the act of purchasing and using a ticket is construed as entering into a contract not to do the things prohibited on the back of the ticket. If that's the case, and then you do something that's prohibited by this contract, the organisers can get you in trouble for breach of contract.  See this article for discussion; it's not primarily US-focused, and some of its US content is related to copyright (e.g. if you use your phone to film a TV broadcast), but it does discuss your precise situation somewhat.  And as far as getting YouTube to take down your video: it's distinctly not in YouTube's best interests to enable someone to continue doing something illegal, e.g. breach of contract.  Of course they can't know that a particular video consists of something illegal, but once the sporting entity tells them that you're in breach, it's in their best interests to take down your video and potentially shut down your account.  See Secondary liability; in a copyright context there's a concept of Contributory copyright infringement, and there might be something comparable for breach of contract.  Nyttend backup (talk) 20:14, 23 June 2021 (UTC)
 * Hmm, there would be no way for them to know where I got the video from. Or, say, instead of posting it myself, I mail an SD card with the video anonymously to some "influencer", maybe even one in another country.  I think it's well established in cases of documents leaked to journalists that as long as the journalist himself/herself didn't break the law in obtaining the document, they can publish the contents.  The leaker might be subject to whatever sanctions (that's why Edward Snowden is holed up in Russia today) but the journalist is in the clear.  And yet I'm still pretty sure there is some method of enjoining these football videos. I do know that in some less lucrative sports (specifically I know someone who is into watching fan videos of sumo wrestling), videos are all over the net and the sports organizers don't seem to care, but the US pro football etc. establishments go into conniptions over this.  The NFL also used to zealously prevent people from seeing the so-called "all-22" video (a video showing the whole playfield as opposed to close-ups of individual plays) but they have apparently relaxed about that.  The teams themselves film all-22's of every game for use by their own coaches, but they went to lengths to keep the footage under wraps.  It's the easiest of all videos to shoot, but being able to see all the players simultaneously apparently can reveal seekrit coaching strategies that they wanted to protect.  So I wonder what kinds of methods they used to stop it from circulating. Anyway, I ramble.  Thanks.  2602:24A:DE47:BA60:8FCB:EA4E:7FBD:4814 (talk) 22:36, 23 June 2021 (UTC)
 * Your first couple of sentences is perhaps why they'd seek to get it taken down — regardless of who you are, you almost certainly broke the rules (and the contract, if it's interpreted thus). Journalism is an exception, because it's virtually certain that the journalist wasn't personally responsible for leaking the document, plus it's a matter of freedom of the press (see New York Times Co. v. United States), while most people who publish such videos were at the game: it's quite unlikely that you're going to use YouTube to publish a video someone else took.  And enforcing a private agreement, whether or not it counts as a contract, is very different from publishing leaked documents: freedom of the press is meant to permit the dissemination of information, and a government wouldn't try to stop a journalist from publishing secrets for any reason other than hiding those secrets, while the sporting agency isn't attempting to hide what happened at the sporting event, just trying to ensure that unauthorised parties don't publish videos and potentially compete with authorised parties.  The closest situation I can envision is if the government has an exclusive contract with the New York Times to publish previously-secret documents, and Snuffy Smith goes in and publishes the same documents without authorisation; the government might be able to stop him, since they could show that it's not a matter of press freedom since the public can get the same documents from the Times.  Nyttend backup (talk) 00:23, 24 June 2021 (UTC)
 * If you put the video on the web though a platform, breach of the platform's terms of service may have a role before any other consideration, the terms may also allow some discretionality on the part of the host. This naturally applies to the "taken down" part, not to the "legal trouble" part and only if you are using such a platform. One expression I found in conjunction with copyright was "other proprietary rights", though it is not clear to me if it covers this case or what exactly it is supposed to mean. One possibly interesting case would be if the video was taken from a distance without purchasing a ticket, since there wouldn't be an agreement/contract in this case. Personuser (talk) 11:50, 24 June 2021 (UTC)