Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Miscellaneous/2017 January 17

= January 17 =

Looking for a term about energy
I was talking to a guy this weekend about the energy that it takes to make and distribute a product. So, using our example, cat litter has to have the clay taken out of the ground, transported, turned into litter, a bag has to be made, the litter is then bagged, and transported again and again until it reaches the store, then finally sold. The term he used was something like 'encapsulated' or 'encompassed' energy or something along those lines. Now that I'm trying to look it up to learn more, I can't think of the term and my Google-Fu is failing me. Anyone know what the term might have been? TIA, † dismas †|(talk) 00:17, 17 January 2017 (UTC)


 * This reminds me of embodied energy. Someguy1221 (talk) 00:51, 17 January 2017 (UTC)


 * That's it! Thanks!! † dismas †|(talk) 01:58, 17 January 2017 (UTC)

Reification and category mistakes
First, I've read the corresponding articles, and it seems like the two are related, but I think that I may be incorrect about the former: I'll be honest, I'm not sure I fully understand what reification, as a fallacy, is. Furthermore, since neither article references the other, I am led to suppose that my understanding is lacking. Both seem to concern ascribing properties to something that are in some sense not right, but what is the core difference? Sure, I can just about understand the map–territory problem. But it is only a problem if I am using the map to say something outside of its domain of applicability.

Second, concerning Gould's The Mismeasure of Man, for which I have read but the Wikipedia article and not the book, I tentatively suppose that Gould saw IQ as an example of reification (and as far as I can see, a category mistake), converting something non-metrizable, at least by one number, to a single number. However, it seems to me that IQ is correlated with attributes that people socially recognize as intelligence. Different people have different ideas of what intelligence is and how it is manifested, but I see that as no problem. If IQ has any predictive power of attributes that people recognize as intelligence, then surely even if it is a fallacy to use it as a definition of intelligence, it may still be a useful construct for many of the reasons that intelligence is. Is there a name for this case when use of a category mistake may still be useful?--Leon (talk) 08:14, 17 January 2017 (UTC)
 * [I've wikilinked the two articles, in your title, for the convenience of other respondents. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 2.122.62.241 (talk) 09:34, 17 January 2017 (UTC)
 * For your last point, it sounds like you are talking about a Proxy for intelligence. Iapetus (talk) 14:13, 17 January 2017 (UTC)


 * (Edit conflict) Reification is one type of category mistake - mistaking the abstract for the real. You could also make other sorts of category mistakes - for instance, mistaking something repeatable for a one-off (in Kantian terms, mistaking plurality for unity). As for Gould's opinion on intelligence... reification is only half of the error, in his opinion. The other big problem is ranking. The complex interaction of various mental systems that we call intelligence is very multi-dimensional - people have not only identified different types of intelligence like creative intelligence, logical intelligence, emotional intelligence and so on, but even within those categories exist all sorts of variation. Outside extremely restrictive conditions (say, "Who can solve these sums fastest") there is no clear way to rank these objectively. (Who's more intelligent - the person who flunks one or two questions in every section of the IQ test, or the person who gets a perfect score except that they totally wipe out in one category?) As to "Well, people can still define intelligence in this way, as an arbitrary measure", Gould saw various biases - both open racism on the part of some scientists, and more subtle unconscious effects like not taking into account differences in education - embedded in these definitions. It's not clear how justified Gould's analysis was - many biologists and sociologists, including those like Jim Flynn who agree with Gould that there's no racial element to intelligence, argue that he overplayed the role of IQ testing in racist policies, and I think it's generally agreed that he focused too much on historical cases rather than modern practice - but he was perhaps the first big name figure from the scientific-side of the so-called "Science Wars" to discuss these issues. Smurrayinchester 14:22, 17 January 2017 (UTC)
 * As a footnote, it's worth noting that Bernard Davis thought that Gould was using the term "reification" incorrectly. Smurrayinchester 14:22, 17 January 2017 (UTC)


 * My old blog post about Mismeasure, for what little it's worth. —Tamfang (talk) 08:39, 21 January 2017 (UTC)

Chinese Hoax
Trump asserts that climate change is a Chinese Hoax. Many Americans believe him. But what basis for this claim is there in fact? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 116.87.233.116 (talk) 17:04, 17 January 2017 (UTC)


 * Absolutely none. The idea of anthropogenic global warming was invented by a Swedish Nobel Prize winning scientist in 1896 AD. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 17:27, 17 January 2017 (UTC)


 * To be fair, anthropogenic climate change is agreed to be happening, so it was not an invention but a discovery. -- Jayron 32 17:36, 17 January 2017 (UTC)


 * Newton or Leibniz is said to have invented calculus even though one just invented the (true) idea and calculus is as old as reality (just like the quadratic formula or 1+1=2). Discovered is better but the Trump quote says invented so invented by Svante is symmetrical. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 18:39, 17 January 2017 (UTC)


 * To the original question. What Donald Trump does when he makes statements like this is called gaslighting.  See here and here for a discussion of his use of the technique, with some attention given to the "Climate Change is a Chinese Hoax" bit.    -- Jayron 32 17:43, 17 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Donald Trump is a Russian hoax. Pass it on. Clarityfiend (talk) 00:38, 18 January 2017 (UTC)

I can't read Trump's mind, but this might be similar to what pisses off a lot of other people, that China has consistently supported global efforts to reduce carbon emissions while increasing its own - see Climate change in China. However, China is also the world's leading investor in green technology, and the world's leading producer of both wind turbines and solar panels. China is also projected (and committed) to reach peak CO2 emissions in 2030, with a decline thereafter. Basically, all China is guilty of here is embracing cheap, dirty energy, while admitting its bad for the evironment. On the other hand, China accuses the west of hypocrisy, claiming that highly developed nations with industry dating back to the 19th century are able to stomach the switch to clean and renewable energy much more easily than a nation that had its industrial revolution in the 1970s. In other words, "you got to pollute the earth, why not us? just for a few decades, we swear." Someguy1221 (talk) 01:13, 18 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Yes, this idea comes from a strain of conspiracy theory popular on the U.S. right wing. Basically the idea is that people who say anthropogenic global warming is a big problem are lying, and their proposed responses to AGW are secretly intended to achieve other nefarious goals, like turning the U.S. into a Communist dictatorship. In this milieu, China and India's leadership are generally assumed to be promoting AGW as a means of crippling the developed West with onerous restrictions on industry so they can take over the global economy. RationalWiki has some more info. --47.138.163.230 (talk) 01:28, 18 January 2017 (UTC)


 * Many people have jobs or other vested interests that they perceive to be threatened by efforts to mitigate global warming. When your job or way of life are threatened, you tend to be sceptical of the threat. You deny it, or at least demand very strong proof that the threat is real. In such an environment, it is hard to make an objective evaluation of the arguments for and against the threat. Climate change is an important example of this. Another example is the theory of evolution, which threatens the religious beliefs of many Christian fundamentalists. Creationism (denial of evolution) is as widespread in the US as denial of climate change, and in fact there is a high correlation. -Arch dude (talk) 05:23, 18 January 2017 (UTC)


 * The assumption for this question is not very valid. It is referring to a tweet send by Trump in 2012, later noted to be a joke. The word "asserts" refers to a current point of view, not a historical joke. So, it is probably important to look at the tweet, which stated "The concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive." His claim, if you take it seriously, is that Chinese were attempting to get the United States to cut back on manufacturing while China planned to grow manufacturing. Since 2012 (and before), that is true. The United States has lost manufacturing jobs and China has increased manufacturing jobs. But, global warming and climate regulations don't have anything to do with that. It is cheaper to manufacture in China and import to the U.S. than it is to manufacture in the U.S. No need for a conspiracy theory. 209.149.113.5 (talk) 19:14, 19 January 2017 (UTC)

Why are there two types of accounts for individual customers of the banks?
Banks offer a savings account and a checking account. Why can't they offer just one type of bank account? Given that some employers would digitize the payment process, they would give employees a pay card affiliated with a bank. The employee may then use the pay card like an ordinary debit card. Why would people put money in The Bank instead of using the money to be converted into tangible money or valuable metals (copper, nickel, iron, gold, silver, platinum) and trade the metals for paper money and coins and then use the paper money and coins to buy necessities (food, clothes, shelter, security/protection, payments for the doctor and prescribed medicines)? 66.213.29.17 (talk) 17:37, 17 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Because the bank assumes different levels of financial risk based upon how long it gets to hold onto your money. Wikipedia has articles titled checking account and savings account.  The notion is this: A bank gives you interest for letting it hold on to your money, because it uses that money as capital to make loans at interest; it makes money on those loans.  The longer you agree to let the bank hold your money, the more interest it will pay you for it.  In a checking account, the expectation is that you can access that money at will.  That means at any instant, you could withdraw some or all of it, so that means the bank has to keep a higher percentage of those funds available to pay out for your needs, so THAT means the bank can use less of it, so it pays you a lower interest rate.  For a savings account, since you cannot write checks against it means that money, that means that the bank gets to hold it longer, and THAT means that the bank is willing to pay HIGHER interest rates.  For accounts like money market accounts and certificates of deposit, banks pay even HIGHER interest rates by putting MORE restrictions on how you can access your money. The principle is: the more access the bank gives you to your money, the less they will pay you for the right to hold it.  -- Jayron 32 17:49, 17 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Do banks work with employers? I know that companies would form a direct deposit. The payment is automatically transferred to one's bank account. However, this may not give the person any freedom to divide the money. With a direct deposit, does the money go directly to the checking account? Can the person transfer 80% of the new income to the savings account? And why do some banks have a promotion in which the client must put in a certain amount of money in the checking account and must stay there? Can the client transfer the money to a savings account and with every new income, the client transfers 80% of the after-tax income to the savings account? If a person receives a large inheritance or makes a large salary, then can that person just live off of interest and be independently wealthy, removing oneself from trade permanently? If one chooses to live in a car on the streets to reduce living costs, then can one still receive benefits from the government, even though one persistently saves 90% of one's income in the savings account and only lives off of 10% ($5,000 a year)? 66.213.29.17 (talk) 18:19, 17 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Direct deposit paychecks can usually be split, though it depends on the employer . There would be a form to fill out where you can specify multiple accounts (even at different banks) and how much you want to go to each account. clpo13(talk) 18:46, 17 January 2017 (UTC)


 * No, banks don't usually work with employers, they just accept direct payments to accounts. The usual method for splitting income between accounts (in the UK at least) is for the employee to set up a standing order to transfer a fixed amount each month from the current account (checking account in the US) to the savings account.  Rules about benefits from the government will vary by jurisdiction.  People trust banks more than they trust employers or valuable metals because governments in many jurisdictions guarantee at least some of the money in bank accounts even if the bank goes out of business.  If you live in a country where banks are not trusted or guaranteed, then metals or an employer card might possibly be a safer option.    D b f i r s   21:17, 17 January 2017 (UTC)
 * As Dbfirs said, benefit rules vary from country to country. That said, AFAIK in most countries the things that may matter when it comes to money are your income and in some cases your means. In other words, how much you're spending is not generally going to directly affect your normal benefit. Of course if the benefit is means tested and you save up enough, or have enough already then you may become ineligible. Likewise, if you're very wealth, it's possible interest from your savings will be enough to affect your benefit even if it's only income tested. In some cases you may also be eligible to some sort of housing or accomodation support or other such targeted allowances. This potentially could depend on how much you're actually paying for the accomodation (or whatever) or require you to have some sort of accomodation which is eligible for support, which may not apply to living in your car.  The final point is that benefits tend to require some need. If you aren't sick or disabled or old enough, you'll probably only be eligible for some sort of unemployment benefit. These tend to be either time limited, or require you to be actively looking for a job or both. This is the case even in places like Norway  and Finland /. The precise requirements to be considered looking for a job may vary, but if you're just planning to live off inheritance and have no intention to get a job and are honest about it, you're probably not going to be eligible for a benefit if you're not sick/disabled or old enough. It's also possible living in your car when you don't have to will affect whether you're considered a genuine jobseeker.  A Universal Basic Income would be different, but these aren't generally called benefits, and as our article says these only really exist in limited form in a few places.  Nil Einne (talk) 13:01, 18 January 2017 (UTC)