Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2011 September 12

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September 12

Irish word óglaigh

What does the word óglaigh in Óglaigh na hÉireann mean? By that I'd like an explanation of the meaning of the word in English rather than an approximate English language translation, because, apparently, the word is rather hard to translate. --Belchman (talk) 00:05, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

It is explained in detail here. (Hopefully you'll be able to view the page I am linking to -- Google Book previews often show different sets of pages to different viewers.) Looie496 (talk) 06:37, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

Thanks. That's exactly what I was looking for. --Belchman (talk) 10:58, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

what do mba's know?

could you guys link to like opencourseware but for mba's? (this is the reference desk after all). I know a lot of programmer-types are self-educated, and that means they've gotten four years or six of higher education just "over the wire" -- a lot of mba programs are one year. so other than the connections, what do these guys (mba's) know? 82.234.207.120 (talk) 00:47, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

p.s. i do realize that this knowledge might be secret, so that it is not as widely diffused over the internet as programming knowledge is, which has a culture of openness and sharing, etc. if so perhaps the best I could do is buy the same textbooks an mba uses? references to these is equally appreciated... 82.234.207.120 (talk) 00:47, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

As someone else said before: "You wasted $150,000 on an education you coulda got for a buck fifty in late charges at the public library." – Will Hunting. 01:00, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

All of the people I've known in MBA programs said that 90% of it is connections and a fancy sounding degree that is mandatory for getting hired at a lot of places. The other 10% is musing about business strategy, basic investing and accounting, and taxes. That's just what I've picked up over the grapevine, anyway. --Mr.98 (talk) 01:39, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

I understand that some MBA programs include mathematically oriented courses on data-based decision making, but operations research is not really something that can be taught in such a short time. Thus, at least some MBA's know that the field of operations research exists and can be useful. 130.188.8.11 (talk) 10:20, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

There's the [[1]] for of us who do not believe that advanced business knowledge is a privilege of some. Quest09 (talk) 11:56, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

The decline of Native American? And the discovery of America

I read that the population of America in North and South were declined a lot in around 15 to 16 century when the European came. It mainly because of disease that cause a lot of people died. My question is why native Americans are the only one who are dying because of disease but not the new immigrant people from Europe?Trongphu (talk) 03:09, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

And why America was not found until Christopher Columbus first found it in the end of 15 century? It should have been way earlier Boats were available long time before that. People were like going all over the places to trade long before that.Trongphu (talk) 03:09, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

Vikings were aware of it centuries earlier, but it was pretty far away and at that point there didn't seem much reason to hang around. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 03:13, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

You may be interested in our article about the Columbian Exchange. In particular that it mentions syphilis was transferred for the New World to the Old. Schyler (exquirere bonum ipsum) 03:16, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

Great table in that article, thanks. Comet Tuttle (talk) 04:41, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

(edit conflict) To answer your first question, you should read the book 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus which provides some great insightes on the pre-Columbian state of the New World. And yes, the population decline of Native Americans was directly due to Eastern Hemisphere diseases that were brought to the West by Europeans. It worked both ways, though. There is some reason to believe that, while the small pox and other such diseases went west across the Atlantic, syphillis made the return voyage. The people in the Americas definately ended up worse off, however. As to the second question, there were undoubtedly people who arrived in the Americas before Columbus. Vinland predates his arrival by almost 500 years. That represents the only positive confirmation of Europeans in the Americas prior to Columbus, but there have been other possible candidated of Pre-Columbian trans-oceanic contact which vary in reliability from the very likely, to the possible, to the not very likely. --Jayron32 03:17, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

Yellow fever took a huge toll on Europeans in the New World (it, however, probably originated in Africa), but not enough to prevent Europeans from arriving in large numbers. Acroterion (talk) 03:23, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

The first known (or believed) European to sight the New World was Bjarni Herjólfsson. I always figured he didn't get the credit in textbooks, because nobody could pronounce it. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 03:26, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

To be fair, Norse exploration of the New World, while it happened, didn't lead to widespread colonization. Within less than a century, the Norse had all but abandoned settlement of the Americas (save Greenland, which barely held on until right around the Columbian discoveries; before being abandoned) while the Columbian explorations led to a massive colonization of the Americas. While Columbus wasn't there first, his was the voyage which had the greater historical impact on later events. --Jayron32 03:32, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

It may not be a coincidence that by 1492, gunpowder was in rather wider use in Europe than it had been during the 10th century (especially as it hadn't been brought to Europe yet). ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 03:37, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

You misunderstand the epidemics. These weren't new diseases, these were old diseases brought by the European colonists themselves. Smallpox, influenza, and even measles. Diseases which may still be fatal to Europeans, but usually only minor annoyances as their bodies had long adapted to them.

However, geographically isolated populations do not develop the same resistances to the same diseases. An American visiting Asia may get sick from drinking stream water a native can drink safely, and vice versa. Country border immunization requirements is partly based on this fact, as getting immunized lets your body 'experience' diseases which we may haven't encountered yet, building natural immunity safely.

Native Americans however, were isolated from the rest of the world for thousands of years (earliest ancestors of Native Americans came from Asia through the Bering strait at about the same time that humans began learning to build cities: 16,500 to 13,000 years ago) and thus did not regularly come into contact with other humans. The diseases brought by Europeans were new to them. Having no resistance to diseases like measles whatsoever, these new diseases were devastating.

The estimates of the total death toll from epidemics is as high as 90% to 95% of the total population before European contact. Which is why there are far more descendants of colonists in the Americas today than comparable European colonies in Asia and Africa. See Population history of indigenous peoples of the Americas and History of smallpox. -- Obsidi♠n Soul 03:50, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

The Arrow of Disease points (mostly) one way, as a Discover magazine article explains. Clarityfiend (talk) 04:54, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

Interesting article. From what it says, it appears that one hypothesis is that the source of most "crowd diseases" (diseases that spread via close human contact like small pox or cholera or the like) is from domesticated animal vectors, and the lack of widespread animal domestication in the Americas (compared to Eurasia) means that there weren't any such diseases availible for transmitting to Europe; while Europe was teaming with them because of the animal domestications. It is a compelling explanation as to why Europe didn't carry back many devastating American diseases; there just may not have been any. --Jayron32 05:05, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

Has someone pointed to OP to guns, germs, and steel yet? It is an essential read, even if you disagree with the conclusions. --Lgriot (talk) 08:03, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

I was about to. The thesis with regard to disease is what Jayron is discussing. Europe had animals and the animals allowed it to build up great centers of population density. The combination of being around lots of animals and in large populations means you get lots of epidemic diseases. Over time you develop partial or complete immunity to them if you're around them a lot. You then go over to some place that has never had any of these diseases, and they get wiped out pretty quick. Instead of waiting for them to recover on the own pace, you take over. Consider what would have happened if, say, the Saracens had invaded Europe right after the Black Death... --Mr.98 (talk) 12:01, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

Why didn't Vikings introduce diseases to the Americas ?

Or did they ? StuRat (talk) 15:20, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

I'm not sure they were in America proper. Quest09 (talk) 15:21, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

The Americas =\= America. Canada is part of the Americas (and they are known to have lived there for at least a bit), but not in America (where there is some questionable evidence that they visited). Googlemeister (talk) 15:32, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

I don't think anyone will ever know; the documentary evidence consists of some garbled stories in the Norse sagas. They seem to have had rather limited contact with the locals. "(Viking) settlements in continental North America aimed to exploit natural resources such as furs and in particular lumber, which was in short supply in Greenland. It is unclear why the short-term settlements did not become permanent, though it was in part because of hostile relations with the indigenous peoples, referred to as Skrælings by the Norse." Alansplodge (talk) 15:41, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

StuRat -- They probably didn't have significant domestic animals with them at L'Anse aux Meadows (which was only inhabited for a relatively brief time by a few people in any case). They may have spread disease in Greenland, but Greenland was not very well-located as a site for diseases to spread to the Americas... AnonMoos (talk) 15:45, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

The Norse presence in the Americas was limited to Greenland and, as far as we know, the island of Newfoundland. Their ships may have explored or occasionally come ashore elsewhere in what is now eastern Canada, but probably not long enough to have more than a brief hostile interaction with the indigenous people, probably insufficient for much contagion of disease. Even in Greenland, we know that the Norse avoided interaction with the ancestors of the Inuit. Most such interaction was hostile. The Norse avoidance of any but brief and hostile interactions with indigenous people may have prevented contagion. This pattern of interaction was very different from that of later European colonizers, who variously enslaved, engaged in trade with, or intermarried with the indigenous population. Those patterns of interaction could and did result in a lot more contagion. Also, Greenland, like Newfoundland, was an island, whose indigenous inhabitants had little interaction with mainlanders. If the Norse did transmit any Old World diseases to indigenous people in Greenland or Newfoundland, they are likely to have died off before they were able to transmit the disease on to mainlanders. By settling in the most densely populated parts of the New World mainland, areas linked to other parts of the New World by indigenous trade routes, later European colonists gave rise to contagion that spread rapidly among indigenous populations. Marco polo (talk) 16:03, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

To address the second question, several innovations in navigation and ship design led to the ability to make long distance journeys without the need to stay near coastal areas. These changes made Columbus's voayage possible (bit not pleasant). See also Age of Discovery. Rmhermen (talk) 17:40, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

Just a thought on "why didn't the Vikings pass on their diseases to the indigenous peoples of the Americas?": it is possible that there had been regular contact with these peoples who lived on the coast for millenia, and so coastal populations would be more resistant to European infections than those living inland. My reason for saying this is that evidence of continuous trading links between European coastal communities is growing through recent archaeological discoveries. I even remember reading about the discovery of tobacco leaves in Egyptian burials. Later European contacts were more sustained and penetrated deeper into the American interior, thus giving more chance for indigenous peoples to catch these diseases. I'll go and have a look for some links and get back here. (posting later) Well we do have an article on everything: Pre-Columbian trans-oceanic contact. --TammyMoet (talk) 18:04, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

But that would just lead to the question "if coastal peoples in the Americas were exposed to European diseases, why didn't they pass them on to those living in the interior ?". Certainly trade links existed there, as well. StuRat (talk) 18:19, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

does America still have social mobility?

It used to be, anyone could work hard and become a millionaire or billionaire in America (me, for instance). Is this still so? If it is, I don't get why people suggest you should tax the rich for their "extra" money, as wouldn't this mean that this would stop being true? I mean, I wouldn't give up all the investment in time that it takes to get rich when the extra money would just be for taxes, I'd rather just watch TV in that case... It seems like I'm not getting something... 82.234.207.120 (talk) 10:51, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

Surely as a millionaire/billionaire, you understand that millionaires still have much, much more disposable income than the average person, even in countries with extremely progressive tax codes? --140.180.16.144 (talk) 11:59, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

I don't think it was ever the case that anyone could become a millionaire or billionaire. You were supposed to need talent for a start. And luck. Wasn't there meant to be an element of risk-taking? Itsmejudith (talk) 12:05, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

I don't think it was or is the case that "anyone" would be excluded from becoming a millionaire or billionaire. There is no automatic exclusion of some people, which doesn't really mean that people are climbing the social ladder, however. Quest09 (talk) 12:33, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

Right, anyone can do it. Talent and luck are not really required, though I suppose retroactively you could call hard work "luck". In my experience the harder you work in America the higher you get. Of course, this does not apply to blindly applying makeup to celebrity asses, it requires career planning. 82.234.207.120 (talk) 12:39, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

Statisticly speaking, there is very little social mobility in America; less so than in countries with better social safety nets.(see [2] for just one story). Americans believe their society to be more egalitarian than it really is; while in the U.S. there are anecdotal examples of "rags to riches" stories of people who move from abject poverty to obnoxious wealth, such examples are so rare as to be insignificant in the overall picture of the U.S. social class structure. America lacks a named aristocracy, and has no legal hurdles to achievement of wealth, so people seem to believe that means that anyone can do anything in America; that isn't actually borne out by actual data, where very few people are able to escape generational poverty, and many wealthy powerful people are that way because they were born into wealthy powerful families. The deal is, this is pretty much unchanged from past generations. The myth of social mobility in America is far reaching and quite old. --Jayron32 12:48, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

In many ways this all depends on what you mean by "social mobility"... if we equate that term to "economic mobility"... certainly it is possible for people to change their economic status. That mobility is more common at the lower end of the spectrum... with people who work hard going from poverty to working class, and those who are successful in business moving up to the middle classes (of course mobility also goes the other way... some people fall from middle class to poverty). It's much rarer to go from middle to upper class (but it is possible... Bill Gates being a prime example).

However, economic status is only part of social mobility in the US. There is also a social divide between "old money" and "new money". The gilded age's self made millionaires, like John D. Rockefeller, were considered "Nouveau riche" and socially unacceptable by those who made their money in earlier generations. Rockefeller's children, on the other hand, were considered extremely socially acceptable. Blueboar (talk) 13:28, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

• So, having money that you didn't earn yourself is more honorable than having money you earned? Quest09 (talk) 13:39, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

• Yes, because those people will presumably have been raised in a "cultured" way, and thus be sophisticated, whereas the "new money" people tend to be obnoxious, in theory. However, Donald Trump and Paris Hilton manage to be both "old money" and obnoxious. StuRat (talk) 14:38, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

When you say "more" in regards to economic mobility, you need to make clear you are speaking from a purely American context. Within America, and compared to no other country, it is easier to make smaller changes to ones income than it is to make larger changes. That is pretty much all you can say; that someone will find it easier to raise their income level from, say, $10,000 per year (below the poverty line) to say $40,000 per year (say, squarely "middle class") than it is to go from $40,000 to $400,000 per year (into the realm of the very wealthy). However, that doesn't mean that economic mobility is more prevalent in America than in other countries; far from it, when comparing moves between economic groups in America to other well-developed countries, America lags behind; that is over the past several centuries more Swedes, say, have been able to move up the economic ladder than Americans. That is the relevent data to deal with; not comparing how poor Americans fare compared to richer Americans, but rather how poor Americans compare to the poor in other countries with similar economic development. And America frankly doesn't do all that well. See also Gini coefficient, which deals with related (though not identical) measurements of economic distribution. --Jayron32 13:37, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

Oh, and Bill Gates isn't a very good example of a "rags to riches" type of economic mobility in America. He's more of a "riches to more riches" story; his father was a prominent and wealthy attorney in Washington State; the term "upper middle class" (as used in Gates's article) in America is a codeword for "rich and powerful". In America, everyone is middle class; as both "wealthy" and "poor" have perjorative connotations, so the rich describe themselves as "upper middle class" and the poor describe themselves as "lower middle class", even though the former often have millions of dollars in wealth and the latter have no savings and live "paycheck to paycheck". Middle class is a meaningless term. Gates economic move went from growing up wealthy enough to not have to ever worry about money to being wealthy enough to not have to ever worry about money, but even moreso. The Gates story is more about moving from a lot of money to a shitload of money than from poorness to richness. --Jayron32 13:45, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

Although Bill Gates' story might not be an example of "rags to richer", his co-founders at Microsoft, which in some instances also made billions, indeed are examples of something like it. Quest09 (talk) 14:17, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

Jayron... I think we are actually in agreement here... At least in America, it is quite common for people to move up (or down) one rung on the economic ladder... it is quite rare to move multiple rungs (and, yes, it is very difficult to move up to the highest rung). Rags to riches may be a myth... but the traditional "American Success Story" is valid... however, it's a multi-generational story. A poor man works hard and makes enough to move into solid "working class" status. His son goes to college, starts a business and moves into the middle classes... the grand children grow the business, make more money and move into the upper-middle class. Of course not every family ends up being that successful in three generations. But enough follow the pattern that the "story" is valid. Blueboar (talk) 14:24, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

There's Alfredo Quiñones-Hinojosa, who started out as an illegal immigrant from Mexico who jumped the fence, got into America, somehow got enrolled in college here, and by having a good brain and working hard and no doubt being extremely lucky, is now a neurosurgeon at Johns Hopkins University. I think he "overcame" the citizenship problem by a temporary amnesty program during the Reagan years (incredible luck again). 20.137.18.50 (talk) 14:30, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

Yes, but the plural of "anectdote" is not "data". Yes, individual people have raised themselves up by their own bootstraps, but not enough to make the U.S. look all that good compared to other nations. For every Alfredo Quiñones-Hinojosa, there are thousands of individuals who have lived in poverty their whole lives, and whose children will, and their children will; the number of people who are in that situation in the U.S. is far greater than in other contries of comparable levels of development. --Jayron32 17:27, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

I agree with you, and the point of bringing up this incredibly lucky guy was to show how much plain luck outside of one's locus of control is a factor in success. I'd suspect population is a problem that makes it harder for people to get ahead in the US. Do any of the developed countries have more humans-per-job opening than the US, I wonder? 20.137.18.50 (talk) 17:43, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

I agree with others that BG is a good example of a riches to riches and a favourite example of mine. There's no denying his tremendous achievements. But and from his and his family's history I'm guessing there's a good chance they'll agree with me, he was likely greatly helped by his family background. He was using computers via his school when I'm guessing few people had ever seen one in person. He went in to business at an early age (I mean the stuff before Micro-Soft), his business acument and skill must have helped a lot but I'm guessing so did his connections. He left university to form his own business (with his parents support) obviously always a risk but a much smaller risk if you know you can likely also count on them to support you if you do your best but fail (and realisticly he probably could have gone back to Harvard or some other university if he needed to not like someone on his scholarship). I know Micro-Soft had success early on, helped I'm sure by BG (and PAs) skills but I wonder whether they needed any initial funding (for example I'm a bit unclear Monte Davidoff worked for free with the hope for future payoffs or was a paid coder) but if they did, there's a fair chance even if it didn't come directly from his family (or PAs) their connections helped them get it. P.S. PA is normally considered the only other Microsoft co-founder AFAIK (and supported by our article), although there must be others involved who got rich. I wouldn't consider PA a rags to riches story. Perhaps his family wasn't as rich as BG's but he went to the same school which strongly suggests they weren't exactly poor. The article on him also mentions his father was 'an associate director of the University of Washington libraries' not someone you would expect to be poor. At best, perhaps the middle class to extremely wealthy someone mentioned earlier. Incidentally, PA is sometimes said to be the person who got rich off BG. I don't think this is fair, but I would also suggest it's fair to say it's not clear how well he would have done were it not for BG (the same perhaps for BG vs PA although perhaps to a lesser extent) so issues of 'luck' (for lack of a better word) do come in to it. Nil Einne (talk) 07:24, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

I'd say it's pretty safe to say that BG and PA can attribute much of their financial success to Tim Paterson. 20.137.18.50 (talk) 16:39, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

Seems like these studies (I found for instance "Cross Country Differences in Intergenerational Earnings Mobility", G Solon, 2002) are based on the average wage in America and the average wage in Sweden, and on the assumption that people earning the average wage in whatever country they are in must belong to the same economic class. If I've got that right, it seems like a totally arbitrary thing to study. It may be easier to get rich for Sweden in Sweden, but you're still in Sweden afterwards, and have not become a rich American, and you would not be rich if you took your Kronor to America. Using absolute measures would be hard because of exchange rates. Maybe something based around a market basket?  Card Zero  (talk) 15:08, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

Yes, it would be valid if we were comparing, say Zimbabwe or Papua New Guinea, whose level of development was vastly different than the U.S., and whose standard of living wasn't measured on the same scale. Sweden and the U.S. are pretty much indistinguishable, developmentally speaking; they both fit into the highest category of the Human Development Index, though the U.S. ranks slightly higher on the overall number, Sweden ranks higher than the U.S. on inequality-adjusted HDI. The idea that America is THE BEST is taken as axiomatic to the point that no one is willing to concede that anywhere in the world could be comparable in terms of standard of living. Even you show this by downplaying any studies which show better standard of living in Sweden by saying something to the effect of "you're still in Sweden afterwards", as though we should somehow axiomatically accept that it can never be as good as the U.S. That doesn't make any sense. --Jayron32 17:27, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

Mapping the range of incomes in one country onto the range of incomes in another, and assessing mobility within the two ranges as if they were the same thing, is not comparing like for like. The standard of living in the two countries being comparable does not mean that the ranges of income are therefore equivalent. There are presumably super-rich people in the US who have no counterpart in Sweden. Have the richest from both countries been lumped together into the same class? Is what's truly being said here just in Sweden, you can reasonably hope to get quite rich, but in America, you can only with great difficulty become super-rich? That would be a non-sequitur. For the sake of appearing unbiased I could also point to the super-poor, and ask whether the study says in Sweden, you can reasonably hope to escape from mild financial embarrassment, but in America, you can only with great difficulty escape abject poverty - again, it's not measuring economic mobility between the same economic classes. It's just making a false comparison, and producing apparent disparity of economic mobility as a result, GIGO-style.  Card Zero  (talk) 11:33, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

See Horatio Alger myth. 20.137.18.50 (talk) 13:12, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

Some factors which promote social and economic mobility:

1) Free education, from preschool through college/university, for the poor.

2) Free child-care for the poor.

3) Free job-training for the poor.

4) Free medical care for the poor, including birth control.

5) Free basic transportation for the poor.

6) Free basic housing for the poor. (Nothing luxurious, though.)

7) Free basic, healthy food for the poor (no pop, alcohol, tobacco, junk food, etc.).

8) Free business clothing for the poor.

9) A jobs program which provides jobs to the poor directly.

10) Banning colleges/universities from having lower admission standards for "legacies" or those who come with a large financial contribution.

11) Basic communications for the poor. These days, this might include a basic cell phone (no camera, etc.), and access to a basic computer (no games) for email.

Note that many of these items are expensive, and the money to pay for them can't come from the poor, thus it must come from those making more money. This is a progressive income tax. Also note that the benefits to the poor can't be so good so as to remove incentives to work for something better. Food programs, for example, shouldn't provide anything beyond the basics. Perhaps all processed foods should be banned, and the poor should only get raw produce provided (of course, this would require that they have cooking facilities). Just giving the poor a large chunk of cash to spend is also a bad idea, as many of them would waste it on tobacco, alcohol, illegal drugs, lottery tickets, vacations, cable TV, widescreen TVs, and other entertainment.

The reason these things help the poor move up is that, without them, they might think "I'd like to go to that job interview, but they couldn't call me to tell me when it is, I have nobody to watch the kids, can't get there, have no idea how to behave in a job interview, have no decent clothes to wear, have no place to shower first, don't have the college degree or job experience they said they require, and might pass out from low blood sugar". StuRat (talk) 14:53, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

I don't know if 10) is doable. Universities which do that are the private ones. Quest09 (talk) 15:22, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

I'm sure even private universities receive some state and federal money which could be pulled. For example, all student loans and grants to students at such colleges could be pulled (although this could backfire and hurt the poor more). Perhaps there are also federally funded research programs which could be pulled. StuRat (talk) 18:17, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

I don't know how realistic a lot of this is. It seems to me that if one could have all that without needing a job, there would be little reason not to accept you lot in life and live a poor life of leisure. Googlemeister (talk) 15:29, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

I addressed that. The "life of leisure" would be raw foods, a bunk in a homeless shelter, a bus pass, but no car, no vacations, no TV, no video games, no alcohol, no designer clothes, no jewelry, no fur coats, etc. Most people would want more than that. StuRat (talk) 15:44, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

I admit that I am very cynical, but I feel that this list is not based on reality. For example, America has free education from kindergarten to 12th grade. Where I live (Charleston, SC), it is very easy to find children of the poor who do not go to school by order of their parents. Instead, they are tasked with panhandling the tourists until they are too old to be "cute". Then, they are drug couriers (because juveniles don't do hard time). Then, when they turn 18, they are just plain criminals. How does having free education help the poor? What is required is forced education, not free education. Health care is similar. Job training is similar. If the poor refuse it, making it free doesn't help anything. All it does is create a new tax and a new office in government. -- kainaw™ 15:37, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

Well, inevitably some portion of the poor won't be ambitious enough to move up. However, others will. School is mandatory up to a certain age, although I'd extend that to 18, where they then can decide for themselves if they want to try to improve their lives. Also note that free schools are often pathetic, in the poorer areas of the US. They need to be improved, part of which requires more money (from the middle class and rich). I assume when you said "What is required is forced education, not free education", you meant it should be forced AND free, since, of course, the poor would have no way to pay for it otherwise. StuRat (talk) 15:48, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

I don't think one can deny that the poor, proportionally, make more bad choices with regards to taking advantage of educational opportunities. It may, however, be more productive to ask what it is about the social and economic context that the poor live in that leads them to make those bad choices. It is not outside of the realm of possibility to cause better choices to be made by providing the poor with a different environment in which to make choices. The difference between economic disparity and socioeconomic mobility among countries of similar development levels may have more to do with how those countries treat their poor in ways that frame the choices the poor make, than anything else. --Jayron32 18:29, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

And some of those bad choices may be due to a lack of education, too. If you don't know some math, then the rent-to-own furniture at $100 a month may sound like a far better deal than buying new furniture, and a lottery ticket that can pay off a million dollars tonight might sound like a far better choice than a savings account that only goes up 2% per year. StuRat (talk) 18:45, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

Yes, but you suppose that children are going to pay attention in school and do their homework merely because you demand that they do; and when they don't it appears your attitude is "fuck'em, they had their chance!" My point is just that that specific attitude is a costly one, economically; speaking of investment it seems that if we can invest more wisely in making it easier for children of the abjectly poor to choose to pay attention in school and do their homework, it ends up being better for our society in the end. There are societies which do a much better job of that sort of thing than the U.S. does, and those nations which do also correlate to better economic mobility and higher levels of education than the U.S. has. --Jayron32 18:52, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

I like the idea of straight bribery to get kids to do their homework. It works in early grades, where a sticker may be enough of an incentive. However, in later grades, when kids aren't influenced so cheaply, we'd need to give out things like music CDs. (Giving at-risk kids wads of cash is probably not a good idea, though.) In middle-class homes, presumably the parents reward kids for doing homework and/or punish them for failing to do so, but, in poor homes, the parents may not be as reliable or able to do so. StuRat (talk) 19:15, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

Superficial and doesn't address the underlying problems. Better options are to provide a safe environment for children to live in, provide additional after school programs for both academic and social development, to provide better employment opportunities for their parents, to have a better social safety net so parents can better provide for their children's needs. There's not much you can do in school to help a kid has to dodge bullets every day to get there. --Jayron32 02:09, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

There's always boarding school, to take the kids out of the bad environment. StuRat (talk) 16:01, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

Another method some areas have tried is the compliment of a progressive income tax, where minimum wage earners have their incomes supplemented by the government (taxpayer dollars). This can get by the problem of "working poor" who may otherwise do worse than those on welfare. Alternatively, the welfare benefits could continue for the working poor. StuRat (talk) 16:01, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

At our Horatio Alger myth article I read, "For Alger’s characters, wealth was the product of a meritocracy, and the direct consequence of “honesty, thrift, self-reliance, industry, a cheerful whistle and an open manly face.”"

Are such qualities as and "thrift", "self-reliance", and "industry" on the ascendency or on the decline? Bus stop (talk) 18:49, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

I'm afraid they are in decline. Modern heroes aren't like Ben Franklin, Abe Lincoln, or Thomas Edison, who made it by working hard and being thrifty, they are more likely to be rap stars who lucked into their wealth and spend it even faster than they make it. StuRat (talk) 19:19, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

It also says "The characters in his formulaic stories sometimes improved their social position through auspicious accidents instead of hard work and denial." 20.137.18.50 (talk) 19:02, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

Is there some way of increasing the likelihood of "auspicious accidents"? Bus stop (talk) 19:06, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

There is an experimental place in Detroit where they provide tools and materials for inventors, in the hopes that they will invent something good. The availability of microloans also appears to be important for starting small businesses. StuRat (talk) 19:08, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

The US became more of a meritocracy in the 1960's with standardized tests forming a larger part of the admissions basis at universities. I have read books written for the benefit of college admissions personnel in the 1920's and 1930's which said that the admissions officer would do well to avoid letting in the son of a pushcart merchant, but should instead admit the son of a banker or businessman. With the SAT, Johnny Pushcart could outscore Bobby Banker and get admitted to a good school, with a merit scholarship. This was a route to go from a socioeconomic status of just scraping by to a well paying profession. Anecdotally, I have seen first-generation college men go into glorified trades, such as engineering, as opposed to more artsy-fartsy fields, which their children are more likely to choose. The rich have successfully set up systems to make it easy for their descendants to stay in the upper-upper socioeconomic class. Limiting or eliminating inheritance taxes, priority admission for legacy college applicants, having powerful friends such as politicians make secret calls to admissions committees to get a marginal applicant admitted in front of more promising applicants, all are ways of keeping the upper class the upper class. Yet it is easy for a child of privilege to throw it away, drop out, do drugs, or rebel against the parent by joining some violent radical group. Influence still comes into play, since it only takes a heart-felt apology to the parents to gain their influence to get charges dismissed or sentences become "rehab and community service", followed by amazing job opportunities in business, government or academia for "fortunate sons" (and daughters). The meme in the US today is "Cut the taxes of the very rich (for some reason referred to as "small business owners") and they will "create jobs." Yeah, at new factories in Vietnam, Somalia or Bangladesh. Or jobs in the US building and maintaining mansions, with crews of undocumented workers. Or, for the shrinking middle class kids, serving coffee at Starbucks, after getting a degree at State College. Edison (talk) 19:29, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

That's the reality behind Perry's "ponzi scheme" comments. Our system depends on people continuing to earn more money. As we continue to erode the middle class, our ability to support social security evaporates. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 20:09, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

If standardized tests made the US somehow a meritocracy, then merit is based on knowing concrete facts, because that's what standardized tests measure: facts that you know (and not the rationale, your critical thinking, etc). Quest09 (talk) 23:25, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

Not always true. College admissions tests like the SAT tend to have very few questions on facts, and far more on your ability to reason solutions. It is true, though, that the modern classes should put more emphasis on the ability to think and less on memorizing facts, since facts are now available at the click of a key or mouse. StuRat (talk) 23:40, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

Disagree with the claim that standardized tests "only test knowledge of facts." I have studied test construction and have constructed such tests as student exercises. I recall that it was common for a standardized college admissions test to provide a passage of science, history, literature, or whatever, then have questions about that passage. They did not just ask "Who was Charlemagne's father?" At the same time, they might have a passage about "The martyrdom of Polycarp," and the student who had not studied some "book of martyrs" or who had not had a lecture on "Famous Catholic Martyrs" in his parochial school education was left with a vague image of someone who looked like a bunch of fish being killed, but it was still possible to muddle through with answers to the questions based only on the passage read. They might have a passage on "Fin de siècle" art, and the rich kid whose parents dragged him to art galleries would be more likely to recall that the passage was about the end of the 19th century, but the uninformed could still muddle through just by knowing that it was about the end of some cycle or century, and still get a score in the top 1 %. Edison (talk) 00:42, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

It should be noted that while the general SATs do not test facts (subject SATs do, of course), they do involve predictable types of questions, and someone who has purchased test prep classes and book (conveniently offered by the same people who make the test!) has a huge advantage over someone who cannot afford such luxuries. This is clear to everyone who has anything to do with education these days, and has been that way for quite some time. There are huge problems with using standardized test scores by themselves, and there are also lots of criticisms of the way standardized testing warps classroom autonomy. That being said, it's hard to argue that the pre-testing era was better. --Mr.98 (talk) 22:32, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

I am kind of surprised at the huge number of anecdotes on offer here and the general dearth of actual facts. Economic mobility is trackable and quantifiable. We have an article on it. There are lots of interesting reports on it all over the internet. The general gist of them is that in the US, upward economic mobility has shrunk a lot in the last 40 years. The US has much less economic mobility than other industrialized nations — more than the UK, less than France, way less than Canada.[3] There are more facts on this question than you can ever know what to do with. Ignore all famous people! The fact that they are famous makes them exceptional, and not representative data! --Mr.98 (talk) 22:38, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

As figure 3 on page 5 of the EMP Report you referenced shows, making a large leap up would seem to be so rarely exceptional that anyone who did it was by definition exceptional. 20.137.18.50 (talk) 19:09, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

People's Party in Europe

How many right-wing political parties in Europe have the name "People's Party"? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.95.105.72 (talk) 15:51, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

There are 18 in Europe, according to [4]. Rcsprinter (talk) 15:56, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

That chart doesn't identify which are right-wing, though. For that you'd need to read up on each, although some may not be so easy to classify. StuRat (talk) 16:04, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

See also People's Party#See also. In Denmark we have the listed Danish People's Party but also Conservative People's Party (Denmark) (usually just called The Conservatives), and Socialist People's Party (Denmark) (left-wing, often abbreviated SF in Danish). There are also a couple of tiny parties. A total European count will be difficult and depend on what you include. PrimeHunter (talk) 01:03, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

national party in Europe

How many right-wing political parties in Europe have the name "National Party"? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.95.105.72 (talk) 16:12, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

Do you mean translated into the local language? It's probably just easiest to use a dictionary for the major languages and see if you can find a party like that... my guess would be that each country has at least one party by that exact name. 82.234.207.120 (talk) 16:44, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

"Category:Nationalist parties" might be of interest. Gabbe (talk) 08:54, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

Notable ones are listed in our article National Party. Warofdreams talk 11:45, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

"Current" ancestry

I came upon http://www.ancestry.com as a good way to track my biological dad's family (being adopted and having recently gotten a copy of my adoption record from the state) given that he died a few years back and also because multiple people have evidently built his family tree in the process of building their own. The only problems I encounter are that it doesn't give much hint as to anything that happened to living relatives after about 1995-2000, including my dad's siblings and my mother's entire family. This leaves me with the problem of trying to track down living relatives through other means. In my mom's case, I can't find any records of who she may or may not have married or divorced (and thus have no idea of her present last name) or where she may have moved to since about 1996. What are some good ways for tracking down people who have been "lost" for this long? (Just as a disclaimer, I already know that the state of Kansas will conduct searches for birth parents, and they are presently doing this for my mother. I'm just conducting my own search at the same time since they say it can take months for them to complete a search.) Thanks in advance, Ks0stm ^(T•C•G) 16:49, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

The Salvation Army used to offer a family tracing service for people like you, but I seem to recall they ended this service a few years ago due to lack of resources. Still might be worth contacting your local branch to see if that's true or not.--TammyMoet (talk) 17:39, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

Ancestry.com defaults to not showing living people, unless they happened to be in tyhe 1930 census or earlier, or if they happen to fall into certain types of record-keeping, such as certain states' marriage records. It's connected with the Mormon church somehow, so the Mormons might be a good place consult. Within ancestry.com, however, if you can contact those who have built those trees, they might be willing to share some info. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 18:46, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

There are privacy concerns for living people; they may not wish to be found, and in some cases the law may protect them. --Jayron32 18:48, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

Yes indeed. If you already know someone's name, and if they appear on certain public records, you may be able to find them by searching within ancestry.com (at least if you're a member). However, trees typically don't show living persons explicitly unless you've been given some rights to see a tree. Another, totally public source is findagrave.com, which of course is also dependent on user input. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 19:09, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

My family tree is in Ancestry, and there are good reasons for just saying "Living (Family name)." Full info would make it too easy for a scammer to find one's "mother's maiden name," or "paternal grandfather's name" or other weak security question used by various online sites. Edison (talk) 18:59, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

Precisely. But if the OP is an ancestry.com member, he should be able to send a message to owners of public trees, and they might be willing to help him... after some proper scrutiny, obviously. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 19:06, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

I did that for my father's side of the family, the only problem is it doesn't seem that anyone has built a tree including my mother and her family, so I have nothing to go on at Ancestry. That's why I'm looking for other ways of finding that side of my family (my parents were not, so far as I know, ever married (or at least weren't when I was born), but the two people I sent messages to that had my father's side constructed were ones that had a person with my mom's last name listed as his spouse). Ks0stm ^(T•C•G) 19:58, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

For tracking purposes, it's not unusual to list a "spouse" that's merely a biological parent and not legally a spouse. Those two that you wrote to... were they unwilling to share info? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 20:07, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

I have yet to get a response, I'm just slightly pessimistic that I will since it says for both of them that their most recent login was over 6 months ago. Ks0stm ^(T•C•G) 20:27, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

I've seen that on folks that I know were on there just yesterday, so take it with a grain of salt. If it's been awhile, try again. Also, you never know how often someone will do something. I've gotten responses months later, in some cases. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 20:31, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

Well, that works for me, it's just that the whole reason I'm doing this search is that I'm hoping it will take less time than the state's search (albeit that the state's is probably more likely to be the one that succeeds). I just don't know where to go look for stuff while I wait for a reply given that I've exhausted Ancestry's information on my mother. I could check the state of Colorado given that my mom was born and lived there for a while both before and after I was born, but from what I can gather on their website I wouldn't qualify to request vital records information from them on either of my birth parents. Ks0stm ^(T•C•G) 20:40, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

You might need to talk to someone there directly, rather than using a website. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:34, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

The way to do genealogical research is to go backwards. Start with the information you have and write to the appropriate agency (usually a county clerk's office, a state records office, or a church parish office). Start by requesting death and burial information. A death certificate or burial records will provide you with clues for your next step. Then move backwards and request marriage certificates, etc. Then move backwards and request birth records. This method will save you time, and provide the most clues sooner. Good luck. Greg Bard (talk) 18:56, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

COULD IT BE POSSIBLE THAT ATLANTIS WAS THE BIBLICAL GARDEN OF EDEN?

I just finished reading the Wikipedia Articles on Atlantis and The Garden of Eden and just started wandering could Atlantis have been the garden of eden could it be possible that the fruit from the tree of knowledge was a metaphor for one atlantis`s advance techinologies which destroyed it leaving adam and eve the only two survivors it would explain the prescence of others as stated within the old testament. Basically what i want to know is does my theroy make any sense or am i just a crackpot? THANK YOU. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.77.89.236 (talk) 19:39, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

There are plenty of stories about nostalgia for something past, and those are just two of them. One good theory I saw was that the Garden of Eden story was probably based on nostalgia for hunting-and-gathering ("living off God's bounty") as opposed to the drudgery of "modern" agriculture. Atlantis is thought to have been inspired by the violent volcanic eruption of Santorini, an island near Greece, much embellished through centuries of retelling. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 19:49, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

The problem with your theory is that you are relating two myths. There is no way of confirming your idea because their isn't any information about Atlantis or the Garden of Eden beyond their related myths. On the other hand, your idea has been put forth in fiction before. The video game series Assassin's Creed deals with a science fiction story about Ancient astronauts (not unlike some ideas about Atlantis) being responsible for the Garden of Eden and the continued struggle for the "apple" throughout history. In short, your idea makes for good fiction, but is undoubtedly crackpot if you tried to discuss it in real academic circles. Aside from a comparative mythology standpoint. --Daniel 20:17, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

A similar story is Noah's Ark, which could well be based on memories of the time when it's theorized that the human race was nearly wiped out by a supervolcano. Different mythology can have similar-looking elements. But since they are mythology (in the academic sense, not necessarily the "fairy tale" sense), it's very difficult to say with any certainty that any two stories have the same origin, unless they are very similar, which Atlantis and Eden really are not. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 20:24, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

Actually, it's been more commonly speculatively connected with Black Sea flooding than with the Toba event... AnonMoos (talk) 01:32, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

The geographical description of the four rivers of Eden in the Book of Genesis in the Bible is kind of confusing, but if you filter it through the geographical knowledge that a ca. 7th-century-B.C. Israelite was likely to know, then it seems most likely to me that Biblical Eden was supposed to be somewhere in the general north Mesopotamia area (pretty much what in modern times is called Kurdistan). Others argue for a southern Mesopotamia location, possibly partially influenced by old legends of Dilmun. By contrast, Atlantis was an island in the sea, almost certainly located to the west of Greece. Therefore the two legends really don't seem to converge... AnonMoos (talk) 21:44, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

In any case, converging or similar myths should not surprise us. To drop a little Joseph Campbell, humans like to tell more or less the same half dozen stories over and over again, with different names and places and scenery. Even if Atlantis and the Garden of Eden were similar, it doesn't make either of them more likely have existed than it does Santa Claus or Odin. --Mr.98 (talk) 01:12, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

Wait... are you saying... there's no Odin??? My inner child is devastated. ); ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 01:14, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

Odin IS Santa Claus Bugs. Heiro 14:17, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

A recent-ish BBC series on Biblically relevant archaeology suggested that the Garden of Eden story was a political/religious allegory referring to the abandonment of the (mythical) pure original observances practiced in early Hebrew temples, which from Babylonian (I think) influences had internal decorations depicting gardens (a local word for which is the origin of "paradise") with fruit trees. I don't say I necessarily accept this, but it's another angle.

Of the many speculations about Atlantis, about which I've been collecting books for some years (and assuming Plato didn't make it up out of whole cloth for didactic purposes), the one I currently find most convincing is that it describes Troy and the Trojan War, as contemporarily (mis-)perceived by Egyptians (who may have incorporated elements of the Santorini/Thera eruption), recorded in hieroglyphs on a temple pillar, (imperfectly) translated to the travelling Greek statesman Solon and handed down by him to his descendant Critias and thence to his young relative Plato, just as Plato actually relates (bar the errors in transmission) in the unfinished Critias. The belated realisation of this would explain why Plato abandoned the Critias and never embarked on a planned third volume (the Hermocrates) of what, with the Timaeus, was intended to be in effect a three volume encyclopedia. The book which puts forward this hypothesis (which unfortunately I don't have to hand and whose author and title I can't recall) bolsters it with apparently authentic survey details of the somewhat changed topography and almost-vanished canals and harbours around Troy which correspond very well (save for scale) with Plato's descriptions of Atlantis. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 90.197.66.53 (talk) 01:40, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

A question about Forbes list of billionaires

When was the first time that Bill Gates was came to no. 1 on Forbes list of billionaires? 84.110.111.150 (talk) 20:35, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

He got to #1 in 1993. Googlemeister (talk) 21:14, 12 September 2011 (UTC)