Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2012 May 24

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May 24

Chen Guangcheng vs. Chengguan

I recently read this article in the BBC about the Chengguan. Given Chen Guangcheng's previous difficulties with local law enforcement, I was wondering if there is some relationship between the similar looking names. Or is this just a coincidence?--Wikimedes (talk) 11:01, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

"Chengguan" is transcribed from (城管 chéngguǎn), and "Chen Guangcheng" comes from (陈光诚 chén guāngchéng). So despite their similarities as transliterated, these are five different Chinese characters. A cursory inspection of the Wiktionary entries for the respective characters seems to imply they are all unrelated. And while the "chen/cheng" have the second tone, the "guan" and "guang" differ in tones. Gabbe (talk) 12:48, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

The pronunciation is distinct: "Guan" and "Guang" are pronounced quite differently. "Guan" is like "Goo-Anne" rolled into one syllable, while "Guang" is like "Goo-On" rolled into one syllable.

And yes, the meanings are completely different. Mr Chen's given name is composed of characters which mean "light" and "honesty", or possibly "bright" and "earnestness". They are words of positive connotation. Like many Chinese names, they are not meant to convey some coherent message, just positive sentiments. His surname is, of course, just family name. When used as an ordinary character, it means either "to display" or "old".

"Chengguan" is composed of characters which individually mean "city, city wall or walled city" and "control or administer". More importantly, it is an abbreviation of the full name, which is detailed in the article you linked to. The characters themselves are neutral, but nowadays the word has a decidedly negative connotation in China.

In any case, I think it would be a bit of a stretch to link someone's persecution at the hands of the authorities with any similarity between their name and an unrelated insitution of authority - if a soldier called "Tim Judge" was demoted by his superiors, would there be any link between that and the similarity between his name and the name given to judicial authorities? --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 14:00, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

Thanks, I think that covers it. It looks like it's just a coincidental bit of irony, maybe good for a bad pun, but nothing more.--Wikimedes (talk) 19:44, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

I don't think it can even count as coincidental. In Chinese, even true homophones--two characters that sound exactly the same but look different and have different meanings--are extremely common. As pointed out above, 城 and 陈 are not only not homophones, they sound completely different. --140.180.5.169 (talk) 21:18, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

What the point of a 0% investment?

What do you earn if you buy one of those gov bonds at 0%? Do you just put 100€ in and get 100€ back after the deadline? No inflation adjustment? And why would that be better than simply putting money into a safe? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.41.15.243 (talk) 17:45, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

Well, safes get broken into. More to the point, institutional investors, the kind that invest 1,000,000,000€ at a time, need something to do with that money. They can't leave it lying in safes, and there isn't enough specie or hard currency or even precious metals for them to keep their money in. Government bonds are the safest investment around, so they still get bought, because as bad as it is, it is still better than the alternative. --Jayron32 17:59, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

Are you talking about Zero-coupon bonds. --Aspro (talk) 18:04, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

Can you explain what bonds you are talking about? If Aspro is right, and you are talking about zero-coupon bonds, then the explanation is simple - you put less than €100 in at the start and your return comes from the difference between the price and the redemption amount. The zero-coupon bit just means you don't get any interest payments during the term of the bond. If you mean bonds with a 0% yield (or even negative yield) then those are available sometimes at the moment because people are actually willing to pay the government to look after their money. That's because people don't have much confidence in other places to invest their money and, as Jayron says, they have to invest it somewhere because there just isn't enough cash available to stick it all under the mattress. --Tango (talk) 20:43, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

Treasury bills are 0% coupon bills, but they're not at 0% yield even right now: [1]. Shadowjams (talk) 21:24, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

But if it is the German Treeasury bonds (2-year ones), they are at 0% yield right now! -- Vmenkov (talk) 03:50, 25 May 2012 (UTC)

When banks go bust, there's no guarantee you'll get your deposit back (particularly if you've deposited millions; most countries will repay small deposits). So putting it in bonds is more secure (although with Greece defaulting, and worries about other nations, maybe not 100% secure). --Colapeninsula (talk) 08:44, 25 May 2012 (UTC)

In my opinion, the greatest risk on German treasury bonds is quantitative easing, or other measures which effectively "print money" and diminish the value of the euro.--Wehwalt (talk) 15:13, 26 May 2012 (UTC)

Yes, currency/inflation risk (it's currency risk if you intend to spend something other than Euros and inflation risk if you are planning to spend euros) is the biggest risk for the debt of a country like Germany. They are extremely unlikely to actually default. --Tango (talk) 22:03, 26 May 2012 (UTC)

Hypothetical voting system

I don't know if this kind of voting system has ever been used, or even hypothesized: Suppose there are two candidates for an office, Fred and Barney. In the voting booth, a machine dispenses ballots alternately labeled "Fred" and "Barney", so that every odd-numbered voter receives a Fred ballot and every even-numbered voter receives a Barney ballot. The voter can either assent to the candidate by putting the ballot in a box, or he can veto the candidate by destroying the ballot. Any ballot not put in the box is counted as a veto. When everyone has voted, the surviving ballots are added up to determine the winner of the election. (Of course, this method could be generalized to any number of candidates.) This system is very simple from the voter's perspective, and would eliminate the problem of spoiled ballots. But what drawbacks or unexpected effects would the system engender? What kind of candidate would particularly benefit or suffer from the system? LANTZY^TALK 20:18, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

No, this system could not be generalised to any number of candidates. I could see it potentially working for two candidates, as you are voting for your candidate either way: If I vote for Barney, or against Fred, in the end, it's a vote for Barney. But, if I vote against Lisa, that's not a vote for Barney; it's a third of a vote for Barney, a third of a vote for Fred and a third of a vote for Anna. As you add more and more candidates, the system becomes less reliable to provide an accurate image of whom the people actually want (the most), since the only choice they get, is a random choice of voting either for or against a given candidate. To some extent, this could be mitigated by people counting spaces in the line, and thereby ending up with the space for their candidate, but such a system would break down, once the least favoured candidate runs out of voters.

In the end though, it seems like a rather complicated system to eradicate what, to me, seems a rather minor problem - spoiled ballots. A problem which I don't even think your proposal would solve: People will want to choose their candidate. If I want to vote for Barney, but get a Lisa ballot, can I strike out Lisa and write Barney instead? My guess is that such a ballot would be deemed spoilt in your system. In fact, by introducing this system, you would potentially change the electoral outcome. With four candidates, no candidate could receive more than 25% of the votes, granted that all the people who receive their ballot also submit it. So, even if one candidate had 50% support in the population, the maximum amount of votes he could get would be 25% of the votes 'cast'. Granted that if one candidate had that much support, many would discard other ballots, the final tally might be something like 30-35% of the votes cast (i.e. votes submitted and not vetoed). The outcome for an election with more than two candidates could potentially be very unreliable, since each voter is forced to vote yes or no only to a single candidate of a pool consisting of more than 2.

Yes, you're system would require less counting at the end of the day, and so you'd save a little bit of labour, but I don't think that would be weighed up for, by the fact that you are providing a system that seems more difficult (explain to people that they can either submit or reject the ballot they got), people queue up strategically (imagine the stress, the anger, frustration and haggling over spots in the queue that would result)... I even think that the main premise of this type of ballot, psychologically, is a bit weird: Potentially half of the supporters of any candidate (in a two-horse race) would be forced to vote against somebody. Although technically it's the same as voting for the other guy, it seems a lot less appealing. V85 (talk) 20:36, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

(ec)If there are only two candidates, the system could work, but with three or more, people are unable to cast their vote on the candidate they prefer. If candidates A,B and C participate, and I support candidate A, but receive a B-ballot, this means my destroying the ballot counts only as a vote against B, which equally favors A and C. - Lindert (talk) 20:40, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

He's trying to solve the problem of miscounted ballots, either because the dot wasn't filled in, or the chad wasn't punched out, or otherwise ambiguous ballots. I can envision simpler solutions... like you get two slips with a unique, unpredictable, identifier on them and you put the one you want to vote for into the box. Then the machine tallies them and if the same person put in more than one slip, it doesn't count their vote. Simple, brightline, hard to cheat.

I also don't think it's impossible to make his system work for multiple candidates, but it increases the complexity (you need more boxes).

If you're interested there's a lot more elegant and complicated mathematical solutions to voting issues like this: cryptographic voting. Or, incentivize people to make their vote count by making clear, unambiguous rules about what counts and what doesn't. Shadowjams (talk) 20:51, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for all the replies. I was hoping that this method would create a lot of problems, and you haven't disappointed me. LANTZY^TALK 23:15, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

What happens if I get a Fred ballot, tear it in half and put it in the box? Is it a vote for Fred, a vote for Barney (a veto of Fred because I tore the ballot) or a spoilt ballot and it counts for neither? CambridgeBayWeather (talk) 06:44, 25 May 2012 (UTC)

I think the issue here is that you're trying to solve the problem of spoiled ballots, when they really aren't a problem. Often, they are an intentional protest vote. Sometimes, they are an accidentally ambiguous vote, but not often enough to be a problem is most elections (there were some issues in Florida a few years back, but that's the only example I'm aware of). The other type of spoilt ballot is one which identifies the voter, so is void as a precaution against attempts to buy votes (you can't buy votes unless you have a way to know whether the person voted for you or not - forced anonymity is therefore quite effective at stopping vote buying) - those will need to counted as spoilt in any voting system. --Tango (talk) 11:49, 25 May 2012 (UTC)

During the United States Senate election in Minnesota, 2008 recount, the public got to see a good deal of spoiled or ambiguous ballots. While some of them were just silly, some of them seemed to be legitimate protest votes. Spoiling your ballot is a good way to express dissatisfaction - if you just don't vote, the politicians will think you just don't care. If you spoil your ballot, you let them know that you're ticked off. I for one think that the lizard people would make a good senator. More on topic, what the recount also illustrated was that no matter how simple you make your voting system, people will still find ways to screw it up, even unintentionally. At least the "fill in the bubble" method is pretty well recognized. No one would be familiar with a "submit this vote if you want to" method. Buddy431 (talk) 05:06, 26 May 2012 (UTC)

It seems to me one way to get a better idea of the depth of the problem would be to include a 'none of these candidates' or even just a 'no vote' as a better way for people to protest which will be recorded seperately as some places do. Of course some people will still protest by spoiling but the number should be fewer, particularly in the first case or where the protest vote has a possible implication (I believe in some jurisdictions if the protest vote 'wins', it has an effect). Of course in places where you actually have to write (tick, number etc) or fill in something, you can and some jurisdictions do make a distinction between a blank ballot and a spoilt ballot, but I guess this wouldn't work if you use chads. Although even when you use a pen, there will always be a few ambigious cases, e.g. where there's a small mark, was it an accident i.e. it's a blank ballot or intentional i.e. a spoilt ballot. So it would seem making a distinction between all three would be useful. Someone who marks 'none of the above' is very likely a protest vote. Someone who doesn't fill in anything is either a protest vote or simply confused/incompetent. Someone who spoils the vote is most likely incompete/confused although could also be protesting.

Of course having a decent system for recounts helps. It also seems you should have a resonable threshold for error and concentrate on whether you can be resonably sure of the voter preference rather then rigirously following the rules. E.g. here in NZ it seems to me they have a resonable threshold, see this [2] judicial recount. Some interesting points from there, it seems some voters were either shy or unaware they could have their ballots replace if they screwed up, but where there was a clear preference these were accepted. Similarly even tho you're supposed to use ticks, dots were accepted but not when the same voter elsewhere used a tick since it could have been simply an accident. Adding a heart or writing the current PM's name (incorrectly spelled) on your vote in addition to the tick was also fine.

Malaysia where the electoral system has other problems uses or used a stricter standard I believe. At least over 15 years ago when I was reading the guide my teacher had for counting votes, I seem to recall if you wrote idiot (or something similar) next to a candidates name but ticked another candidate it would be discounted. (While I don't see any mention of this there, it seems it would likely be counted in NZ.)

Nil Einne (talk) 06:13, 26 May 2012 (UTC)

Kennedy assassination book(s)

As a regular Wikipedian I hesitate to ask this question with its potential to open up a dramafest, but I don't know anyone who I trust more than us. I recently had occasion to visit the Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza and coincidentally (really) read Steven King's 11/22/63 and have a close relative ask me whether or not I thought Lee Harvey Oswald was the sole shooter in the Assassination of John F. Kennedy. It's a subject I've never been particularly interested in until this alignment of constellations took place, but now my curiosity is piqued. It's not piqued enough, however, to read more than one or two books on the subject. Here's the question: Is there one — exactly one — book on the subject that is generally considered by neutral evaluators to give an even-handed examination and evaluation of all of the major theories? Failing that, are there two — exactly two — books, one which even-handedly presents the conspiracy position(s) and one which even-handedly presents and evaluates the non-conspiracy position? Regards, TransporterMan (TALK) 21:22, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

If you're looking for one book that purports to go over the whole shebang in laborious detail, Vincent Bugliosi has recently written Reclaiming History: The Assassination of John F. Kennedy and tries to do just that. Here's the NY Times review (and another); here's an HNN interview with Bugliosi about it. If you Google around you can find others, which might convince you as to whether this is the book for you or not. It sounds terribly tedious to me, but perhaps for reasons that will appeal to you. --Mr.98 (talk) 22:52, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

How about the Warren Commission report? RudolfRed (talk) 22:54, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

Absolutely zero people think the Warren Commission report does a great job of it, not even the people who think Oswald did it alone. --Mr.98 (talk) 22:56, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

The Warren Commission was scared to death of finding something that would implicate a foreign nation in the killing. As regards books, I don't know, but some of the TV specials have been interesting in explaining that Oswald indeed could have acted alone. There are endless conspiracy theories, but most of them are built on the premise that he couldn't have done it all by himself. But there's sufficient evidence to indicate that he could have done it by himself. That doesn't mean he did, but the facts allow for a single-shooter theory to stand up. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:43, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

Relative popularity of "Simon" in the UK and USA during the 20th century

I have an impression that the name "Simon" is more popular in the UK than in the US. I want to verify or refute this impression with hard data. For the United States, there is this useful resource, but I can't find an equivalent for the UK. LANTZY^TALK 22:49, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

I've got the figures for 2010. I don't know if the ONS have other years, or how far they go back. -- role^player 22:55, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

Yup, they do here, although it does involve spreadsheet files, alas. FlowerpotmaN·(t) 22:58, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

(added) There is an XLS file that covers the 20th Century on a ten-year basis, starting with 1904, listed on the second page of that link I added above. Not as user-frendly as the US Social Secuity site. FlowerpotmaN·(t) 23:01, 24 May 2012 (UTC

Responsible parents try to give their kids names that aren't too likely to be made fun of. "Simon Says", or worse yet, "Simple Simon"? No. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:03, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

Nonsense. Builds character. Shadowjams (talk) 23:14, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

"...And if I ever have a son, I think I'm gonna name him... Bill! or George! Any damn thing but Sue! I still hate that name!" ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:39, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

Many thanks, Flowerpotman. That spreadsheet definitely confirms my intuition. In the UK during the 1950s, "Simon" suddenly vaulted from obscurity to 54th place, moved up to 13th place in the 60s, and peaked at 8th place in the 70s before petering out in the 80s and 90s. In the USA, "Simon" has never been higher than 240th place. And during the name's peak of popularity in the UK, it was languishing around 500th place in the USA. In other words, it was most popular in the UK precisely when it was least popular in the USA. I wonder what accounts for this huge discrepancy. LANTZY^TALK 23:33, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

You say "Simon" was "Peter"ing out? Hmmm... ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:39, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

Simon and Laura is not much remembered now, but it was a popular and successful film at its time (1955). I'm sure it spawned more than a few Simons. -- ♬ Jack of Oz ♬ ^{[your turn]} 00:44, 25 May 2012 (UTC)

Simon Dee was a groovy dude in the UK in the 1960s, I wonder if he made the name fashionable. There's also a Simon (one of the nice kids) in Lord of the Flies ("by the early 1960s was required reading in many schools and colleges") - maybe a more literary origin. My memory matches the stats quoted above. There were none at all in the school I went to (we were all born in the late 1950s), but 10 years later there were lots of little Simons. Alansplodge (talk) 02:21, 25 May 2012 (UTC)

Then there's Paul Simon. Even though that was his last name, I bet more kids were named Simon as a result, at least more than were named Garfunkel. :-) 04:32, 25 May 2012 (UTC)

I'd have thought it increased due to Simon Templar#The Saint book series, radio, films... Dru of Id (talk) 02:22, 26 May 2012 (UTC)

Good point. I suspect that it may have been a combination of all these suggestions that brought it to the attention of new parents. Another point (purely speculative on my part) is that it might have had a rather upper-middle-class ring to it, which appealed to parents who wanted their offspring to exploit the new social mobility of the 1960s. Alansplodge (talk) 20:40, 26 May 2012 (UTC)

OR with a sample size of 1 (me) supports Dru's speculation. 2.96.102.235 (talk) 20:14, 27 May 2012 (UTC)