Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2024 July 25

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July 25

Path of would-be Trump assassin Crooks

There is conflicting information when, during the Attempted assassination of Donald Trump, the would-be assassin Thomas Matthew Crooks was first spotted on "the roof" or "a roof". While our article currently follows media who claim that he had been spotted on a/the roof at 5:52 p.m., even directly by the Secret Service, other media report that he was climbing on the roof where he shot from at 6:09 p.m. (which makes a lot more sense). It seems possible that Crooks was on another roof first and then climbed from roof to roof. Either way - has the path he took from the ground to his shooting location been somewhat reconstructed by now? I didn't find anything in the news as available online. --KnightMove (talk) 10:30, 25 July 2024 (UTC)

Indeed, ABC News is the main source for this timeline, which is most certainly wrong. But it motivates my question. --KnightMove (talk) 11:54, 25 July 2024 (UTC)

Out of curiosity, why do you think the abc timeline is wrong? Blueboar (talk) 12:30, 25 July 2024 (UTC)

It seems entirely plausible that he climbed on to the roof (perhaps unencumbered by his rifle, but with his rangefinder), climbed down again (to retrieve his [hidden?] rifle and set its range), and then up again to carry out the attack. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 94.2.67.235 (talk) 12:48, 25 July 2024 (UTC)

(edit conflict)

1. Crooks actually climbed on the roof ~6:09 p.m., as per many witnesses and reliable sources.
2. Crooks being on the roof since 5:52 in sight of the Secret Service; the Secret Service not doing anything against him, but leading Trump to the podium; AND Crooks then not firing, although he had so much time to prepare and some 7 min opportunity to shoot at Trump unimpaired - that's total nonsense (and fodder for conspiracy theories).
3. There is even evidence to deconstruct how that error happened. This BBC article somewhat supports the error, although their own facts in the article make clear what happened:

"Later, around 17:45 local time, Crooks was spotted again, this time by a counter sniper officer around the Agr International building - the one the gunman later scaled up to aim at Trump."

"By 17:52 - 19 minutes before the shooting - the Secret Service was made aware that Crooks was spotted with a rangefinder, and disseminated that information to other officers on site, CBS reported."

So another (!) counter-sniper - not the Secret Service counter-sniper teams who would later aim at Crooks - spotted Crooks around (!) the roof, and at 17:52 the Secret Service was informed about this.

And some media merge this into the wrong claim "Secret Service snipers spotted Crooks on the roof at 17:52". --KnightMove (talk) 12:49, 25 July 2024 (UTC)

It is my understanding that two different organisations were involved in the maintenance of security, the Secret Service (federal, ie your counter snipers) and a local (?) organisation, be that state or entirely private (the person who initially confronted the assassin, was threatened with the firearm and "dropped" off the roof). It may be possible that the communication between these two entities was grossly deficient. Of course, this is pure speculation in the absence of reliable official information. --2001:871:6A:1B71:B0F9:2533:F61:54B2 (talk) 17:46, 25 July 2024 (UTC)

The FBI and the Pennsylvania State Police each also had a role in implementing the security measures around the rally.^[1][2]  --Lambiam 19:11, 25 July 2024 (UTC)

J B Priestley quotation

In 1970, Isacc Asimov wrote two short stories, "2430 A.D." and "The Greatest Asset", inspired by the following quotation:

Between midnight and dawn, when sleep will not come and all the old wounds begin to ache, I often have a nightmare vision of a future world in which there are billions of people, all numbered and registered, with not a gleam of genius anywhere, not an original mind, a rich personality, on the whole packed globe.

The above Wikipedia articles on the short stories, and many other on-line sources, attribute this to J B Priestley. However, as far as I can tell, it doesn't appear on any standard list of Priestley quotations (including WikiQuote), but only in connection with the Asimov stories. Did Priestley actually write this? If so, where? If not, did someone else write it? It's unlikely that Asimov made it up himself, but not impossible. 194.73.48.66 (talk) 17:42, 25 July 2024 (UTC)

It's from a 1957 book called "Thoughts in the Wilderness", which you can view (with restrictions) on archive.org - the quote is on page 127. AndrewWTaylor (talk) 19:23, 25 July 2024 (UTC)

J. B. Priestley (1957). Thoughts in the Wilderness. London. p. 127.  --Lambiam 19:24, 25 July 2024 (UTC)

Thanks! I've added the title of the book to the Asimov articles. 194.73.48.75 (talk) 20:28, 25 July 2024 (UTC)

Bohnert's Ethics

One question, does anyone know Bohnert's system of ethics and deontic logic and can explain it or link to an explanatory text? 2A02:8071:60A0:92E0:9B9B:C02B:F5CC:22D1 (talk) 21:54, 25 July 2024 (UTC)

Who is Bohnert? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 03:02, 26 July 2024 (UTC)

Herbert G. Bohnert (1918-1984), philosopher, professor at Michigan State University. I cannot help with OP's question. --Wrongfilter (talk) 06:15, 26 July 2024 (UTC)

Sorry, searching in websites related to logical positivism et al brings no trace of Herbert Bohnert. There is a stack of H. Bohnert´s publications in Google Scholar which may be useful to your research. --2001:871:6A:1B71:C00:3397:39D7:68BE (talk) 17:14, 26 July 2024 (UTC)

It seems that mentions of Bohnert in connection to deontic logic refer to: Herbert Gaylord Bohnert, "The Semiotic Status of Commands". Philosophy of Science 12:4, 1945, pp. 302–315. It is available online (doi:10.1086/286873) but behind a paywall. He appears to attempt to give a translation of commands to propositional logic. Very roughly, let $S$ stand for "Sam eats his veggies" and $P$ for "Sam is punished". Then the command "Sam, eat your veggies!", denoted formally as $!S,$ is given the meaning $S\lor P,$ "[Sam eats his veggies] or [Sam is punished]". Or, as Sam's mother might phrase it, "Sam, eat your veggies, or else!".  --Lambiam 22:14, 26 July 2024 (UTC)