Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Miscellaneous/2017 August 22

Welcome to the Wikipedia Miscellaneous Reference Desk Archives
The page you are currently viewing is an archive page. While you can leave answers for any questions shown below, please ask new questions on one of the current reference desk pages.

August 22

White people and slavery

Were white people the first race to abolish slavery? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.170.121.11 (talk) 08:14, 22 August 2017 (UTC)

No – because human races do not exist. Cheers ✦ _hugarheimur 09:37, 22 August 2017 (UTC)

That's not exactly true. Races exist; they just are not strictly defined in the way that people think they are. The next time a black man gets shot for walking down the street in the U.S., ask him if his race exists! Saying race doesn't exist is disingenuous. Saying that race is a cultural concept is different than saying it doesn't exist. Culture is real. Culture affects human lives every day in profound ways. See Race (human categorization), to wit "Although such groupings lack a firm basis in modern biology, they continue to have a strong influence over contemporary social relations." (bold mine) Race and society is also a good read. But no, please don't play the "race isn't real" bullshit. It's real. Just because the Nazis and the bigots don't properly understand what it is doesn't also mean it isn't real. --Jayron32 11:39, 22 August 2017 (UTC)

Wouldn't a better way of phrasing your question be, "which society was the first in history to abolish slavery?"? --Dweller (talk) Become old fashioned! 11:51, 22 August 2017 (UTC)

Answering my question, using our article on Abolitionism, I'd venture to suggest France in 1315. That article seems to suffer from some of our usual systemic biases, in this case a Euro-American view of the world. That said, I'd doubt we'd have recorded history of an earlier abolition, though happy to be corrected. --Dweller (talk) Become old fashioned! 11:54, 22 August 2017 (UTC)

For this, we have to stick with written history. There are oral stories that may imply that slavery was abolished. In written history, the Qin dynasty abolished slavery in 220 BC. Unfortunately, those laws were overturned when the Qin dynasty fell. 209.149.113.5 (talk) 12:01, 22 August 2017 (UTC)

Likewise, Wang Mang of the Xin dynasty abolished it in 9 CE, but it was later reinstated. --Jayron32 12:03, 22 August 2017 (UTC)

We should get that information into our article. Got any references, 209 and Jayron? --Dweller (talk) Become old fashioned! 12:19, 22 August 2017 (UTC)

From the Wikipedia article titled "Wang Mang" , and I quote, "In 9, Wang Mang instituted a revolutionary land redistribution system...Wang also abolished slavery." --Jayron32 12:22, 22 August 2017 (UTC)

So, OP, I don't know what "race" Chinese people come from, but it's that one. No-one is going to beat 220 BC --Dweller (talk) Become old fashioned! 12:19, 22 August 2017 (UTC)

Traditionally, the Chinese are considered to be "yellow", as opposed to "white", "black", "red", etc. That's kind of an obsolete term nowadays. But at least it undercuts the OP's likely implication that whites would be superior because they abolished slavery first. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 14:46, 22 August 2017 (UTC)

It's rather like saying the British were the first to end the war in the American Revolution.--WaltCip (talk) 15:09, 22 August 2017 (UTC)

The question doesn't get into "why" slavery was abolished. Qin abolished slavery when he was done with his slaves as a mechanism of financial war against rich landlords. In reality, Qin was noted as a highly abusive slave owner. Wang, similarly, usurped the throne and executed extensive land redistribution away from the ruling Lius and to his family and friends. This included abolishing slavery as an economic means of crippling the Lius. It didn't last and slavery didn't actually end. The rich and powerful families refuted the laws, refused to cede their lands, refused to free their slaves, and killed Wang to retake the throne. I expect that there are many historical examples of slavery being abolished as a form of economic war. One side forces the other to give up slaves, not because slavery is bad but because it is devastating for an economy based on slavery to suddenly lose slavery. 209.149.113.5 (talk) 15:59, 22 August 2017 (UTC)

Just to be fair, "slavery didn't actually end" isn't the criteria here, it's whether the government authorities have abolished legal slavery. There are slaves, right now, in the United States of America. It is illegal, but that doesn't mean it doesn't happen. If our criteria is "there is no person held in bondage and required to perform uncompensated services against their will", then slavery has never completely ended in any society, and likely never will. If the question is "when were slaves legally emancipated" that's a different question entirely. --Jayron32 19:33, 22 August 2017 (UTC)

209.149's post illustrates why such cut and dry answers don't work well for all periods of history.

If a nominal ruler makes a proclamation, but is powerless to enforce it, has he abolished anything? Even in theory? Or has he just talked about what he would like to have happened? (Anyone can write a law, after all.) Periods with conflicting ruling powers make it difficult to be pedantic about what was "technically" legal or illegal.

ApLundell (talk) 21:10, 22 August 2017 (UTC)

Ashoka of the Mauryan Empire (most of modern India) is credited with "abolishing" the slave trade circa 260 BCE. His edicts prohibited the buying and selling of people, but didn't actually free the existing slaves. Solon, Archon of the city-state of Athens, prohibited debt slavery sometime around 590 BCE and further freed all citizens of Athens who had been enslaved by other Athenians, but foreigners could still be held as slaves. Dragons flight (talk) 23:58, 22 August 2017 (UTC)

See also Jubilee (biblical) for an earlier possible example, depending on how it is interpreted. Dbfirs 15:08, 23 August 2017 (UTC)

Help understanding supermarket prices

Sorry if this is an incredibly stupid question but my maths skills are absolutely zero. When I go into the supermarket some products list their prices as "per 100g" and some "per kg". How do I convert between these? For example, some canned spinach is listed as "54.4p per 100g" while a bag of frozen spinach is "£1.15 per kg". How do I convert the kg one into grams and the 100g one into kg so that I can compare the prices properly? Thanks for your time. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 169.255.78.25 (talk) 09:30, 22 August 2017 (UTC)

One kilogram (kg) is 1000 grams (1000g), which is ten times 100g, so to get the price per kg from the price per 100g you just multiply by 10: 54.4p per 100g is equivalent to £5.44 (i.e. 544p) per kg. Or you can do it in reverse: divide by 10 to convert from price per kg to price per 100g: the frozen spinach is 11.5p per 100g. AndrewWTaylor (talk) 09:41, 22 August 2017 (UTC)

I often have to explain to people that if you multiply by 10, you move the dot to the right. If you divide by 10, you move the dot to the left. Then, they have to work out some way to remember that multiply is right and divide is left. Of course, I assume that they also need some way to remember which way is right and which is left. But, I can often get people to eventually comprehend multiplying and dividing by 10. 209.149.113.5 (talk) 11:57, 22 August 2017 (UTC)

It's very easy. Multiplying produces a larger number, so the whole number part becomes bigger (decimal point moves to the right). Dividing produces a smaller number, so the whole number part becomes smaller (decimal point moves to the left). A potential source of confusion is that shops price food by the hectogramme and also by the quarter for comparison. A quarter is 114 g, so if meat or cheese is priced at one pound/hg it will be one pound 14 p a quarter and ten pounds a kilo. 1 lb is thus four pounds and 56 pence and 2 lb are nine, pounds and 12 pence. The rule is that a kilo is 10% more than 2 lb - in this example ten pounds and 3 pence. The difference is accounted for by a rounding error. 82.14.24.95 (talk) 15:14, 22 August 2017 (UTC)

AndrewWTaylor provided a clear and simple answer. Please ignore the above about hectogrammes (which is a non- preferred term for 100g) and quarters and lbs (which food is not allowed, by law, to be sold in.- I suspect the poster is trying either to confuse the issue, or is trying to be funny, which doesn't help the questioner. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.38.221.49 (talk) 19:15, 22 August 2017 (UTC)

Please sign your posts. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 19:52, 22 August 2017 (UTC)

Why don't the supermarkets just give all the prices per kg and make comparison simpler? Is there some legal difficulty with this? Clearly the disparity causes more of a problem to some people than I would have expected (naively I'd have assumed that pretty well anyone would know that 1 kg is ten times 100 g). By the way I presume the whole discussion above is relevant specifically to the UK - I wonder what would be the situation in other countries. rossb (talk) 23:21, 22 August 2017 (UTC)

Why would a supermarket display a 90 gram bar of soap (say 70 cents) at $7.70 per kg? Customer walks up, sees $7.70, and walks away. Far better from the management's point of view to display 0.77 cents per gram. Geez, this is Marketing Deception 101. Akld guy (talk) 02:59, 23 August 2017 (UTC)

If you look closely at supermarket price tags, you'll find that they often list the standardized price in small type below the unit price. Check out this Google Image Search : [1].

ApLundell (talk) 18:14, 23 August 2017 (UTC)

82.38 is confused. Customers ask for a quarter or a pound of something and traders happily sell them what they want without fear of prosecution. What is illegal is weighing it with a machine which is calibrated only in imperial units, as was explained when this topic came up on the Humanities desk in September:

I know one of the Metric Martyrs. The circumstances were that, for the convenience of his customers, his prices were per pound, but, in compliance with the law, his scales were calibrated in kilogrammes. He used a conversion table to work out how much to charge, but his arithmetic was faulty. Consequently he was charged with supplying short weight for the money paid. This is an offence under s. 28 (1)(b) of the Weights and Measures Act 1985. Per [2] the fine for that offence is unlimited, and if you can't pay it's off to jail you go.

Is the logic games section of the LSAT biased against women?

I can't find any data online. The test maker has a study on bias and finds men score slightly higher than men on the overall test but does not give a breakdown by sub-sections. [3] However, from reading the article on Spatial visualization ability, men on average have significantly higher spatial ability than women. Since the logic games section involves solving visual puzzles under timed pressure, does this mean women on average are at a significant disadvantage? Muzzleflash (talk) 21:01, 22 August 2017 (UTC)

this source states that women perform poorer on the multiple choice section of the LSAT. Of 19 (talk) 21:47, 22 August 2017 (UTC)

That doesn't mean that the test is biased against women, through design or purpose, however. See correlation does not imply causation. --Jayron32 11:26, 23 August 2017 (UTC)

Yet also see systemic bias.--WaltCip (talk)

It isn't systemic bias if the outcome is a requirement of the overall system. For example, most state governments in the United States have come to the conclusion that being able to parallel park a vehicle is a requirement for getting a driver's license. If a study demonstrates that females fail parallel parking far more than males, it is not systemic bias because parallel parking is a requirement of the system. If, instead, the test required the person to pee into a bucket sitting three feet away, that is not a requirement of the system and would likely favor males over females. So, it would be systemic bias. 209.149.113.5 (talk) 14:34, 23 August 2017 (UTC)

Excellent point. Anti-discrimination laws, rather than disallowing discrimination against various classes, should say "No discrimination against anything that does not impair their ability to perform the job" (or serve in the military, etc.) StuRat (talk) 21:04, 23 August 2017 (UTC)

Yes, but there's all kinds of problems with the presumptions and conclusions one leaps to (without any sound basis in either evidence or logic) when faced with data like "females perform lower" on some measure. That's a correlation, but no correlation by itself is sufficient to draw any conclusion about what caused that correlation. There's a dozen possible conclusions one could draw from that data, and none stands any more chance of being the "correct" conclusion over any other if all we have is correlated data. --Jayron32 14:42, 23 August 2017 (UTC)

The other elements we look for beyond a correlation are time/order and a theoretical mechanism. For time/order, it's not likely that their answer on the test caused their ability to change, so we don't need to worry about that here. And there certainly are theoretical explanations as to why women might not be as good at spatial visualization, dealing with primitive men hunting by throwing spears at moving targets, etc. StuRat (talk) 21:02, 23 August 2017 (UTC)