Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2013 April 18

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April 18

Why do some middle-Easterners not consider themself being white

I thought Middle-Eastern or Arab peoples are white, but when I talk to some Arab peoples from Western Asia, they don't think they are white. Some people who are Israeli thinks they are not white. Can people from Western Asia consider themselves as Some Other Race. From this article, they said most people consider themselves as Some Other Races are Morroccan, South African, Belizean. Do some people from West Asias, like Pakistanis, or Israelis call themself as "Some other Race".--69.226.42.134 (talk) 00:25, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

There’s white the color (which some people define very strictly! :p), white as in European, white as in German or Iranian, white as in the privileged “normal”/“majority” (including not particularly persecuted) light skinned people. My guess is that the people you’ve asked don’t identify as particularly European, privileged, unpersecuted, or bland. ¦ Reisio (talk) 00:41, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

(edit conflict)You are what you think you are. Race is a socio-cultural construct, and the only person who can reliably answer what their race is is the person themselves. If someone doesn't identify with what they believe a white person to be, then they aren't a white person. If they identify with another group, such as Arabic, and they consider that group to be distinct from white, well, then, you aren't in any position to tell them that they can't do that. It's about the relationships between individuals and the groups the identify with, not whatever arbitrary classification scheme you wish to impose from the outside. See Race (human classification) for the complex nature of race. Different cultures don't even agree on what makes up races, and have different ways of dividing up populations on racial lines; but ultimately, it's still not up to you to decide if someone is or isn't white. It's up to them and their relationship to the culture they identify with. --Jayron32 00:48, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

Oh, come one, Jayron. There's not a single sane person on earth who would not understand the claim that indigenous Koreans are more racially similar to Japanese, and Belgians to Dutchmen, and Rwandans to Ugandans, than any of those groups are to the others, or contest it's truth. That's not socially constructed. That being said, the OP's question is provocative. μηδείς (talk) 01:40, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

Some possible reasons might be:

• They have different cultures, languages, and sometimes religions than Whites of European descent.
• Their skin color is sometimes a little darker than that of many Whites of European descent.
• They do not feel like they fit into "White society" that much.

Keep in mind that initially, in the late 19th/early 20th century Arabs petitioned the government to mark them as White since back then it means avoiding discrimination and whatnot. However, since legal racism essentially became abolished in the U.S. since that point, some Arabs and other Middle Easterners now want the U.S. govt. to add a new Middle Eastern racial category. As Jayron said, race is a socio-cultural concept, not a scientific one, and thus it is (often) based on people's opinions. Futurist110 (talk) 02:26, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

Arabs and other relatively dark-skinned folks around the Mediterranean are traditionally considered to be Caucasian. The fact that they would likely never be mistaken for Scandinavians indicates how broad the Caucasian umbrella is. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 03:11, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

Ironically, even many people from places like Armenia and Georgia - which is where the Caucasus is, and whence the term derives - would look sufficiently "eastern" to many people for them to not regard them as Caucasians. -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 03:56, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

Definitely slippery slopes. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 08:06, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

@Jayron: I disagree that you are only what you think you are. Belonging to a group, which is always a social construct, also implies that people in the group have to accept you. I could not say that I am Chinese, no matter how often I eat Chinese and claim that you are what you eat. Both Chinese and others won't recognize me as such. I would rather say that, in society, you are what others think you are. If aristocrats consider you a baron, you are one. If all agree that you have a posh accent, you have one. OsmanRF34 (talk) 12:50, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

I agree. In Australia, the judicial criteria for whether someone is an Aboriginal has been expressed as "lineage, group identity, and self identity": i.e. it is an assessment based on whether someone has some blood lineage, whether the group accepts them as oen of them, and whether they self-identify as one of the group. I think these three elements are generally applicable when talking about a person's ethnic identity. Self-identity is determinative only for that person alone. All three elements are relevant for external identity. Some groups might be so inclusive to make that second element trivial (e.g. one of the melting-pot "nations"), but others would not be. Similarly, other groups might have such varied blood lineages that the first element might be trivial, but others would not be. I suspect Jayron belongs a group which has a very inclusive group identity not based on blood lineage at all, which is why he/she is used to a group identity concept which focuses on self identity. The same is not generally true of other racial/ethnic groupings. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 13:32, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

Well yes, but only you know if the people in said group accept you. I can't look at a person and say, for example, that I think that the Chinese people should accept a Vietnamese person as of the same ethnicity or race because they both look "asian" to me. Likewise, to the OPs question, I as an outsider can't determine for the Arabic people if they are or are not "White". If Arabs don't consider themselves to be of the same race as White Europeans, then no amount of history or genetics makes them "wrong". --Jayron32 12:48, 19 April 2013 (UTC)

Essentially, we are discussing the difference between self-identification and external-identification, and noting the simple fact that these two forms of identification do not always agree with each other. I might self-identify as being "White", while someone else might externally-identify me as being "not White". In fact, both of us might be correct... depending on what each of us means when we use the word "White". We need to remember that the concept of "race" is not used consistently around the world. To some people, the word "race" means something closer to "nationality" than "color". Europeans used to think this way... There was once a time when Europeans talked about the "English race" vs the "French race". In that context, the word is more a cultural term than an ethnic one. I suspect that those who self-identify as "Arab" or "Iranian" and do not self-identify as "White" are using the (to a Westerner, obsolete) cultural understanding of their race. What they mean when they say "I am not White" is: "I am not European". Blueboar (talk) 14:07, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

Walnut Grove Shelby Farms PD

Looking for anyone familiar with metro Memphis, Tennessee. Is there a place known as "Walnut Grove Shelby Farms PD" (or anything related) in this area? It shows up on Google Maps (view the region at low resolution, and it's the only city name in southwestern Tennessee), and a Google text search finds four million results, but they're all autogenerated directories: "Used car dealers in Walnut Grove - Shelby Farms PD", "Salvation army thrift store in Walnut Grove - Shelby Farms PD", etc. I don't have a printed map of the area handy, and while the GNIS reveals a populated place named Shelby Farms (U.S. Geological Survey Geographic Names Information System: 1303556), its only hits for Walnut Grove in the area are U.S. Geological Survey Geographic Names Information System: a lake and U.S. Geological Survey Geographic Names Information System: a dam. I'm definitely not finding anything in which the two names appear in conjunction with each other, and the mass of autogenerated pages makes it impossible to find topics that mention the place normally, aside from forums like this page that simply remark about Memphis being replaced by WGSF-PD. Nyttend (talk) 01:04, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

Possibly to do with an aborted planned development of the Shelby Farms area (now a park) near Walnut Grove road in Memphis. ¦ Reisio (talk) 02:31, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

When did the Middle Ages end?

Did it end with the fall of the Byzantium Empire, i.e. in the year 1453 AD? --Yoglti (talk) 04:05, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

Like so many other periods in history, there's no hard-and-fast date. The name "Middle Ages" arose in the succeeding Renaissance ("re-birth"), as Renaissance thinkers saw their time as being distinct from the previous era, which was in the decrepit middle between the glorious classical period and their glorious period of rebirth. Basically, we can say that the Middle Ages gave way to the Renaissance, but the Renaissance doesn't have a clear starting date, and Renaissance ideas and practices became important at different times in different places. Nyttend (talk) 04:26, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Sure, why not... The transition between the middle ages and the early modern period in European history occurred during the second half of the 15th century. 1453 and the fall of Constantinople to the Turks makes a nice "headline" event during that period. There wasn't a magic day when everyone woke up and realized the changed ages, but broadly speaking the end of the middle ages occured between 1450-1500. Within that 50 year timespan, the Crusades came to an end, the Reconquista was completed, Columbus had sailed to America and Vasco da Gama to India, moveable type printing became widespread, Ivan III of Russia stopped paying tribute to the Mongol Hordes, etc. etc. So basically all of the stuff that made the middle ages the middle ages (Mongol conquests, expansion of Islam, the Crusades) was coming to an end, and all of the stuff that made the Early modern period, well, modern (Exploration, printing, formation of major nation states from petty kingdoms) was in high gear. --Jayron32 04:34, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

Our article explains that the usual cut-off dates differ for different places. At university, a professor of medieval English history told me with a wink that the convention to end the period in 1450 for England was to avoid having to teach the horrendously complex Wars of the Roses to undergraduates. The tutors of early modern history took a similar view, starting their period, conveniently, with the war-ending victory of Henry VII of England in 1485. NB our contentiously-titled article on Middle Ages states that in English history, the medieval period ends with the Battle of Bosworth in 1485. That's a more logical approach, although, like I say, less pragmatic for medievalist tutors! --Dweller (talk) 09:13, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

• Going for 1492 are the expulsion of the Jews from Spain and the discovery of the New World. μηδείς (talk) 17:44, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

Note that Muslim expansion in Europe was nowhere near done by 1453 or 1500; read Ottoman wars in Europe and Growth of the Ottoman Empire. Nyttend (talk) 21:34, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

Ottoman expansion into Europe post 1500 was quite different than the expansions of Islam during the Caliphate. The Ottoman growth was more political than religious; with a few exceptions (Bosnia, Thrace) there was not any widespread religious conversion among the Balkan peoples as a result of the Ottoman conquests. Now, it was complex. There were Ottoman policies such as Devşirme, which did overtly seek to selectively convert Christian boys into Islam from a young age, but on the bulk, the Ottoman millet system allowed the preservation of various local faiths. This is in stark contrast to the pre-Ottoman Caliphate, which had religious conversion as its primary focus. The Ottoman policies, which nominally gave lip service to conversion, didn't actively seek to convert Christian peoples the way the earlier Islamic states did. See Spread_of_Islam#Balkans which explains how the Ottoman Empire did not as actively spread Islam during its conquests as the earlier Islamic Caliphate did. In summation, while one Islamic state did expand its borders during the Early Modern period, Islam itself did not expand during this period; it had (in Europe at least) largely stopped expanding by the 1500s or so. --Jayron32 04:07, 19 April 2013 (UTC)

It would be interesting to know who was the first to use the term. Quoting from Late middle ages: Leonardo Bruni was the first historian to use tripartite periodization in his History of the Florentine People (1442).[4] Although this statement is referenced I cannot find it in a similar reference http://dash.harvard.edu/bitstream/handle/1/2958221/BruniHistoryHJ.pdf?sequence=4. --Pp.paul.4 (talk) 23:11, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

Nominations by the President-elect of the United States

The United States Constitution gives only the sitting President of the United States the authority to appoint members to certain positions, such as Cabinet posts. However, the Constitution also requires that the President obtain the advice and consent of the United States Senate. This becomes tricky when one considers modern politics and confirmation procedure. Senate Committees will certainly want the chance to question a nominee (c.f. Chuck Hagel), but once a President-elect takes office on January 20, they will understandably want to hit the ground running with as much of the Cabinet filled as possible. And as such, many Cabinet positions are confirmed by the Senate on or immediately after the incoming President takes the Oath of Office. How exactly does one reconcile this? Is there a provision of the US Code that allows the President-elect to make provisional nominations, or does the outgoing President make the nominations to the Senate as a matter of courtesy? Is the confirmation process started once the President-elect announces his or her choice even though the nomination hasn't officially been submitted to the Senate? Or is there some other process? NW (Talk) 04:48, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

Many presidents have a slate of nominees they are prepared to turn over to the Senate as soon as they officially take office, often it is one of their first acts. See Confirmations of Barack Obama's Cabinet, which shows that with the exception of the Secretary of Defense (who didn't require confirmation, as Obama retained Bush appointee Robert Gates in that position), most of the nominees were confirmed during the first week or so of his term, which seems about right given the time necessary for the Senate to at least give a token vetting and formal questioning period as is common. Here are the dates of confirmation of his first cabinet

Dept	Nominee	Confirmation
State	Hillary Clinton	January 21, 2009
Treasury	Tim Geitner	January 26, 2009
Defense	Robert Gates	Retained position
Attorney General	Eric Holder	February 2, 2009
Interior	Ken Salazar	January 21, 2009
Agriculture	Tom Vilsack	January 20, 2009
Commerce	Gary Locke	March 24, 2009
Labor	Hilda Solis	February 24, 2009
Health & Human Services	Kathleen Sebelius	March 2, 2009
Housing & Urban Development	Shaun Donovan	January 27, 2009
Transportation	Ray LaHood	January 23, 2009
Energy	Stephen Chu	January 20, 2009
Education	Arne Duncan	January 21, 2009
Veteran's Affairs	Eric Shinseki	January 20, 2009
Homeland Security	Janet Napolitano	January 21, 2009

With very few exceptions, all of these nominees had been announced ahead of time by President-Elect Obama before he took office, basically in late Nov-early Dec 2008. All of those that were confirmed in the first 8 days or so; several were confirmed by unanimous voice vote with no discussion (pretty much all of those confirmed on Jan 20-21). The ones confirmed in February and March were not Obama's first choice; his initial choices had to withdraw themselves for consideration during the confirmation process (Gary Locke was actually his third nominee for Commerce. Bill Richardson, his first choice, got caught up in a financial scandal and Judd Gregg, his second choice, refused to leave the Senate to accept the nomination. Likewise, Kathleen Sebelius was a late nominee to make up for the withdrawn nomination of Tom Daschle). --Jayron32 05:09, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

Interesting. It didn't even really occur to me that the modern Senate would consider consenting to nominations without even a minimal amount of questioning. I imagine then that Stephen Chu was confirmed as Secretary of Energy without having to appear before the United States Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources? I would be astonished if the Senate actually met in more than a pro forma session on Inauguration Day. NW (Talk) 05:54, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

Being a Democratic Senate, and essentially filibuster-proof at that point, they probably wanted to get the ball rolling. Now the Dem majority in the Senate is smaller, and the GOP has been stonewalling nearly everything. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 09:32, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

Actually, it wasn't quite filibuster-proof, given the Judd Gregg situation (he declined the nomination for Commerce Secretary because, as a Republican from a state with a Democratic governor, he would have lost that crucial 40th Republican seat to a Democrat, and THUS made the Senate filibuster-proof). However, when a new President is elected, it is NOT common for the Senate to stonewall his nominations, even if the Senate is controlled by a different party. There's a sort of "honeymoon effect" for any new President (which is why the "100 days" standard is so important in trying to get new legislation through) and the first slate of Cabinet nominations tends to sail through in most cases. --Jayron32 13:28, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

Confirmations of Barack Obama's Cabinet#Hillary Clinton says "Confirmation hearings before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee began on January 13, 2009, a week before the Obama inauguration; two days later, the committee voted 16–1 to approve Clinton." So apparently the President-elect's must have some power here to nominate folks so that it can be put on the Committee calendar. NW (Talk) 20:11, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

Well, there you go. --Jayron32 20:15, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

The president elect's pre-inaguration nominations and the Senate's deliberations on them, dates back to 1953. The hearings are "informal", and there's no constitutional authority for the president-elect to formally nominate anyone. As a practical matter though, the hearings on January 20 are proforma (Stephen Hess, ed. G. Calvin MacKenzie, Innocent until nominated: the breakdown of the presidential appointments process, ISBN 0815754019, page 114). As a matter of tradition the Senate usually confirms cabinet nominees with little trouble; it's the other posts that are more of an issue. Btw, that book goes through most presidents and their appointments in detail, if you're interested.

However not every appointment is immediate. The average time for top appointment for Clinton was 8.5 months. (Encyclopedia of the American Presidency, Michael A. Genovese, page 404). Shadowjams (talk) 21:41, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

Rejection of the label "Feudalism"

Does anyone know the argument presented by Elizabeth A. R. Brown to reject the label "feudalism"? --Yoglti (talk) 06:08, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

The article you linked to sums it up well. The argument is it's a fairly useless term, being so ambiguous. Question arise such as does it refer to military or agrarian responsibilities, or a hierarchy, or a type of society? The nature of "feudalism" varies wildly across territories, even fluctuating within kingdoms, and certainly across time, and it ignores sections of society that may or may not have feudal elements, such as whatever artisan/middle classes existed, and, if you want to argue that that's just a small section of society, just how the often very powerful clergy fit in is a real mess, culminating in the role of the Pope, who was also a prince in his own right for much of the period in question, and local bishops who may have been landowners, too. Arguments against the problem include that it's just a shorthand label and no-one is really confused by it, unless an author is making a specific point about either a military or agrarian responsibility, in which case the context should probably make it fairly clear anyway. --Dweller (talk) 09:01, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

If you sign up for a free JSTOR account, you can read her article (linked from our article). That journal should also be available in any university library, if you have access to one. And it's only 25 pages! Of course then you should also read Susan Reynold's book Fiefs and Vassals...) Adam Bishop (talk) 09:57, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

Na nā akua e hoʻolaʻa i keia pae ʻāina nei!

The subject line is a quote in Hawai'ian from a discussion regarding Hawai'ian independence. I think it may refer to something in the Constitution or it is a phrase that embodies a certain defiance. I read it here: http://maoliworld.com/group/thehawaiiindependent/forum/topics/where-is-god-bless-hawaii?xg_source=activity/ref>

You will need to scroll down a little to find it. I searched the engines and never really nailed it down. I hope this doesn't waste your time. Best regards, Ted Cottingham — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.5.20.139 (talk) 07:26, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

The Language Ref Desk is the normal place to ask for translations. StuRat (talk) 07:30, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

France Election Question

Is it simply a coincidence that the French areas near the borders with other countries in 2002 were less likely to vote for Chirac and the UMP, or is there something more to it? Why is the French Socialist Party so strong in areas near the French border with Spain, while the National Front is stronger in areas near the French border with Belgium, Germany, Switzerland, and Italy? Futurist110 (talk) 07:35, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

That map makes it look much more simple than it is. French regional voting patterns are quite complicated and changeable. The Left does well in deprived urban areas and the Right does well in well-off smart suburbs. Most of the territory of France is countryside, but most French people live in towns and cities. So it would make more sense to display the results in the form of an equal-area cartogram, where areas on the map are proportionate to the number of people living in them. Itsmejudith (talk) 09:12, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

Also, compare this map to the results of the French legislative election, 2002, which is much different, and to the French legislative election, 2012 and the French presidential election, 2012, which are both even more different. Adam Bishop (talk) 09:52, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

There is however a long tradition in the South-West of France to vote center left. Some have argues that it is the basque-equalitarian culture influence (even for those regions who are not Basques in the South-West, it is assumes that the Indo-European languages drove away the Basque language, but some of the culture stayed on). There is also a tradition in Alsace-Lorraine to vote on the right. Not sure where that comes from. --Lgriot (talk) 11:10, 19 April 2013 (UTC)

Question about 23rd century

According to 23rd_century#Other_predictions, world population will be 10 billion. On the other hand, life expectancy will be around 100. When population increases, food become scarce, with resources being depleted. It is likely there will be no petroleum in 23rd century, Peak coal will happen long before. So it is more likely industrial civilization will fall. There will be food shortage, fall of healthcare industry. How this correlate with increased lifespan? Did the UN ignore peak oil and peak coal while making this prediction? --Yoglti (talk) 11:30, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

I can't answer your question, but these things are notoriously unreliable. In my life time I've been told that the world would run out of food in the 1970s, that we would run out of oil in 1984 and that civilisation would be snuffed out by the next ice age round about now. Alansplodge (talk) 12:27, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

Why would there be food shortage? At 10 billion, global food production would have to be increased by a mere 40% compared to the present, which should not pose much of a problem, especially with new technologies. Fossil fuels may be depleted by then, but we could easily produce enough energy/fuel through a combination of solar and nuclear power to make up for that. Healthcare could well become more affordable when more tasks will be automated. However, as Alansplodge pointed out, there are far too many uncertainties to make accurate predictions possible, especially for such a distant futute. - Lindert (talk) 12:39, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

(edit conflict) No, see Demographic-economic paradox. The data shows that as people become more stable in terms of their food and economic situation, and as their life expectancy increases, their fecundity decreases. That is, people in more advanced, stable, and well of countries have less children than those in poorer, less stable, and more destitute countries. The decrease in children more than offsets the increased lifespan, so if the model is built on the dominant demographic models (known as the Demographic transition model), then if the prediction in the 23rd century is widespread peace, security, and wealth then we would expect the population of the world to plateau or even decrease slightly, as based on the models. The idea behind the "demographic transition" model is that birth and death rates both go down in good times. That's because insecurity and poverty tends to lead to increases in births, as more dying children encourages parents to want to have more children, as children in such societies tend to be an economic or social asset (children can work on the family farm, more children living to adulthood makes one's village more populous and stronger, etc.) In advanced societies, where child mortality rates are very low, there isn't as much need to have lots of children (since you don't need "extras" in case a few die, to be so crude), and children in advanced societies tend to be an economic liability (since now they don't work young, there's no inherent advantage of a growing population, communities are less insular, and you have to pay to clothe, educate, and feed those children for a long time, there are economic pressures to have less, rather than more children). In the phase that is called the "demographic transition", there's a time period where death rates drop before birth rates do, that is, as a population becomes healthier and more stable and more economically advanced, they don't instantly stop having large families. It takes a few generations for the birth rates to drop in response to the socioeconomic changes, so there's a time period of about a century or so when population skyrockets. However, according to these models, when a society or nation reaches a certain point, the birth rates drop precipitously and then the population plateaus. The 23rd century predictions aren't thus necessarily based on a grim, dystopian future where some Malthusian catastrophe has reduced humanity to fighting over scarce resources, (remember, Malthus lived during a time of demographic transition, when his own society's population was booming, and he had no way to predict how economic prosperity would actual work to help it plateau). Instead, we could arrive at such a plateau as a result of the trends noted at the Demographic-economic paradox article, that is worldwide peace and prosperity could result in the population plateauing by the 23rd century. Another good concept to read up on is the Post-scarcity economy, which is sort of the antithetical idea to Thomas Malthus. --Jayron32 12:48, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

So the negative population growth of Russia, was it a result of fall of USSR? --Yoglti (talk) 13:11, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

Not necessarily; as there is more than one way to skin a cat. Negative population growth can also result from catastrophic illness or famine (i.e. see what the black death did to populations of Europe in the 14th century). The issue is that negative population growth is not only a result of such events, and that there is widespread evidence that good, stable economies and high standards of living also lead to less population growth, as plainly evidenced by the actual data. Countries like Germany and Japan aren't experiencing low or negative population growth because people are sick or because they are fighting over limited resources. Certainly, you can also get negative population growth because of that as well; but the current models don't necessarily predict that future plateaus in population would be a result of such things, but rather of the sort of economic prosperity that one sees in places like Germany itself tends to depress population growth overall. --Jayron32 13:23, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

The Limits to growth model is a famous example of trying to apply [now relatively] modern modelling techniques to Malthus, but Ester Boserup's theory, which boils down to 'necessity is the mother of invention' parallels real life quite well. One such often-cited example is miracle rice, which I'm surprised to see is a redlink. --Dweller (talk) 14:10, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

Re: When population increases, food become scarce, with resources being depleted. Not necessarily. A lot depends on what happens to the technology of food/resource production as the population increases. Improvements in food technology may mean larger crop yields and/or the ability to bring more land under cultivation... alternative sources of energy may reduce or even replace our reliance on fossil fuels... etc. All of which would mean we could sustain a significantly larger world population in the 23rd Century. Blueboar (talk) 14:28, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

International Rice Research Institute... -- AnonMoos (talk) 16:44, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

The dramatic global population increase since the 17th century cannot be explained without reference to a dramatic increase in the consumption of fossil fuels. If the supply of fossil fuels shrinks dramatically during the 21st century, as peak oil theory predicts, some other energy source would be needed to sustain populations at current or greater-than-current levels. The two kinds of energy sources usually put forward as replacements are renewables and nuclear energy. Whether those energy sources have a realistic chance of replacing fossil fuels is controversial, with experts taking both sides of the argument. Here is a pessimistic argument on renewables. I have never seen an optimistic argument that refutes all of the points in the pessimistic argument, and each of the points in the pessimistic argument is fairly devastating. As for nuclear, here is a strong argument that economically recoverable nuclear energy supplies are likely to begin declining by 2050 or so. Finally, remember that technology is not an energy source. Technologies harness energy sources. The vast majority of technological innovation during the modern era has involved new ways of harnessing existing energy sources. While solar energy is an existing, abundant energy source, no technology yet devised can harness it without an infrastructure that itself requires large amounts of energy for its construction and maintenance. The energy return on energy invested is quite low, so it produces little net energy. It is not inconceivable that a more efficient technology for harvesting solar energy will be invented. Agriculture is of course an efficient solar technology, but it requires water and/or land also needed to feed a large global population. We cannot predict with confidence that anyone can or will invent an efficient solar energy-harvesting technology that does not also threaten global food supplies.

It is very possible that net energy supplies will decline, and perhaps decline rapidly, during the mid- to late 21st century. Since existing economies and food production regimes are highly energy-intensive, a difficult and perhaps catastrophic adjustment would ensue. Jared Diamond's Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed showed that many civilizational collapses have resulted from ecological challenges, particularly a decline in a society's ability to meet its material needs for food and shelter, coupled with denial on the part of elites and the prevailing culture of risks to the society's material base. Peak energy is a serious risk, even if the risk is not total, and denial of this risk is certainly widespread in our culture. We may hope that we somehow escape civilizational collapse and a likely sharp population decline, but the UN's projection of a population of 10 billion in the 23rd century is at least as doubtful as a prediction of a sharp population decline by that date. Marco polo (talk) 18:31, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

Well, that's just the Malthusian argument with fossil fuels substituted for food, but as yet, there's no evidence that the Malthusian argument works for any commodity. Predicting the end of the world is good business, but it doesn't make it right. Looking backwards, not one Malthusian catastrophe has ever come to fruition, despite the fact that according to Malthus, we should be eating our own young as a food source by now. The same could be said to be true of the energy argument. If we keep on our current trajectory, then we're fucked. The problem is that the "If" conditions never hold true, or at least have not since we've been predicting the impending doom of the human race. We don't keep on the current trajectory because economic changes lead to technological changes that lead to drastic changes in that trajectory, indeed if one looks at any bit of history at all, one should have enough intelligence and imagination to note that the world does not remain static, and that's likely to hold true for the forseeable future, which means that we can't base the future trajectory of energy usage based on current usages. If we go back 200 years instead of forward 200 years, we find a world that didn't have coal, oil, nuclear, solar, hydroelectric, etc. And yet, somehow even though the past 200 years had such drastic and (to people 200 years ago) inconceivable changes, we're supposed to somehow believe that the next 200 years will have no such changes? Please. Incidentally, if you're really hell-bent on predicting the impending doom of humanity, energy is decidedly not the way to do it, as there is are ways out of the fossil fuel conundrum. You poo-poo solar power, but once the economics become feasible, at least that's an out. We do have a realistic Malthusian problem in the form of phosphorus shortages, which is a far more likely problem if you are in the business of predicting the end of the world, phosphorus is the way to go. Not as sexy as the energy issue, but has a far more realistic likelyhood of creating the doom scenario you seem to crave. In the future, I'd recommend changing your eschatalogical tactics to focus on the impending phosphorus problem, since we don't have any possible replacement for phosphorus when we run out. Again, not sexy, but more likely a problem. --Jayron32 22:17, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

Which is pretty much what Boserup's theory said. But more entertainingly written. Her words (lifted from our article) are less colourful, but more succinct: "The power of ingenuity would always outmatch that of demand" --Dweller (talk) 22:23, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

I'd have thought 10 billion would be quite easy to sustain in the 23rd century. As to power there's lots available from sunlight the wind and sea and nuclear even without doing all this fracking, and food can be produced from the deserts for instance under greenhouses. Those models are devised by people who do try and take the best advice and try and be a bit conservative over what's possible. The big problem I see is whether the population will actually settle to that, will there be wars which destroy part of the infrastructure or ideologies which promote ignorance and stupidity. And anyway I think the population is already far too high because of the destruction of the natural world.

However much more worryingly population growth has a figure of 10 billion by the middle of this century which seems altogether possible and would not be so easily sustained as we very probably won't have good enough infrastructure. Dmcq (talk) 09:32, 19 April 2013 (UTC)

Jayron32 appears not to have read my link on why renewables can't replace fossil fuels. It would be interesting to see whether he can cite sources that refute each of those arguments. His dismissive tone is typical of the attitude of denial about our impending crisis. His dismissive mention of Malthus is unintentionally ironic, because it was precisely the explosion of fossil fuel consumption that averted Malthus's predicted crisis. Without fossil fuels, Malthus is harder to dismiss. Stepping back from our immediate situation and taking a more mathematical view, consider that Earth is a finite planet, with only so much surface area available to support a human population. Now consider that that population was in a pattern of exponential growth from about 1800 to about 1990. (It is still growing, though the curve in recent years has (temporarily?) ceased to be parabolic/exponential.) If growth were to continue at a rate of 3% per year (a rate that prevails in some parts of the world), Earth's population would be 21 billion in 2050, 92 billion in 2100, and and 1.8 trillion in 2200. That would be about 12,000 people per square kilometer of land surface, including deserts and polar regions, or about 84 square meters per person including living space, nowhere near enough to feed a person even in fertile regions with abundant rainfall and long growing seasons. At some point during the 22nd century, a Malthusian crisis would occur even without energy shortages.

The pieces of ingenuity that averted the Malthusian crisis were 1) the steam engine, and 2) the internal combustion engine, both of which harnessed fossil fuels. Those were easy to harness without destroying humanity's food productivity. (In fact, they enhanced that productivity.) Just considering the physics, it is hard to imagine an efficient and scalable technology for harnessing solar energy that doesn't simultaneously decrease food production. Eventually, Malthus will be correct. Phosphorus might be the issue, though there are practical ways to recycle phosphorus. There are no practical ways to recycle energy. Assuming that there won't be a problem in the future just because there hasn't been a problem in the recent past is nothing more than wishful thinking. Marco polo (talk) 16:06, 19 April 2013 (UTC)

Of course, all that would only be relevant if population growth was uniform across the world. It isn't. Population growth has leveled off, or in some cases declined, in regions of the world with high economic development. In those countries of high economic development where population growth continues, it's largely due to immigration from those countries with lower levels of development rather than native population growth (i.e. births replacing deaths) The conclusion to be drawn from that unimpeachable data is that as the rest of the world reaches the same socioeconomic status of the developed world, its population growth will taper off too. So, there is no reason to assume that the population growth will continue unabated because in those places where the economy is good, it hasn't. It isn't because Germany has run out of food or fossil fuels that its population growth has leveled off, it's because it's an advanced economy, and advanced economies (empirically) have little to no population growth. --Jayron32 19:06, 19 April 2013 (UTC)

Renewables most definitely can replace fossil fuel. The big problems are the time scale and will the population actually stop at about 10 billion, they won't replace the majority of fossil fuel by 2050, it will be difficult to do it even by the end of the century which means there will be an awful amount of fracking and extra pollution which will exacerbate other problems. Dmcq (talk) 18:18, 19 April 2013 (UTC)

Stephen Harper anti-Islam

close invitation to debate and borderline BLP violation
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
I have noticed that Stephen Harper ever since became Prime Minister in 2006, he has become hypocritical in terms of homosexual rights and becoming Islamophobic. When I mean hypocritical in terms of homosexuals' rights, I mean he supports their human rights but not their marriage and yet he said that he won't go to Francophonie and Commonwealth summits or conferences that is hosted by a country known for its poor human rights records towards homosexuals, and most of them are Muslim nations and relating to Islam, he is becoming Islamophobic such as wanting Muslim women to remove their niqab to get citizenship and as well as to identify themselves in order to vote in the election. I have also noticed that he is anti-Islamic towards Sunni Muslim population because he went to Ahmadi place of worship to announce the office of religious freedom instead of a Sunni Muslim mosque because Ahmadis are persecuted for their belief and not to mention he said Islam "is best" after giving Honorary citizenship to Agha Khan. Also, he supports a backbencher's bill that will get rid of dual citizenship of people who commits terrorism and it targets the Muslim and Arab Canadians who are already or recent immigrated to Canada. If you say that Stephen Harper is not Islamophobe, then please tell me why? I am interested. --Donmust90 (talk) 15:59, 18 April 2013 (UTC)Donmust90 Sorry, you haven't asked a question that can be answered here, just an invitation to a general debate. I hope contributors won't be drawn into this. Itsmejudith (talk) 16:13, 18 April 2013 (UTC) Agreed. μηδείς (talk) 16:35, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

Aliyah

Hi, I'm an adherent of the Jewish faith and as such I believe I qualify to apply for Israeli citizenship under their Aliyah programme. My question is if I had a spouse who came from a country where you can't visit Israel, for example Lebanon, would this affect my being able to become an Israeli. Also would my spouse be eligible to apply for citizenship or do the rules still apply? Thanks, Andrew —Preceding undated comment added 17:47, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

The usual place to ask this kind of question is at your nearest Israeli embassy/consulate or by seeking information on an Israeli government website. The nearest I found is the Ministry of Interior (Israel). Unfortunatly, their website is all in Hebrew, so I can't investigate further. Astronaut (talk) 18:19, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

And now I've found some information in English: The Israeli government's Making Aliyah portal. Astronaut (talk) 18:25, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

• Thanks very much --Andrew 18:35, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

I doubt that being "an adherent of the Jewish faith" is enough to emigrate to Israel. OsmanRF34 (talk) 19:07, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

• Actually it is. "The Law of Return is legislation enacted by Israel in 1950, that gives all Jews, persons of Jewish ancestry, and spouses of Jews the right to immigrate to and settle in Israel and obtain citizenship, and obliges the Israeli government to facilitate their immigration." The issue for me is that Lebanese people are unable to enter Israel, and my spouse is Lebanese --Andrew 19:17, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

Couldn't your spouse simply give up his/her Lebanese citizenship before immigrating to Israel? After all, didn't some Israeli Jews previously live in enemy countries before they immigrated to Israel? Futurist110 (talk) 19:55, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

• That is an option but she still has family in Lebanon which makes it a difficult decision for her --Andrew 20:17, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

(e/c) That's not a suggestion a reference desk has any right to be making. We're here to find information, not come up with novel ideas that involve people relinquishing their citizenship, or changing their sex, religion, political allegiances, profession or whatever. -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 20:19, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

I presume you saying your wife can't visit Israel because of restrictions imposed by the Lebanese, rather than the Israelis (which appears to be a myth anyway). This is a rather timely question. See this very recent post from LonelyPlanet "Israel no longer stamps passports", but note that doesn't apply at sea ports or land crossings.

Cheers --Dweller (talk) 21:43, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

According to "Law of Return," the children and spouses of Jews also qualify. They need not be Jewish. According to the article "Aliyah," 4162 people from Lebanon have emigrated to Israel so it shouldn't be an obstacle for your wife. People carrying Lebanese passports can and do visit Israel. D Monack (talk) 01:22, 20 April 2013 (UTC)

Nigeria population

Why does Nigeria have such a large population despite being faily average in terms of size? Pass a Method talk 23:06, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

Nigeria's not that high on the list in terms of absolute population density: List of sovereign states and dependent territories by population density. If you notice, most of them are islands or otherwise geographically constrained states (Vatican being small politically; Hong Kong, etc.). Nigeria's 72 on that list. It's after Switzerland.

But density can mean a lot of things. Do you include water bodies? How about mountains, or deserts, or otherwise inhospitable land? List of countries by real population density based on food growing capacity is an attempt at answering that question (aka Physiological density). I'm sure there are others. Nigeria might appear small relative to more Northern or Southern countries because it's close to the equator so typical map projections enlarge the size of those countries. Nigeria's relatively large coming in at 32 on list of land area. Most of the other larger countries in Africa have huge swaths of desert that are sparely inhabited. It's than Turkey or France.

Demographics of Nigeria is probably our best attempt to answer this; like any question of this nature, it's extremely complicated and the best you can do at first is get a feel for the context, then focus on specifics. If I had to add one specific (and I'm mostly guessing) is the Niger Delta is a fertile area and has been a population center. Shadowjams (talk) 00:18, 19 April 2013 (UTC)

But it is by far the largest in Africa. Pass a Method talk 00:31, 19 April 2013 (UTC)

Probably a simple partial answer is that Nigeria is one of the largest countries in Africa without large areas of desert, sahel, or tropical rainforest... AnonMoos (talk) 01:15, 19 April 2013 (UTC)

I think your premise is not as strong as you think. Rwanda has a far higher population density, so does Bahrain. If you consider arable land then lots of African countries have higher population densities. Nigeria has a large population but it's also a large country, and much of it is arable, unlike many of the other larger African nations. Shadowjams (talk) 01:53, 19 April 2013 (UTC)

The only way to understand the reasons for differences in population density is to consider history as well as the physical environment. Nigeria's soils and climate are similar to other regions of coastal and near-interior West Africa. There is a mix of fertile and less fertile soils, but few areas with very poor soils. In most parts of Nigeria, there is a predictable pattern of ample monsoon rainfall between April and about September. This is also true of other parts of coastal West Africa. Nigeria differs in its history. Nigeria may have been the earliest center of iron working south of the Sahara. (See Nok culture.) Iron tools allowed for more productive agriculture than in regions without iron technology. Perhaps because of this head start, the area of present-day Nigeria developed more complex societies, including intensive agriculture and state structures, at an earlier date than other parts of coastal West Africa. This history dates back more than 1,000 years. See History of the Yoruba people, Igbo people, and Hausa Kingdoms. Intensive agriculture supports a larger population than the mix of less intensive agriculture and foraging that prevailed elsewhere in coastal West Africa. A complex social structure allows for a more detailed division of labor, which in turn allows for much greater economic productivity, in turn supporting a larger population. So Nigeria already had a denser population than other parts of West Africa by 1900. (See Colin McEvedy and Richard Jones, Atlas of World Population History [1978].) Population growth rates took off during the 20th century throughout the region, but because of its head start, Nigeria retains a greater population density today. Marco polo (talk) 16:28, 19 April 2013 (UTC)

Bahrain is in Asia. What's its relevance? AlexTiefling (talk) 16:32, 19 April 2013 (UTC)

For some reason I interpreted that picture of the Persian gulf as the Red Sea.... my mistake. Although I was always sketchy on where the Arabian Peninsula fit. Shadowjams (talk) 20:11, 20 April 2013 (UTC)

Leadership

Can anyone learn to be a leader? Is it exclusively an acquired skill or are there some people who's traits are incompatible with the skills to be a good leader? Clover345 (talk) 23:38, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

There are definitely people whose traits are incompatible with leadership -- for example, people who are so lacking in self-confidence that they can never be persuaded to express an opinion. Looie496 (talk) 01:42, 19 April 2013 (UTC)

Read Dale Carnegie's works, and you may find that it helps with your poise and confidence, and in developing leaderships skills. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 02:25, 19 April 2013 (UTC)

I recommend the book Leadership: A Very Short Introduction (ISBN 978-0-19-956991-5), which discusses this question. Gabbe (talk) 08:25, 19 April 2013 (UTC)

We have an article on Leadership. Dmcq (talk) 09:19, 19 April 2013 (UTC)

There are an enormous amount of business books on Leadership and Wikipedia has a huge amount of articles within the category Category:Leadership too. I personally think anybody can be taught to lead but that some have a 'natural' comfort and confidence in being a leader whilst others would require significant training to be seen as a leader. ny156uk (talk) 09:20, 19 April 2013 (UTC)

It no doubt helps to start with a group of people even less likely to lead than yourself, and then work your way up. Although the question of whether you should attempt to be a leader when you aren’t one naturally and others present are is an interesting one. ¦ Reisio (talk) 13:56, 19 April 2013 (UTC)