Humanities desk
< July 14	<< Jun \| July \| Aug >>	July 16 >

Welcome to the Wikipedia Humanities 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.

July 15

Trying to recall short story

I think the name was something like Shall These Bones Live?, but that gets too many irrelevant hits.

Goes something like this: A woman wakes up in the wilderness, and can find no other humans around. She tries to figure out why, and the answer comes to her in a dream: Humanity is extinct, but she has been resurrected from her remains by a species that does that sort of thing. Just her, no one else. But they can resurrect the whole human race if they want to. She communicates with them by asking questions in her head before going to sleep, and the answer comes in a dream.

Ring any bells? --Trovatore (talk) 05:32, 15 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Did Philip José Farmer ever write a short story (featuring Alice Liddell maybe?) as an early version of the Riverworld story? Clarityfiend (talk) 10:36, 15 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Not a short story, but the basic plot reminds me of Octavia Butler's Lilith's Brood series.-- OBSIDIAN†SOUL 11:33, 15 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Trovatore, I believe you're thinking of Ted Reynolds's Hugo-nominated story "Can These Bones Live?" (1979). If you can see this Google Books search result, click on the "Page 344" link for a brief description. Deor (talk) 13:00, 15 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

@Deor: has it! Thanks very much to all. --Trovatore (talk) 17:04, 15 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Resolved

Admin roles

Do people who work in admin roles get stuck in admin roles? do they ever become a manager? 90.192.122.101 (talk) 09:44, 15 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

(a) Yes, often. (b) Yes, often. Do you really want references for this?-- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 10:00, 15 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

They can often end up as managers of the other people in those admin roles. Dismas|^(talk) 10:07, 15 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

My wife worked in admin for a year, and then was made a manager, so with a sample size of 1, there's a data point for you. --Jayron 32 11:13, 15 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Can the same be said for customer service jobs? 46.233.116.68 (talk) 12:45, 15 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I had one of those. Now I don't. So there's one point for "not stuck", and one for "will never become a manager". InedibleHulk (talk) 21:34, 16 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

"Admin roles" can mean different things to different people. But even so, I'm pretty sure Jack's answers are spot-on. --Dweller (talk) 12:57, 15 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

What about an admin role in an operational environment such as retail or transport hubs? 90.192.122.101 (talk) 15:44, 15 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

You are really going to have to refine your question. The answer "Does X ever happen", without further information, is almost always "Yes". For that to be true, you only have to find 1 example in the history of the world, and that's not such a hard challenge. But I suspect that's not what you really want to know. Can you help us out here a little? -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 23:46, 15 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I can give a totally non-transferable anecdatum. In the last corporate job I held, "admins" were junior-level human resources managers. They almost always began as sales and service reps, and some of them were promoted to higher positions such as general manager, which meant the manager of the managers of 50-200 sales and service reps. (There were other paths to general manager, such as via sales manager.) This was one of the most highly capitalized corporations in the US. But the terms and practices simply do not carry from company to company, so the question as posed is, as has been noted, not really answerable. The best thing to do is to consult with one's direct manager and ask about higher track positions. μηδείς (talk) 03:00, 16 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Deicide-by-human in non-Christian religions

Our article on Deicide only includes one actual supposed example of a belief of humans committing this act - the death of Jesus. Most of the rest of the article is filled with references to fictional works.

There's mention of Ragnarök, but reading that article boggles my brain. It appears that the foretold deaths of the various gods will not occur by human hands.

My question is this: Are there any religions (even "niche" ones) besides Christianity, which profess the belief that it is possible (even theoretically) for A God to experience death at the hands of A Human or Humans?

(I'm specifically excluding beliefs of Gods killing each other, which, I believe, do exist). 121.219.62.223 (talk) 16:16, 15 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Jesus was human. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 17:51, 15 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

This is a slippery slope question. Many would say that the "death of jesus" is not based on fact. Many denominations of Christianity have different interpretations.

Christianity is very ambiguous (like many religions) here Void burn (talk) 17:58, 15 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Forgetting the debate about whether Jesus actually existed, the conventional Christian belief is that Jesus was a physically mortal being. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 18:03, 15 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I am skeptical of Mr. Bug's claim of "conventional belief". There are denominations of Christianity that believe jesus is god. Void burn (talk) 18:08, 15 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Not a contradiction, or at least traditional Christian belief claims it's not a contradiction, that Jesus was "fully God and fully man". See hypostatic union (didn't know that was what it was called till just now). I'm less clear on whether he's still considered to be "fully man", but I suppose so, given that he was supposed to be resurrected in the flesh and then bodily transported into Heaven.

What I'm not sure is what Bugs' point was, if he was taking the "fully God and fully man" point of view, as that would still mean that humans killed "fully God". --Trovatore (talk) 06:04, 17 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

God incarnate, but killing Jesus didn't literally kill God. The soul is immortal and likewise God is immortal. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 08:02, 17 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

"The Word became flesh and dwelt among us." ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 18:14, 15 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Ambiguity of Christianity Void burn (talk) 18:24, 15 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

(edit conflict)Of the historical Christian sects that lasted beyond the fall of Rome (and for more than a generation or two) but are older than the Louisiana Purchase, Jesus was held to be 100% God and 100% human, only debating which should be listed first and which was in charge. Ian.thomson (talk) 18:37, 15 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I'm boggled to see Wikipedia treats Ragnarok as a future event, outside the "theories" section. No wonder it's confusing people. InedibleHulk (talk) 21:44, 16 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Has it happened yet? --Jayron 32 22:48, 16 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Constantly. Just, like my link above says at the bottom, it's hard to understand if you look at at it like a physical event (particularly a series of events) in a linear timeframe. Mythology doesn't have to play by those rules, but most often do, for simple folk's sake (that's not an insult). It's nothing like Armageddon, and the dead gods are concurrently alive, so not quite deicide, either, if death is seen as the end. InedibleHulk (talk) 00:08, 17 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Consider also (of you'd like) the essence of The Neverending Story, the melody of "Follow Me" and the myth of "historical Jesus". It's pretty clear, but not straightforward. Sort of like water flowing. InedibleHulk (talk) 00:25, 17 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Back on topic, Attis/Adonis was killed by a stray boar in some myths, so he probably could have been killed by a human. However, he could have also been deified after death. I can't remember the title, but the cycle that Cath Maige Tuired is a part of is followed by the human ancestors of the Irish waltzing into Ireland and kicking their gods' asses. Couldn't tell you if they were worshiping the survivors (which would fit your question), or if the gods (though defeated) were still immortal, or if this was later Christian interpolation (like the Irish being descended from a granddaughter of Noah who built her own boat). Ian.thomson (talk) 18:37, 15 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Krishna died after being mortally wounded in a hunting accident. 184.147.127.87 (talk) 19:04, 15 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Some leads at Dying-and-rising_god as well as Resurrection, if you don't mind the god coming back after death. More broadly, this question reminded me of Princess Mononoke, which draws heavily from Japanese_folklore and Shinto and contains the great line: "Now watch closely, everyone. I'm going to show you how to kill a god. A god of life and death. The trick is not to fear him." I suspect if you go looking into the Kami you'll find a few that have been killed by humans. SemanticMantis (talk) 20:54, 15 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Then there is God is dead ... although Nietzsche's post mortem implies that God died of natural causes.

Alfonso of Aragon

Where is Alfonso of Aragon, Duke of Bisceglie buried? Santa Maria della Febbre was demolished, right?--The Emperor's New Spy (talk) 20:31, 15 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Right. Also had many graves robbed, over the years, including royal ones. Alfonso's bones may or may not remain, but it seems a fair guess that his stuff doesn't. They were mainly after gold, but a Duke's skull may have been too good for a worker to pass up. Archaeology didn't really have much in the way of rules till the late 19th century.

Even if graverobbers didn't move the bones, they may have gone to an ossuary, just as standard procedure. Only guesses, though. InedibleHulk (talk) 22:22, 16 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Generally, I imagine that most medieval Christian burials (post-Roman) would have little to no burial goods except the clothes on their back or just a burial shroud covering the bones. The only descretation usually comes from revolutions, vandals or demolishing of churches.--The Emperor's New Spy (talk) 22:59, 16 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

That's how I see it, too. Nothing fit for an Empress, but perhaps some jewelry. Some clothes have gold and silver buttons, clasps and whatnot. Every little bit helps the melting pot.

I'm still trying (sort of) to figure out where in the compound he went, and which areas may have gone undefiled. There were apparently two chapels at the time of his death, and one was torn down in the 16th century, sometime. Then there are always various crypt-like places, in various stages of "on top of each other". Bit of a puzzler without a diagram, and I've only just heard of the guy or the place.

Someone smarter to the whole thing might be along shortly with a real answer. I'm curious, too, now. InedibleHulk (talk) 23:50, 16 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Did ports of entry have tons of dictionaries before electronic translators existed?

If they don't then a Hungarian or Nepalese or Ethiopian or Laos traveler is going to have much delay on a world tour.. Or maybe they had a translation service like the United Nations? But that would only work when long distance calls existed and would not be foolproof unless even the tiniest countries had one or could outsource translation to a transnation hotline they trust. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 23:25, 15 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

What time period are you curious about? There's a lot of human history between the neolithic era and the advent of machine translation (roughly 12k years...). Also not many people got to travel the world for pleasure until very recently. Those who did tended to be rather wealthy or educated - a ~~translator~~ interpreter could be hired or a lingua franca could be used. SemanticMantis (talk) 23:30, 15 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I guess 1870 onwards. (Around the World in Eighty Days says "three technological breakthroughs occurred in 1869-70 that made a tourist-like around-the-world journey possible for the first time: the completion of the First Transcontinental Railroad in America (1869), the linking of the Indian railways across the sub-continent (1870), and the opening of the Suez Canal (1869).[3] It was another notable mark in the end of an age of exploration and the start of an age of fully global tourism that could be enjoyed in relative comfort and safety. It sparked the imagination that anyone could sit down, draw up a schedule, buy tickets and travel around the world, a feat previously reserved for only the most heroic and hardy of adventurers.") Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 23:50, 15 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Well, there has always been the "assume the locals will understand your language if you just say it LOUDER and SLOW-ER" method of communication (stereotypically favored by British and American Tourists). ;) Blueboar (talk) 01:16, 16 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I like the Chinese stereotype where they don't even bother trying to speak English. They will jus speak Mandarin or Chinese and go on expecting you to find a way to understand. ;) Void burn (talk) 13:32, 17 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

You may be interested in this article on Ellis Island [1]. It suggests that they had a large staff of translators for various languages. For most ports in most countries until at least World War I, you could simply get on and off a ship wherever you liked, as long as you could pay the fare. In more recent history, people who don't speak a recognizable language sometimes get set aside indefinitely. --Amble (talk) 01:27, 16 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Or killed. — Kpalion^(talk) 09:37, 16 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Please don't be inflammatory. Nobody intended to kill the poor fellow in that case. --174.88.133.35 (talk) 21:25, 16 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

But they did. And my point is that had he been able to communiate in English, he probably would have lived. — Kpalion^(talk) 14:02, 17 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]