Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2016 July 8

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July 8

Ending the Joint Control Commission

What would happen between Russia and Moldova if the latter rejected the agreement that established the Joint Control Commission? No speculation, please; most treaties and agreements of this sort include provisions for permitting a party to withdraw from the agreement, and that's what I'm after. It was apparently a ceasefire, but with the Russians not officially fighting on either side, I'm not clear what de jure changes would occur in Russo-Moldovan relationships. Nyttend (talk) 03:46, 8 July 2016 (UTC)

Traffic stop procedure

In the US, during a traffic stop the police officer usually instructs you to do the following:

1. Stay in your vehicle

2. Roll down your window

3. Keep both hands on the steering where/keep both hands visible to the officer

4. Slowly reach for your license and registration

I'm told that in Europe, a different approach is taken, where the vehicle occupants are told to exit their vehicle. In the US, exiting your car during a traffic stop would be profoundly unwise.

Why the difference in procedure? Approximately when did they start to diverge? (pre-WWII or post?) Are there records on which police departments were the first to pioneer and standardize these procedures? Crudiv1 (talk) 09:24, 8 July 2016 (UTC)

Facetiously: The faster runners are American, the faster drivers are European and everyone in America has a gun. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 10:50, 8 July 2016 (UTC)

And if you have a gun in the car, they want you to stay close to it. —Tamfang (talk) 21:40, 9 July 2016 (UTC)

On the few occasions I've been stopped by the police in my car in the UK the policeman has simply spoken through my car window. I have never been asked to get out (or not to). I have lowered the window as a courtesy. I have never been asked to put my hands anywhere but I suppose they would be visible. I have never been asked for my licence or registration (you are not required or expected to carry them anyway). All the "security" aspects simply do not arise (in my experience). I suppose (but I have no references to any of this) the UK procedures have not changed since WWII. I'll look and see if I can find a UK standard procedure and report back (if User:Alansplodge doesn't beat me to it!). Thincat (talk) 12:29, 8 July 2016 (UTC)

For the avoidance of doubt (1) following a stop I have not been accused of any offence (2) I have not been shot at. Thincat (talk) 12:37, 8 July 2016 (UTC)

Sounds like a challenge (you should have waited until my lunchbreak was over). Here is the official advice:

"The police can stop a vehicle for any reason. If they ask you to stop, you should always pull over when it’s safe to do so. You’re breaking the law if you don’t. If you’re stopped, the police can ask to see your: driving licence, insurance certificate [and] MOT certificate. If you don’t have these documents with you, you have 7 days to take them to a police station. You’re breaking the law if you don’t show the requested documents within 7 days".

This law firm's site says "Wait in your vehicle for the officer to approach you. They may stand just behind where you are sitting, causing you to turn. This is so that the officer can see your hands to make sure you’re not carrying any potential weapons". However. I concur with User:Thincat that the whole procedure seems rather casual. I expect it's different if they think you might be a drug dealer or a bank robber. The police on the other side of the Channel are said to be more aggressive, but I've never been stopped there. Alansplodge (talk) 12:59, 8 July 2016 (UTC)

Thank you – I wasn't intending to disturb your lunch! And here is some highly unofficial information for drivers who want to assert their rights. It says in passing there is no "national standard" and there is a huge difference between police forces. Thincat (talk) 13:14, 8 July 2016 (UTC)

I expect we in Britain sound very smug. Things can (and do) go badly wrong here. Shooting of Stephen Waldorf and others. Thincat (talk) 14:02, 8 July 2016 (UTC)

Although the risk for police officers of being killed is many times lower here; our List of British police officers killed in the line of duty records about 250 names in the last 116 years, whereas our List of American police officers killed in the line of duty says that the "average from 1990-2010 was 164 per year". Alansplodge (talk) 23:38, 8 July 2016 (UTC)

IIRC I've never been stopped (don't drive much) in NZ nor been in a car that's been stopped except for a breathtest. But from shows like Motorway Patrol and other police reality shows, I think the situation in NZ (or for that matter Australia) is also generally fairly casual. However you're not expected to, and rather you don't exit the vehicle and may even tell you that. Beyond the increased risk of some sort of confrontation, there's also the risk you'll either do a runner or more likely carelessly put yourself at risk before they can stop you, especially on a motorway. If you get out anyway, they'll most likely direct you to a save place and do the interview from there.

If they're afraid you'll drive-off, they'll ask you to turn off the ignition. Maybe hand over the keys too, but I think that's only if they're impounding the car or otherwise you shouldn't be driving anymore that day. However they may ask you to throw the keys out the window if they've afraid of drive-off and fear you may be armed. But even then, I believe they'll still prefer you to wait in the car for the safety of everyone until someone can make an approach to detain you.

In non confrontational situations, they may ask you to exit the vehicle if they want to search it, and also I guess if they want to show you something about the vehicle. (I don't know if they ask or it's just expected if the vehicle is being impounded etc.)

I found this chapter from a police operations manual [1] which seem to confirm a number of these details.

P.S. In Malaysia step 4 probably includes and money and step 5 is putting money under your licence and handing it all over.

Nil Einne (talk) 17:34, 8 July 2016 (UTC)

I've been looking at other European countries. For Italy, I found [2] and [3], unfortunately they don't really say whether you're expected to stay in the vehicle or get out although the second one makes met think you probably normally stay in (but it's too unclear). I found even less on France [4] [5]. Northern Europe, didn't find anything even worth linking. But Germany I did find [6] which mentions "You are also required to exit the vehicle if requested to do so" which makes me think you're probably not always expected to exit. I also found [7] which seems to be from a US perspective which says:

Whether to get the driver out of the car is probably one of the most contested tactics during a traffic stop. It’s a black-or-white issue for some and each side will rattle off a list of reasons for his or her preferred method. I am of the opinion that it's safer to get the driver out of the vehicle and conduct your business off to the side

which makes me wonder if it's really universal that you'll always be expected to stay in the vehicle in the US even when they aren't planning to detain you or search your vehicle. Nil Einne (talk) 21:02, 8 July 2016 (UTC)

Note that getting out of the car at the side of a road can be hazardous for reasons that have nothing to do with violence. There are other cars moving along the road and it's always possible that someone will fail to give sufficient clearance and will cause an accident like this. A person who is hit while standing beside a car is at greater risk than one sitting in a car that gets hit. Of course this is less of an issue in a big city where speeds are moderate and there are curbs and sidewalks and parked cars all over the place than it is on a highway outside of the city. --69.159.60.163 (talk) 05:36, 10 July 2016 (UTC)

Health enquiry

i need to urgently connect commisioner for healthon a deadly hospital in my area41.203.71.178 (talk) 14:59, 8 July 2016 (UTC)

The Lagos State Commissioner for Health is in Durosimi Street, telephone +234 8033578492. 80.44.163.165 (talk) 15:08, 8 July 2016 (UTC)

Jewish history t-shirt

I have two questions about historical veracity.

1) I bought this T-shirt on vacation in Israel recently and wanted to run it through the history guys here - are they all objectively true?, thanks.

• 
  t-shirt

T-shirt text:

Civilizations, nations and empires that have tried to destroy the Jewish People:

NATION	STATUS
Ancient Egypt	✘-Gone
Philistines	✘-Gone
Assyrian Empire	✘-Gone
Babylonian Empire	✘-Gone
Persian Empire	✘-Gone
Greek Empire	✘-Gone
Roman Empire	✘-Gone
Byzantine Empire	✘-Gone
Crusaders	✘-Gone
Spanish Empire	✘-Gone
Nazi Germany	✘-Gone
Soviet Union	✘-Gone
Iran	???

The Jewish People - The smallest of nations but with a Friend in the highest of places! So...BE NICE!

ZygonLieutenant (talk) 16:01, 8 July 2016 (UTC)

Looks like ignorant propaganda to me. There is an Arab - Israeli conflict, but the Persians are not Arabs, nor were they belligerent in what you might call the War of Independence, the Six - Day War and the Yom Kippur War. 80.44.163.165 (talk) 16:18, 8 July 2016 (UTC)

Note that the above is a sock of a banned user. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 00:36, 9 July 2016 (UTC)

The shirt is talking about the Persian Empire, not Iran (except where it says Iran). Sir Joseph ^(talk) 16:30, 8 July 2016 (UTC)

It's historical nonsense and modern misinformation. I get the idea of the joke, but the historical errors spoil it for me. "Ancient Egypt" tried to destroy the Jewish people? There was a Greek Empire? The Babylonian Empire arguably was instrumental in creating a Jewish ethnicity (although not intentionally). The expulsion of Jews from Spain was at a time when Spain had only just come together, and before there was a Spanish Empire. And so on... --Stephan Schulz (talk) 16:56, 8 July 2016 (UTC)

And it's at the very least tendentious to claim that most of these tried to "destroy" the Jewish people. Some of them tried to incorporate conquered peoples into their empire, but that's not the same as destroying theM. --ColinFine (talk) 17:05, 8 July 2016 (UTC)

Also, thinking a bit deeper, there is a sleight-of-hand (or "sleight-of-argument"?) in tracking continuity differently in different cases. Yes, Ancient Egypt is gone (more or less by definition), but Egypt is still around. The Roman Empire has crumbled as a political entity, but the Italians are still around. So are Spain, Germany and Russia. On the other hand, the Kingdom of Israel (united monarchy) is gone, as are its successor states. So is the Hasmonean dynasty/Herodian Kingdom of Judea, and the short-lived organization of Bar Kokhba. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 17:27, 8 July 2016 (UTC)

Except that is not what the shirt argued.It didn't argue about the Jewish empire or kingdom, it said Jewish people. And yes, many of those on the list tried to destroy the Jewish people for their religion and not just incorporating them into their empire. When an empire, such as the Greek, make a law that it is illegal to practice your religion under pain of death, or when the Spanish expel you or when the Nazis kill you, etc... It's a t-shirt but it is based on truth. Sir Joseph ^(talk) 17:32, 8 July 2016 (UTC)

Can you tell me which historical incident you associate with "the Greek Empire making a law that it is illegal to practice [the Jewish] religion under pain of death"? --Stephan Schulz (talk) 17:51, 8 July 2016 (UTC)

Antiochus_IV_Epiphanes Sir Joseph ^(talk) 18:42, 8 July 2016 (UTC)

So, not "the Greek Empire", but one of the post-Alexander hellenistic empires. And, as far as we know, not an attempt to "destroy the Jewish people" but rather an attempt to suppress the Jewish religion, possibly even on behalf of a group of hellenised Jews. Anyways, back to the larger point. The shirt frames the story asymmetrical, contains simple historical mistakes and mythical stories, and still needs to stretch definitions to a degree that makes it pointless. Compare "List of X trying to destroy the Persian people", including the Babylonian Empire, the Greeks, the Macedonian Empire, the Roman Empire, the Byzantine Empire (over and over again), the Rashidun Caliphate, the Mongols, the Regime of Saddam Hussein, and the US(?). Or a "list of X trying to destroy the English people", with Roman Empire, the Great Heathen Army, Harald Hardrade, the Duchy of Normandy, the French Kingdom (over and over again), the Spanish Emire (in this case really), the French First Republic, the French Empire, the German Reich, and Nigel Farrage. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 19:15, 8 July 2016 (UTC)

Except the Jewish people are the same, more or less, today than they were 2,000 years ago. The same can't be said for the other people and that is the point of the shirt. But whatever, I see that it disturbs you so I won't continue. Sir Joseph ^(talk) 19:23, 8 July 2016 (UTC)

Yes, "more or less" - arguably more than the English, less than the Persians. While the Jewish people have a strong (indeed, unusually strong for people with such a long diaspora) shared tradition, there have also been significant changes in culture and composition, with converts (both ways), changes in language (from Biblical Hebrew to Aramaic and Koine Greek to Yiddish and Ladino), change from a Temple-centric ritualistic religion to Rabbinic Judaism, and so on. Just because we use the adjective "Jewish" to denote elements from a long stretch of history does not mean that the people and culture have not evolved with changing times and locations. But I'd be happy to agree to disagree before I disturb your world view ;-). --Stephan Schulz (talk) 19:41, 8 July 2016 (UTC)

Just a point regarding the remarks of @ColinFine at 17:05, 8 July 2016 (UTC): There are particularly devout, messianic and/or nationalistic Jews today and in the past who consider apostasy, intermarriage, and even non-halachic streams of Judaism as "destructive of the Jewish people." -- Deborahjay (talk) 21:26, 8 July 2016 (UTC)

Soviet Union, yeah, right. Asmrulz (talk) 22:26, 8 July 2016 (UTC)

However, we do have an article called Antisemitism in the Soviet Union, although that's really not the same as "tried to destroy the Jewish People". On the Ancient Egypt claim, presumably that rests on the events described in the Book of Exodus. Alansplodge (talk) 00:10, 9 July 2016 (UTC)

The point of the shirt is that while many have persecuted the Jews throughout history, the Jews still survive, while many of their persecutors are in the dustbin of history - except Iran (and others, but Iran is the most obvious). ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 00:39, 9 July 2016 (UTC)

• I reformatted the quoted text to try to match the image better. Call me quixotic. —Tamfang (talk) 21:49, 9 July 2016 (UTC)

When did the Persians try to destroy the Jews? I know Cyrus the Great was famous for helping the Jews (ending their captivity in Babylon, etc). Iapetus (talk) 21:30, 10 July 2016 (UTC)

Book of Esther. — Kpalion^(talk) 09:35, 12 July 2016 (UTC)

Several lines of the shirt's text are inaccurate, anachronistic or completely bloody wrong. However, this is a T-shirt, not a doctoral essay. The overall tenet is cute and fairly accurate, which will no doubt sell T-shirts, which is what it is designed to do. --Dweller (talk) Become old fashioned! 10:11, 11 July 2016 (UTC)

Detail of the story was posted earlier:

I'm sorry, but it's not obvious at all. The J--- were held captive in Babylon and the Persians conquered Babylon. Now Esther went to Xerxes about a plot hatched by Mordecai to kill all the J--- and the J--- were saved. Mordecai was hanged. Modern - day evidence is equally unconvincing. Persian militia are liquidating Sunnis in Iraq - they're not killing J---. The J--- threaten to bomb Persia, assassinate their nuclear scientists and crippled their nuclear programme with Stuxnet, a nasty virus which has spread to the west. 81.151.101.32 (talk) 09:46, 9 July 2016 (UTC)

• Who are the "J---?" Sir Joseph ^(talk) 13:31, 12 July 2016 (UTC)

They're being persecuted by an edit filter Wikipedia talk:Reference desk/Archive 123#Semi-protected edit request on 28 May 2016. 86.168.123.201 (talk) 13:36, 12 July 2016 (UTC)

I think we're done here. Asking participants to desist now as I suspect we're heading into trolling territory. --Dweller (talk) Become old fashioned! 13:37, 12 July 2016 (UTC)

The basic flaw in the comparison is that it equates empires, which tend to be temporary, with a religion or ethnicity, which tend to be rather long-lasting. Most empires, for example, only last a few centuries or even decades, while ethnicities and religions tend to last thousands of years. If you reverse the argument, and say that the ancient Jewish state (ignoring the Romans) tried to destroy Christianity, you would get the reverse answer, that the ancient Jewish state is gone but Christianity remains. StuRat (talk) 13:54, 12 July 2016 (UTC)

• The entire thing is nonsense. We have the Hebrews, the Israelites (I&II), the Judeans, the Jews, and the Isrealis, just like we have the Mycaeneans, the Ancient Greeks, the Byzantines, and the Modern Greeks. With the Greeks, at least their spoken language never went extinct. All credit to the Jews, technically, I, my sister and her daughter are Jewish. But it's simply absurd to talk about ancient persia versus modern Iran, or Rome versus Italy. This should be WP:Euthanized. μηδείς (talk) 22:28, 12 July 2016 (UTC)

• When you go to the San Gennaro Festival on "Mulberry Street in the Little Italy section of Manhattan in New York City" do you question the veracity of the message? No. You eat the Zeppole and shut up. Bus stop (talk) 22:47, 12 July 2016 (UTC)

Does Little Italy even exist anymore? Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 09:44, 13 July 2016 (UTC)

British history tweet

2) This is a tweet with map that I read, is it also objectively true?

Text:

All the countries invaded by Britain throughout history (in blue). The countries never invaded by the British (in grey): Andorra, Belarus, Bolivia, Burundi, Central African Republic, Chad, Congo Republic of, Guatemala, Ivory Coast, Krygyzstan, Liechenstein, Luxembourg, Mali, Marshall Islands, Monaco, Mongolia, Paraguay, Sao Tome + Principe, Sweden, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Vatican City.

[[8]]

Thanks again, ZygonLieutenant (talk) 16:08, 8 July 2016 (UTC)

See Stuart Laycock. Evan ^{(talk|contribs)} 21:44, 8 July 2016 (UTC)

It has been commented in 2014 on quora. Belarus was invaded. --Askedonty (talk) 21:51, 8 July 2016 (UTC)

This list does not acknowledge that while the UK was at war with Sweden in the generally peaceful Anglo-Swedish War (1810–12) British military occupied the Swedish island of Hanö. Having your military forces on enemy territory while at war with them would seem to amount to "invasion" even if no shots were fired. Edison (talk)

Anyhow, here's the reference; British have invaded nine out of ten countries - so look out Luxembourg, a review of All the Countries We've Ever Invaded: And the Few We Never Got Round To by an otherwise serious historian called Stuart Laycock, "an expert in late Roman belt-fittings" according to our article, who apparently spent two years researching the list. Alansplodge (talk) 23:14, 8 July 2016 (UTC)

Is the implication that for several hundred years the inhabitants of a small island nation have felt that most countries in the world needed a little invading by them? Edison (talk) 02:26, 9 July 2016 (UTC)

We 'ave bought 'er the same with the sword an' the flame, An' we've salted it down with our bones. Tevildo (talk) 10:45, 9 July 2016 (UTC)

now it's someone elses turn... :) _Muffled ^Pocketed 12:06, 9 July 2016 (UTC)

• The answer to your question, is it "objectively true" is a firm no.

• The map purports to show a comprehensive list of modern countries that have not been invaded by Britain. In reality, it is subject to anachronism and POV issues. Many of the countries listed were arguably not "invaded" by Britain. If you'd like to take an opposing point of view on every one of those arguments, you could construct a less dramatic image. As such, it is definitely not "objectively true". --Dweller (talk) Become old fashioned! 10:01, 11 July 2016 (UTC)
• Two complications: 1) Britain has often only invaded parts of a country, and 2) borders have changed a lot over the years. It looks as though the map has been drawn by finding everywhere that Britain has invaded, and then colouring in the whole of the country that currently controls that place. Which in turn means that the areas coloured in have as much to do with current borders as they have with whereever Britain has invaded. For example, I don't think Britain has ever invaded 'Urkaine'. However, they did invade parts of Russia which are now part of Ukraine, resulting in the whole of Ukraine being coloured blue [should really be pink, to be traditional]. I'm also not aware of Britain ever invading Greenland - but they did invade Denmark, which owns Greenland. Conversely, Britain never invaded Mongolia, but it did invade China at a time Mongolia was part of China. If Mongolia had not gained independance, it would presumably be blue as well. Iapetus (talk) 22:15, 12 July 2016 (UTC)

I'm pretty well versed in the history of Poland, but I really can't think of an event in the last one thousand years that could count as a British invasion of Poland. — Kpalion^(talk) 15:13, 13 July 2016 (UTC)

I've found the section of the book on Poland, and it lists several examples, none of which could reasonably be described as an invasion: the Anglo-Hanseatic War, the Thirty Years' War, a few minor incidents during the Napoleonic Wars, and policing the Upper Silesia plebiscite. Warofdreams talk 23:13, 13 July 2016 (UTC)

Thanks, I now read this section too, in Google Book preview. So one example of an invasion was the hijacking of Danzig merchant ships by English privateers (Danzig was formally a Polish city in the 15th century, but it was largely autonomous and conducted its own foreign policy). Another example was Sir David Drummond, a Scottish-born general in the Swedish army who was made governor of Stettin, a Prussian city that would become Polish three centuries later. These two examples should be enough to show that the list is stretched to the point of being completely useless. — Kpalion^(talk) 00:14, 14 July 2016 (UTC)

Cleanliness

When I come out of the shower, I feel fresh and clean, not thereafter I urinate. Of course I can’t have a shower every time thereafter urination, so, what’s the best way to stay clean 24/7? -- Apostle (talk) 18:08, 8 July 2016 (UTC)

Some cultures use a bidet. Carbon Caryatid (talk) 18:17, 8 July 2016 (UTC)

A Sink can be used to accumulate warm water. Then a washcloth and soap can be used to wash body areas needing washing. After the soap is rinsed off with the washcloth and fresh warm water. a towel can be used to dry the area. A Wet wipe can also be used for personal hygiene. Edison (talk) 21:37, 8 July 2016 (UTC)

The best way to stay clean is to use a notion of cleanliness that is consistent with the way your body actually works:

http://www.bbc.com/news/health-28934415

"The results were incredible. Like most of us in the Western world, the families had far fewer types of bacteria living in and on them when compared with people in traditional tribes in parts of the developing world. One hunter-gatherer community was found to not only have a higher diversity of bacteria, but only one in 1,500 suffered from an allergy - compared with one in three in the UK."

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/19/magazine/say-hello-to-the-100-trillion-bacteria-that-make-up-your-microbiome.html

"The study of babies and their specialized diet has yielded key insights into how the colonization of the gut unfolds and why it matters so much to our health. One of the earliest clues to the complexity of the microbiome came from an unexpected corner: the effort to solve a mystery about milk. For years, nutrition scientists were confounded by the presence in human breast milk of certain complex carbohydrates, called oligosaccharides, which the human infant lacks the enzymes necessary to digest. Evolutionary theory argues that every component of mother’s milk should have some value to the developing baby or natural selection would have long ago discarded it as a waste of the mother’s precious resources.

It turns out the oligosaccharides are there to nourish not the baby but one particular gut bacterium called Bifidobacterium infantis, which is uniquely well-suited to break down and make use of the specific oligosaccharides present in mother’s milk. When all goes well, the bifidobacteria proliferate and dominate, helping to keep the infant healthy by crowding out less savory microbial characters before they can become established and, perhaps most important, by nurturing the integrity of the epithelium — the lining of the intestines, which plays a critical role in protecting us from infection and inflammation."

"Most of the microbes that make up a baby’s gut community are acquired during birth — a microbially rich and messy process that exposes the baby to a whole suite of maternal microbes. Babies born by Caesarean, however, a comparatively sterile procedure, do not acquire their mother’s vaginal and intestinal microbes at birth. Their initial gut communities more closely resemble that of their mother’s (and father’s) skin, which is less than ideal and may account for higher rates of allergy, asthma and autoimmune problems in C-section babies: not having been seeded with the optimal assortment of microbes at birth, their immune systems may fail to develop properly.

At dinner, Knight told me that he was sufficiently concerned about such an eventuality that, when his daughter was born by emergency C-section, he and his wife took matters into their own hands: using a sterile cotton swab, they inoculated the newborn infant’s skin with the mother’s vaginal secretions to insure a proper colonization. A formal trial of such a procedure is under way in Puerto Rico."

Count Iblis (talk) 21:40, 8 July 2016 (UTC)

Noted, and thank you all. Sorry for the delay, I was unwell. -- Apostle (talk) 18:08, 10 July 2016 (UTC)

Note that, unless a person has a urinary tract infection, urine is typically sterile, so not itself a cause of disease. However, a few drops may come out after urination, or at other times, like when laughing (stress incontinence is more common in women), and that can cause underwear to become smelly. Absorbent pads are one option in dealing with these problems. Changing underwear frequently is another. StuRat (talk) 18:43, 10 July 2016 (UTC)

I had diarrhoea -- Apostle (talk) 18:10, 11 July 2016 (UTC)

People criticizing affirmative action

Why do some people criticize affirmative action as being a form of reverse discrimination? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 97.97.241.181 (talk) 22:16, 8 July 2016 (UTC)

Affirmative action#Criticism. clpo13_(talk) 22:18, 8 July 2016 (UTC)

Affirmative Action is reverse discrimination, by definition. For example, to increase the percentage of minority enrollment in a university, it is necessary to decrease the percentage of majority enrollment. The only question is whether the good it does outweighs this negative. StuRat (talk) 19:51, 10 July 2016 (UTC)

Is it? If redheads get $10/hour and brunettes get $20, is it discrimination to give an additional $5 to the redheads? You seem to be only looking at one single aspect of life, not the overall patters of still-existing structural discrimination, with many blacks earning less money, living in poorer communities, going to worse schools, and so on. I'd rather not call partial compensation for these disadvantages "discrimination" (of course, from the etymological root, the term could be applied - but see etymological fallacy). --Stephan Schulz (talk) 20:31, 10 July 2016 (UTC)

On the day when the word discrimination no longer means the ability to recognize the difference between things (formally: the cognitive process whereby two or more stimuli are distinguished) and instead means exclusively "unfair discrimination against", you may accuse educated users of the supplanted definition of their etymological fallacy. Until that day, please respect the wide-ranging valid uses of the word that cover subjects of social prejudices both for and against persons and groups, business, law, science and research. AllBestFaith (talk) 23:38, 10 July 2016 (UTC)

Well, I would say that context matters, and in the context of reverse discrimination, it's fairly clear that the original discrimination is not simply a distinction of different cases, but implies different treatment of groups. Also see Discrimination, which describes what seems to be the now prevalent meaning. This is also supported by Google results, and all dictionaries I checked have the social component as part of the first, i.e. most prevalent definition. That does not mean that the word does not have other legitimate uses, but since the aim of communication is usually to communicate, not to score points by nit-picking (*), I would avoid using the word with other than the most likely understood meaning in any given context. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 11:47, 11 July 2016 (UTC) (*) Note that I enjoy picking nits as much as the next person, and indeed have described my profession as "professional nit-pickers", but I try to be transparent about it...

(ec)If redheads get $10/hour and brunettes get $20 only because of their hair colour, in a context where we accept that hair colour has no bearing on their ability to do the jobs concerned, then one can only conclude that it is because of some sort of unjustified prejudice and that this is unfair or unjustified direct discrimination because the discrimination is disproportionate to the difference, so it is easily justifiable as morally fair to compensate the redheads for their disadvantage.

If, however, the context is such that redheads are generally less skilled at doing a particular job, because for example all the redheads belong to a cult that emphasise book learning over physical dexterity in education and training and in this society manual labour is highly prized, and pay is strictly according to how well you do the manual labour, with the result that the redheads are on average paid less simply because they are less good at manual labour, not because they are redheads as such, then this has the effect of discrimination, but it is indirect and it is justified or fair in the sense that the discrimination is proportionate to their differences. The discrimination, and it would be more difficult to morally justify compensating the redheads for their disadvantage.

In reality, most situations of "affirmative action" fall somewhere between the two, and different groups will argue about whether it falls closer to the first situation or the second situation. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 11:51, 11 July 2016 (UTC)

Paradox of discrimination

Many people assume that when there is discrimination, one group of people is given more favorable treatment than others. This is not always the case. It is quite possible to have cases there it is not at all clear which group is given the more favorable treatment.

Example:

Your country is under attack during wartime. The war is so ferocious that 80% of the combatants are killed. A law has been passed to forcefully conscript males between 18-24 years of age into the frontline, furthermore females are forbidden to participate.

Question: Who is being discriminated against?

There are three possible answers.

Answer 1: Males are being discriminated against. They are forced to participate in the effort which will result in a high probability of death.

Answer 2: Females are being discriminated against. They are prevented from participation in the war effort to protect their homeland.

Answer 3: Both males and females are being discriminated against.

The key to the paradox is the phrase "more favorable treatment". Different people have different ideas about what constitutes "favorable treatment". To a male who does not want to die, favorable treatment means not being forced to go to the frontline. To a female that wants to defend her homeland, favorable treatment means being allowed to defend her homeland.

Therefore it is not impossible to have a situation whereby two groups of people vehemently oppose each other, both objecting to the same piece of legislation on the grounds that it "gives more favorable treatment" to the other group. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 175.45.116.61 (talk) 02:45, 11 July 2016 (UTC)

I remember an actual case of this sort. Some men were asked to change seats on a plane, because they were sitting next to "unaccompanied minors". The implicit threat being that they might molest the child. Apparently, the airline's policies dictated that unaccompanied minors should only be seated next to females, or something like that. The men were naturally offended, and went to the media. (Apparently, the policy had been there for years, but the issue was usually handled at check-in time, by assigning the minor(s) next to females, with few people the wiser. Obviously, in the two cases at issue, someone at check-in forgot to do this, or maybe the plane was already full by the time the child(ren) checked in).

When this policy made the pages of the newspapers, interestingly, a lot of the complaints about it were from women. Along the lines "Just because I'm a woman, you expect that I'm the one who should be dumped on a long flight next to someone else's unaccompanied brat?". Eliyohub (talk) 07:33, 13 July 2016 (UTC)