Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2023 February 14

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

February 14

"Short and distort" vs "Bear raid" - same thing?

I was looking up a news article about the current Adani scandal, and they used the term "short and distort (bear raid)"

Now, my question is not at all specific to Adani, so let's please not get into a discussion about that particular situation.

Rather, here on Wikipedia, we have two separate articles: short and distort, and bear raid.

Before I suggest a merger of the two, I'd like to ask here: is there any difference in the meaning or use of the two terms?

And if the answer is "no, they're the same thing", which of the two terms is more commonly used?

Obligatory ping @John M Baker:, You're our corporate lawyer; what are your thoughts? Are the two terms identical in law, or different? Others feel free to answer too, of course.

Eliyohub (talk) 02:53, 14 February 2023 (UTC)

Presumably you're talking about Adani Group? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 02:58, 14 February 2023 (UTC)

In concept, these are two different things. In a bear raid, the short sales themselves force the price down, and the idea is that the short seller(s) will then cover the short at the depressed price. This is market manipulation and is illegal. It was thought that bear raids were a major problem early in the 20th century, and the Securities and Exchange Commission was in part established to combat them. But bear raids don’t really work: The short sales may lower the stock price, but covering the short raises the price, so the short seller can’t count on making anything.

In a short and distort, the short sellers spread false information intended to harm the stock price, so the short can be covered at a profit. This is securities fraud, and of course it is illegal. The deception, in other words, is in the form of false information, not misleading market activity. Short-and-distort schemes do exist and can work, although they are less common than some people like to suppose.

In practice, I suppose that bear raiders distorted as well as shorted, and of course short-and-distort fraudsters also take into account the market effects of their shorts. But the focus and the history of the two terms are different. The supposed bear raids played an important role in the early history of the securities laws, while short and distort is a much more recent term. John M Baker (talk) 06:15, 14 February 2023 (UTC)

That's a good explanation. I think you could improve both articles and make it clearer why they're not quite the same thing, maybe each article referencing the other. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 07:15, 14 February 2023 (UTC)

And it should be noted that it is pretty common for company officers, when short sellers make allegations about the company, to throw a fit and accuse the sellers of engaging in unlawful or unethical stock manipulation schemes, regardless of the truth of such claims. There are a litany of historical examples; Enron's officers can probably be found having said unkind words about "shorts" with a little digging. Very broadly, stating true things about a company while also holding short positions in it is not generally disallowed in most jurisdictions. I know nothing about the background to Adani here. I note the article states Hedge fund manager Bill Ackman said Hindenburg's Adani Report was "highly credible and extremely well researched. --47.147.118.55 (talk) 10:53, 15 February 2023 (UTC)

Immanuel Kant and the unconditional duty to always tell the truth

Immanuel Kant said that there is an absolute moral duty never to lie to anybody. Against this stance, there is a famous counter-example:

A home owner harbors a persecuted Jew from the Gestapo.

The Gestapo officers ring the doorbell, and ask whether he's hiding a fugitive.

Dutifully, the home owner says "yes".

Here, most if not all people would assume a moral duty to lie in order to protect the life of somebody else.

But yet the persecuted Jew stays at the house, under the implicit agreement that the other person would shield him. If he could not trust the home owner, he'd seek another hideout. After all, if he deemed the Jew a unwelcome guest, he would have called the police much earlier - with much lower risks of getting punished himself.

Fulfilling the duty to answer the Gestapo truthfully would inevitably mean breaking his previous duty to his guest. It would rob him of his agency (e.g. finding a new abode in time).

Why do people think this example is valid? Keimzelle (talk) 11:14, 14 February 2023 (UTC)

So, here's the thing, first you define the moral code, then you define what is good or bad in relation to that code. If Kant has established, in his moral code that telling the truth is a greater good than protecting a life, that is his prerogative. This example demonstrates that. If you're asking in your moral code, would this be a good thing, that's something you'd have to decide for yourself. In my moral code, it is decidedly not. But I am not Kant. Ask him. (or inquire within his writings, since he's dead). --Jayron32 12:59, 14 February 2023 (UTC)

I'm not sure what exactly you mean by the question "Why do people think this example is valid?". For what it's worth, Kant's essay has been discussed in a lot of publications (a quick search shows this, which calls Kant's essay "notorious" and summarizes that "[Kant's] claim is so clearly abhorrent that many writers have attempted to save Kant from himself by offering interpretations of the essay that are more in keeping with common sense"; and this, which seems to be doing just that, trying to salvage Kant's argument by demonstrating he didn't mean it quite as unconditionally as it's usually been understood) In all of these discussions, an example analogous to the one you gave is typically cited (saving a friend who's been hiding in one's house from a would-be murderer enquiring about him). In fact, that very example is given by Kant himself at the very outset of his essay, where he is citing it as an argument used by the person he's responding to (Benjamin Constant), who had in turn used it against another unnamed "German philosopher" (here's the German original; couldn't quickly find an Entlish translation.) Fut.Perf. ☼ 13:18, 14 February 2023 (UTC)

Was Kant just messing with our minds? Murder is also a great sin. And if the homeowner in that parable gives his houseguest to the Nazis, then he is complicit in the murder. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 14:56, 14 February 2023 (UTC)

Well, you'll have to read Kant to find out. (Or some of the secondary literature on the topic, which is plentiful.) Fut.Perf. ☼ 15:04, 14 February 2023 (UTC)

Do you happen to know what Kant's general stance on murder was? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:17, 14 February 2023 (UTC)

I haven't read Kant, but from what I've read about him, I'm sure he would argue that we have a duty not to murder. The issue is that he was trying to derive moral rules about how people should always behave, based on the (as I understand it) internal logic of the actions and explicitly not on the consequences of the actions. So lying is always wrong, murder is always wrong, and lying doesn't become right just because it prevents someone else doing wrong. Iapetus (talk) 10:48, 15 February 2023 (UTC)

Maybe Kant never heard of the "greater sin" philosophy. While it may be a sin to lie, it's a greater sin to be complicit in murder. And by the way, if he's basing it on the Ten Commandments, he's got it wrong. It doesn't say not to lie. It says not to bear false witness. For example, claiming someone committed a crime when they didn't. Or vice versa. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 12:41, 15 February 2023 (UTC)

I doubt either the concept of "sin" or the Ten Commandments would have played any role in Kant's thinking. You should really consult the Categorical imperative article; it explains it quite well. The whole point of it is that he's seeking for moral imperatives that can be derived from rational logic alone. Fut.Perf. ☼ 13:26, 15 February 2023 (UTC)

It's not that he hadn't heard of it, its that he rejected it on principle. I tend towards supporting consequentialist ethics, and I suspect from your comments that you do to. Kant however believed in Deontological ethics, which argue that morality should be based on absolute rules rather than something as flexible as the consequences of actions. Kant in particular appears to have believed that there is a fundamental moral difference between harm caused by an action, and harm caused by an inaction. Personally, I think a lot of Kant's reasoning spurious and conclusions dangerous, but there certainly was reasoning behind his arguments, not just quoting the Ten Commandments. Iapetus (talk) 14:43, 16 February 2023 (UTC)

The main Wikipedia article on this is Categorical imperative... -- AnonMoos (talk) 17:17, 14 February 2023 (UTC)

Ah, thanks – that puts the later essay in its context. So the unnamed "German philosopher" in Kant's later exchange with Constant was in fact Kant himself (which is what I suspected, but didn't research further.) Constant came up with the murderer-at-the-door example to criticize Kant's ideas, and then Kant responded with that essay on the "Supposed right to lie from Philanthropy". Fut.Perf. ☼ 18:05, 14 February 2023 (UTC)

Note: the original premise is inaccurate. Kant didn't argue that you had a duty to tell everyone everything they wanted to know. He argued that you had a duty not to lie. Kant considered it perfectly acceptable to refuse to answer the would-be murderer. (Although in the case of a gestapo agent rather than a generic "would-be murderer" that's probably going to go very badly for both the principled non-answerer and whoever they were sheltering). Iapetus (talk) 11:10, 15 February 2023 (UTC)

How would deception be morally different from outright lying? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 19:08, 15 February 2023 (UTC)

While I don't know whether Kant would have distinguished deception morally from lying, deception has not been mentioned here. --Trovatore (talk) 21:11, 15 February 2023 (UTC)

Not by name. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:02, 15 February 2023 (UTC)

Not at all, except by you. Remaining silent is not deception. --Trovatore (talk) 00:11, 16 February 2023 (UTC)

In your personal opinion. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 03:00, 16 February 2023 (UTC)

Nonsense. It's just a fact. --Trovatore (talk) 18:15, 16 February 2023 (UTC)

He's not arguing for deception, he's arguing for defiance. Iapetus (talk) 14:39, 16 February 2023 (UTC)

It should be noted that the mere act of hiding the guest is deceptive and that mute "defiance" against a Nazi, in this case, would not likely stop them from proceeding further with their inquest and betraying the unfortunate guest. Lying and/or further deception might. Defiance? Not really since their silent stance is complicit. Modocc (talk) 15:47, 16 February 2023 (UTC)

A witness at a trial is routinely directed by the judge to say "I promise to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth." My response is "I promise to tell the truth. I can't begin to know the Whole Truth so I won't lie about that." Would you judge my reply as Contempt of court? Philvoids (talk) 00:30, 16 February 2023 (UTC)

Try and tell us about it.  --Lambiam 19:41, 16 February 2023 (UTC)

Rather obviously (IMHO), the meaning of the formula is not a promise to reveal the truth value of P = NP but a promise not to tell half-truths. A defiant act such as this will almost certainly be interpreted as being disrespectful of the process of the court, but if you are lucky the presiding judge will first issue a warning and give you a change to redeem yourself.  --Lambiam 12:35, 17 February 2023 (UTC)

Philvoids -- That oath basically means all the truth known by you which is legally relevant. I think that you're off the hook for any non-legally-relevant metaphysical dilemmas or imperfect knowledge of the minutiae of universe... AnonMoos (talk) 23:30, 17 February 2023 (UTC)

My lords I renounce nothing. Here I stand. I can do no other. Philvoids (talk) 18:10, 18 February 2023 (UTC)

I'm sorry for coming back this late, and I'll read all your valuable responses today, and follow up with questions if I have any. Than you!--Keimzelle (talk) 16:40, 23 February 2023 (UTC)

ChatGPT and Bob Dylan

Following recent analysis on the Science desk of the technical achievement by ChatGPT in inventing a Shakespearean sonnet I show for evaluation a song text that ChatGPT considers to capture the style of Bob Dylan in the 1960s. I emphasize this is chatbot generated text.

Verse 1:
The world is changing, can't you feel the shift?
The old order's crumbling, can't you sense the rift?
The people are rising, won't be silenced anymore
Their voices grow louder, like a lion's roar

Chorus:
Don't turn away, don't close your eyes
It's time to face the truth, it's time to rise
Together we'll stand, we'll fight for what's right
We won't back down, we'll keep up the fight

Verse 2:
The times they are a-changin', and we can't stand still
The winds of change are blowing, and we must bend to their will
We can't keep hiding, we can't turn a blind eye
We must stand for justice, and raise our voices high

Chorus:
Don't turn away, don't close your eyes
It's time to face the truth, it's time to rise
Together we'll stand, we'll fight for what's right
We won't back down, we'll keep up the fight

Verse 3:
We can't keep ignoring, the suffering of our fellow man
We can't keep profiting, from the blood on their hands
We must speak out, against the violence and hate
We must unite, before it's too late

Chorus:
Don't turn away, don't close your eyes
It's time to face the truth, it's time to rise
Together we'll stand, we'll fight for what's right
We won't back down, we'll keep up the fight

Outro:
The world is changing, and so must we
We'll keep on fighting, until we're all free.

To what extent does ChatGBT succeed in emulating Bob Dylan here? Can we detect how it has been done, for example "The times they are a-changin'" is recognizable as a copy of Dylan's 1964 song title. A chatbot cannot sing or play music so here a singer/musician can say whether the piece is performable. The OpenAI Terms of Use explicitly assigns to its users (i.e., me today) "all its right, title and interest in and to [such] Output." so I see no copyright restraint on performing the song. Philvoids (talk) 23:24, 14 February 2023 (UTC)

For me these bot-lyrics address the sort of themes that Dylan did, and do a fair job with a (sometimes broken) metre not untypical of him. However, they stick to a more basic vocabulary than he would, lack any inventive or poetic turns of phrase (even ones copied from him), and worst of all talk with bludgeoning directness about the matters being addressed rather than using more memorable and effective metaphors. Unless the music was particularly outstanding, I'd probably respond with "Yeah, Man, we all know that." rather than "Right on, that'll make people sit up and take notice."

The moral (as opposed to legal) acceptability of training writing or art bots on other creators' material and then putting the result (even if humanly improved) into the market (perhaps undercutting actual artists) is something that is being fiercely debated. For the moment I'm tentatively against using them other than for private amusement. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 51.198.141.181 (talk) 01:05, 15 February 2023 (UTC)

I agree with the IP editor. This is the sort of thing that some of Dylan's less talented contemporaries in the early 1960s folk revival might have produced. It is more overtly leftist than most of his work, less ambiguous, less cynical and far less creative. It is optimistic in ways that Dylan rarely was in those days, and completely botches the use of "blood on their hands" metaphor. Cullen328 (talk) 01:27, 15 February 2023 (UTC)

We really need to have them judged by people who don't know they are chatbot generated. DuncanHill (talk) 03:54, 15 February 2023 (UTC)

It would be an interesting experiment, but as a former professional editor I'm entirely capable of evaluating the qualities of a piece of text on its own merits without regard to the identity (or nature) of its author. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 51.198.141.181 (talk) 05:28, 15 February 2023 (UTC)

Next to the very un-Dylanesque directness, the "protest songs" of the sixties and early seventies in general rarely contained an explicit call to action – one exception being Bob Marley and Peter Tosh's "Get Up, Stand Up". Ideologically, for the left-libertarian Zeitgeist of the epoch, the notion that we must bend to the will of the "winds of change" is peculiar. A whiff of the orthodox Marxist thesis of the inevitability of revolutionary change?  --Lambiam 09:59, 15 February 2023 (UTC)

• So, it created a generic protest song, but it missed two key aspects of Dylan's writing (IMHO) 1) Dylan's songs rarely follow rigid structure that closely. He tends to drift from rigidly following meter, structure, and rhyme, where he'll establish a pattern, say have the first two verses be four lines each, but break it in verse 3 where he has 5 or 6 lines (just as one example, he does other things in this vein too). Consider something like A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall, verse one has a 2-5-2 line pattern, verse 2 and 3 go 2-7-2, verse 4 goes 2-6-2 and so on. He plays with structure like that all the time. 2) Dylan's lyrics are much more nuanced, complex, and multi-layered. He's rarely only got a single meaning behind his songs, there's often a narrative meaning, some political meaning, and perhaps some intensely personal meaning (often an insult directed at maybe 1 person) all in the same text. Something like Ballad of a Thin Man is at once a general criticism of the media, a specific narrative of events that really happened to Dylan, and some really rude insinuations and double-entendres all rolled into one, often all three meanings are in the same line or couplet. Dylan's writing is almost always like this. There's almost always a wonderful juxtaposition of the personal and the general, of the narrative and the philosophical. The above ChatGPT song has none of that. --Jayron32 13:25, 15 February 2023 (UTC)

Strikingly awful, like a series of Hallmark cards aimed at protesting hippies.  Card Zero  (talk) 14:33, 15 February 2023 (UTC)

Cliches like "before it's too late", "bend to their will", "we'll keep up the fight", "time to face the truth" permeate it, whatever it is, unlike actual lyrics. Seriously, it's beyond bad, it is a climatic script of "fight for what's right" platitudes that is more sterile and tone-deaf than alien Vogon poetry. Of course "we can't turn a blind eye"! Such stupid cliches are invoked again and again. It is a self-inflicted torrent of spitballs because its algorithm primarily regurgitated what's already been written. Modocc (talk) 03:44, 16 February 2023 (UTC)