text:
Talk:Government debt

Rename?
"Public debt" has a serious potential for confusion. When one says "the public debt" then this does mean "the debt of the government, as does the term "government debt". But "public debt" does not mean "debt of the public" - the public pays for it but the debt is not collectable from the public.  To avoid confusion I suggest this article be renamed government debt.  Paul Beardsell 08:15, 18 Dec 2004 (UTC)
 * "public debt" is not collectable from the public? If that were true, nobody would lend to government. It is government's power of taxation of the public which guarantees repayment. That power of course is limited by both capacity and willingness to pay, which is why we do sometimes see government debt crises and defaults - which resemble bankruptcy, though without the formal legal protection from creditors that implies. Rd232 17:28, 19 Dec 2004 (UTC)
 * Exactly, the article begins "public debt is money owed by government". It doesn't make any sense to call it public debt then. It should say "public debt is money owed by the public" then. I'll move it to government debt for now. - Jerryseinfeld 17:58, 18 Dec 2004 (UTC)
 * It IS owed by the public. No-one's paying the US government debt but you or your children. The fact that a US government creditor can't approach US citizens individually is irrelevant, because his lending in the first place is predicated on trust that the government will recover the debt from citizens. Rd232 17:28, 19 Dec 2004 (UTC)
 * It is NOT owed by the public. Federal taxes do not pay for federal spending.  Then federal government creates money by spending. Federal debt involves the creation of Treasury securities out of thin air, then exchanging these securities for dollars previously created.  The public is not involved in the original creation, nor is it necessarily involved in the exchange.  The notion that your children and grandchildren owe the debt is a myth unsupported by any evidence whatsoever. The author clearly does not understand Monetary Sovereignty, the basis for all modern economics.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.243.146.17 (talk) 20:50, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

 * Jerryseinfeld, moving a page from the most common term (public ownership) to one you think appropriate (government ownership), against disagreement by others (see Talk:public ownership, which for some reason you didn't move) is very rude. You also managed to garble the perfectly adequate intro, and add vague, confusing and POV stuff. I'm on the verge of conidering this a dispute - please explain yourself. Rd232 11:55, 18 Dec 2004 (UTC)

 * I did explain myself in the talk page. You can probably move it to public ownership if you want to, it could be either one. - Jerryseinfeld 17:15, 18 Dec 2004 (UTC)

 * This also seems inconsistent with Jerry's redirecting of sovereign bond and government debt to public debt. What's going on?  Paul Beardsell 12:42, 18 Dec 2004 (UTC)

 * Public debt isn't government debt? Now come on. - Jerryseinfeld 17:19, 18 Dec 2004 (UTC)

 * I said nothing of the kind. I remarked that you were being inconsistent in your renaming of articles.  But, as it happens, I do NOT think that public debt and government debt are entirely the same.  Two different flavours are given with the two different terms.  There is a certain political positioning happening when one refers to govt debt as public debt.  But my main objection is that government debt is unambiguous,  whereas "public debt" requires one to be aware of and accept the use of public in that sense - there is an ambiguity:  "Public" debt could be misunderstood as, say, the aggregated credit card debts of the individuals forming the public.  You have been introducing ambiguity and inconsistency.  Without always the PRIOR consultation which would avoid you annoying people.  Paul Beardsell 20:45, 18 Dec 2004 (UTC)

 * I absolutely agree, that's why I moved it to government debt. - Jerryseinfeld 20:47, 18 Dec 2004 (UTC)

 * Which I tried to move back (but can't), because "public debt" beats "government debt" 2:1 in Google and rather more in conventional usage, and Wikipedia convention is to use the most common term. As for Paul Beardsell's argument - the correct term would be consumer debt. If there is any serious risk of confusion then the public debt page can include a For debts owed by individuals, see consumer debt at the top. Rd232 12:19, 19 Dec 2004 (UTC)

"Public" debt could be misunderstood as, say, the aggregated credit card debts of the individuals forming the public. Many things COULD be misunderstood by the ignorant; Wikipedia's job is to enlighten them, not to correct common usage. Rd232 17:30, 19 Dec 2004 (UTC)

As I said: they would be mistaken to use "public debt" like that in my example but the mistake is likely to be made. I disagree about conventional usage. I think most people would say "hey, what?" to "public debt" whereas "government debt" would be instantly understood. The Google statistic you quote I find unimpressive: There are twice as many pages returned for public than for government. So twice as many pages for "public debt" (note the quotes) as for "government debt" says little or nothing. The Wikipedia conventions say a little more than you let on:  ambiguity is to be avoided and understandability is to be promoted. Paul Beardsell 14:35, 19 Dec 2004 (UTC)

 * You misinterpret the Google statistic, which was based on the "public debt" and "government debt" as phrases, not public+debt. Given that, the former clearly dominates. Not only is it the standard, but the term is also perfectly understandable, if people read the actual article. Rd232 17:22, 19 Dec 2004 (UTC)

 * Just give up will you? - Jerryseinfeld 17:25, 19 Dec 2004 (UTC)

 * The astuteness of your arguments never ceases to amaze. Rd232 17:32, 19 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I said "note the quotes": My search was for the exact phrases not for the individual words appearing unconnected in the Google results. I repeat: I think most people would say "hey, what?" to "public debt" whereas "government debt" would be instantly understood. The Google statistic you quote I find unimpressive: There are twice as many pages returned for public than for government. So twice as many pages for "public debt" (note the quotes) as for "government debt" says little or nothing. The Wikipedia conventions say a little more than you let on:  ambiguity is to be avoided and understandability is to be promoted. Paul Beardsell 21:21, 19 Dec 2004 (UTC)

rewrite / deletion of section: Denominated in U.S. dollars
This section needs drastic improvement. There is some truth but there is mostly disinformation. I am not suggesting that the text has been contributed in bad faith, just that it is wrong

 * Main article: U.S. government debt

 * This section is largely incorrect and should not be relied upon.

 * Today, public debt is often denominated in U.S. dollars. The U.S. Federal Reserve sells its long bond, a 30-year instrument (though in recent years only a 10 year bond has been sold), directly to central banks of other countries, who then often find it convenient to lend in U.S. dollars to others, or buy their bonds using those U.S. dollars.

 * This standard of deferred payment effectively insulates the U.S. from foreign exchange risk. Seeking similar advantages, the EU issues the Euro's bonds and competes as what is called a reserve currency — that currency which is most acceptable to pay off public debts, taxes, or purchase what can be sold quickly.

 * Countries that borrow in denominations of their own currency will gain very similar advantages, however, since purchasing power of the money repaid (as measured in U.S. dollars or Euros) may vary considerably from that which was expected at the commencement of the loan, a higher interest rate is always charged for such instruments. Some countries, like China, do not allow their currency (the renminbi) to trade outside the country or on currency markets.  These must always use one of the global reserve currencies.

 * During the gold standard period, which began in the 19th century and ended as an international system in 1933, public debt was most often repaid strictly in gold bullion.

 * The Bank for International Settlements is an entity that sets rules to define what loans qualify as "risk free" or not. It is a very powerful institution, which has had a pivotal position in central banking since its opening in 1947. It was formed by the Bretton Woods agreements of 1944, which in the context of World War II, specified the U.S. dollar as the universal global reserve currency, and pegged the dollar to a fixed amount in gold.  While this ability to redeem dollars in gold legally ceased in 1970, it was effectively a fiction for decades.

Paul Beardsell 08:28, 20 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Elaborate on 'burden of the government...' paragraph
Could you please elaborate, via another link or any other means, as to how inflation / change in monetary base helps government to pay the bills? or please kindly point me in the right direction. Many thanks. Fabrice Berge, Tokyo, 25 march 2006

Quote: "Remember that the "burden" of the government is what it spends, since it can only pay its bills through taxes, debt, and inflation of the currency (government spending = tax revenues + change in government debt held by public + change in monetary base held by the public). "

I have a question: how do you make your own post? what i been doing was pressing the edit button but that didnt make my own post?

Implicit debt section
-I rewrote the line that said "This insurance system is called PAYGO as opposed to save and invest". I think that sentence was pretty non-controversially politically loaded. It presents a false dilemma as if the only two alternatives were a PAYGO system (which is bad given the tone of this section) and the "save and invest" system (which is good, again, given the tone of the article). I rephrased the section so that it said that the American system is a PAYGO system and that one alternative system could have been a 'save and invest' system. While I still think this section is poorly written, politically loaded, and probably should be fact checked, this particular sentence is, at the very least, no longer presenting a false dilemma, so there's no obvious logical fallacy here. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.35.222.187 (talk) 00:40, 3 January 2011 (UTC)

-- The US Social Security System has always (80 years) been funded by the Social Security Trust Fund. That is fully described in the Wikipedia article by that name, so we should simply point the reader to that article. I have not made that edit, but I reserve the right to do so if this is not addressed in some fashion. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.222.132.80 (talk) 18:32, 26 February 2015 (UTC)

The section of the article really needs to be rewritten. The tone is completely out of place with the rest of the article --142.242.2.248 (talk) 19:01, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

This section should also include how Central banks use government debt to create fiat national debt money like the Federal Reserve Note. This section should describe how governments cannot get out of debt b/c it is the backing of their nations money. IOW, if the government debt was eliminated there would be no money. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.232.148.98 (talk) 13:51, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

History
I came to this page from a link in the following sentence "When the idea and reality of the National Debt came about during the 18th century this was also managed by the bank." on the page Bank of England. If anyone with the relevant knowledge could add something here about the history of National debts - in particular in the sense mentioned in the quote - I think that it woould be very interesting and relevant here. Regards. Thehalfone (talk) 22:01, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

-Risk Free- Government bonds are NOT risk free. One can argue that they carry zero default risk, however they undeniably carry interest rate risk. It is a fixed income instrument, however the price, or value of the bond does in fact change. This is empirically true through change in prices of government issued bonds. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.86.51.163 (talk) 18:36, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

True, but if held to maturity they are in effect risk free, unless the government concerned defaults on its debts (a rare event in recent years). On the other hand, if the bond is in dollars (or whatever) the real value of the dollars you get back may be reduced by inflation, or currency movements. Exile (talk) 12:23, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Debt as a % of GDP in the Americas
That graphic is completely outdated; anyone got anything newer? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Bigbunt05 (talk • contribs) 06:09, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Canada's debt as a % of GDP is lower than the United States'. The graphic needs to be changed to reflect this reality. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.183.59.169 (talk) 01:06, 12 March 2010 (UTC)

Yes the graphic is completely off, according to United States public debt article the US debt "was approximately 96.5% of 2010's fiscal year-end annual gross domestic product (GDP) of $14.5 trillion, with the "Debt held by the Public" at approximately 64.5% of GDP ($9.39 Trillion) and "Intragovernmental holdings" standing at 32.0% of GDP ($4.63 Trillion).". So the graphic is accurate if you are talking about only the "Debt held by the public" but why should the graphic show only that and ignore the government debt? Frederickhoyles (talk) 12:50, 14 January 2011 (UTC)For accuracy in comparisons. The "U. S. national debt held by the public" is the same as the "national debt" in probably all other countries, which do not count borrowings from such funds as Social Security. 70.233.132.234 (talk) 14:48, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

Is this intentionally visible?
The first line of this article:

"< / no include > Government debt (also known as public debt, national debt)..."

Is the bolded text (above) intentionally visible?69.225.121.96 (talk) 11:01, 25 February 2011 (UTC)

Scale
The debt-to-GDP ratios in the graphic in the Scale section show US, Japanese and German public debt as a percentage of GDP. The US debt shown in this figure, at 180% in 2008, is inconsistent with the graphic shown in the Wikipedia page on US Debt (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Us_debt) which looks to be ~50% in 2008 and is only ~60% in 2010. Even if you actually meant gross debt rather than public debt, by 2010 that's almost 100% on the US debt graphic so the numbers are in apparent disagreement.

Also this graphic seems inconsistent with the 2010 figures listed in (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_by_public_debt), where US debt is listed at 62% or 92% using CIA or IMF stats respectively. US debt has been going up not down so implausible that 2008 stats shown in this graph are accurate as they indicate a 2-3-fold decrease in debt in 2 years. This graphic seems incorrect. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Guinevere12345 (talk • contribs) 16:49, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

Unclear definition - "Government debt" - "Sovereign debt"
Currently it reads:

"Government debt" is money owed by a central government.

"Sovereign debt" is debt owed by a government that is issued in bonds with a foreign currency.

I think it is hard for the reader to understand this classification. I am also not sure if this is true as the definition does not seem to be consistent. What about debt in national currency that is not owed by central government? What about debt of central government that is owed in a foreign currency? --Sustainlogic (talk) 12:34, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

 * What source says that "sovereign debt" = debt owed by a government that is issued in bonds with a foreign currency? I'd argue that "sovereign debt" is any debt owed by a sovereign regardless of currency denomination. For example, the ongoing European sovereign debt crisis (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_sovereign_debt_crisis) is a "sovereign debt" crisis even though the bulk of the debt owed by the distressed member states is denominated in their domestic currency, the euro. --TuukkaS (talk) 12:56, 1 January 2012 (UTC)
 * I didn't believe this 'foreign currency' text either so, after having found a reliable source that says that GD and SD are synonymous, I am about to delete that nonsense. --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 10:42, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

Issues with section subtitled "Structure"
This section is poorly written and reads biased against Keynesianism (the second paragraph especially, there is no point in the uncited discussion about war spending). It would be nice if there were different sections detailing different economic schools opinions. Unfortunately, I don't have the knowledge or credentials to correct it myself. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.113.69.61 (talk) 06:15, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

colored plots for public debt/gdp contradicting each other
I think that there are contradictions in the 3 figures "Public debt as a percent of GDP, evolution for USA, Japan and the main EU economies." "Public debt as a percent of GDP (2010)" "Public debt as a percent of GDP (2011)" The color/value presented vor the US varies between 60% and 100% and I cant imagine that this has happened within one year. I guess they are using differnt "sources", definitions or interpretations. This should be clarified (e.g. that CIA thinks US has less debts than others think). — Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.219.211.61 (talk) 11:03, 15 March 2012 (UTC)

How can a soveiregn nation be in debt to a bank?
If a nation gave the bank the right to operate under fractional reserve rules first then how can that bank then turn around and claim the nation owes it anything? If it had nothing to lend in the first place it is owed nothing in return. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.73.100.90 (talk) 16:03, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

Mathematical treatment of the debt/GDP
I suspect that this section is incomprehensible to 99% of Wikipedia readers and that placing it as section 1 will probably discourage most of them from reading past the introduction. A pity because this topic is of such crucial importance.

In my judgement it would be more appropriate as a separate page referred to in the “See also section”. But at the very least it should be moved to the end – between “Implicit Debt” and “See also”, and probably renamed “Mathematical Appendix”.

At the same time, I would make the section “Public debt and economic growth” into a sub-section.

If there is agreement I would be happy to do the edit.

If you agree would you please indicate whether you think it should be a separate page.

Golux (talk) 22:31, 19 November 2012 (UTC)
 * I agree. It is not encyclopedically written or integrated into the other material, so of obscure relevance and reads like a possible copyvio. So I removed it.John Z (talk) 00:13, 20 November 2012 (UTC)

Vandalism Detected
On 5 September 2013, 199.242.0.29 vandalized the "By Country" numbers for India. 11:48, 18 February 2014 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.81.196.253 (talk)

Government debt - by country
In the section "by country", national gross debts and national net debts are mixed together, this leads to an incoherent presentation of data. Even though it is specified that the US debt figure showed in the table excludes intra-governmental debt etc., the table is not clear as for other countries the debt shown is the gross debt (e.g. Japan, Italy, Germany, France) and not the lower net debt. The section should make this distinction clear in the introduction, and also it should be specified that the 60% debt to GDP ratio required for entering the EU refers to the gross debt. BRG~itwiki (talk) 19:37, 26 August 2015 (UTC)

Dr. Cecchetti's comment on this article
Dr. Cecchetti has reviewed this Wikipedia page, and provided us with the following comments to improve its quality:

"1)	Governments obtain revenue from taxation. This should be mentioned at the beginning. 2)	The Bank of England is not the first central bank, the Riksbank is. The motivation of the Swedes was somewhat different, but it is worth being more accurate here. 3)	Greek debt is not “held” by Greece. It is “issued” by Greece. The statement that the return to the drachma is a solution to the Greek debt crisis is not accurate. The only solution is some form of default.  4)	Data in the table appears to be for gross public debt. It includes debt held by the central bank, as well as debt issued by one government agency and held by another. I find these very misleading.  For the US, for example, the number should be reduced by the $2.5 trillion holdings of the Federal Reserve. For Japan, net debt is closer to 150% of GDP than 215%. 5)	I have no idea what is meant by the term “public debt clearing standards”. 6)	Are local government debts really “usually guaranteed by regional or national level governments” ? I don’t know of evidence to this effect. 7)	The question of whether public debt is private wealth is not as clear-cut as the piece suggests. This part of the entry if focused on the thinking of Keynes from the 1920s and 1930s. By ignoring the literature on what is known as “Ricardian equivalence” that began with Barro in the 1970s, this part of the entry quite misleading. 8)	The piece misses the fact that government debt creates intergenerational transfers."

We hope Wikipedians on this talk page can take advantage of these comments and improve the quality of the article accordingly.

Dr. Cecchetti has published scholarly research which seems to be relevant to this Wikipedia article:

 * Reference : Stephen Cecchetti & Madhusudan Mohanty & Fabrizio Zampolli, 2011. "The real effects of debt," BIS Working Papers 352, Bank for International Settlements.

ExpertIdeas (talk) 02:24, 29 August 2015 (UTC)

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Dr. Canegrati's comment on this article
Dr. Canegrati has reviewed this Wikipedia page, and provided us with the following comments to improve its quality:

"There are many mistakes in the definitions. For example, the government debt is the "amount of total liabilities of the central government,...". Monetization of the debt is not an alternative to the debt financing but a way to monetize the debt. A government bond is not a bond (taugology) but a financial security. This page completely neglets to explain the Ricardian equivalence and Barro's "Are Government bonds net wealth?" paper. Furthermore, something about the Domar's model (1944) with the distinction between the steady deficit case and the steady primary deficit case, the sustainibility rule of public debt and recent papers by Reinhart and Rogoff could complete the theoretical background this page still needs."

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 * Reference : Canegrati, Emanuele, 2007. "On redistribution effects of public debt amongst single-minded generations," MPRA Paper 2254, University Library of Munich, Germany.

ExpertIdeasBot (talk) 12:48, 7 June 2016 (UTC)

Dr. Kempf's comment on this article
Dr. Kempf has reviewed this Wikipedia page, and provided us with the following comments to improve its quality:

"The article is imprecise and inaccurate. The Bank of England is not the first central bank, it is the bank of Sweden. The History section is too much centered on the B of England. The theoretical treatment is insufficient. There are repetitions (eg. on default and risk). The developments on Bretton Woods are unnecessary, or at least too long. The relation with monetary policy is missing."

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We believe Dr. Kempf has expertise on the topic of this article, since he has published relevant scholarly research:

 * Reference : Cooper, R. & Kempf, H. & Peled, D., 2010. "Insulation impossible: monetary policy and regional fiscal spillovers in a federation," Working papers 293, Banque de France.

ExpertIdeasBot (talk) 20:14, 24 September 2016 (UTC)

Is government debt and national debt the same thing?
According to some sources, it seems that national debt is government plus private debt. --JamesPoulson (talk) 23:08, 29 November 2016 (UTC)

 * This is actually a very good question. Private debt is certainly real debt, but 'government debt' is often a misnomer. A lot needs to be untangled. When the term 'government debt' is commonly used it is based upon the idea that government has borrowed money; something which only holds if the government isn't the issuer of the primary currency it uses. It is also used to describe the mechanism of treasury bond sales (or repurchases in reverse), though for sovereign issuer governments this has nothing to do with borrowing. The sale of 'debt' in that latter way is merely the removal of excess reserves (created by normal deficits) in the reserve accounts the commercial banks have with the central bank. Shifting them instead to an interest-earning asset (a bond). In some countries the central bank/government pays interest on excess reserves, but some don't and even when it is paid it is often less than what can be be gained with a bond asset.
 * The 'debt' in this sense is the small interest liability government pays on these bond assets. The amount of money totalling the bonds themselves is not 'debt'. This interest payment is not something a currency issuing government will 'default' on, it is always met. Compare this with a country which isn't in a position of currency sovereignty: Greece for example after joining the Euro. We saw that it not only couldn't meet those interest payments, but also had to issue bonds with massive interest rates because they carried a default risk.
 * 'National debt' is a sort of bogeyman idea. All the debt of the private sector (businesses and households) is real debt. Any government spending and 'debt sale' operations where we assume the government is a sovereign currency issuer, is not 'debt'. It is the flow of financial wealth from the government to the private sector. These can't be packaged together as some notion of 'national debt'. 86.87.191.180 (talk) 16:42, 22 October 2022 (UTC)

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By country section needs update badly
It relies on sources from 2012 that are no longer accurate. Almost all the numbers are wrong, I don't know how to edit wikipedia but if someone who does could update that that would be nice. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Brettwardo (talk • contribs) 20:35, 9 March 2018 (UTC)

wrong
"The debt is a stock variable, measured at a specific point in time, and it is the accumulation of all prior deficits."

Well, of course, accumulation of deficits DO contribute to, and is a major cause of, debt. But... no. deficits are not needed to run a debt.

For instance, Norway as a public debt (36% according to CIA factbook), despite having no deficit and a massive accumulation of SURPLUSES; that is because those surpluses were trusted to Government Pension Fund of Norway. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A01:E35:8A8A:FEA0:B981:66D4:8C30:33E6 (talk) 23:43, 9 March 2019 (UTC)

Public debt is not "the total of all borrowing of a government, minus repayments denominated in a country's home currency."
IF that were the case then the US public debt would be about 0% of GDP … the US issues very little debt denominated in pesos! Someone copied this definition from the CIA worldfactbook… which is also wrong.

In fact, public debt is gross debt minus debt held within the government (such as social security debt). brianevans — Preceding unsigned comment added by 106.147.170.143 (talk) 17:23, 19 June 2019 (UTC)

A Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for speedy deletion
The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for speedy deletion: You can see the reason for deletion at the file description page linked above. —Community Tech bot (talk) 16:39, 6 June 2020 (UTC)
 * Government debt gdp.png

Too much emphasis on "risks" and "problems" with government debt
This article violates NPOV with this undue focus. Also, content on the risks and problems of public debt should be incorporated in an "impact" section or a section that outlines the tradeoffs and dilemmas of public debt. Snooganssnoogans (talk) 22:47, 27 August 2021 (UTC)

Consolidation of topics would be helpful
The History section covers the topic sporadically. It begins with the establishment of the Bank of England, although government debt predates it. A different title than "History" might be appropriate.

The mathematical model of sovereign debt which is used to illustrate the Ricardian Equivalence proposition is not likely to be understood by most readers. Perhaps the model could be included in a Wikibook on economics (see https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Subject:Economics). However, it could be useful to explain the Ricardian Equivalence theorem in words on the Government debt page.

The Tables with debt listed by countries probably does not need to appear on this page, as the debt data is available at the Wikipedia article: List of countries by public debt.

The discussion of debt duration relates to bonds, but not specifically to government bonds. That discussion might be better placed in the article on bonds. Lukebayy (talk) 03:18, 9 February 2022 (UTC)

Public debt Malayalam videos
പൊതു കടം 2402:3A80:192D:8469:0:0:0:2 (talk) 06:38, 11 October 2022 (UTC)

title: Talk:Government debt


text:
Talk:Siemens and Halske T52

Rename
Ah, good move on the rename! I was just about to suggest it! Not only does it use the same article naming scheme as the Lorenz machine (always good in itself :-), but the term "Geheimfernschreiber" is slightly ambiguous; unless you look hard, it's easy to confused with "Geheimschreiber" - which I did for quite a while! :-)

And "Geheimschreiber" was apparently applied to both machines; as you can see from the title of the Mache article I just added to this page.

BTW, According to that article, as of July 20, 1942 the official name in all Wehrmacht arms (the T52 was originally done for the Reichsmarine, so the Kriegsmarine had quite a few of them) was actually "Schlüsselfernschreibmaschine T52". (BTW^2, that article also makes referernce to other "Fernschreib-Schlüsselmaschinen", including some made by Olivetti, and also Hell.)

Anyway, "Geheimschreiber" was also widely applied in the literature to the Lorenz SZ 40, too; e.g. Johnson Secret War uses it extensively. So all in all, I think the T52 name is far superior as it's far less likely to be confused with the Lorenz. Noel (talk) 18:01, 18 Dec 2004 (UTC)

 * Interesting; and, crikey, yes, I'd never noticed the difference between the words Geheimfernschreiber and Geheimschreiber before! — Matt Crypto 18:04, 19 Dec 2004 (UTC)

 * ROTFLMAO!!! :-) Noel (talk) 18:35, 19 Dec 2004 (UTC)

a well researched source is: Frode Weierud: sturgeon - the fish Bletchley never really caught, on his homepage

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Talk:Siemens and Halske T52


text:
Hegemonic stability theory

Hegemonic stability theory (HST) is a theory of international relations, rooted in research from the fields of political science, economics, and history. HST indicates that the international system is more likely to remain stable when a single state is the dominant world power, or hegemon. Thus, the end of hegemony diminishes the stability of the international system. As evidence for the stability of hegemony, proponents of HST frequently point to the Pax Britannica and Pax Americana, as well as the instability prior to World War I (when British hegemony was in decline) and the instability of the interwar period (when the American hegemon reduced its presence from world politics).

The key mechanisms in hegemonic stability theory revolve around public goods provision: to resolve collective action problems regarding public goods, a powerful actor who is willing and able to shoulder a disproportionate share of public goods provision is needed. Hegemonic stability may entail self-reinforcing cooperation, as it is in the interest of the hegemon to provide public goods and it is in interest of other states to maintain an international order from which they derive public goods.

Early development
Charles Kindleberger is one of the scholars most closely associated with HST; commentators such as Benjamin Cohen regard him as the theory's founder and most influential proponent. In his 1973 book The World in Depression: 1929-1939, Kindleberger argued that the economic chaos between World War I and World War II that led to the Great Depression was partly attributable to the lack of a world leader with a dominant economy. Kindleberger's reasoning touched upon more than economics, however: the central idea behind HST suggests that the stability of the global system, in terms of politics, international law, and so on, relies on the hegemon to develop and enforce the rules of that system. Other key figures in the development of hegemonic stability theory include Robert Gilpin and Stephen Krasner.

In his major work, Gilpin theorizes world history as imperial cycles until late modern times and the succession of hegemonies in late modern times when first Britain and later the United States stabilized the international system. Gilpin opposes balancing and the balance-of-power theory. He contends that the system naturally goes toward equilibrium. From global war or "hegemonic war" emerges a new hegemon who creates and keeps the new world order with its own set of preferences. This is partly accomplished by providing public goods. In the case of the hegemony of the United States after 1945, there took place attempts at initialising a stable currency by means of the International Monetary Fund, the Bretton Woods system, establishment of the World Bank, security alliances (such as NATO), and democratisation.

Gilpin argues further that in the global system, the more decisive a victory is after the "hegemonic war", the more stable the new system will be. He agrees with Paul Kennedy's view of "imperialistic overstretch" as one of the reasons that hegemons fall. Gilpin adds that all hegemons inevitably fall because at a certain stage expansion exceeds benefits, distribution of power in the system shifts and other states rise and challenge the hegemon. Eventually, a dissatisfied great power that approaches the power of the current hegemon will cause a new global war and the cycle repeats.

Robert Keohane coined the term "Hegemonic stability theory" in a 1980 article. Keohane's 1984 book After Hegemony used insights from the new institutional economics to argue that the international system could remain stable in the absence of a hegemon, thus questioning hegemonic stability theory. John Ruggie's work on embedded liberalism also challenged hegemonic stability theory. He argued that the post-WWII international order was not just held together by material power but through "legitimate social purpose" whereby governments created support for the international order through social policies that alleviated the adverse effects of globalization. John Ikenberry argues that hegemony is not a precondition for international stability, pointing to path dependence and "stickiness" of institutions.

Hegemonic attributes
In order for a nation-state to rise to the level of hegemon, such a state must combine all or most of the following attributes:

 * Superior military force is necessary for the ability to forge new international laws and organizations.
 * Insularity provides added security and the potential to project military forces, though in some cases hegemons have not been insular or peninsular. The United States of America, for instance, has become a virtual island. It has two massive seaboards, and its neighbors are long-standing allies, setting it apart from the rest of great powers. Nuclear weapons and superior air force add to its national security.
 * A large and growing economy. Usually, unrivaled supremacy in at least one leading economic or technological sector is necessary. Military and economic powers compose the capability to enforce the rules of the system.
 * The will to lead and to establish a hegemonic regime by enforcing the rules of the system. After World War I, the United States possessed the capacity to lead, but lacked the will to do so. Without the will to force stability on the international system, the United States missed an opportunity to prevent the onset of the Great Depression or World War II.
 * A hegemon must commit to the system, which needs to be perceived as mutually beneficial by other great powers and important state-actors.

Competing theories of hegemonic stability
Research on hegemony can be divided into two schools of thought: the realist school and the systemic school. Each school can be further sub-divided. Two dominant theories have emerged from each school. What Robert Keohane first called the "theory of hegemonic stability", joins A. F. K. Organski's Power Transition Theory as the two dominant approaches to the realist school of thought. Long Cycle Theory, espoused by George Modelski, and World Systems Theory, espoused by Immanuel Wallerstein, have emerged as the two dominant approaches to the systemic school of thought.

Systemic school of thought
According to Thomas J. McCormick, scholars and other experts on the systemic school define hegemony "as a single power's possession of 'simultaneous superior economic efficiency in production, trade and finance.'" Furthermore, a hegemon's superior position is considered the logical consequence of superior geography, technological innovation, ideology, superior resources, and other factors.

Long cycle theory
George Modelski, who presented his ideas in the book, Long Cycles in World Politics (1987), is the chief architect of long cycle theory. In a nutshell, long cycle theory describes the connection between war cycles, economic supremacy, and the political aspects of world leadership.

Long cycles, or long waves, offer interesting perspectives on global politics by permitting "the careful exploration of the ways in which world wars have recurred, and lead states such as Britain and the United States have succeeded each other in an orderly manner." Not to be confused with Simon Kuznets' idea of long-cycles, or long-swings, long cycles of global politics are patterns of past world politics.

The long cycle, according to Dr. Dan Cox, is a period of time lasting approximately 70 to 100 years. At the end of that period, "the title of most powerful nation in the world switches hands.". Modelski divides the long cycle into four phases. When periods of global war, which could last as much as one-fourth of the total long cycle, are factored in, the cycle can last from 87 to 122 years.

Many traditional theories of international relations, including the other approaches to hegemony, believe that the baseline nature of the international system is anarchy. Modelski's long cycle theory, however, states that war and other destabilizing events are a natural product of the long cycle and larger global system cycle. They are part of the living processes of the global polity and social order. Wars are "systemic decisions" that "punctuate the movement of the system at regular intervals." Because "world politics is not a random process of hit or miss, win or lose, depending on the luck of the draw or the brute strength of the contestants," anarchy simply doesn't play a role. After all, long cycles have provided, for the last five centuries, a means for the successive selection and operation of numerous world leaders.

Modeslki used to believe that long cycles were a product of the modern period. He suggests that the five long cycles, which have taken place since about 1500, are each a part of a larger global system cycle, or the modern world system.

Under the terms of long cycle theory, five hegemonic long cycles have taken place, each strongly correlating to economic Kondratieff Waves (or K-Waves). The first hegemon would have been Portugal during the 16th century, then the Netherlands during the 17th century. Next, Great Britain served twice, first during the 18th century, then during the 19th century. The United States has been serving as hegemon since the end of World War II.

The traditional view of long cycle theory has evolved somewhat, as Modelski now suggests that Northern and Southern Sung China, Venice and Genoa were each the dominant economic powers during medieval long cycles. However, he does not classify any of these states as world powers. Only when Portugal gained hegemony after 1500 is that distinction made.

Neorealist interpretation
Neorealists have been focusing on this theory recently, the main proponent of it being John J. Mearsheimer who is trying to incorporate it into 'offensive realism'. In his book The Tragedy of Great Power Politics Mearsheimer outlines how the anarchic system that neorealists subscribe to (see Kenneth Waltz for original theory) creates power hungry states who will each attempt to install themselves as regional and global hegemons. The system is created, shaped and maintained by coercion. The hegemon would begin to undermine the institution when it is not in their interests. With the decline of a hegemon, the system descends into instability.

Classical liberal interpretation
It is motivated by enlightened self-interest; the hegemon takes on the costs because it is good for all actors, thereby creating stability in the system, which is also in the interests of all actors.

Neoliberal interpretation
Neoliberals argue that the hegemon wishes to maintain its dominant position without paying enforcement costs, so it creates a system in which it can credibly limit the returns to power (loser doesn't lose all) and credibly commit to neither dominate nor abandon them. This is done through institutions, which are sticky, (hard to change, more convenient to continue using than to revamp.) These institutions favor the hegemon but provide protection and a stable world order for the rest of the world. The more open this world-order, the less likely that there will be a challenger. With the decline of the hegemon, institutions don't automatically die, because they were constructed in a way that benefited all stakeholders; instead, they take on a life of their own (see regime theory).

Criticism
Keohane's 1984 book After Hegemony used insights from the new institutional economics to argue that the international system could remain stable in the absence of a hegemon, thus rebutting hegemonic stability theory. Keohane showed that international cooperation could be sustained through repeated interactions, transparency, and monitoring. These factors could reduce transaction costs and provide information about other states (for example, whether the states are cheating or contributing). Duncan Snidal argues that international cooperation is sustainable even after hegemony because smaller states derive sufficient benefits to be willing to contribute towards international institutions.

Using insights from historical institutionalism, John Ikenberry argues that the international institutions set up by the United States are sustainable due to feedback effects, whereby it is costly for actors to set up alternative institutions. Ikenberry also argues that hegemonic stability theory fails to account for regime types, which is essential to understanding why democratic hegemons such as the United States created institutions during periods in which they were hegemons, whereas non-democratic hegemons in previous eras did not set up institutional orders when given the opportunity. Consistent with hegemonic stability theory, Ikenberry argues that the ability to create institutions is partly due to power preponderance.

Dominic Tierney argues that hegemonic stability theorists are wrong in assuming that unipolarity leads to a stable order. He argues that it is the contestation that compels the great power and other states to build international order.

Maria Gavris has criticized HST for its underdeveloped conceptualization of hegemony.

Theory
On the "unipolar moment" in 1990, the leading expert on the world-systems theory, Christopher Chase-Dunn, linked the forthcoming period with the HST. He reminded that hegemonic rivalry led to World Wars and in future such a rivalry among core states is only likely if the US hegemony continues to decline. But the current situation of single superpower is eminently stable.

To the mainstream International Relations (IR below), the unipolar world came as a surprise. Realists, shaped by “two World Wars and the Cold War, understood the differing logics of multipolar and bipolar systems, but apparently failed to envision a unipolar world because none of their works before the end of the Cold War accounts for it.”

For several more years following the "unipolar moment", IR analysis overwhelmingly argued for instability and imminent collapse of the hegemonic order. Mark Sheetz was one of the first IR scholars to explicitly link the post-Cold War order with the HST: The US strategy, he wrote in 1997, fits "the expectations of hegemonic stability theory more comfortably than do other Realist theories. The latter predict that efforts to preserve hegemony would be futile and counterproductive, but not so hegemonic stability theory."

Only in 1999, came to light an article completely and explicitly devoted to the subject. William Wohlforth titled it "The stability of a unipolar world", paraphrasing the 1964 title, "The stability of a bipolar world", by the founder of Neorealism, Kenneth Waltz. Wohlforth stressed the theoretical lag: "[The] hegemonic theory has received little shrill in the debate over the nature of the post-Cold War international system. This omission is unwarranted, for the theory has simple and profound implications for the peacefulness of the post-Cold War international order that are backed up by a formidable body of scholarship."

The first obstacle facing the IR research after the Cold War was mathematical - how many poles gives two minus one. There is no evidence the IR scholars collaborated with the department of mathematics and probably worked on their own. In 1997, Michael W. Doyle summarized six years of calculations: We declare that the new world order exists "and now we must ask what do we mean." Two poles minus one might give one, three, four, five and even zero poles. Doyle concluded with undefined number of "many" poles.

The mathematical breakthrough occurred two years later in the above-mentioned work by Wohlforth: Two states measured up as polar powers in 1990. "One is gone. No new pole has appeared: 2 - 1 = 1. The system is unipolar." The article by Wohlforth, according to Stephen Walt, broke the theoretical path.

In the following decade, the IR research tentatively switched to the unipolar or hegemonic stability, which replaced the balance of power as the focus of intense debate among IR scholars. Charles Kupchan, who since 1991 expects an imminent end to the US hegemony, in 2003 agreed that this hegemony causes the present peace and stability.

Until the early 2000s, Jack S. Levy and William Thompson adhered to the main Realist paradigm that hegemonic stability is theoretically impossible because other states would counter-balance. By the end of the decade, however, both engaged in search for the causes of the present hegemonic stability. In 2009, the student and follower of Waltz, Christopher Layne, confessed: "As events transpires, however, the fate of earlier hegemons has not befallen the United States." In the 2010s, more IR scholars accepted the hegemonic stability as a theory most fitting the post-Cold War period.

Curiously, one of the classics of the HST, Gilpin, denied the existence of the post-Cold-War hegemony and never applied the theory to this period. In 2002, Gilpin referred to some scholars who define the present system as hegemonic. "Less sanguin observers," however, countered that the bipolar system was supplanted by "chaotic, multipolar world of five or more major powers." The proclamation of the "new world order" he attributed to the end of the Gulf War in 1991, though the proclamation is attested from 1990 and the Gulf War had been regarded as the first test to the already existing new world order.

United States
Although the Hegemonic stability theory is attributed to the 1973 work by Kindleberger and the Realist mainstream rejected it for three decades longer, several scholars since World War II had theorized about the US preponderance of power which is identical in its arguments to the hegemonic stability. Similar arguments ping-ponged in the literature about the American foreign policy until the 2017 Peace through strength promised by Donald Trump.

Three scholars described how the US-led hegemonic system produces stability in the Twenty-First century: The United States makes its power safe for the world and in return the world agrees to live within the hegemonic system maintaining formal or informal alliances and open markets. The United States has been influential in moving many countries towards embracing the free market through institutions such as the International Monetary Fund and World Bank (see Washington Consensus).

Curiously, at the peak of the 2003 anti-hegemonic crisis, the world public opinion remained highly pro-hegemonic and convinced in the hegemonic stability. Large majorities of people in most surveyed countries thought that the world would be a more dangerous place if there were a rival to the American superpower. 64% of the French, 70% of the Mexicans and 63% of the Jordanians thought this way.

The US network of alliances created in the early Cold War remains intact in the post-Cold War period and NATO almost doubled in members. When NATO counted only 16 members, it was already described as the most successful alliance in history. As of 2023, it counts 30 members. The exact number of US allies worldwide is undefined because there is no clear criteria for counting unofficial defense partnerships. Bradley A. Thayer counts 84; Max Ostrovsky over 100. 130 countries or even more   host US bases. Most of these countries are either formal allies or informal defense partners.

Fifteen years in the post-Cold War period, Thayer calculated the hegemonic stabilization: Of 192 countries, 84 are allied with America and they include almost all of the developed economies. That is a combined GDP ratio of almost 17 to 1, a big change from the Cold War when the same ratio was about 1.8 to 1. Never before in history had any country so many allies. Ostrovsky outlined a political-economic rule which, he claims, has a very few exceptions: countries with the nominal per capita GDP above the world average formally or informally ally with the United States.

These are not alliances in the Westphalian sense characterized by impermanence and power-balancing; rather it is a hegemonic system of the Roman kind. Most states of the world host the hegemonic bases, many of them partly cover expenses for running them ("host nation support"), integrate their strategic forces under the hegemonic command, contribute 1-2% of their GDP to the integrated forces, and tip military, economic and humanitarian contributions in case of the hegemonic campaigns worldwide. Actually, these states, some of them recent great powers, surrender their strategic sovereignty en masse in favor of the hegemonic stability.

External balancing
While the hegemonic bloc concentration is overwhelming, anti-hegemonic military alliances do not form. No power entangles itself in military alliance against the United States. "No counter-hegemonic coalition has taken shape, and none is on the horizon." The only visible pattern to the relations between Moscow and Beijing since the late 1950s is that there is no pattern. There is no evidence that they want to transform their strategic partnership into a military alliance and much evidence to suggest that they do not.

China
The United States is still considered by most analysts to be at the top of the world, both economically and in terms of military strength. With these abundant resources and power, the world remains "a single superpower world". However, many analysts envisage the emergence of new giants which threaten the U.S. hegemony. These giants, they argue, create new power centers all over the world and the world becomes ever more multipolar. Of those new giants, the single greatest competitor of United States is China as it is growing rapidly with "no equal in modern history". Historically, examples of hegemonic decline come in two prime sectors: the leading state's military and its economy. Both arenas are crucial for the analysis of the shifting power structure.

With the highest gross domestic product at purchasing power parity, China poses a significant challenge to U.S. economic primacy especially with the expectation that U.S. national debt could explode to 717% of GDP by 2080 according to Congressional Budget office. Moreover, this debt is financed largely by China through the purchase of U.S. Treasury bonds. On the other hand, China's economic power, not limited to but including industrialization and modernization, is rapidly burgeoning with high consumption and increasing foreign investment. As Global Trends 2025 points out, the rise of China and India to great power status will restore each to "the positions they held two centuries ago when China produced approximately 30 percent and India 15 percent of the world's wealth."

By 2018, Michael Beckley counted hundreds of books and thousands of articles envisioning the decline of the US, the rise of China and the multipolar world, and outlined an element common to these works—they all relied on gross indicators of power, such as GDP or military spending. These are the same indicators that made China look like a superpower during its century of humiliation (1839-1911). They reflect large population but do not consider welfare costs—the expenses a nation pays to provide this population with food, health care, social security, police, administration and education. Deducting these costs from gross indicators would give net indicators. Beckley suggests considering GDP per capita, more precisely multiplying it by total GDP. According to this net indicator, China still lags far behind the US.

U.S. military can be characterized by "imperial overstretch," wrote Paul Kennedy in 1987. Fifteen years later, Kennedy re-estimated: “Nothing has ever existed like this disparity of power; nothing. I have returned to all of the comparative defense spending and military personnel statistics over the past 500 years that I compiled in The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers, and no other nation comes close… There is… no comparison.”

By the time Kennedy invented "imperial overstretch," the declinist paradigm of the US hegemony counted already two decades and, two years before The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers, Bruce Russett collected an impressive list of works on the "mysterious case of vanishing hegemony." Russett called the case "mysterious" because he found no confirming evidence. The hegemony was intact. He associated his conclusion with the popular words of Mark Twain, the "report of my death was an exaggeration." Written in 1985, this article has not aged.

Writing in 1992, Andrew L. Shapiro assured regarding the U.S.: With troops operating abroad in more than fifty-five countries, "a military force is extended so much that it nears a breaking point." After three decades of "nearing a breaking point," the U.S administration approved a record–breaking peacetime national defense budget of $813 billion. Meanwhile, Shapiro continued in 1992, China is taking advantage by industrializing its army using their wealth. China's military budget is increasing, and the troops are expanding. A decade later, Steven W. Mosher insisted that China is building up its armed forces "to break America's back in Asia and thus end America's reign as the sole superpower in the world."

It remains unknown whether the aim of the Chinese build up is America's "back breaking," but definitely its pace is not neck-breaking. By 2022, China was estimated to accumulate between 350 and 400 nuclear warheads, just exceeding Charles de Gaulle's force de frappe and 15 times short of the U.S. arsenal. The disparity of the delivery means is even greater. As of 2023, China has not yet introduced its first intercontinental bomber. The longest-range Chinese Xian H-6 bombers can reach Guam. The Soviet bombers could reach the continental United States on a one-way suicide mission; the best Chinese bombers are good enough only for a half-way suicide mission.

Moreover, the Chinese nuclear force remains unsophisticated and highly vulnerable. The official Chinese nuclear doctrine is "assured retaliation," as distinguished from "assured destruction," or "minimum deterrence." In case of attack, China would only retaliate, not destroy the aggressor. But there is little evidence that even the retaliation is assured. The US force stationed in Guam alone might eliminate China's nuclear arsenal in one conventional strike, leaving China for assured retaliation a little more than the traditional "millet plus rifles."

As of 2023, China has two outdated Kuznezov-type aircraft carriers. When China purchased the first, analysts supposed that it would serve as a tourist attraction like Soviet carriers Kiev and Minsk used to. The Chinese anti-hegemonic challenge is like horizon - never gets closer. Decades pass and the US fleet continues to maneuver around Taiwan without the Chinese counterpart around Cuba.

Furthermore, many argue that China has a symbiotic relationship with the United States. If the United States declines, it is likely that China also may be in jeopardy. John Gulick points out that China's prosperity is "deeply ensconced in the 'China produces and lends, the US borrows and spends' framework". Economic interdependence of China derives from the fact that they are a producing state rather than a consuming state. China's economy is export heavy as its driving force lies in "export processing measures". The export dependent structure could severely dampen economic growth if demand for Chinese exports is reduced by another economic crisis in the United States. Besides the economic interdependence, China might face additional barriers to its hegemonic aspirations, such as domestic political instability, environmental degradation, public health issues, and demographic trends.

Russia
More revisionist appeared Russia under Vladimir Putin. Repeatedly he addressed the international community with anti-hegemonic agenda, arguing that the post-Cold War hegemony is unstable: "After the dissolution of bipolarity on the planet, we no longer have stability." Key international institutions are ignored by the United States and its western allies. They use force against sovereign states. Instead of settling conflicts they contribute to their escalation, instead of democracy and freedom they support a very dubious public ranging from neo-fascists to Islamic radicals, and instead of stable states they produce chaos, outbreaks in violence and a series of upheavals. A "unilateral diktat" leads to instability. The leaders of Belarus, Iran, North Korea and Bashar al-Assad shared the view. The rest of the world, however, remained unmoved and unwilling to join the anti-hegemonic crusade.

The Russian foreign policy under Putin steadily became more aggressive, culminating with the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine. The United States responded with sanctions and military aid to Ukraine. This U.S. response was criticized by some officials and experts as appeasement. Timo S. Koster who served at NATO as Director of Defence Policy & Capabilities criticized: A massacre is taking place in Europe and the strongest military alliance in the world is staying out of it. Philip Breedlove, a retired four-star U.S. Air Force general and a former SACEUR, said that the West have "ceded the initiative to the enemy." No attempt was made by NATO to deter Moscow with the threat of military force, wondered another expert. Nevertheless, the U.S. response, combined with similar measures by the NATO allies and the Ukrainian resistance, was enough to roll back the Russian troops on most fronts and, as of 2023, reduce the Russian conquests to the regions with pro-Russian majority.

Complications
The first complication for testing the HST against history is the absence of a case to test. The world hegemony is unprecedented. William Wohlforth emphasized that we are living in the world's first hegemonic system. Even the leading Realist opponent of the HST agreed on the matter: A dominant power without rivals rising to challenge is a position without precedent. Hence, Walt concluded in 2009, there is not yet consensus on the overall impact of hegemony. The phenomenon is recent and has yet to receive a sustained theoretical attention.

Moreover, the historical IR research remains Eurocentric and Europe has not experienced pan-European hegemony since the fall of Rome. The world during the Pax Britannica was multipolar rather than hegemonic and the period is characterized by hegemonic rivalry rather than stability. Earlier modern European powers named hegemonic in some works, such as the Netherlands, Spain and Portugal, were even less hegemonic than Britain. Gilpin noted that Portugal and the Netherlands only dominated trade. Modern Europe before 1990 had never been hegemonic system, which by definition has only one unrivaled power.

A product of eurocentric research, the Hegemonic Stability Theory was as much theory about instability. In a cyclical pattern, the hegemonic stability would be followed by violent hegemonic power transition to rising competitors (Gilpin, Modelski, Organsky). Periods of expansion are followed by equilibrium which is “merely a temporary phenomenon in the continuing process of international political change.” Organsky, having combined the Hegemonic Stability Theory with the Power transition theory, created a perfect oxymoron. Bound to the modern Europe, the IR research found dubious hegemons, drew from these cases the paradigm of imminent hegemonic fall and implied it to the United States: "One of the ironclad lesson of history is that great powers that seek hegemony are always opposed—and defeated—by the counterbalancing efforts of other states. Yet the prevailing belief among the American foreign policy community is that the United States is exempt from the fate of hegemons."

Beyond modern Europe
With the American hegemony counting its first decade (since 1990) and showing no signs of collapse in sight, several IR scholars supposed that to find something similar even on regional scale it is necessary to descend to pre-modern times and extend the scope beyond Europe. In 2007, two books devoted to pre-modern civilizations came to light. One was edited by Wohlforth with contributions from experts on several pre-modern civilizations. One of the contributors was Victoria Tin-bor Hui, whose civilization (China) experienced centuries-long unipolar stability. The other book was by Max Ostrovsky, who completed two degrees in world history and PhD in International Relations. This book became the first attempt of theory by a professional historian and at the same time the first IR research extensively based on primary sources.

Both works found that most civilizations most of time were unipolar and the European long balance of power was exceptional in world history. Victoria Tin-bor Hui and Ostrovsky explained it by the expanding nature of the European system, while hegemonic stability needs a geopolitically closed system. The next complication, however, was the kind of unipolarity. Most of unipolar civilizations were universal empires rather than system-wide hegemonies. The former are distinct by formal rule, territorial conquest and annexation, and regular taxation. The team of Wohlforth disregarded this complication. Ostrovsky found in world history three system-wide hegemonies—Sumer, Qin in 364-221 BC and Rome in 189-63 BC.

Three known cases
The first striking element is that system-wide hegemonies were rare occasions in world history. The second striking element is that all three known hegemonies were anything but stable. Ostrovsky tested the HST on the three known cases: The hegemon of Sumer, House of Kish, sent envoys to Gilgamesh. Gilgamesh addressed the assembly of warriors: "Let us not submit to the House of Kish, let us smite it with weapons!" The assembly wholeheartedly agreed. "At the word of the fighting men of his city his heart rejoiced, his spirit brightened." A battle was fought and the hegemon was defeated and imprisoned. Hegemony is as old as history. According to the Sumerian King List, Kish established the hegemony yet before the Flood. The anti-hegemonic resistance dates to the same dawn of history too, recorded in one of the earliest literary legacies of mankind.

The hegemonic Qin did not produce anymore stability. The Warring States went more warring. Qin emerged victorious and hegemonic after a war in 364 BC. Shortly, almost all the rest of the Chinese world united into an anti-hegemonic alliance, called Vertical or Perpendicular, and at least once the whole Chinese world "united their wills and joined their forces to attack Qin." "With a force of 1,000,000 soldiers drown from area ten times large than Qin, they  beat upon the Pass [to the land of Qin] and pressed forward toward Qin." The same dreadful scenario repeated itself several times. Massive anti-hegemonic alliances characterized the period. As in Sumer, in the Warring-States China hegemony was bound with anti-hegemony. The Qin armies repeatedly crashed the anti-hegemonic alliances in at least 15 major campaigns Eventually, Qin launched a universal conquest and established universal empire.

The contemporary to Qin Roman hegemony was more stable with longer periods of peace, but almost each generation the system experienced major wars. The last war against Macedonia (148 BC) and the last Punic War (146 BC) were wars of annexation. Three Mithridatic Wars (88-63 BC) were anti-hegemonic wars led by Pontus and similarly ended by annexation of Pontus and the Near East. In the course of these and other wars, Rome, like Qin, evolved from hegemony into universal empire.

"Balance of power, repeatedly remarked two proponents of hegemonic stability, predicts that states will try to prevent the rise of a hegemon; it tells us nothing  about what will happen once a country establishes such a position," nor history yields such an implication. History, however, yields. Rome and Qin were well established hegemons but were repeatedly counter-balanced by rival powers or coalitions until they conquered and annexed them.

Hegemonic stage
Historic cases of system-wide hegemonies accord Balance of Power theory rather than the HST—anti-hegemonic balancing happened and on large scales, as Balance of Power predicts. The only difference is that counter-balancing did not lead to the restoration of balance in the system but in the opposite direction—the hegemonies prevailed and established universal empires. Hence, Ostrovsky concluded that the three cases - of Qin, Rome and the US - are analogous systemic transformations from warring states to hegemony to universal empire with the modern process being presently uncompleted.

Remarkably, all three great powers, Rome, Qin and the US were on the edge of the contemporary civilization and geographically protected, Rome by sea, Qin by mountain ranges and the US by oceans. All three began by the policy of isolation using their natural barriers. Rome initially maintained the doctrine of "no foreign foot in Italy" and later of "no foreign foot in Europe;" Qin began with analogous policy of no foreign foot within the passes. And the US began with the policy of isolation and no foreign foot in the Americas. All three abandoned isolationism in favor of hegemony. Rome and Qin were the only cases in world history when great powers first established a system-wide hegemony and later universal empire. All other known universal empires were established directly out of the system of warring states and avoiding the hegemonic stage. Probably geographic isolation favors this particular hegemonic stage.

Earlier, Pentagon strategist, Edward Luttwak, turned into Roman historian and produced a famous research on the Roman hegemony. Implicitly advocating hegemony for the United States, Luttwak argued that transforming hegemony into empire was Rome's fatal mistake. By contrast to empire, hegemony saves much power.

Basing on the comparative analysis between Rome and Qin instead of the single case of Rome, Ostrovsky countered that the transformation of hegemony into empire is not always fatal mistake - China still exists. And in both cases the transformation resulted in a more stable order and "Golden Age." Replying on Luttwak's thesis of the "economy of force" by a hegemonic power, Ostrovsky suggested that it "naturally results in the economy of obedience by a ruled periphery." A year after Ostrovsky published this anti-thesis, Russia invaded Georgia and began ever more anti-hegemonic policy, culminating with a full scale invasion of Ukraine.

Permanent hegemony
The anti-hegemonic initiative of Vladimir Putin, however, fell short. No major power joined him in the endeavor, international opposition was unanimous and his troops were forced to retreat on most fronts, holding only regions with pro-Russian majority as of 2023. Yet four years before Russia suffered the setback in Ukraine, Ostrovsky completed an advanced analysis of the present hegemonic stability. The latter analysis indicated that, despite the best efforts by Putin, the anti-hegemonic resistance in our world is incomparably weaker than in the ancient Roman and Chinese worlds, and the overall trend in our world is toward hegemonic stabilization. "At this point, he concludes, world history runs out of samples." World history knows stability of universal empires; it does not know hegemonic stability and hegemonic systems themselves were exceptional. But the real puzzle history poses to the HST is not why the American hegemony did not fall but rather why it did not evolve into empire and, for the first time in world history, produced hegemonic stability.

title: Hegemonic stability theory


text:
Henery Hawk

Henery Hawk is an American cartoon character who appears in twelve comedy film shorts produced in the Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies series. His first appearance is in the 1942 theatrical release The Squawkin' Hawk, which was directed by Chuck Jones and produced by Leon Schlesinger. Henery's second screen appearance, one directed by Robert McKimson, is in Walky Talky Hawky (1946), which also features the characters Foghorn Leghorn and Barnyard Dawg in their first cartoon roles. The last Warner Brothers theatrical short to showcase the little chickenhawk is the 1961 release Strangled Eggs in which he co-stars again with Foghorn Leghorn as well as with another popular character of that period, Miss Prissy. Following that production, Henery continued to be seen periodically in other animated presentations such as The Looney Tunes Show and Looney Tunes Cartoons.

Character biography
Henery is a small, brown chickenhawk with a forelock of feathers. The young bird lives at home with his parents, speaks with tough-guy bravado, and shows surprising strength to pull or deadlift prey more than three times his size. He was played in the first short by Kent Rogers. Rogers died in 1944, so the role was then taken over by Mel Blanc (and later by Joe Alaskey and then Jeff Bergman). Henery has a high-pitched voice with a New York accent and perpetually angry temperament. (With these characteristics, he became the later inspiration for the Hanna-Barbera character Scrappy-Doo. )

In a typical Foghorn/Henery cartoon, Henery strikes out on his own for the first time, eager to capture (and presumably consume) a chicken. Having led a sheltered life, however, he does not know what a chicken looks like, only that chicken hawks eat them. Foghorn presumes that this diminutive, naïve troublemaker is no real threat; however, seeing the potential for annoyance, he points and manipulates Henery in the direction of Barnyard Dawg. The remainder of the cartoon is usually consumed by Dawg and Leghorn alternately assuring Henery that the other is a chicken and encouraging him to attack the "chicken" mercilessly. In a reversal, the cartoon The Foghorn Leghorn has Foghorn wanting Henery to believe Foghorn is a chicken, where Henery believes Foghorn is merely a "loud-mouthed shnook," supposedly a separate kind of creature. Later, when Barnyard Dawg calls Foghorn a "good-for-nothing chicken", Henery finally wises up.

Many cartoons ended with Henery capturing one (or both) of his tormentors, pragmatically shrugging his shoulders over whether his prey may or may not be an actual fowl. Typically, Henery would decide that one of them must be a real chicken; therefore, he would knock out and capture both, after threatening them with the catch-phrase "Are you comin' quietly, or do I have to muss ya up!?"

Henery Hawk is also a supporting character in the Looney Tunes comic books; in pre-1970s stories, he often starred in features of his own, typically played against Oliver Owl as well as Foghorn.

Henery was going to have a cameo in Who Framed Roger Rabbit, but was later dropped for unknown reasons.

Henery Hawk made a brief cameo appearance in the bleacher scenes of the 1996 film Space Jam, and has a supporting role in the 2000 film Tweety's High-Flying Adventure.

In the 2010s series The Looney Tunes Show, Henery Hawk appeared in the episode "Fish and Visitors", in the Merrie Melodies segment "Chickenhawk" (sung by Barnyard Dawg) where he tries to eat Foghorn Leghorn while Foghorn tries to break him of his craving. In "Father Figures," Porky Pig becomes the father figure of Henery Hawk who wants Porky to get him chicken.

In 2011, Henery Hawk appeared in a commercial for GEICO along with Foghorn Leghorn. In the commercial, Foghorn was serving as a reader for a "book on tape" version of the Charles Dickens novel A Tale of Two Cities when Henery—sick and tired of Foghorn's ad-libbing—takes a club and hits Foghorn with it off-camera.

Henery makes a cameo in Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers on a box meal.

Looney Tunes/Merrie Melodies

 * 1) The Squawkin' Hawk (debut) (August 8, 1942) (directed by Chuck Jones)
 * 2) Walky Talky Hawky (August 31, 1946) (directed by Robert McKimson)
 * 3) Crowing Pains (July 12, 1947) (directed by McKimson)
 * 4) You Were Never Duckier (August 7, 1948) (directed by Jones)
 * 5) The Foghorn Leghorn (October 9, 1948) (directed by McKimson)
 * 6) Henhouse Henery (July 2, 1949) (directed by McKimson)
 * 7) The Scarlet Pumpernickel (cameo) (March 4, 1950) (directed by Jones)
 * 8) The Leghorn Blows at Midnight (May 6, 1950) (directed by McKimson)
 * 9) Leghorn Swoggled (July 28, 1951) (directed by McKimson)
 * 10) The EGGcited Rooster (October 4, 1952) (directed by McKimson)
 * 11) All Fowled Up (February 19, 1955) (directed by McKimson)
 * 12) Strangled Eggs (March 18, 1961) (directed by McKimson)

Video games

 * The Bugs Bunny Birthday Blowout (1990)
 * Space Jam (1996)

title: Henery Hawk


text:
Paolo dal Pozzo Toscanelli

Paolo dal Pozzo Toscanelli (1397 – 10 May 1482) was an Italian mathematician, astronomer, and cosmographer.

Life
Paolo dal Pozzo Toscanelli was born in Florence, the son of the physician Domenico Toscanelli and Biagia Mei. There is no precise information on his education and background. Gustavo Uzielli claimed in 1894 that Toscanelli studied at the University of Padua, but modern authors consider this pure conjecture. Toscanelli lived most of his life in Florence, with occasional excursions to Todi and Rome. He is said to have entered into correspondence with scholars around Europe, but his writings have yet to be thoroughly researched.

Thanks to his long life, his intelligence and his wide interests, Toscanelli was one of the central figures in the intellectual and cultural history of Renaissance Florence in its early years. His circle of friends included Filippo Brunelleschi, the architect of the Florence Cathedral, and the philosopher Marsilio Ficino. He knew the mathematician, writer and architect Leon Battista Alberti, and his closest friend was Cardinal Nicholas of Cusa—himself a wide-ranging intellect and early humanist, who dedicated two short mathematical works in 1445 to Toscanelli, and made himself and Toscanelli the interlocutors in a 1458 dialogue titled On Squaring the Circle (De quadratura circuli). When Nicholas of Cusa was on his death bed in the remote Perugian town of Todi in 1464, Toscanelli traversed 120 miles from Florence to be with him.

Toscanelli along with Nicholas of Cusa appears to have belonged to a network of Florentine and Roman intellectuals who searched for and studied Greek mathematical works, along with Filelfo, George of Trebizond, and the humanist Pope Nicholas V, in company with Alberti and Brunelleschi.

Cartography

According to one theory, in 1439, the Greek philosopher Gemistos Plethon, attending the Council of Florence, acquainted Toscanelli with the extensive travels, writings and mapping of the 1st century BC/AD Greek geographer Strabo, hitherto unknown in Italy. Nearly 35 years later, the Italian was to follow up this amplified knowledge.

In 1474, Toscanelli sent a letter and a map to his Portuguese correspondent Fernão Martins, priest at the Lisbon Cathedral, detailing a scheme for sailing westwards to reach the Spice Islands and Asia. Fernão Martins delivered his letter to the King Afonso V of Portugal, in his court of Lisbon. The original of this letter was lost, but its existence is known through Toscanelli himself, who later transcribed it along with the map and sent it to Christopher Columbus, who carried them with him during his first voyage to the New World. Toscanelli had miscalculated Asia as being 5,000 miles longer than it really was, and Columbus miscalculated the circumference of the Earth by 25 percent: both of which resulted in Columbus not realizing initially he had found a new continent.

An uncorroborated story links Toscanelli’s attendance at a Chinese delegation to the Pope in 1432, when many Chinese inventions were discussed, with a flood of drawings made around the same year by the artist-engineer Taccola (1382 – c.1453), which were later developed by Brunelleschi and Leonardo da Vinci. In a 1474 letter by Toscanelli to Columbus, the authenticity of which has been a matter of disagreement among scholars, Toscanelli mentions the visit of men from Cathay (China) during the reign of Pope Eugenius IV (1431–1447):

It has been suggested that the man in question may have been Niccolo da Conti, who was returning from the east and is known to have met with Pope Eugenius in 1444.

In a second letter, Toscanelli describes further these men as extremely learned and willing to share their knowledge:

Astronomy

Toscanelli is noted for his observations of six comets, in 1472, two in 1457, 1456, which was to be named Halley's Comet after Edmond Halley predicted its return in 1759, 1449, and 1433.

In 1475 he pierced a hole in the dome of Florence Cathedral making a gnomon  at 91.05 m above the pavement to create a meridian line. The height precluded the installation of a complete meridian line of the floor of the cathedral, but allowed a short section of approximately 10 m to run between the main altar and the north wall of the transept. This allows for observation for around 35 days either side of the summer equinox.

title: Paolo dal Pozzo Toscanelli


text:
RoboNexus

RoboNexus was a robotics event in the United States held from 2004 to 2005. Over 10,000 attended RoboNexus in 2004.

RoboNexus showcased advances in robotics for both industry representatives and the general public. Notable exhibitors included the company iRobot, creators of Roomba, and NASA.

Robotics Trends also produces an annual RoboBusiness conference.

Events

 * 2005 - San Jose Convention Center, San Jose, California

title: RoboNexus


text:
Talk:Martha's Vineyard Sign Language

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Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment
This article is or was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Dizzybee23.

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origins of MVSL
I made some corrections to this page to show that the MVSL originated in the "weald" of County Kent and not "Weald, England". There is no such town as would be suggested by that punctuation. The "weald" is a geographic term to denote a woodland. Weald's are known throughout England and this one was in the Country Kent.

I also gave more specific details about the evolution of MVSL. It was originally Kent Sign Language that evolved into a distinct language in the village of Chilmark on Martha's Vineyard. Later it combined with French signs to form MVSL. There's a great deal more that can be added to this page. The major reference that is freely available is Nora Ellen Groce's "Everyone Here Spoke Sign Language", but a great deal is to be found in Edward Fay's research and also that of Alexander Graham Bell's papers. Also, Harlan Lane's "When The Mind Hears" has some excellent discussion. This is of interest to me because I am descended from one of the families whom Groce identifies as being a source of hereditary deafness in Martha's Vineyard.

—The preceding unsigned comment was added by Ray Foster (talk) 18:06, 18 December 2004 (UTC).

no direct evidence for Old Kentish Sign Language
This page -- actually, the answers.com clone of it -- is currently being discussed on the sign language linguistics mailing list slling-L. Dr. Bencie Woll, Chair of Sign Language and Deaf Studies and Director of the Deafness, Cognition and Language Research Centre, University College London, writes in that discussion (quoted here by permission):

 * Actually, there's no evidence that there was a signing Deaf community in Kent or that any of the people who went to Martha's Vineyard from Kent were deaf. I quote from a paper by Chris Stone and myself which will appear in Sign Language Studies:

 * It should be noted that there is only circumstantial evidence available to substantiate claims about the earlier existence of an Old Kent Sign Language in the Kentish Weald (Groce, 1985). Groce states that she was 'unable to discover any direct references to deafness in the Weald during the seventeenth century' (pp. 29-30), and adds (p. 30), 'From a passage in Samuel Pepys's diary, it is clear that Downing knew a sign language'.  Groce then conjectures (30), 'It seems likely that as a boy in Maidstone in 1630 he learned the local sign language."  But since all we know for sure is that Downing went to school in Kent, not that there were any deaf people in the Weald of Kent during the 17th century, the belief in an Old Kentish Sign Language is actually unsupported by any direct evidence.

See also the caution in the last paragraph of Old Kent Sign Language, quoting Woll, Sutton-Spence, & Elton (2001):

 * Others have cautioned against uncritical reception of this claim, "because no deaf people were part of the original migration from Kent, and nothing is known about any specific variety of signing used in Kent."

Thnidu 17:51, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

I have modified the article to make the hypothetical status of OKSL explicit.

Thnidu 18:03, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

"....farmers signed to their children across a wide field, where the spoken word would not carry."
This, though cited, seems very unlikely. If the distance was too great to yell, then how could someone see the subtle differences between signs? Try it, stand 40 meters away from someone and try to see how many fingers they are holding up.Trefalcon (talk) 16:01, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

overall impression bad
I have a problem with the overall impression this article leaves on history. In the lead, it is stated that Martha's Vineyard Sign Language was "once widely used". It further states: "The language was able to thrive on Martha's Vineyard because of the unusually high percentage of deaf islanders. In 1854, when the island's deaf population peaked, the United States national average was one deaf person in 5728, while on Martha's Vineyard it was one in 155. In the town of Chilmark, which had the highest concentration of deaf people on the island, the average was 1 in 25; in a section of Chilmark called Squibnocket, as much as a quarter of the population of 60 was deaf."

I believe this little known factoid of Vineyard history is a distortion of the event. I do not dispute that there may have been deaf Vineyarders in the past. Yet to cite the above figures, then to imply that those figures somehow represent some meaningful fact about Martha's Vineyard stretches one's imagination. For example, if the population of the nearby Elizabeth island of Naushon had ten residents, one of whom was deaf, this would certainly be a far more significant number than the one cited for Chilmark. However, how meaningful would that be? In a nation of millions of people, the national average of "one person in 5728" equates to some sort of meaning. Yet to compare that ratio to a small, insignifcant island of ten people is an exaggeration. To me, it is similar to comparing a golfball's tiny craters to that of Crater Lake on the Earth.

Also, I have a problem with the main article's lack of details about the Martha's Vineyard Sign Language. For instance, what is it? Describe it. Was it as simple as a deaf person extending his middle finger to communicate his disgust with people who make no effort to understand his disability, or is the language far more in depth, with many hand signs similar to modern day hand language?

On the whole, I think this article makes too much of a minor thing and fails to provide specifics of why it is notable. —24.170.242.101 (talk) 21:10, 9 September 2009 (UTC)

Citations and article development
After saving this comment, I will remove the redundant 'reference' for Nora Ellen Groce's book, having formatted the other reference to facilitate access to an online preview. The redundant reference that I will delete contains a red link to a not-yet-existing article on Nora Ellen Groce. It's highly unlikely that anyone will ever create such an article. If anyone happens to think they have sufficient information to create one, they will anyway, whether or not a red link exists.

Anyone aspiring to facilitate this, either for themselves or others, can do so by creating a 'further reading' section and adding resources until there are sufficient to capitalise upon.

A comment on the above whinge about the proportion of deaf people on Martha's Vineyard during the period relevant to this article. While I've only just encountered this article, a quick check of Groce's book indicates that the population was higher than the figure of ten used in the straw-man argument above, although the sample size does nevertheless look smallish, perhaps 42 people at one stage. I don't know the year from the viewable text, but I have to assume it was early in the settlement, or referring to a population pocket.

I see reference to a population of about 350 in Chilmark in the 1840s. It doesn't take a lot of imagination to see that Groce was simply trying to create a picture. If her book is essentially factually accurate (Oliver Sacks seemed to give some credence to it, especially after visiting the island soon after reading Groce's book, whilst of the sign-using elders where around), of course the picture is an interesting and notable one. There are a raft of issues of interest, from genetics to sociological ones. The challenge for genuinely interested editors is to expand and elaborate on them. At time of this comment, prior to any serious searches, I'd be rather surprised if there aren't some interesting publications out there on this. Wotnow (talk) 08:16, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

Conflicting information about last speaker and extinction
In the introduction (paragraph 3), there is the sentence, "The last deaf person born into the island's sign language tradition, Eva West, died in 1950." Later in the article, in "Deaf migration to the mainland", the following is stated: "The last deaf person born into the island's sign language tradition, Katie West, died in 1952."

Which of these is true? --timothymh (talk) 16:29, 28 June 2017 (UTC)

Capitalization
I have reverted the ridiculous capitalization of the word 'deaf' throughout the article. I had the misfortune today of learning that the deaf activist class demands that 'deaf' be capitalized when used in reference to deaf culture(/s) rather than to the character trait. This is not how English works. Deaf people are not an ethnic group. At least if the proposed convention were to capitalize the names of particular deaf cultures within geographic areas named with proper nouns, such as 'American Deaf culture' or 'Japanese Deaf culture', it would be defensible. Capitalizing the word in reference to the fictitious global 'Deaf culture' and 'Deaf community' is simply, unambiguously grammatically incorrect. It's asinine.

I would like to remind any angry wokeists (but I repeat myself) who might read this comment that elite activists rarely are truly representative of the communities for which they claim to speak. The mainstream Western activist class is much wealthier, more educated, political, leftist, and (dare I say) privileged than Westerners as a whole. Consider before you embrace activists' demands on the grounds that you must be uncritical boosters of the political programs of 'marginalized communities' that you will not learn what most members of said 'communities' want by listening to what your favorite new class pencil pushers have to say. To take what should be an obvious example, few black Americans generally share the views of Black Lives Matter activists. Very few want to abolish the police, stigmatize the nuclear family, or implement socialism; the Black Lives Matter organization and the movement's leading activists explicitly advocate for all those deranged ideas.

The user who capitalized 'deaf' in this article didn't even bother to listen well to the activists whose demands he attempted to foist on readers of this article. He capitalized every instance of the word, which as stated above, is not what his thought leaders want. To anyone reading this who is outraged by my supposed ableism and is about to revert my reversion and reply to my comment with a long rant about the dangers of fascism, eugenics, and capitalist oppression of the differently abled, I have only two requests:

1) Go through the article carefully and capitalize 'deaf' only where required by the activists' convention, not in every instance. 2) My grandmother is and my grandfather was profoundly deaf. My mother and her brother grew up with ASL as a first language. Bear that in mind. Blocky1OOO (talk) 20:24, 4 December 2022 (UTC)

 * Rockatanskette and Blocky1OOO - it'd be great if this is resolved in talk, instead of edit reverts. Also, please remember to be civil - that's one of the basic rules here. And calling someone else's edits "asinine" and venting about unrelated topics is not.
 * As for the argument itself WP:PEOPLELANG is the guidance to follow here. This means that names of cultural groups are capitalised. That said, in this particular instance the word "deaf" seems to refer to the particular diagnosis ("people who cannot hear") and not to a (presumed?) Deaf community of Martha's Vineyard. Averell (talk) 11:50, 11 December 2022 (UTC)
 * I specifically said that capitalizing the word in naming a particular geographically limited deaf culture is defensible. The convention deaf activists apparently demand is not, because it plainly contradicts the conventions of the English language. I said their demand was asinine, and I stand by it. I maintain that deferring to professional activists' supposed moral authority is ridiculous, and not only when their demands are foolish. I added a pertinent and extremely well-known example of activists not actually speaking for the groups they claim to represent to illustrate my point. I resent having to defend myself against the specious accusations of bigotry and rhetorical violence that typically follow objection to leftist activists' absurd demands, hence my last two paragraphs.
 * I frankly see no possible justification for reverting my edit in full. Even if Wikipedia decides to cater to activist demands to capitalize the word 'deaf' when it refers to deaf culture, most instances of the word in this article will need to be reverted to lower case yet again. Anyway, the default convention on Wikipedia should be the longstanding one of names of medical conditions and cultural subcultures not being capitalized in the English language. If an editor wants to flout that convention in an article or site-wide based on an emotional argument about the power of capitalization to legitimate marginalized communities, he should make his case on the talk page. The editor who capitalized 'deaf' left no comment on the talk page before [incorrectly] applying his novel linguistic convention; why should I have to wait for talk page feedback that may never come before reverting his erroneous edit?
 * I left my comment in part so that a future editor who sees 'deaf' in lowercase in this article and feels compelled to capitalize it might respond and explain his justification. I made my case for not changing conventions. If someone sees my comments here and wants to argue in favor of capitalization, I'll continue this discussion then. Blocky1OOO (talk) 04:05, 13 December 2022 (UTC)
 * Again, friendly reminder to assume good faith and be civil. I linked the Wikipedia convention above, this is the guidance to follow - no matter if someone likes it or not. And just for the record, I did side with the argument for lowercase in this particular case. I pinged both authors, because it is preferable to resolve things on the talk page rather than through edit wars. Averell (talk) 12:59, 13 December 2022 (UTC)

Am I missing something? The page says nothing about whether ‘deaf’ should ever be considered part of the name of a cultural group needing to be capitalized. Are there any groups analogous to the global ‘deaf community’ whose names are capitalized on Wikipedia? I’m not sure there are even analogues to regional or even most local ‘communities’. I think there are very few deaf communities that qualify as cultures rather than subcultures integrated within their respective local cultures. I don’t think the name of a culture that is usually joined rather than inherited should be capitalized — it is a subculture, not a culture. Blocky1OOO (talk) 06:59, 19 December 2022 (UTC)

Ah, sorry. I assumed you were the one who reverted my edit. That makes a lot more sense. Blocky1OOO (talk) 07:02, 19 December 2022 (UTC)

title: Talk:Martha's Vineyard Sign Language