q_id
stringlengths 5
6
| title
stringlengths 3
296
| selftext
stringlengths 0
34k
| document
stringclasses 1
value | subreddit
stringclasses 1
value | url
stringlengths 4
110
| answers
dict | title_urls
sequence | selftext_urls
sequence | answers_urls
sequence |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
5e6d72 | why creatives tend to be more prone to depression and procrastination | In simplest words possible please. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5e6d72/eli5_why_creatives_tend_to_be_more_prone_to/ | {
"a_id": [
"daa2cff"
],
"score": [
9
],
"text": [
"One common reason is a mental condition known as \"bipolar\" or \"Manic depressive disorder\".\n\nThink about the best you've ever felt. Ever. That's what people with this condition feel like on a normal good day: great days go up from there.\n\nNow think about the worst day you have ever had. That is what people with this condition feel like on a normal bad day: really bad days get worse from there.\n\nAnd there's rarely days in-between: it's either a great day, or a horrible day.\n\nAll that going back and forth means that they can really capture emotions well: they're always feeling strong emotions, so it's easy to capture and express them. However, it also makes the bad days that much worse.\n\nIt's not that creative are more prone to depression/procrastination: it's that this one mental condition makes it easy to be a creative person, and also causes serious depression. And when you're that depressed, you don't want to do anything; and so you procrastinate."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
|
zv2sj | consciousness | It has always baffled me: with the advent of possible future AI/computer jargon that will essentially allow us to upload our "consciousness"* into a computer and "live forever," the topic sparked in my head-- How do I experience my own consciousness, and, if someone else had literally the exact same chemical/quantum** makeup that I have, would I also experience that consciousness?
This has always been a conundrum to me. How does a consciousness work? Really I'm just curious as to, theoretically, if there was an exact duplicate of myself, how would that work? Say technology allowed us to duplicate ourselves perfectly; would I experience what they experience after I die?
I guess this is really just an existential question. I doubt anyone has an answer other than "you wouldn't experience what they experience," but I don't care what the answer is. It won't hurt my feelings if you say I'm a lunatic, I swear.
Feel free to explain it any way you would like.
*I have no idea what I'm talking about
**Still have no idea what I'm talking about | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/zv2sj/eli5_consciousness/ | {
"a_id": [
"c67yr90",
"c67zgnf",
"c680ldf",
"c6818df"
],
"score": [
2,
4,
3,
3
],
"text": [
"No one knows. This is what philosophers are for.\n\nAll we can really do is quote René Descartes; *\"Cogito Ergo Sum,\"* or, in English, \"I think, therefore I am.\" In other words, because you are aware of yourself, you must exist on some level, even if you can't be sure what level that is. You might just be a computer program running on a gigantic mainframe, but because you have cognition, on some level, you *are.*",
"Not ELI5 material as this is far too philosophical before we can delve into the science part of it but all I can say is that it's an emergent property. \n\n > Really I'm just curious as to, theoretically, if there was an exact duplicate of myself, how would that work? \n\nBy saving the state of your brain, think of it like a savegame in your xbox. \n\nWhat's keeping us from doing it is that we have no way to reliably scan the exact state of the brain, no way to save it's representation somewhere like a hard drive. \n\nThis is very complex, we would have to model how every neurons are connected up to the molecular level.\n\nIf that was possible, then we could build a brain emulator model inside of a computer and upload the state of your brain (savegame) as a data structure and your conciousness could carry on \"living\" from its save point. \n\nSo, there you have it. By emergent property, I mean that conciousness cannot exist without the supporting hardware. It also implies there is no soul.",
" > Say technology allowed us to duplicate ourselves perfectly; would I experience what they experience after I die?\n\nThe experience of you and your copy would begin to diverge as soon as they became conscious, and you would no longer be identical.\n\nNow, if you were copied when you were unconscious and about to die, the copy would experience it as continuous existence - if it weren't told about the fact that it's a copy and you're dead, it might even believe it's you. But you'd still be dead.\n\nWe'll probably have to seriously change how we think about individual identity once such technology becomes available. Here's why our current idea of \"me\" wouldn't work in such a world.\n\nConsider the torture box problem: There's a box in a room, and you observe that everyone who walks in comes out eight hours later with a big pile of money (say, ten times what you'd normally earn if you kept your current job for the rest of your life). However, to get the money, you must agree to have a copy of yourself made, and let the copy get tortured horribly until it dies eight hours later. Would you take it?\n\nWould you take it if there was a random decision of whether it's you or the copy that gets tortured? Remember, the one that survives doesn't remember the torture and ends up richer than you ever could.\n\nWould you take the offer if two copies were made, and the decision over who gets tortured is still random? What about if you had a guarantee that a copy would be tortured and not you, but a copy would be made and killed every day?\n\nNow, if it were another person as opposed to your copy, it's (hopefully) clear to everyone that letting them get tortured is wrong. But, you'd be surprised how many people would condemn an untold number of people to torture and death just because those people are their copies.\n\nNow imagine waking up, still in that box, and watching \"you\" walk away happily with a wheelbarrow of cash.",
"Yes, it's a real mind bender that question! Been pondering it for a decade. \n\nI'm excited and motivated by the idea that there surely *is* a correct answer, a scientific explanation, waiting to be discovered. For the moment though, philosophy can help us define exactly what is is we are trying to discover. \n\nI think Consciousness is an evolved form of *information itself* identifying *information*. It is a biological \"identification engine\", if you like.\n\n(Consider this, that you are only conscious *when* you are identifying something. When you are not identifying that something, you are *unconscious* of that something. A tautological truth.) \n\n \n\nI think it's function, it's evolutionary reason for existing, is the identification of *qualities of things*, and what those qualities mean - it allows the animal *to value*. It allows an animal to immediately and lightening fast \"feel\" the meaning of information. Which is an excellent adaptation in the evolutionary race for awareness of one's environment (the *more aware* of the things around you, and your body, and what these mean to you and your survival, the better chance you have of surviving). In other words, the more you are aware of the **realness** of reality and the *realness* of being alive, the more you will value your life and strive to survive.\n\nYou say; \n\n > \"I doubt anyone has an answer other than \"you wouldn't experience what they experience\"\n\n(Side rant: This commonly held belief is something I role my eyes at, especially when it follows someone's speech on how there aren't right and wrong answers, that everythings, like, subjective and, like, a personal choice and you can't judge what I'm thinking...)(Apologies for that!)\n\n\n...actually, I unfashionably believe very strongly in the opposite, that qualities are functions of information signals/energy patterns, and that planting one into the brain of another will, *for the better part*, one day prove that what you see *is* what I see, (excluding non-essential aberrations such as colour blindness etc.) and what you mean by a word such as \"table\" CAN be what I mean - and even, for the most part, that what you feel listening to Beethoven has the same potential to be what I feel listening to Beethoven. \n\n\nAs for uploading one's consciousness into a computer - there is a sense in which the functionality and operation of one's consciousness is intimately tied to it's *brain and bodily sensors*. \n\nSome French philosopher imagined chopping off your nose, then ears, then hands etc. You would still be conscious, but of *less and less* until you were conscious of nothing. So you would have to upload info about your body too. But if the body receives no information, no data, then you are still unconscious. So you have to upload a fake version of reality too! Or reprogram the uploaded sensors to sense a very different type of world. I don't know if you would be happy, or even still yourself, in such a world! "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
|
12x04c | how to use the pirate bay | So what is all this stuff? Torrents? What's that? I see there's obviously advertisement fake 'buttons' on the page. I'm not quite sure what programs I need or how to use TPB without messing up my PC or doing something stupid. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/12x04c/eli5_how_to_use_the_pirate_bay/ | {
"a_id": [
"c6ytjsn"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"Use a torrent program that can handle magnets, such as uTorrent. Then, only click on the little magnets or things that say get magnet link."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
|
1jmkat | is there any chance of finding substances on other planets that are completely new colours that we haven't experienced before, and would our eyes be able to recognise it? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1jmkat/is_there_any_chance_of_finding_substances_on/ | {
"a_id": [
"cbg5fv3",
"cbg5yom"
],
"score": [
6,
2
],
"text": [
"There aren't going to be frequencies of light that are completely outside of our well understood physics, no. There are all sorts of colours we can't see, but that's not the same thing. Ultraviolet, radio waves, infrared, microwaves, etc: all 'colours' of light that we can't currently see.",
"Yes and no. All colours we can see are the colours of rainbow. Our eyes simply aren't capable to see what is under red or above violet. We can feel these colours, as ultraviolet burns our skin and infrared is fancy way of saying \"heat\". \n\nThere are colours called radiowaves and microwaves, as well as x-rays and gamma rays. We cannot see them because our eyes are a bit crap, but they can be used to see inside our bodies and transmit our phone calls. "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[]
] |
||
3v6ec0 | why do headphones, even high end studio monitors, have such wild frequency response curves? | Take the AKG K 812 (the most expensive studio monitor on _URL_0_ at $1500):
_URL_1_
Even this headphone is +/- 8db through the 20hz-20khz range. Shouldn't it be much flatter than this since there's no need to tune for preference (since it's a studio monitor) or room effects? Or is there some technical reason that this would be impossible? Other studio monitors show similarly high deviation from flat. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3v6ec0/eli5_why_do_headphones_even_high_end_studio/ | {
"a_id": [
"cxkpfol"
],
"score": [
3
],
"text": [
"Getting flat frequency response from headphones is next to impossible.\n\nOne issue is the fact that they use only a single driver. Monitors have at least one mid/low range driver and a separate tweeter. Those drivers are designed to handle specific portions of the frequency range, and a crossover inside the speakers is ensuring that only the right portion of the range goes to either component.\n\nWith a single \"unified\" driver meant to handle everything from the bottom of the range to the top, there's no way to optimize that driver for reproduction of a specific part of the range. It's a compromised design by nature and you'll never actually get flat response from a single driver meant to reproduce the entire spectrum of sound.\n\nSecondly, it's impossible to accurately measure the response of a headphone in the way you could with a speaker, because the way the cup fits over your ear and the internal shape of your ear canal affect response. Hence, the response curve for a given pair of headphones can actually change based on who is wearing them.\n\nIf you're planning on using headphones for mastering work, my first recommendation would be not to, unless you really have no choice. In addition to the issues with the response curve, headphones create other issues when trying to master due to the position of the driver relative to your ears."
]
} | [] | [
"headphones.com",
"http://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0362/2465/files/akg_k_812_frequency_response.png?4632"
] | [
[]
] |
|
3ns7xp | why the reddit random button isn't random at all? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3ns7xp/eli5_why_the_reddit_random_button_isnt_random_at/ | {
"a_id": [
"cvqt532"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"Well the biggest thing is that true randomness is incredibly hard to tell a computer how to do. A computer uses algorithms to do anything which are by definition not random. A lesser reason is because random doesn't mean what people think it means. In truly random events (like flipping a coin) certain patterns will emerge. For example flip a coin 100 times, you would expect to see something like almost alternating Heads and Tails, but in reality there is about a 1 in 3 chance that there will be a string a 7 heads or tails in 100 flips. Such a result seems counter-intuitive."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
||
9a06l2 | with advil as an example, if liquid-gels work considerably faster than the regular tablets, and they use the same amount of ibuprofen (200mg), why would anyone choose the much-slower acting tablets? why do they even sell them? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9a06l2/eli5_with_advil_as_an_example_if_liquidgels_work/ | {
"a_id": [
"e4rq4gg",
"e4rq51g",
"e4rqicw"
],
"score": [
3,
2,
2
],
"text": [
"Solid tablets are usually a LOT cheaper than gel capsules or liquid capsules. Many people may decide that any quicker release delivery mechanism isn't woth the cost.",
"Liquid gel capsules tend to be much larger compared to the same amount of medicine in a tablet. They can be more difficult to swallow.",
"Gelcaps are easier to swallow, but they're bigger because it's in liquid form rather than solid.\n\nFor the most part, it doesn't seem like there's much difference except marketing and placebo effect. You're probably paying more for the gelcaps than the tablets."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
[]
] |
||
6hod3f | is it legal and/or possible for the british monarch to be voted prime minister also? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6hod3f/eli5_is_it_legal_andor_possible_for_the_british/ | {
"a_id": [
"dizufuw",
"dizuuu5"
],
"score": [
2,
4
],
"text": [
"Prime Ministers aren't voted in by the people. The people vote for the House of Commons, and then the House choses one of its members to be the Prime Minister.\n\nTherefore, your question is \"can the monarch be elected to the House of Commons?\". The answer to that question is no.",
"We don't vote for Prime Ministers so it can not be done according to our unwritten constitution. We vote for an MP who represents us locally, these MPs back their party leader, the leader with the most backers will likely form government unless Parliament is hung, I can go further on this if you are interested. \n \nTo be the Prime Minister you have to be an MP or Lord, the Queen can't stand to be an MP, she isn't a commoner, nor can she sit in the House of Lords, as a Lord. There is a nice [fancy throne](_URL_0_) in the Lords which is hers. HM is above the Lords and thus can't sit as a Lord in the Lords. She cannot be appointed Prime Minister. She also can't vote in elections."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[
"https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals/df/ac/c7/dfacc7bac7ba5b4cfb3fb9817ae82edc.jpg"
]
] |
||
1r5aya | how there are more numbers between 0 and 1 than there are integers? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1r5aya/eli5_how_there_are_more_numbers_between_0_and_1/ | {
"a_id": [
"cdjqebs",
"cdjqj8o",
"cdjqke7",
"cdjr4dv",
"cdjrvri",
"cdjy5p4",
"cdjzuns",
"cdk33bv",
"cdkqw02"
],
"score": [
9,
2,
5,
12,
2,
2,
2,
10,
2
],
"text": [
"Actually, one infinity can be larger than another.\n\nFor example, there are more irrational numbers than there are rational numbers, even though there are an infinite amount of each.\n\nA general rule to determine the size of infinity is that if you can match the numbers together, they are the same size of infinity. For example, there are as many multiples of 2 as there are multiples of 20. I can prove this by matching 2 with 20, 4 with 40, 6 with 60, 8 with 80, etc etc. However, you can't match every number between 0 and 1 with an integer. Therefore, they are different sizes of infinity.\n\nTo prove that there are more numbers between 0 and 1 than there are integers, we could match every integer with 1/[integer]... There'd still be more numbers left between 0 and 1 other than those that had already been matched.",
"Say you want to put numbers in a line and count them and there's infinite number of them, the line goes on forever. But you still want to put them in a line and count them. Let's put all integers in a line. We will put 0 first. Then we can put 1 right after 0. We can count two numbers. Let's put -1 right after 1. Bam! We have three numbers. And we know that we have three numbers. Now let's spend eternity putting integers in a line, one after another, one after another. You can still count them. Before you put the next integer in the line, you already know how many you have. Now, let's count all the real numbers betwee 0 and 1. Here, let's start with a 0. 0 is the first number. We have one number. Now, let's put the next number in a line. We can put 0.1 and count it as a second number but we want to count ALL the numbers, so we should probably get as close to 0 as possible. Say 0.000001? Well, 0.0000000001 is still smaller. And 0.00.....00001 is yet smaller. That's already a lot of numbers we went through to get here and we still haven't reached a number closest to 0. So we can't really form the line and count these numbers.\nAnother way to think about this is the following. Your line of integers looks something like this: 0, 1, -1, 2, -2, 3, -3, ...... It's a line of single whole numbers. AND these numbers are limited. You can use each one only once. But when trying to reach a number closest to 0, you can add as many 0's as you want after your 0.0000.... and put a 1 at the end. Similarly, you can add as many 0's after your 0.0000... as you want and put a 2 at the end.\nThus, forming a line and counting all integers will take an eternity but you will have a count. \nForming a line of real numbers between 0 and 1 will take an eternity but you will never even reach your second number in the line. ",
"Infinity works in weird ways. First off, the integers are what we call countably infinite. What this means is that we can find a function that pairs up each integer with a single natural number (the natural numbers are the positive integers, sometimes including zero).\n\nReal numbers are what we call uncountably infinite. To show this you assume that they're countable. You can then show that you can construct a new real number that's you haven't considered, which implies that the reals are uncountable. \n\nFinally, there are two properties that we need. First, any non-empty interval of the real numbers has the same cardinality (same number of elements) as the entire set of real numbers. Second, subtracting a countably infinite set from an uncountably infinite set leaves you with an uncountable set. Thus the interval (0,1) has uncountably more elements than there are integers.\n\nSome for reading if you're interested: [Link](_URL_0_)",
"An easy way to think of this one is that for any integer, you can place a decimal point in front of it to produce a number between 0 and 1. This proves there are at least as many numbers between 0 and 1 as integers. By adding zeros between the decimal and first non-zero value, you see that for every integer, you can generate an infinite number of decimals. For example, 1 would generate .1, .01, .001, .0001, etc. Thus the infinite of 0-1 is larger than the infinite of all integers.",
"Some infinities are indeed bigger than other infinities. Everyone else explained it, so I'll just post two videos that can really help too:\n\n_URL_0_\n\n_URL_1_\n\nMinutePhysics and Numberphile are awesome ;)",
"Let's pretend that you're trying to completely fill up a bucket. You can do this with smaller and smaller balls, which lets you put in more and more (theoretically an infinite number). But if you think about how balls pack, there'll always be space between them. This is like integers. Each number is separated by a well defined space. The spaces get smaller as the balls get smaller, but they'll always be there.\n\nInstead, you pour water into the bucket and fill it to the top. Now there are no any remaining spaces, because water is everywhere. This is like real numbers, there's nothing preventing 1 real number from fitting between 2 real numbers, no matter how close they may be.\n\nPre-emptively: Ya, I know my math isn't very good, and what I said might not be mathematically relevant, but that's how this question makes sense for me, and it's ELI5 right? (also pretend that there are no such things as molecules or atoms, and that water is space-filling.",
"Let's say you tried to make a list, one number per line, with all the integers on one side, and all the real numbers between 0 and 1 on the other.\n\nIf you are clever, you can make a the list in such a way that even with an infinite number of integers, there are real numbers not on the list.\n\nThe technique is called [Cantor Diagonalization](_URL_0_)...the details are a little bit beyond ELI5, but check out the wikipedia article, and come back if you need something explained more specifically.",
"Many people have already posted simplified answers to this question, so I will provide one that is a bit more precise. Hopefully this'll complement the other answers.\n\nFirst of all, if we have two collections of numbers, **how can we compare their sizes**? If the collections contain only finitely many numbers, like {4, 8, 15, 16, 23, 42} and {22/7, 3.14, 223/71, 0, -1, 2.718}, we can of course just count the number of elements in each collection. For example, the two collections mentioned above have 6 elements each, so they are of equal size. But if we try to do the same for infinite collections, we are more or less out of luck. So what do we do?\n\nOne answer (in fact, the usual one), is to think of sizes of collections in a different way. For example, when you lay the table for a lot of guests, you might find yourself not counting the number of forks or knives, and instead just making sure that every plate gets exactly one fork and one knife. This is another way to determine whether two collections of things have equal size. Just **see if you can find a way to match up every object in the first collection with exactly one object in the second collection in such a way that no object in either the first or the second collection goes unmatched**. For instance, we can once more see that the collections from the previous paragraph are of equal size. Just match them up:\n\n|||||||\n|-----------:|-----------:|-----------:|-----------:|-----------:|-----------:|\n| 4 | 8 | 15 | 16 | 23 | 42 |\n| 22/7 | 3.14 | 223/71 | 0 | -1 | 2.718 |\n\nThis way of measuring sizes actually works for infinite sets as well! For example, we can immediately show that there are as many odd positive integers as there are even positive integers by just matching every odd positive integer with the next integer, like this:\n\n||||||||\n|-----------:|-----------:|-----------:|-----------:|-----------:|-----------:|-----------:|\n| 1 | 3 | 5 | 7 | 9 | 11 | ... |\n| 2 | 4 | 6 | 8 | 10 | 12 | ... |\n\nTo be absolutely certain that this works, my table must be made in such a way that if you give me an odd integer, I can give you the (one and only) corresponding even integer, and vice versa. And this is certainly true in this case.\n\nTo show that these infinite sizes are a bit strange, I will now show that **there are as many integers as there are positive integers**. Just pair them up like this:\n\n||||||||\n|---:|---:|---:|---:|---:|---:|---:|\n| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | ... |\n| 1 | -1 | 2 | -2 | 3 | -3 | ... |\n\nWe can for example see that the positive integer 219 pairs up with the integer 110, and that the integer -73 pairs up with the positive integer 146.\n\nNow, **let's get to the interesting bit**. How can we know that there are more decimal numbers (mathematicians call these real numbers) between 0 and 1 than there are integers? I will show that there are more decimal numbers between 0 and 1 than there are positive integers. Since the collection of integers is of the same size as the collection of positive integers, this is all I need to show.\n\nTo begin with, assume that the collection of decimal numbers between 0 and 1 and the collection of positive integers are of equal size. Then, we must be able to pair the two collections up. Imagine that we were to do this to obtain a list of all the decimal numbers between 0 and 1. It would look something like this:\n\n||||||||\n|---:|---:|---:|---:|---:|---:|---:|\n| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | ... |\n| 0.121031... | 0.892300... | 0.545545... | 0.618709... | 0.001115... | 0.333333... | ... |\n\nNote that any of the numbers in the second row may have infinitely many digits (1/3 = 0.333333... for example). If one of the numbers has an ending decimal expansion (like 1/4 = 0.25), rewrite it with trailing zeroes (like 1/4 = 0.25000...). The trick is to now create a new decimal number by picking the first decimal of the first number, the second decimal of the second number, the third decimal of the third number, and so on and to increment all these by one (except for 9, which \"wraps around\" and becomes 0). With our assumed list above, we would get something like this:\n\n| Original decimal number | Chosen digit | Incremented | New number |\n|--:|--:|--:|:--|\n|0.**1**21031... | 1 | 2 | 0.2 |\n|0.8**9**2300... | 9 | 0 | 0.20 |\n|0.54**5**545... | 5 | 6 | 0.206 |\n|0.618**7**09... | 7 | 8 | 0.2068 |\n|0.0011**1**5... | 1 | 2 | 0.20682 |\n|0.333333**3**... | 3 | 4 | 0.206824 |\n| ... | ... | ... | 0.206824... |\n\nThe new number that we form is then 0.206824..., and **this number is not on the list**! (Because its first decimal is different from the first decimal of the first number on the list, its second decimal is different from the second decimal of the second number on the list, and so on, so that the new number differs from any given number in the list in at least one decimal.) This method works no matter how we try to list the decimal number between 0 and 1. Just write the list down (you can't write the whole list down on actual paper of course, but you get what I mean), Then choose the decimals like above, increment them (with \"wrap around\" from 9 to 0), and create the new decimal number. So, we can conclude that **no matter how you try to pair the decimal number up with the integers, you will always be missing at least one decimal number among the pairs**. Therefore, there must be more decimal numbers between 0 and 1 than there are positive integers.\n\nI'm aware that my explanation is a bit long, and perhaps too difficult for ELI5, but it is my firm belief that a diversity in the responses will increase the chance that one answer is good, so I contributed with this one. If you are interested in the argument I used, it is called [Cantor's diagonal argument](_URL_0_), since the decimals that are chosen in the construction form a diagonal.\n\n**EDIT:** There are lots of rather confusing (and wrong) answers in this thread, and since the objective with my post was to provide a thorough complement to the other answers, I'll expand my response a bit more.\n\nFirst of all, there is a fair bit of maths lingo in this thread. Perhaps the words are obvious to everybody, but in case they aren't, here's a list of some of them:\n\n* **Natural number** - The same as positive integer. So 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and so on are the natural numbers. (Some consider 0 to be a natural number as well. Both choices are fine in the context of your question.)\n* **Rational number** - The same as fraction. Since every integer can be written as a fraction (like 7 = 7/1), this includes the integers. Examples: 0, 6/19, -12, -54/54.\n* **Real number** - The same as decimal number. (Well, \"deci\" in decimal stands for ten, so when we speak of a decimal number, it is also understood that when we write the numbers down, we write them in base ten.) Examples: 0, 1, -3.7, π (pi), √2, -7/6. (Many decimal numbers, like the last three of my examples, have decimal expansions that never end. That decimal expansions can be never-ending is perfectly fine, and is in fact crucial to your question.)\n\n* **Function**/**mapping** - If you have two collections of things, like {1, 2, 17, cat} and {0, Bob, -1}, a function (mapping is the same thing) between the two collections is a way to pair up each member of the first collection with exactly one member of the second collection. There is no requirement that every member in the second collection should belong to some pair. For instance, this defines a function between the two example collections:\n\n|||\n|-:|-:|\n|1|0|\n|2|0|\n|17|Bob|\n|cat|0|\n\n* **Injection**/**surjection**/**bijection** - These are all different things, and are additional constraints on functions. A function from one collection to another is an injection if each value in the second collection occurs in at most one pair. So my example function above is not an injection, since the pairs (1,0), (2,0), (cat, 0) all have the same object (0) from the second collection. A function is a surjection if no object in the second collection goes unmatched. The example function is not a surjection, since no pair contains -1 in its second position (there is no -1 in the second column). Finally, a function is a bijection if it is both an injection and a surjection. In other words, every object in the second collection must me paired up with exactly one object from the first. (No more and no less.) So in fact, two sets are of equal size exactly if there exists a bijection between them. The example function is not a bijection, since it is neither an injection or a surjection.\n\nMy list is not really LI5-suitable, but neither are some of the words themselves.\n\nNow, people below (/u/Scylla6, if I interpret him/her correctly) claim that there are more fractions than positive integers. This is simply not true. In fact, the collection of fractions is of equal size as the collection of positive integers. I'll show this like above. Remember that what I need to do is to pair every positive integer up with exactly one fraction in such a way that every fraction can be found in a pair. The idea is to just write the fractions down in a big array, and to then walk along the diagonals:\n\n|||||||\n|-:|-:|-:|-:|-:|-:|-:|\n|1/1|1/2|1/3|1/4|1/5|...|\n|2/1|2/2|2/3|2/4|2/5|...|\n|3/1|3/2|3/3|3/4|3/5|...|\n|4/1|4/2|4/3|4/4|4/5|...|\n|...|...|...|...|...|...|\n\nBy walking along the diagonals, I mean [this](_URL_1_). Doing so, we can pair up positive integers with fractions (leaving none out) like this:\n\n|||\n|-:|-:|\n|1|1/1|\n|2|2/1|\n|3|1/2|\n|4|1/3|\n|5|2/2|\n|6|3/1|\n|7|4/1|\n|...|...|\n\nTo be fair I have cheated a bit, since I only have positive fractions, but this can be fixed like with the integers above. Also 1/1=2/2 and so on, so I have only really showed that there can be no more fractions than positive integers. But all integers are also fractions, so there can't be more integers than fractions. Thus the sizes are equal.",
"DominatedConvergence does a lot of the work here--but the one thing that you have to mention here is that there are a lot more numbers between 0 and 1 than there are integers--numbers here means **rational** and **irrational** numbers. \n\nThere are not more *rational* numbers between 0 and 1 than there are integers. \n\nThe argument that OwariNeko and zip_00 mentions is actually exactly why the rational numbers between 0 and 1 is the same as the set of integers--because we can define that 1 to 1 relationship. But when you include irrational numbers, you are including numbers that cannot be fully written out as a decimal, such as Pi.\n\nIf you look at their way of matching up integers with numbers between 0 and 1, ask yourself, what would be the integer to represent Pi - 3? Pi - 3 is certainly between 0 and 1--but we have no integer to match to it."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
[
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cardinality_of_the_continuum"
],
[],
[
"http://youtu.be/A-QoutHCu4o",
"http://youtu.be/elvOZm0d4H0"
],
[],
[
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cantor's_diagonal_argument"
],
[
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cantor%27s_diagonal_argument",
"http://sites.psu.edu/musingsofamathnerd/files/2012/10/Cantor-Diagonal-Proof.png"
],
[]
] |
||
7o8az0 | why do creole languages always use phonetic spelling? | This is a pattern I've noticed with every single creole I've heard of. Is there something in the creole development process that leads to purely phonetic spelling? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7o8az0/eli5_why_do_creole_languages_always_use_phonetic/ | {
"a_id": [
"ds7m3uy",
"ds7n85h",
"ds8p461"
],
"score": [
7,
31,
2
],
"text": [
"Creoles start out as hybrid languages with no official vocabulary or grammar, which lends itself to simplification, especially of words with odd pronunciations.\n\nAlso, creoles usually started with the largely uneducated working class in locations with two prevalent languages. The upper classes world learn both languages and knowing both would be an entry barrier into high society. The lower classes would make due with a combination of both, and often having reduced literacy, would resort to the simplest phonetic spellings. ",
"They use phonetic spelling because there isn't time for irregularities to \narise. If you look at the complexities in English spelling, for example, \nmost of them are either remnants of older English (e.g. \"knight\" was originally \npronounced as it was spelt) or copied from other languages. Tracing back far \nenough, almost all irregularities arise this way (though the occasional mistake \nis present). They are retained due to the influence of tradition and sense of \nsocial status they provided to the writing \"elite\" in times of lower literacy.\n\n\nIn a creole, by contrast, these forces are not generally present. Given that \nmost creoles emerged only in the past few centuries, pronounciation has not \nshifted sufficiently to override \"phonetic spelling\". Compounding this is the \nfact that any such shifts would largely have been smoothed over- any \"social \nstatus\" to be sourced from writing is generally expressed through writing in \nthe parent language(s) of the creole.",
"French is spelled phonetically with very few exceptions. So a French based dialect would usually follow the same rules. What you see is what you pronounce, when reading out loud.\n\nThere are regional variations about the terminal e on many words, but in the south of France where I lived, those 'e' endings were pronounced as a final eh sound,\n\nSo 'une' (one) sounds like uneh, or \"baguette\" sounds like baguetteh."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
[]
] |
|
cmhcf1 | why do you need to put liquids in a plastic bag in airport security? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/cmhcf1/eli5_why_do_you_need_to_put_liquids_in_a_plastic/ | {
"a_id": [
"ew29nvz"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"I believe the plastic bag was to lumit the total amount off liquid. This prevented a terrorist from boarding a plane with hundreds of 4 ounce bottles which could be poured together on the plane. I suspect there was a precise figure but I don't know it but clearly a quart size plastic bag holding 4 oz liquid containers prevents a individual from getting a quart of liquid on the plane."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
||
1zjr4u | why chocolates tastes sweeter when they are at room temperature as compared to when they are frozen? | Choclates are very sweet if they are at or below room temperature..
what's the funda | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1zjr4u/eli5_why_chocolates_tastes_sweeter_when_they_are/ | {
"a_id": [
"cfu8qpl"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"Some flavors are stronger at different temperatures. Sweetness is one of them. The warmer something sweet is, the more our taste buds pick up on that part of the flavor. Bitterness is another; old coffee at room temperature tastes quite bitter, but when chilled/iced, that part of the taste is muffled.\n\n_URL_0_\n\n_URL_1_"
]
} | [] | [] | [
[
"http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/wordofmouth/2013/sep/17/serving-temperature-affects-taste-food",
"http://www.livescience.com/19288-room-temperature-coffee-taste.html"
]
] |
|
3klq27 | why people are so anti farmed fish, yet they have no problem with farmed animals? | It seems like they both can be terrible, and its not like you see petitions to let cows and chickens roam free like you do with bans on farmed fisheries | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3klq27/eli5_why_people_are_so_anti_farmed_fish_yet_they/ | {
"a_id": [
"cuyhgh2"
],
"score": [
11
],
"text": [
"The problem is that farmed fish are perceived by some as doing a massively good job of polluting their environment while consuming a tremendous amount of resources (plus some people don't like 'farmed anything').\n\nThe first is because the water where the fish are raised immerses them in a highly mobile environment. Cow poop doesn't blow around, it falls on a field and fertilizes the next generation of grass. But fish poop, and food that the fish don't eat, moves around a whole lot in its body of water, particularly if it's in a bay of a big sea or ocean.\n\nAnd fish food isn't grass. It's animal proteins because most raised fish are actually carnivores rather than herbivores like most land-based livestock. So you either grow those animal proteins by rearing shrimp - which is pretty crazy from a cost perspective - or you go out and pillage the oceans to harvest them - which might deplete the lower food chain in the ocean. In either case, it takes a lot of resources to raise most farmed fish to a good size.\n\nOther reasons include you have to pump them full of drugs to keep that tight swarm of identical life from getting a species-specific parasite or disease, so people feel they're not getting a 'natural' product when they buy a farmed fish, and fisherman hate when they escape and intermingle with local wild stock and pollute the gene pool."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
|
8malfq | how do buildings under construction not get all warped and structurally unsound during heavy rain? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8malfq/eli5_how_do_buildings_under_construction_not_get/ | {
"a_id": [
"dzm94n6",
"dzmcge5",
"dzmefk7",
"dzmgj1c"
],
"score": [
24,
27,
5,
13
],
"text": [
"Sensitive parts of construction are done quickly and with planning around weather. A house for example could be easily framed, wrapped, and have a roof on it in under a week. The time consuming part of home construction is getting approvals and the interior work done.",
"As a carpenter, wood is actually much studier than you'd think. Obviously you don't want to expose the raw materials to the elements for a long period of time (over a week, give or take) but wood is fairly resistant. As for the heavy winds, we use \"wall braces\" to keep the walls in place. Additionally, walls are designed to support each other. Ideally you would plan to have at least two walls perpendicular to each other by the end of the day. As the final step,you have plywood which \"ties\" the wall together. It is next to inmpossible to knock over a wall that has been properly built and sheathed (had plywood put on) The main components of a house you would really want to shelter is the insulation (not just the actual \"insulation\" but anything inside the walls, including drywall\" but by this point you would likely have roof rafters up and some plywood to protect the inside.",
"I did some work in a condo building under construction, and it rained heavily for a week before the roof was finished. Nothing warped, but there was a lot of interior flooding, and the chimney stack (which gets drywalled from the inside for fire code) had to be rebuilt, and lots had to be repaired from water damage and mould.",
"The rest of these guys are clueless. Wood framing is built with what is called \"green\" wood. That means that it has a very high moisture content, sometimes it is sopping wet. Go to a lumber yard their framing lumber is sitting outside. What causes most warping is differential drying, wood shrinks when it dries if one side is exposed to the air and dries while the other is against a surface and not nailed down it will shrink at different rates and bow, twist and warp. Plywood is so filled with glue that it does not absorb much water.\n\nWhen a framed building is in place most pieces of wood are nailed in place and are subject to similar amounts of drying on all sides of the lumber."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
||
10cfqi | what does an investment banker do? | I am not in any way trying to make points about Wall Street, I'm just interested in what investment banking is and how things actually work. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/10cfqi/eli5_what_does_an_investment_banker_do/ | {
"a_id": [
"c6cci1b",
"c6cd702",
"c6cfah0",
"c6cfsdt"
],
"score": [
27,
13,
13,
2
],
"text": [
"If you want to sell your house, you may decide to hire a mortgage broker to help you figure out how much your house is worth on the market and then show your house to potential buyers. If you want to buy a house, you may decide to hire a mortgage broker to show you different houses based on what you want and can afford. Instead of houses, an investment banker helps *companies* buy or get a acquired by other companies.\n\nMost investment bankers spend 80-120 hours a week staring at Excel to model out what the financials of the combined company would look like (that's seriously the industry standard hours; most people quit within a year or two). At the highest levels, however, it's basically a sales job. The managing director knows a lot of people in his specific industry, what companies are worth in that industry based on financial metrics he's memorized over the years, and basically helps arrange buyers and sellers. If the deal goes through, the banker gets a small cut of the transaction.",
"I'm going to come at this from the angle of how banks make money. Hopefully this will be easy enough to understand but probably falls short of ELI5 gold standard. If anything needs further simplification/clarification, please say and I'll have a go.\n\nA regular bank earns interest income, the difference between the interest charged on loans and paid on deposits. \n\nInvestment banks do not earn interest income other than in the course of carrying out their normal activities for which they earn fee income and trading income.\n\nFee income arises from advisory 'corporate finance' work, which as discussed on this thread involves advising companies seeking finance (issuing shares or debt) or involved in merger and acquisition activity. Some companies want to merge with or acquire others, some do not wish to be acquired. Pricing deals, due diligence (getting evidence for pricing assumptions from the company) and keeping deals moving earns bankers a fee. \n\nFees are also earned through structured deals, where a bank sets up a suite of legal entities and financial products to provide investors with a desired risk exposure (eg UK large company equity risk) in a tax and regulatory efficient manner (less tax is paid and less info needs to be disclosed to regulators). \n\nWhen issuing equity or debt, a company might ask a bank to underwrite the issue, along side marketing the securities issued to investors. This means the bank will agree to buy all securities not successfully sold to investors, guaranteeing the company the desired finance. This also earns fees for the IB, but relies to an extent to the bank's presence in the 'secondary market'.\n\nThe secondary market is where anything not being sold for the first time is traded. Bonds, shares (stocks), commodities, derivatives and more are exchanged. Here, IBs earn trading income through both 'flow' and 'propriety' trading. \n\nFlow is essentially a volume driven business, where banks sit in between lots of individual buyers and sellers, who sell to the bank slightly lower than their buying counterparts buy at. Risk is dependent on the market you're in the middle of. Sometimes referred to as market making but I believe this actually has a stricter definition. Propriety trading can be thought of as small autonomous funds in the bank that seek to achieve a return on some money provided by the bank's central management.\n\nIf it wasn't clear earlier, a bank that has a strong presence in the secondary market can earn more fees helping companies with primary issuances because of their established network of buyers and sellers. Trading can be risky and has a very high cost (traders compensation and back office accounting/risk functions), but can generate huge profits and losses.\n\nSome banks just do corporate finance, some just trade, big ones tend to do both.\n\nWondering how this seemingly innocuous activity managed to screw up the entire world financial system? That's another story, but it's important to note that in the course of trading, a bank can transform the risk and rewards of financial securities through a variety of processes, and can create risk from nowhere through the use of derivatives. Both of these things are not inherently bad, and can be used to distribute risks to people who want and can afford them. \n\nHowever, these processes became dangerous when the quality of what entered them (ostensibly mortgage bonds) deteriorated and some market participants outsmarted others through particular complex applications of said processes. There's a whole lot more to the financial crisis but this is, in basic terms, how IBs fit in to the story. ",
"There are some pretty good answers here, but they may be a little over a five-year-old's head. \n\nTo break it down a little more basically: \n\n1) They help companies that want to buy other companies figure out how much they should pay (mergers and acquisitions) \n\n2) They help big companies/rich people/rich institutions with extra money figure out new ways to invest it, in order for them to make more money or pay less in taxes (structured finance)\n\n3) they help companies/governments who need to borrow money figure out new ways to do that (structured finance) \n\n4) They help privates companies that want to be public companies list their stock for sale for the first time (underwriting an initial public offering)\n\n5) They help clients sell stock/bonds/other types of investments --- and in order to do that they do a little trading in these investments for themselves. (\"market making\" and proprietary trading) \n\nOn an ELI**3** level, if money is water than investment bankers are plumbers, running around turning some taps off and other ones on in order to help get the money where people want it to go. (This analogy falls apart in that plumbers don't go around with a bucket collecting drips from every tap in order to get paid, whereas investment banks certainly do take their cut at every stage of the transaction.) ",
"In a nutshell, you're the broker between people with money and people with ideas worth that money. Little if anything to do with anything wall street. "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
|
awxdmx | why do authors go through book publishers to sell their content? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/awxdmx/eli5_why_do_authors_go_through_book_publishers_to/ | {
"a_id": [
"ehpspwi",
"ehpwfs0"
],
"score": [
5,
2
],
"text": [
"Traditionally, it was very very difficult for an author to publish their book and get it sold in stores. The logistics involved in getting a printer, getting stores to buy that book, having that book shipped to stores, having the book advertised, were so complicated that it just made sense for authors to get through traditional book publishers. The benefits of having the business end of making a book handled by someone else mean that the author can focus on the creative end instead. \n\nNow, modern technology does make it easier for authors to self-publish their books, but for many, the benefits of going through a publisher and not having to do that extra work seems work it. ",
"Because a single author does not have the resources necessary to publish a book. If you wrote a book right now, would you have the resources to be able to publish and sell it on a scale of most mass market books? Probably not. "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[]
] |
||
3247n5 | how do tv ratings work in the uk? | With set top boxes such as "Sky" using on demand and recording facilities, how are ratings calculated in the UK? What if people record a show but never watch it, would that be counted? What if you record a show whilst watching it live, then delete the recording later, is that counted as 2 ratings? Thanks. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3247n5/eli5_how_do_tv_ratings_work_in_the_uk/ | {
"a_id": [
"cq7q5ml"
],
"score": [
4
],
"text": [
"Television ratings in the UK are measured by an organisation called BARB. They have a [page with very informative videos explaining how they get their figures](_URL_0_), but to answer your specific questions:\n\n > What if people record a show but never watch it, would that be counted?\n\nNo. A recorded programme that is not watched within 28 days will never be counted.\n\n > What if you record a show whilst watching it live, then delete the recording later, is that counted as 2 ratings?\n\nNo. Recording the programme does not count as watching it. It has to be viewed either live, or within four weeks of first broadcast, for it to get counted by BARB."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[
"http://www.barb.co.uk/resources/barb-facts/how-we-do-what-we-do"
]
] |
|
m4g1p | the eurozone crisis. whats going on? | I understand what went down in the US economy, with all the mortgage backed securities and what not, but I haven't been able to find any good news articles on the Eurozone crisis. Can some one explain it to me? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/m4g1p/eli5_the_eurozone_crisis_whats_going_on/ | {
"a_id": [
"c2y0ev3",
"c2y1052",
"c2y217z",
"c2y3vwv",
"c2y0ev3",
"c2y1052",
"c2y217z",
"c2y3vwv"
],
"score": [
15,
2,
2,
2,
15,
2,
2,
2
],
"text": [
"Greece accumulated a shit load of debt. They can't cover that debt. They need the rest of the eurozone to bail them out. Other countries(Germany) don't want to, but they share the same currency as Greece, so Greece failing would also hurt them. \n\n",
"Europe (more specifically the EU minus the UK) shares a currency which means that they share a central bank, which means that undividual countries can't print money to pay back debt.\n\nMany countries in europe have generous social welfare programs, which require large sums of money to operate. Some countries with weaker economies borrowed money to pay for these programs. Some of those countries have reached a point where it's apparent they will not be able to pay back their debts. They can't just print money due to the aforementioned currency union, so the world is waiting to see how this pans out.\n\nThe governments are sort of stuck between a rock and a hard place - it's difficult for them to cut social programs/spending because the people are accustomed to the life they've been leading. Taking it away would be political suicide. But at the same time, it's becoming difficult for these countries to borrow, so the clock is ticking. Any resolution will be painful.",
"[Someone already did](_URL_0_)",
"Bloated entitlement-based country borrows fantastically more than it should with no way of paying it back. \n\nFast forward: the absolutely predictable happens. Borrowed too much, not enough people working, citizens don't want benefits cut, so voila! Debt \"crisis.\"",
"Greece accumulated a shit load of debt. They can't cover that debt. They need the rest of the eurozone to bail them out. Other countries(Germany) don't want to, but they share the same currency as Greece, so Greece failing would also hurt them. \n\n",
"Europe (more specifically the EU minus the UK) shares a currency which means that they share a central bank, which means that undividual countries can't print money to pay back debt.\n\nMany countries in europe have generous social welfare programs, which require large sums of money to operate. Some countries with weaker economies borrowed money to pay for these programs. Some of those countries have reached a point where it's apparent they will not be able to pay back their debts. They can't just print money due to the aforementioned currency union, so the world is waiting to see how this pans out.\n\nThe governments are sort of stuck between a rock and a hard place - it's difficult for them to cut social programs/spending because the people are accustomed to the life they've been leading. Taking it away would be political suicide. But at the same time, it's becoming difficult for these countries to borrow, so the clock is ticking. Any resolution will be painful.",
"[Someone already did](_URL_0_)",
"Bloated entitlement-based country borrows fantastically more than it should with no way of paying it back. \n\nFast forward: the absolutely predictable happens. Borrowed too much, not enough people working, citizens don't want benefits cut, so voila! Debt \"crisis.\""
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
[
"http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2011/10/31/141802499/is-europes-bailout-a-gigantic-con-game?sc=tw"
],
[],
[],
[],
[
"http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2011/10/31/141802499/is-europes-bailout-a-gigantic-con-game?sc=tw"
],
[]
] |
|
ago8lo | why does our skin form little triangular patterns? and why is this pattern most pronounced on the back of our hands? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/ago8lo/eli5_why_does_our_skin_form_little_triangular/ | {
"a_id": [
"ee89isc",
"ee8bsx0",
"ee8e0vm"
],
"score": [
139,
11,
3628
],
"text": [
"For the folks who don't know what the OP is referring to: _URL_0_ admittedly I have eczema so it could be more pronounced on my hands.",
"it doesn't.\nit forms mostly straight-line wrinkles.\non places of your body which move in more complicated ways than just a simple back and forth joint, these wrinkles will be going in more than one direction. (which is why they are so readily visible on your hand, notice how complicated and multidirectional the movements of your fingers can be, then notice these triangles are most pronounced on your knuckles, because of how the skin is being wrinkled from all directions there, basically).\n\nand then, as we know, any three lines (wrinkles) that are not parallel, will intersect and form a triangle if they're close enough, or long enough.\n\nand then your brain notices those triangles, because it's the most elementary shape contained in all those wrinkles.\n\nhowever, if you examine them closely, you'll find out there's actually many other shapes, and you thinking that most of them is triangles is just because you haven't examined them that well.",
"Your skin needs to be stretchy in order to accommodate all of the different types of movement that humans do. If you think about it, when you change the shape of your hand (by making a fist, for example), you are changing the surface area the skin needs to cover. To avoid splitting the skin open when this happens, we need to have a way to make the area of skin adjust itself to the area that is needed.\n\nOne way to do this is to \"store\" the extra area in wrinkles and folds when it is not needed, like when you pull your fingers back towards your wrist. Then when you need that area (like making a fist) the folds flatten themselves out to help the skin expand and stretch.\n\nAs to why we see triangles (or other shapes), the answer is because we need the skin on our hands to be able to stretch in all directions at once. If you look at your inner elbow, you'll see straight lines instead, because the skin only really needs to stretch in one direction.\n\nSource: did my PhD on wrinkling processes."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[
"https://imgur.com/gallery/N9FggPL"
],
[],
[]
] |
||
1kk0vm | why is lemon juice made with artificial flavor and dishwashing liquid made with real lemons? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1kk0vm/eli5_why_is_lemon_juice_made_with_artificial/ | {
"a_id": [
"cbpqcng",
"cbprn0w"
],
"score": [
8,
55
],
"text": [
"Lemon juice is made of lemon juice. Lemonade is made of lemon juice, water, and sugar. Cheap lemonade is made of water, citric acid, and corn syrup. Some dishwashing liquid uses lemon oil to add fragrance to the soap.\rIf you want lemonade made with real lemons, spend more money on it. Dishwashing liquid can also be made with artificial ingredients, and it is likely less expensive than the stuff made with real lemons. You get what you pay for.",
"Mostly, you are just getting confused by marketing.\n\nJuice and soap companies are businesses. They are out to make something for the lowest cost which they can sell for the most money. Mostly, the lowest cost is going to be artificial ingredients whipped up in a lab. \n\nLemon juice is a food product, and subject to certain laws which require ingredients to be listed. Most customers would rather see \"artificial flavor\" than \"di-hydrogenase II flourocarbonhexagen\" so thats what gets put on the bottle. Even if it is 99% pure real lemon juice, if there is the tiniest bit of artificial flavor in there, they still have to list it.\n\nSoap is not a food product and is subject to much less strict laws about listing ingredients. It basically does not have to list anything. When it slaps \"made with real lemons\" on the bottle in huge letters, this really means they added like 2 drops in (the minimum legally required) so that they could make that claim and trick you into thinking it is very high quality.\n\n99% real lemon juice still has to be labled as containing 'artifical flavors'\n\n0.001% real lemon soap can be labeled as \"MADE WITH REAL LEMONS!\" \n\nFluff words for cash..."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[]
] |
||
534vsv | how does the olympic committee determine who medically qualifies as a paralympian? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/534vsv/eli5_how_does_the_olympic_committee_determine_who/ | {
"a_id": [
"d7q0hwi",
"d7q140m"
],
"score": [
2,
2
],
"text": [
"In Australia an athlete who wishes to compete in Para-sport must have an eligible impairment that leads to a permanent activity limitation.\n\nPhysical Impairment. \nTypes of physical impairments for Paralympic sport are limb loss or limb deficiency, muscle weakness, hypertonia, ataxia, athetosis, joint restrictions, short stature or leg length difference.\n\nVision Impairment\n\nIntellectual Impairment\nEach sport specific classification system details the impairment types within their sport. Athletes are required to provide medical documentation for classification that details their impairment type and level of impairment. There are specific minimal impairment criteria that athletes must meet in order to be eligible for the sport. This is determined through a classification assessment.\n\nHere is a [video](_URL_0_) if you want to learn more.\n",
"Wheelchair basketball has a great classification system (_URL_0_). Players are given a score 1 (highest disability) - 5 (lowest). For example, someone with back and forward trunk movement, but no side movement is a 3. This is measured through physical examinations and observation. Players on the floor can only add up to a certain number of points. (Ex. 12 points total for 5 players) "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[
"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OwB0rNiEd0I"
],
[
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wheelchair_basketball_classification"
]
] |
||
9sexyy | why do some speakers have an very broad frequency response? | Some loudspeakers have a response of 25 to like 25.000 or higher. But why, as humans are not able to hear anything above 20.000. Especially considering the older you get the lower this maximum frequency becomes. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9sexyy/eli5_why_do_some_speakers_have_an_very_broad/ | {
"a_id": [
"e8o8drq",
"e8obrpi"
],
"score": [
3,
6
],
"text": [
"Basically if you make a tweeter that's accurate to near 20khz, it will probably be accurate a bit above that as well. Even if they only designed it with 20k in mind, if the specs end up better of course they'll quote them as such, it's good marketing.",
"Sound engineer here. \n\nFrequency response reaching beneath our hearing range might be beneficial mainly because of two reasons\n\n1. Frequency response isn’t a stiff limitation. E.g. 25 - 25000 Hz means the speaker is capable of reproducing the sound in that range within a given margin (usually 3 dBs). It means, for example, it will reproduce 27000 Hz (27 kHz) but it will be 4.5 dB quieter (softer) than it should be compared to the level of sounds in the 25 - 25000 Hz range. So the extended frequency response usually mean better (more ‘flat’) response in the most important range. \n\n2. Reproduction of fast transients - very ‘quick’, snappy sounds like a snare drum or acoustic guitar strum. Even though we can’t really hear a sound of 25 kHz, it is possible to hear a subtle difference in the attack of this kind of sounds. It means that the speaker is able to act “quicker” than a speaker going up to only 20 kHz. This is also the reason why we record sound in high sample frequencies (like 192 kHz). It’s another topic, but it lets us record frequencies up to 96 kHz - while it’s waaaay above hearing range, the subtle difference is there. "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[]
] |
|
33thk0 | why do western movies picture robots and cyborgs like evil beings, but japan portraits them as the good guys? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/33thk0/eli5_why_do_western_movies_picture_robots_and/ | {
"a_id": [
"cqo8xny",
"cqo9er4",
"cqoaefa",
"cqob8yv",
"cqofonn"
],
"score": [
8,
31,
4,
48,
2
],
"text": [
"Depends on what you're watching, really. Johnny-V, R2-D2, Optimus Prime, Robocop, The Vision, Baymax, and Cyborg are all heroes embraced by Western audiences. And Japan's cyberpunk scene has lovingly portrayed all the ways robots could look cool killing us, with an almost fetishistic attention to detail. \n\nBut there seems to more acceptance of everyday robots in Japan, at least as far as the news filters out here in America. I think part of that is due to Japan's efforts to modernize. Begun long before World War II...\n\nWe know that tragedy. \n\nThere was much to rebuild. And new technologies to explore. \n\nAnd during that time, many artists looked towards the future. For example, while Walt Disney dug into the past in shaping America's culture, his Japanese counterpart, Osamu Tezuka, wrote stories about a heroic little robot boy who was abandoned by his creator for the crime of looking too much like his dead flesh and blood son. \n\nBack then, audiences were less fractured than they are now. Cultures were more homogenous...\n\nIt's possible to trace direct influences, and then watch as the arts influence later generations of scientists.\n\nOf course, I'm criminally oversimplifying all of this. And I really hope someone gives you a more in-depth answer. This is just all I know, off the top of my head...",
"The way this has been explained to me, and keep in mind I'm no expert on Japanese culture, I'm just parroting what others have told me, is this is partially a product of Shintoism.\n\nShintoism is similar to the old polytheistic religions of Rome and Greece in that everything has some kind of protective spirit. I believe the Japanese word for spirits in general is \"[神\\(kami\\)](_URL_0_)\", and for our purposes the equivalent words in Latin and Greek are respectively \"[genius](_URL_6_)\" and \"[δαίμων\\(daimon\\)](_URL_4_)\".\n\nI don't know how seriously the Japanese hold Shintoism, but at least many are familiar with it. My understanding is the idea of everything having some form of spirit makes it easy to anthropomorphize objects that *appear* to have autonomy, even if they're just simple robots. It's like the spirit is acting through the robot.\n\n[I have no idea if this article is accurate, if its contents reflect what I'm saying, or if it's purely anecdotal, but here's an article about Japanese people doting on their AIBOs. It at least seems to suggest what I'm saying among other things.](_URL_1_)\n\nIn the West this idea isn't as prevalent. Instead we tend to see robots as methods of industry or convenience, not autonomous beings, and a lot of our science fiction has explored the potential ethical problems of this attitude. Stories where robots are the *antagonists* often make a point of acknowledging there's more than one side to the conflict, that mankind isn't without fault either. I feel compelled to mention these stories are also often allegories for imperialism and slavery, but considering Japan's history in WWII that's a can of worms I don't want to open. I leave that to your own research and speculation.\n\nAn interesting side note is we actually get the word, \"[robot](_URL_3_)\", from a Czech word meaning \"feudal labor\", \"[robota](_URL_5_)\". The source is a play called [Rossum's Universal Robots](_URL_2_.).\n\nIf I'm not spouting shit I'm sure this is just a small part of the difference here, so take everything I'm saying with a grain of salt. It's at least an interesting idea.\n",
"Because, when the Japanese introduce their evil robot overlords, they're gonna need the people to be accepting of them.\n\nIt's the first step to complete robot takeover of earth.",
"This isn't correct at all. Western depictions of cyborgs/robot are often positive (Chappie, WallE, Short Circuit), and depictions in Japanese media are often negative (Bubblegum Crisis is the only one I can think of now because it's been a while since I watched anime). You are seeing a correlation where one does not exist.",
"I am not sure about Japan, but the West is going to be heavily influenced by Frankenstein and to a lesser extent Golem myths... Artificial life, while not inherently evil, has infinite opportunity to go wrong. If you don't have these myths, then it's not an immediate assumption."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[
"http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E7%A5%9E#Japanese",
"http://www.odditycentral.com/news/aibo-robot-dogs-are-so-loved-in-japan-that-owners-hold-funeral-services-for-them-when-they-break-down.html",
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R.U.R",
"http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/robot#English",
"http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%CE%B4%CE%B1%CE%AF%CE%BC%CF%89%CE%BD#Ancient_Greek",
"http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/robota#Czech",
"http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/genius#Latin"
],
[],
[],
[]
] |
||
1np8co | why is it that when we wake up, we don't remember anything and our body is basically in "autopilot"? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1np8co/eli5_why_is_it_that_when_we_wake_up_we_dont/ | {
"a_id": [
"cckp0ai"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"I assume you mean in the middle of the night, like to go to the bathroom, so that's the question I'll try to answer.\n\nWe have a certain cycle of stages of sleep. If you take a short nap, known as a power-nap, you will feel refreshed because your mind went through the entire first cycle of sleep. The cycle that starts after a couple hours of being asleep lasts much longer than the first cycles, and causes the most shutdown. This means that, when you wake up in that cycle, you're not going to be able to have the same functions or calculations. Ever miss the bowl when peeing in the middle of the night? Then, because your brain isn't functioning much, it doesn't find a need to remember what's happened. So you may not remember that mom asked you to take out the trash, because she told you in the middle of your cycle. This is why scientists suggest 8 hours of sleep per night; the cycles just about add up to 8 hours to fully reboot your brain function.\n\nI'm not an expert though, just what I've learned in Human Biology. Feel free to downvote if an expert comes along."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
||
1sea10 | if there are infinite numbers between 0 and 1, how can even 1 second pass? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1sea10/eli5_if_there_are_infinite_numbers_between_0_and/ | {
"a_id": [
"cdwozib",
"cdwqogo"
],
"score": [
4,
13
],
"text": [
"the infinite numbers between 0 and 1 are very small fractions, so it would be infinitesimally small fractions of a second. like a pie, you can cut it into a million small slices, yet when you put them all together, you get just one pie.",
"I highly recommend Numberphile's [video on Zeno's Paradox](_URL_0_). \n\nWhile the mathematics of the problem is well understood, it's still debated whether it has been completely resolved from a philosophical perspective. "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[
"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u7Z9UnWOJNY"
]
] |
||
114zdu | why can prize competitions (like mcdonalds monopoly) say "no purchase necessary" when they clearly require you to purchase something? | I see this all the time, and it always confuses me. There will be some competition where your box of Dingleberry™^©® Cereal has a 1/1,000,000 chance to contain $100. That clearly requires you to make a purchase in order for you to have a chance at winning, but if you look at the box it will invariably say "No Purchase Necessary". This seems really misleading/confusing.
ELI5? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/114zdu/eli5_why_can_prize_competitions_like_mcdonalds/ | {
"a_id": [
"c6jcycr",
"c6jd2g0",
"c6jf343",
"c6jfppb",
"c6jg978",
"c6jgf9c",
"c6jglmf",
"c6jh2l9",
"c6jh8cy"
],
"score": [
193,
50,
8,
4,
7,
2,
3,
2,
2
],
"text": [
"If you read further into the fine print on most of these, you can send a self addressed stamped envelope to them and they will send you a game piece back.",
"Part of the FCC and federal rules \"lotteries\" are not allowed to be broadcast. By adding the \"No purchase necessary\" its not a lottery. ",
"I've always wondered this but noticed recently that companies changed it to 'purchase necessary' or just 'purchase not necessary in NI only'. (I'm British)",
"they are required to give you a free game piece ticket thingy. read the find print. usually it requires sending a self addressed, stamped envelope to one of their offices somewhere. you can send in for a certain number per day per member of household, if the contest is legal in your state.\n\nso no, technically you don't have to purchase anything, but it's easier to buy a drink and fries than it is to send a bunch of single requests for game tickets.",
"The pieces were once loose and tossed into the bag when you bought something, but still said no purchase necessary. As a bored pizza delivery guy in the late 80s, I would drive through McDonald's every shift, and when they took my order, I'd say \"No order, just getting game pieces!\" and the nicer employees would hand me 5 or 6 of them at the window for free and I'd drive off happy. After a few weeks, they started giving me only one. Then they said I couldn't do this at the drive-thru, I had to come inside to the counter -- they tried to find as many BS obstacles as they could to keep me from doing what the rules said I could do, but I was determined. Wasn't too many years later that they started attaching them to cups and the like. \n\nTL;DR - I made them start doing that.",
"It's legal jargon kinda. It's to keep it from legally being considered gambling. You pay for the food/drink and get the tickets for free. The self-addressed stamped envelope will get you a free game piece. Once again this is necessary for them to keep government people from considering it gambling for McChickens.\n\nIf you think about it, the price of the Big Mac was the same as it was last month. So the tickets really are free.\n\nEdit: As I was reading this I pulled a game piece of my Mickey D's soda and won a medium box of fries! What timing! lol",
"From the McDonalds Monopoly rules:\n\n > Without Purchase (alternate method of entry \"AMOE\"): A Participant can request a Game Piece without buying a food item at a participating McDonald's restaurant by mailing a legibly handwritten, self-addressed, stamped envelope (\"SASE\") with sufficient postage and a return address, including first and last name, street address, city, state, and ZIP or postal code to: 2012 MONOPOLY Game at McDonald's Game Piece Request, P.O. Box 49121, Strongsville, OH 44149-0121. DO NOT SEND ANY WINNING GAME STAMPS, COMMENTS OR QUESTIONS TO THIS ADDRESS. Two (2) Game Pieces (a total of four (4) Game Stamps) will be mailed in response to each mail-in request that complies with the requirements of these Official Rules, while supplies last. Mail-in requests, including both outer envelope and SASE, must be handwritten. Outer envelope must include a return address in the upper left hand corner that matches the requestor's street address, and must be postmarked no sooner than September 18, 2012, and must be postmarked no later than October 22, 2012, and received by Sponsor no later than October 26, 2012. If the In-Store Game runs long, these dates are subject to a corresponding extension. Requests from Vermont (\"VT\") residents that are postmarked in VT may omit return postage. Requests from VT residents that are postmarked outside of VT and omit return postage may be required to provide proof of VT residency to Sponsor's reasonable satisfaction before requests are fulfilled. Each request must be mailed in a separate stamped outer mailing envelope. Requests that are sent in business reply envelopes that utilize address labels or stickers (for any address), that are photocopied, hand-stamped, computer-generated or otherwise mechanically or digitally produced or reproduced, that are not mailed in separate outer stamped mailing envelopes, or that otherwise fail to comply with these Official Rules will NOT be honored, acknowledged or returned, and the persons submitting such requests will forfeit any corresponding postage and unused envelopes.",
"By offering free game pieces to anybody, they prevent their promotion from being a lottery. Lotteries, and gambling in general, is heavily regulated by the government.\n\nThere are three aspects of a lottery:\n\n* Prize (you win something of value)\n* Consideration (you give something of value to participate i.e. you buy something)\n* Chance (skill cannot increase your chances of winning).\n\nIf a promotion has all three of the above aspects, it is a lottery and is very likely illegal (in the US). By removing one aspect (in this case, consideration), it becomes legal.",
"i wonder if tim hortons roll up the rim has a no purchase necessary clause....you kinda have to purchase to roll up the rim\n "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
|
er5hpe | what sort of technical, broadcasting setup is needed to bring us these nfl championship game replays, from any angle, seconds after they happen? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/er5hpe/eli5_what_sort_of_technical_broadcasting_setup_is/ | {
"a_id": [
"ff3qs47"
],
"score": [
3
],
"text": [
"While the technology can be advanced, the concept is simple. It works with one camera, or 50, the only difference being you obviously need more people to work with more equipment.\n\nSo how does it work? Well there's a replay machine. It records whatever is fed into it. Like other video stuff, you can cut clips and out them together manually, say for highlights after the game. But the operator also has the quick buttons called in and out. If you hit the \"in\" button, it will save a previously selected time of video starting when you hit the button, for example it will save the next 30 seconds in a seperate que. The \"out\" button is the same, except it's the previous 30 seconds. This allows a quick instant replay of the goal, or the big hit. After that (or simultaneously) they can create a longer replay if there's a challenge, or delay in the game giving them more time to show stuff.\n\n\nI work video production for hockey. Here is a step by step how it works. Player scores a goal. The replay operator counts to 5, and selects his \"out\" button, saving the previous 7 seconds for review. That is enough time to show the goal, and the celebration. He has three camera angles, and quickly hits three hot keys to show angle 1, the 2, then 3. For example it would be Shift and #1 on the keyboard to save angle one. This is queued up in the \"A\" spot, available for immediate review. All of this process takes less than 5 seconds. He then goes back manually, and creates a longer clip, perhaps showing the whole play develop on the other side of the ice. If there is time before play resumes, maybe broken equipment, or a commercial break, then we might show this longer video on the scoreboard. Otherwise it gets saved for a game highlight video. \n\nNow you're thinking that seems easy with only three cameras, so how do they handle it with more cameras? There's a few ways to do it. Perhaps there are different replay machines. For example, I'm responsible for the replays on camera 1-4. And the next guy is responsible for replays on camera 5-8.\n\n What is also possible is that the replay operator only has to select the time, and then the director has a different feed for each individual camera. Rather than the replay operator giving a one video made of all the camera angles, the machine will output each individual camera angle to a different channel, so the director can make the choice which one to go to. In this case the switcher (person who switches from camera to camera) is doing the same thing they normally would, except instead of it being live, it's recorded from the replay machine."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
||
cb89tq | how does my smart tv automatically know what device is running into the hdmi port? | So when I got my newest smart TV the HDMI inputs were automatically labeled to my PS4 and Xbox 1. I thought HDMI cords just sent the image not any other information. How does it differentiate and label which device is which? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/cb89tq/eli5_how_does_my_smart_tv_automatically_know_what/ | {
"a_id": [
"etdrse7"
],
"score": [
7
],
"text": [
"HDMI is capable of sending a lot more information than just the images. There are separate control channels that can exchange other kinds of data too. If the devices on both ends are \"smart\" enough, they can identify themselves to each other (as yours apparently did)."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
|
pzldh | where do food coloring additives go in my body? i can drink red fruit juice all day, but still pee yellow. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/pzldh/eli5_where_do_food_coloring_additives_go_in_my/ | {
"a_id": [
"c3thlpd",
"c3ti568"
],
"score": [
8,
3
],
"text": [
"They get digested or metabolized in the liver. Some are excreted via feces.",
"Not all molecules go through your body unchanged - in fact, that is in the minority. Most molecules will undergo some form of biotransformation, which will change its chemical and physical properties.\n\nSo your body doesn't work like \"red stuff in, red stuff out.\" There are plenty of colourless things you can eat to change the colour of both solid and liquid waste, and vice versa. Most of the time the waste colour doesn't change because their colour is not due to what you eat - it's due to breakdown of red blood cells. Your urine is yellow due to urobilin, the breakdown product of hemoglobin, and your feces is brown due to stercobilin, another breakdown product of hemoglobin."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[]
] |
||
26r8m4 | the difference between active and passive pickups for guitars. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/26r8m4/eli5_the_difference_between_active_and_passive/ | {
"a_id": [
"chtq36u",
"chttv9c"
],
"score": [
6,
2
],
"text": [
"A passive pickup is a magnetic pickup directly sending the signal from your string, through the wood, into the pickup and into the amp which creates the most dynamic, organic sound you can produce. Many artists prefer a passive pickup to be able to have a \"breathable\" sound coupled with using their volume knob enables a multitude of tones without adjusting gain or treble on the amp. The negative aspects however with a passive pickup are it's feedback especially when gain from the amplifier is introduced as well as a magnetic pull on the strings which can cause intonation problems that reduces the sustain of the guitar overall. A single coil pickup found on stratocasters and telecasters generally produce a large amount of feedback and hum which is why the humbucker was invented to increase power over a single coil sound and to dampen noise feedback in the process. Jeff Beck, Darrell Abbott, Eddie Van Halen and Jimi Hendrix are prime examples of passive pickup users. \n\nAn active pickup is powered by a separate battery stored on the guitar enabling higher output and overall balanced frequency. Many artists who are looking for a consistent sound such as in metal music use Active pickups to achieve a powerful and consistent tone without compromising quality. Player's like Kirk Hammett and Kerry King use active electronics which enable them to push their amps near their limits and still retain a tight and focused clarity in their sound. The negatives of this style of pickup is the need to replace the 9v battery when the power supply is fading as well as being sterile in sound by critiques around the pickup community. An active pickup will generally sound the same no matter if the guitar is of solid body, semi hollow body, string through or with a vibrato bridge but generally speaking, a maple neck and alder body will always produce a higher and more percussive sound than a mahogany guitar.\n\n[Source](_URL_0_)",
"Passive pickups are just magnets that transmit sound to your amplifier.\n\nActive pickups have an onboard preamp/EQ that modifies the tone of the guitar. They usually require a 9v battery."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[
"http://www.ultimate-guitar.com/columns/the_guide_to/active_vs_passive_pickups.html"
],
[]
] |
||
81e3cm | why do sharper knives cut better? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/81e3cm/eli5_why_do_sharper_knives_cut_better/ | {
"a_id": [
"dv2hfy9",
"dv2hmqr"
],
"score": [
9,
5
],
"text": [
"Sharpness is the thickness of the edge of the blade. The thinner you make the edge, the \"sharper\" it is.\n\nThe thinner a blade is, the more force is applied per square inch of cutting area. That is to say that if you apply one pound of force on the blade, and it's cutting area is 1 square inch, you are giving 1 psi of pressure. If the blade is only 0.1 square inches, you are giving 10 psi, and so on.\n\nThe sharpest blades have cutting areas far smaller than what would be measured in inches, allowing for much higher pressures with less force applied.\n\nThe object you are cutting has what is called a tensile strength, which is the amount of force required to separate the elements of the object. The stronger the item, the more force is required to cut it. A sharper knife allows you to use the limited force of your arm and hand to cut through tougher materials easily.",
"The blade's tip of a knife is made from a series of solid-formed metal. \n\nThis solid form is much like any metal you have seen... it can be bent, broken, jagged, or smooth. What happens in a dull knife is that the very tiny tip of the blade becomes jagged and bent. A sharp knife has smooth, and a fairly uniform angle. \n\nWhen you cut into something you are spreading the cells apart and/or rupturing some. If you pass a dull knife through these collection of cells the jagged and bent sides have more cells to collide and interact with. We feel this increased resistance when we cut. The more jagged and bent the knife is, the less it will pass through the cells easily. \n\nSharp knives are uniform and have smooth faces. This allows it to slide inbetween and through cells since the contact point is so tiny. The only thing making contact is the sharpest point in the blade, so your force is used more effectively too. \n\nAn analogy would be passing a beam of wood through sand for the dull blade, and some fencing wire for a sharp blade. These are simulating the contacting edge of each blade. You wouldn't be surprised that the beam of wood needs to push more sand aside and is quite hard to do. Compare it to a long strand of fencing wire, the wire will slip right in between the grains of sand. "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[]
] |
||
czjuzs | how does weight training improve heart health? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/czjuzs/eli5_how_does_weight_training_improve_heart_health/ | {
"a_id": [
"eyyr0ww",
"eyyxqzx",
"eyz1h78"
],
"score": [
3,
2,
7
],
"text": [
"It doesn't improve heart health that much. You use your heart weightlifting to supply your muscles with blood better which is higher than your resting heart rate so it does train the heart a tiny bit. But other than that it isn't a cardio exercise so it doesn't really improve heart health",
"Whatever gets your heart beating in an aerobic zone for 150 minutes a week will improve your heart health. 90 minutes for high intensity. If you are causally lifting weights for beach muscles you aren't attaching achieving that goal.",
"ELI5 Version: Depends on how you look at it. It is improving heart health by changing how your body uses various food stuff as fuel. As you train the muscle it gets better and better at mobilizing and using sugars and fats as fuel. This increased use means less bad stuff in the blood which can cause a range of cardiovascular disease. The other way to look at it is what @Leacippus1 said. That when exercising your muscles are demanding more oxygen and in demanding more oxygen so your heart and lungs have to work harder. This extra work trains and improves the heart as well.\n\nThe question becomes what is your end point of \"health?\" And what do you mean by strength training? i.e low reps but max strength i.e your 4 or 5 sets with 3-4 reps or training more power the mid rep range? or the high volume type as well."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
[]
] |
||
2v7jje | what happens if evidence is obtained, illegally, that someone is a criminal? | Is it always unable to be used in court?
What if it proves that someone is a killer? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2v7jje/eli5_what_happens_if_evidence_is_obtained/ | {
"a_id": [
"cof587r"
],
"score": [
9
],
"text": [
"Assuming you're in a US court, and the evidence was obtained by the police (as opposed to a third party, and then given to the police), it will typically not be admissible as evidence in a trial. Further, if that evidence leads to finding more evidence, that evidence will also not be allowed (known as the \"fruit of the poisoned tree\").\n\nFor example, a police officer conducts an unlawful search of a home and finds a bag of cocaine. That cocaine will not be allowed in as evidence in a drug trial. The officer also finds a picture in the house of the defendant and a known street-level drug dealer. That picture will not be allowed in as evidence of the two having a relationship (such as if the prosecution was trying to prove the defendant is a mid-level drug distributor). However, If the police go to the dealer pictured in the photo and convince him to testify against the defendant, that testimony *would* be allowed in, because that testimony has a source (the dealer) that's independent from the illegal search.\n\nThe other two main exceptions to the rule are if the evidence would have inevitably been found anyways, and if there was an improper warrant but it was executed in good faith.\n\nThe crime the defendant is suspected of doesn't matter. Murderers have the same rights as drug dealers, who have the same rights as completely innocent individuals."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
|
fkiy3e | what does a logarithmic graph show you numerically? | I understand, that for example, an exponential graph can represent exponential growth/decay. And, that as the line becomes more vertical, the higher the rate of increase (i.e. profits for Fortune 500 companies from when they first began to their first substantial amount of revenue). But what does the logarithmic scale show? What information can be taken from a logarithmic scale? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/fkiy3e/eli5_what_does_a_logarithmic_graph_show_you/ | {
"a_id": [
"fkt0560",
"fkt0dpr",
"fkt129b",
"fkt277x"
],
"score": [
12,
2,
3,
6
],
"text": [
"On a regular linear graph an exponential trend will quickly run out of resolution and/or room. It will become so vertical so quickly that you will be unable to discern any larger trends because it will just look like a almost-vertical line forever and ever.\n\nSo you would use a logarithmic graph in those kind of cases, which is a graph where the units of measure increase exponentially along the vertical axis instead of in a linear way as it would be on a \"normal\" chart. When graphed this way a truly exponential trend line will appear as a straight rising diagonal line instead of a parabola. This allows you to discern deviations from that trend easier and make projections more accurately.",
"It’s an inverse of an exponential graph. So all the values on it are close in range. This allows one to bunch them all together into units of measure and discern things like the performance of things difficult to comprehend without factoring in their predictable enormity. P.S. I’m an idiot so...",
"Logarithmic scales are used for \"flattening\" exponential data (as the logarithm is the inverse of an exponential). A good example of this is earthquake magnitudes, sound volumes, and octave frequencies. In the case of earthquake magnitudes and decibels, every 1 point of magnitude or 10 decibels equals a 10x increase in energy. In octaves, every octave is a doubling of the frequency. It helps you talk about scales without having to speak in absurd numbers. I don't want to have to say \"it was ten billion times more energetic,\" when I could say \"it was a hundred decibels louder.\"",
"There are a lot of trends that tend to be exponential in nature. Basically all exponential graphs are of the form y = ae^(r*t)\n\nExponential graphs happen to be relatively common in nature. This is because the exponential graph represents a graph of something with a rate of increase proportional to that of the amount of it in existence, a pretty common pattern in nature (though of course in nature it can't grow indefinitely, but its still a pretty good estimate at the start). The current virus for instance is roughly one such case, since cases of the virus increase due to existing cases infecting others, the rise of cases is exponential, at least of the start of the infections.\n\nExponential graphs tend to be hard to read however. In a logarithmic graph though, an exponential graph becomes a line, allowing us to decipher the constants found in y = ae^(r*t) with relative ease, a becomes the point at t=0, r becomes the slope.\n\nArguably the more important aspect of it though is it allows us to see deviations from exponential growth, where things start to not fit which happens when the curve stops being a line. For instance with current cases of COVID-19, it allows us to easily see if infection rates are increasing or decreasing, if the line deviates to become more vertical in a log scale, then we are doing worse than yesterday and more are being infected, if more horizontal then we are killing the infection despite more infections than 10 days ago."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
|
2c5fyy | what exactly do the meat/cheese drawers in refrigerators do? | I read [this post](_URL_0_) about veggie/fruit drawers after I had this question. I'm still curious about the meat/cheese tray. Is it simply for organization? Most versions of those items come in a resealable package, so I'm not sure what the benefit is. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2c5fyy/eli5what_exactly_do_the_meatcheese_drawers_in/ | {
"a_id": [
"cjc3imv"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"They maintain different humidity, cooling, and air flow than the main compartment of the fridge. Most rely on the drawers vents and natural convection to circulate/restrict air flow while high-end models have sensors and ducting. "
]
} | [] | [
"http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1s4u3e/eli5_is_there_any_real_difference_between_the/"
] | [
[]
] |
|
5n6nn0 | how can such a huge company, like yahoo, afford to rebrand themselves after becoming so prominent under their current brand? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5n6nn0/eli5_how_can_such_a_huge_company_like_yahoo/ | {
"a_id": [
"dc91s12",
"dc91x9o"
],
"score": [
5,
2
],
"text": [
"simple answer... they cant afford not to.\n\nyahoo is not a sustainable business, as proven by years of losses and failed remedies.\n\nthey need cash, and if selling the yahoo brand to verizon provides that cash, so be it. Just as sears recently sold craftsman to black and decker. \n\nchances are yahoo is positioning to turn out the lights anyway, so I am not sure if there are any legitimate plans to actually sustain the remainco/altaba name.",
"It is because **Verizon** is buying (or acquiring) Yahoo for 4.8 billion dollars. Once it is under the Verizon company, only then will it be rebranded as Altaba. \n"
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[]
] |
||
511c6a | might it be possible to 'create'/generate energy from the earth's orbit (ala wind farms) one day? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/511c6a/eli5_might_it_be_possible_to_creategenerate/ | {
"a_id": [
"d78ix1s",
"d78oxl2"
],
"score": [
4,
2
],
"text": [
"Not really. Earth isn't moving through any sort of substance that would push against the turbine, the way wind pushes against a turbine. If fact if there *were* such a substance, it would be constantly dragging on our planet, slowing our orbit, until someday we'd crash into the Sun.",
"Though we cannot obtain energy from earth orbit by wind turbines we can, and have, produced energy using orbit to exploit the Earth's magnetic field using what is called an [Electrodynamic tether.](_URL_0_) Essentially, it uses the planet like a dynamo, with the Earth as 'stator' and satellite as 'rotor'. "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrodynamic_tether"
]
] |
||
1uled0 | why is it on clear nights it is much cooler then on cloudy ones? | Last night in PA we got rain and a bunch of clouds came in. Then later it got really warm, as high as 48°F. Now tonight, it's a clear night, but it's windy and pushing the single digits. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1uled0/why_is_it_on_clear_nights_it_is_much_cooler_then/ | {
"a_id": [
"cej96zo"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"Clouds act like insulation and trap heat, but it's not uncommon for temps to change day to day for other reasons..."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
|
3y1l6g | why do antibiotics have a "do not ingest" warning? | I'm using an antibiotic ointment on an infected ear piercing, and I noticed that there is a small warning on the back that says "I'd ingested contact a physician immediately" why is that? I thought antibiotics were good? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3y1l6g/eli5_why_do_antibiotics_have_a_do_not_ingest/ | {
"a_id": [
"cy9pmez"
],
"score": [
5
],
"text": [
"Topical ointments are typically a medication mixed with petroleum jelly - that is, Vaseline. Vaseline isn't particularly nasty, but you can't digest it. It can make you vomit or give you oily diarrhea.\n\nIngestion of the active ingedient of an antibiotic ointment is probably not harmful in that kind of dosage. However, probably the most pertinent reason for that warning is it hasn't been FDA approved for ingestion and they're covering their butts."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
|
1psnl7 | why are some rocks (like gems) transparent while others are not? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1psnl7/eli5_why_are_some_rocks_like_gems_transparent/ | {
"a_id": [
"cd5lmon"
],
"score": [
3
],
"text": [
"It has to do with the allotropes of the atoms.\n\nFor example, graphite is arranged in a hexagonal lattice, whereas diamonds are arranged in a tetrahedral lattice.\n\nTo break it down a hexagon is a two-dimensional shape, so if you could imagine sheets of connected hexagons laid over top of each other. This is actually what makes it so easy to write with.\n\nTetrahedrons are three-dimensional; a triangular pyramid (think Egyptian pyramids, but with a triangle base instead of a square). Now think of several of these connected and you can't create sheets like you could with the graphite. This creates a very firmly connected structure that won't allow for pieces to break off.\n\nAs for your question directly, if can imagine the structures, all of the atoms in the graphite would be close together (like sheets of paper), whereas in the diamond they would spaced according to the tetrahedrons allowing for light to pass through."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
||
32ltw7 | where does reddit get its money to suppory the website if it doesn't reach it's daily gold goal? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/32ltw7/eli5_where_does_reddit_get_its_money_to_suppory/ | {
"a_id": [
"cqcdw81",
"cqce123",
"cqce843",
"cqcf5q0",
"cqcghvb"
],
"score": [
18,
2,
7,
2,
2
],
"text": [
"Simple, they set their daily gold goal way above what they actually need. ",
"Advertisers (myself included) also provide additional income for the site.",
"Reddit is actually running in the red and has been for awhile. ",
"Some days are better than others, and they make up for the worse days with the better ones.",
"Self-serve ads and corporate (BK etc) are some other income areas."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
||
3mnaw8 | the career goals of a mathematician. | How does one make money doing it? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3mnaw8/eli5_the_career_goals_of_a_mathematician/ | {
"a_id": [
"cvggbpk"
],
"score": [
5
],
"text": [
"Well a 'pure' mathematician is usually a faculty member for a university and is paid for those duties. Possibly they claim some rewards for solving specific problems; famously there are the six outstanding millennium problems worth 1 million USD each. \n\nMost people that study math will do something more applied, though. Plenty of fields are largely about maths or have a lot of overlap. Plenty of maths is needed for various feats of engineering, it's crucial to cryptography and a mathematician has a great leg up in getting in on physics or other maths-heavy science. "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
|
as8h4m | why do dancers count by 8? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/as8h4m/eli5_why_do_dancers_count_by_8/ | {
"a_id": [
"egshu9s"
],
"score": [
9
],
"text": [
"My understanding is that most music is written if 4/4 time (Four beats per bar), so the music (And more specifically, the rhytm) is separated into these 4 pulse units.\n\nSince 4 beats are rarely enough to complete a given \"step\", dancers will instead spread each movement over 8 pulses, or two bars.\n\nYou'll find when practising a Waltz, instructors will count to Three, as waltz movements are quick and the rhytm is set to 3/4 time (3 beats per bar)"
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
||
165qo8 | is there any good reason today to open a swiss bank account? | I always associated Swiss bank accounts with rich and glamorous people (and criminals). And the Bourne Identity. I always thought it'd be cool to one day have a Swiss bank account, even if it's just a few thousand. But I read that now with IRS and Swiss gov crackdowns, these accounts aren't even that secret anymore. And you need like at least hundreds of thousands of dollars as deposit to open one. So, like, what's the point today (if any) for a foreigner to open a Swiss account when good old B of A or Wells Fargo would do just fine? At least with them, you can use ATMs near your house. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/165qo8/is_there_any_good_reason_today_to_open_a_swiss/ | {
"a_id": [
"c7szzl1",
"c7t111j"
],
"score": [
2,
2
],
"text": [
"I believe there aren't many good reasons to hide your money there anymore. A lot of rich people put money into small caribbean islands now.",
"Swiss banks used to offer a numbered account, which meant that not even they really knew who you were. The Swiss government would take 30% on any increases until you could prove that you had paid taxes elsewhere, but that's a lot less than people pay in the top tax bracket. \n\nThen the Swiss were pressured into revealing the information they had on each account, essentially revealing the identities of the account holders. These people then had to explain in their native countries why they had not reported their earnings in whatever way was required. \n\nNow, that money is far harder to hide in Switzerland, so people have moved it to the Cayman islands and other offshore accounts. \n\nThe key is now and has always been to get the money in and out of the account in secret. UBS, one of the largest Swiss banks, has been taken to task recently for having people who help wealthy people either break the law or come damn close, laundering the money, smuggling it in and out of the country, and anything else you can think of. \n"
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[]
] |
|
6xd6zc | why do we see lights as on? | Okay, so hear me out. This might seem a bit silly, but you know how LEDs are often actually just switching on and off at like 50 Hz and aren't actually ON? Why did we see them as ON then and not as OFF? Surely the two states have the same active time. Why do our eyes get drawn to the light ON state? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6xd6zc/eli5_why_do_we_see_lights_as_on/ | {
"a_id": [
"dmf0aqa",
"dmfc7nq"
],
"score": [
3,
2
],
"text": [
"That's something called Persistence of Vision, and it's down to how the cells in our eyes take a non-zero time to respond to a change of input. \n\nIt's that phenomenon that allow things like [this](_URL_0_) to work. \n\nAll that is will be an arm with a single vertical row of LEDs and as it turns many times a second, there'll be a microcontroller built into it that, based on the position the arm is at will cause individual LEDs to go light and dark very rapidly which will gradually build up the perception of the display a line at a time as it goes around. \n\nWhy is your eye drawn to the lighter state though? Simply that it's brighter. It stands out more. \n\nThat can be used to advantage by making displays that flicker LEDs on and off but vary the off time to the on time to create different apparent brightness levels. ",
" > Why do our eyes get drawn to the light ON state?\n\nBecause half of something is not zero. If an LED is on half the time (and switches fast enough) we see it at half brightness. You don't see it in the full on state or the full off state. It could be dimmed to the same level without switching, but switching on/off rapidly is often more efficient. "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[
"https://i.ytimg.com/vi/_OJvh8eZCIk/hqdefault.jpg"
],
[]
] |
|
c05f91 | what exactly is the google stadia? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/c05f91/eli5what_exactly_is_the_google_stadia/ | {
"a_id": [
"er1g9y9",
"er1mlqv"
],
"score": [
4,
2
],
"text": [
"Stadia isn't really a thing it's a service, some people describe it as Netflix for video games. You'll need to buy the controller from Google and pay a subscription fee and it will let you play video games without a console over the internet. Apparently you can play on any Chromecast enabled device, so a computer or TV with Chromecast will work equally as long as your connection is fast enough.",
"Google Stadia is a video gaming platform deisgned to compete with Sony Playstation and Microsoft XBox.\n\nThe difference is that instead of owning a physical box that plays the game Stadia will run the game in it's own datacenters and stream the pre-rendered images to your screen via your internet connection.\n\nIn theory (and subjective to Google delivering on what it promises) this means no expensive hardware upgrades, no game downloads or patching required. Google's own data center handware is likely to be comparable to next generation consoles in terms of power. It also means you may stream the game to any compatible device or screen via an app (restricted to the Pixel3 phone at launch), a chrome browser if playing on a PC or a Chromecast Ultra directly connected to your TV.\n\nHowever, the quality of the service is very dependant on having a fast and stable internet connection with sufficient data usage allowance or unlimited. It also functions as a stand-alone platform meaning you must purchase the Stadia version of the game, presumably via Google's own storefront.\n\nThere are two tiers of service currently announced;\n\nStadia Base: Due to launch early 2020 is free to access, allows multiplayer and a maximum stream quality of 1080P @ 60FPS. 20Mb internet connection required.\n\nStadia Pro: Due to launch November 2019 is $10 per month, includes some 'free' games and a maximum stream quality of 4K HDR @ 60FPS. 35Mb internet connection required."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[]
] |
||
7si6mv | why does it hurt to touch your pupil, but not the white part of your eye? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7si6mv/eli5_why_does_it_hurt_to_touch_your_pupil_but_not/ | {
"a_id": [
"dt50xgx",
"dt51ofw"
],
"score": [
3,
2
],
"text": [
"Pain is your body saying that something bad is happening. If it hurts more it means you can damage something easier.\n\nAlso- stop touching your eye...",
"You cannot touch your pupil. More than likely, you are touching your cornea. It does not hurt, just ask any contact lens wearer, unless you do it with something sharp. And if you touch the white of your eye with something sharp, I bet it will hurt too."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[]
] |
||
3t5956 | if i never aged but was still susceptible to accidental death, how long would i be likely to live? (living in the us or europe) | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3t5956/eli5_if_i_never_aged_but_was_still_susceptible_to/ | {
"a_id": [
"cx36car",
"cx36iiz"
],
"score": [
7,
5
],
"text": [
"Presumably rather than 'never aged', you mean 'stopped ageing in mid twenties to mid thirties'. In which case,a long long time - most people don't die of accidents in that, or any other time, so you could reasonably expect to live many many lifetimes. Possibly shorter or longer, depending on whether your increased experience made you more aware of the low-level risks, or more blase about crossing roads with earphones in.\n\nIf you mean never aged from birth, you'd be reliant on other people to fulfill your every need 'til eternity. Yay! :)",
"According to this site:\n\n_URL_1_\n\nYou have 1/1820 chance of dying every year. You can easily plot this into Wolfram Alpha, for example:\n\n_URL_0_\n\nAnd the graph will say that you'll have about 50% Chance of living up to 1200 years, 20% chance to 3000 years, 10% 4200 years, and so on."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[
"http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=%281-1%2F1820%29%5Ex+from+x%3D0+to+x%3D5000",
"http://danger.mongabay.com/injury_odds.htm"
]
] |
||
4g97da | why is it illegal to sell body parts? | [deleted] | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4g97da/eli5_why_is_it_illegal_to_sell_body_parts/ | {
"a_id": [
"d2fkoha",
"d2fkou8",
"d2fksmb",
"d2fl73i"
],
"score": [
76,
10,
7,
2
],
"text": [
"Because someone will inevitably create a business chopping up living people without their consent and lying. Or coerce you into \"consenting\". And the poor, especially single parents with literally starving kids, and drug addicts, will sell them even if they aren't healthy. It's a business that necessitates bodily harm so the attitude is to keep it as safe and pure as possible because the alternatives are simply too gruesome to tolerate the risk.",
"Among other reasons I think a good argument can be made in that some people would sell their organs to pay debts. Generally speaking, it would be unethical to allow that kind of practice. ",
"It's illegal because once you put a dollar value on body parts it in turn creates a market for them. It's illegal because it opens up doors to a black market where there could be trade of stolen organs. You see how terrible human sex trafficking is, imagine now that they only want the organs, there would be forced breeding in order to harvest and sell organs. By not allowing any money to exchange hands it keeps the monetary value from being put on pieces of our bodies.",
"It is controversial. I think good arguments can be made for both sides. That said, what you're looking for is something like the following argument.\n\nHuman life is special; it is valuable in a way that other things aren't. \n\nIn the narrow circumstances that you are describing, I think it would be difficult to argue against. It would be something more like employment and capitalism in general: here is a situation where you can both be better off. You both willingly enter into a transaction, you get compensated with money, and the other party gets compensated with a kidney, and everyone is happy and better off for it. *Huzzah*.\n\nThe problem lies with \"willingly\" (and recall the initial comment about the sanctity of human life). If we allow people to sell their organs then people will do it under duress. That is, if selling a kidney is a legal source of income then poor people will be forced (\"willingly\") into selling their kidneys to rich people. The same goes for eyes, all organs, being filleted alive on TV, whatever. The line of legalizing and normalizing that destructive human behavior of poor people for the benefit of rich people is a big deal.\n\nThat produces a problem: it means that the worth of human life is based on his or her bank account figures. If you have a lot of money then you can reach in and take body parts; if you have little money then you will acquiesce and have body parts taken from you. If human life is sacred, if all people are equal, then we shouldn't legalize a system where all people are unequal."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
|
4jdyz3 | why is it common for bears to be hit by trains? | I understand that railway tracks provide access to food (grain on the tracks, vegetation growth around the tracks etc.) but how could they not move fast enough to just move away. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4jdyz3/eli5_why_is_it_common_for_bears_to_be_hit_by/ | {
"a_id": [
"d35u0vf",
"d363t3x"
],
"score": [
2,
3
],
"text": [
"I didn't realize this was a particular problem, but as for why:\n\nPlenty of humans get killed by trains every year underestimating the trains speed, and that is a species that understands:\n\nTrain whistle= approaching large machine. Train track I'm on = even if the train is curving or hidden by trees this means the train will pass right here. Train will not slow down or stop if i raise up on my hind legs to intimidate it like everything else ive ever met. I cannot outrun it in a straight line the way i can with almost anything else.\n\nA bear knows none of those things. It is used to being top dog where things run fro. It not to it. And it isn't used to being hunted ao it has more of a straight line escape pattern than the zig zag prey uses. All these things make it unlikely to be able to get out of the way even if it comprehends the danger it's in.",
"Oh there is a simple explanation for this. Bears are the king of their land. They grow up being able to fight and kill anything in there area. Think about. Ever try to fight a bear? You will lose. It is a matter of pride to defeat any foe before them. Eventually some mature veteran fighting bears will run out of victims. Thus they find the train as the ultimate competition and try to fight the trains in there land. "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[]
] |
|
2a4gjq | why do black men have a difficult time shaving? | I went into a black barber and head the men complaining about shaving and needing to buy special equipment. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2a4gjq/eli5_why_do_black_men_have_a_difficult_time/ | {
"a_id": [
"cirebux",
"cirfrmj",
"cirg1bl"
],
"score": [
9,
2,
2
],
"text": [
"They have very crinkly beard. The curlier a hair is the more likely you will have ingrown hair when it grows out. Many women have the same problem shaving bikini line. ",
"They usually have curly hair instead of straight and when they shave it often to leads to razor bumps which are painful and unsightly. I know a lot of guys who cant shave using a blade without getting a bad case of the bumbs using clippers instead to keep their facial hair down seems to help though.",
"The protein structure in their hair follicles have more disulphide bonds. They have curly beard hair."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
[]
] |
|
8qbvo2 | if marrying blood relatives was common practice for centuries, but so bad for our genetics, why aren't we all deformed? | I know marrying blood relatives was common for the royal families of Europe, and there's tons of examples of birth defects and mental illness that plagued the offspring of those marriages. It seems like it was also common for common people too \-\- why didn't that just ruin the human race?
(edit: spelling) | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8qbvo2/eli5_if_marrying_blood_relatives_was_common/ | {
"a_id": [
"e0hy368",
"e0hy7ae",
"e0hynqm",
"e0hz4eu",
"e0i0qu0",
"e0i2d3o",
"e0i4t61",
"e0itps7"
],
"score": [
26,
12,
15,
6,
3,
2,
3,
4
],
"text": [
"Not a suuuuper biological answer, but I think the issue is that genetic abnormalities are more likely to occur, which is why it's considered a bad practice. People who were born with those abnormalities weren't as likely to have children, and those who were more or less healthy were the ones reproducing. ",
"Short answer is unless you were filthy rich your genetics ended when you were born fucked up. The genetic problems with inbreeding are hit or miss and heavy on the miss side. In all likelihood a kid from an incestuous coupling is going to turn out fine. \n\nIt wasn't nearly as prevalent as you are assuming. With the exception of the Egyptians royalty mixed it up fairly well and commoners had no reason to inbreed as they had no title to protect.",
"Much of the problem with interbreeding is the increased likelihood of recessive traits occurring. If a particular gene only exists in 1% of the population, the chances of two people both with that recessive gene producing offspring is fairly low. But if that gene exists in a family, and there is interbreeding in that family, that likelihood increases significantly, especially when you consider all of the different recessive genes that exist.\n\nBut when a person from that family has children with someone from another family, that likelihood shoots back down. The \"bad genes\" don't build up, other than possibly being a carrier for more than the average number of recessive genes, and, after a few generations, that will drop back down, too.",
"The Crowned Heads of Europe did indeed produce some really messed up people, both mentally and physically. My favorite (?) is Charles II of Spain. He was the product of generations of the Hapsburg family marrying cousins, and he was so deformed in the jaw that he could not chew his food. He was not all there mentally, either, and (mercifully) unable to produce an heir. \n\nHere's link. It's apparently a very good likeness. _URL_0_\n ",
"How do you know we're NOT all deformed? Maybe it's less physical and instead we're ALL messed up because of the inbreeding, but since it's all of us, no one knows the difference.",
"Think of how much cooler we'd be today if there wasn't inbreeding for the last few centuries",
"The premise isn't correct. It's not so bad for our genetics and it doesn't necessarily lead to deformities.\n\nThere are a lot of traits out there that you can have. For each trait, there are two parts. You get one part from each parent and you will pass one one random part to your child. For example, if you have AA and your spouse has BB, your child will be AB. If you have AB and your spouse has AB, your child could end up being either AA, AB, BA, or BB.\n\nTraits can be either dominant or recessive. If there's a dominant trait in there, it wins. In that last example, if A is dominant and B is recessive, then both you and your spouse express dominant traits and your child has a 3/4 chance of expressing the dominant trait (AA, AB, BA) and a 1/4 chance of expressing the recessive trait (BB). \n\nNow, obviously in practice it's not so simple. There are more possibilities than A or B; there could be C, D, E, F, G, etc. There are levels of dominance. The example used here is a simplification.\n\nPeople who are related are more likely to have the same trait pairs. This means that they are more likely to eventually to end up producing children with recessive traits (BB). \n\nIt also just so happens that most bad things, like genetic disorders, are usually recessive. Not all recessive traits are bad.\n\nSo, the stereotype of inbreeding creating deformities is false. Instead, it merely increases the odds of a recessive trait being expressed. Because most bad traits are recessive, there's a higher chance that a bad trait buried in the family but not previously expressed gets expressed. ",
"I have the same question.. Is it realy bad?! My tribe practice inbreeding for atleast 5000 years and we are fine. My parents are cousins, my grand parents are cousins.. Usually no one(from my tribe) marry some one from other tribes unless they have the same history ( ancestry). \nBut tribal people who moved to the city or other village will marry someone else\n\n Thanks god im healthy.\n"
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
[],
[
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_II_of_Spain"
],
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
|
3ddaw1 | what is the speed radio waves travel through the deep space? | I think I once read radio waves travel at the speed of light through the deep space, is this true? If yes, why does it travel with the speed of light? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3ddaw1/eli5_what_is_the_speed_radio_waves_travel_through/ | {
"a_id": [
"ct40svw",
"ct40t1c",
"ct40tjz",
"ct40u3k"
],
"score": [
11,
2,
2,
4
],
"text": [
"Radio Waves are really the same thing as light waves.\nThey are both electromagnetic radiation\nRadio Wave frequencies are from 3Khz to 300Ghz\n\nVisible Light waves are in the frequency range of 430 to 790 Thz (TeraHz)\n\n\nIf you took radio waves and frequency shifted them up about 10000 times, we would see them",
"Yes it travels at the speed of light, because both visible light and radio waves are electromagnetic radiation (i.e. two types of the same thing). ",
"Radio waves are a form of electro-magnetic waves. Unlike other waves, like sound, electro-magnetic waves don't need any kind of medium to spread. They travel with the speed of light.\n\nAnd for the \"why\" part. I cant explain exactly why they move at the speed of light, but all electro-magnetic waves travel that fast, as long as they travel in a vacuum.\n\nEDIT: Spelling",
"Electromagnetic radiation travels at the same speed designated as C. Light we see by, radio waves, microwave radiation, x-ray, ultraviolet, infrared, cell phone signals, AM radio, FM radio, and lasers are all part of the electromagnetic radiation spectrum and all travel at the speed of light which is C. C varies slightly in different mediums ."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
|
4blssn | why do we have to take some medicine 'before food' and some 'after food'? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4blssn/eli5_why_do_we_have_to_take_some_medicine_before/ | {
"a_id": [
"d1aa7yc",
"d1akqy0"
],
"score": [
19,
3
],
"text": [
"There are a lot of considerations, like the medicine might irritate an empty stomach or cause nausea, or there might be problematic chemical reactions or degradation depending on how long it stays in the stomach or the chemical conditions therein. There's also dilution/rate of absorption, some medicines you might want a short spike, some you might want released over a longer period.\n\nMore importantly, I think, is predictability and consistency, you don't want to have wild swings in effective dosage and release rate, and a full or empty stomach can certainly have that effect.",
"In addition to what has been said in previous comments, some medicines are adversely affected by certain foods or drinks. Some antibiotics cause extreme nausea when alcohol is consumed. A popular drug for acne chelates (binds to) calcium if its in the stomach... so if you've had your bowl of cereal in the morning and take the pill you will not get the full dose etc."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[]
] |
||
8pm6wt | why is it that when one begins to actually think about a reflex like blinking, breathing, or swallowing, it seems to become less reflexive and require conscious effort to even continue? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8pm6wt/eli5_why_is_it_that_when_one_begins_to_actually/ | {
"a_id": [
"e0cajc2",
"e0cu9e5"
],
"score": [
13,
5
],
"text": [
"Because a few of our body systems have *dual* connections to their muscles, with controls by *both* the voluntary and the autonomic nervous systems.",
"Because before it's managed by your brain stem, then by accident you cause it to be managed by the part of your brain 'you' really use/manage."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[]
] |
||
byjjm3 | if caffeinated drinks like coffee are meant to give you boosts of energy then why is it recommended for kids with adhd to calm them down? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/byjjm3/eli5_if_caffeinated_drinks_like_coffee_are_meant/ | {
"a_id": [
"eqi9fag",
"eqi9wt7",
"eqilcsy",
"eqinpq0",
"eqipcnz",
"eqipgzi",
"eqiqlb4",
"eqirnf3",
"eqisj3c",
"eqit2cc",
"eqitnpj",
"eqiu74c",
"eqiu7q3",
"eqiucnb",
"eqiuwhd",
"eqizkpe",
"eqj0yxf",
"eqj21c9",
"eqj3xk1",
"eqj414u",
"eqj57vt",
"eqj7lzi",
"eqjrw99",
"eqjx8eo",
"eqk0n1u",
"eql7b90"
],
"score": [
16,
158,
8,
8,
12,
131,
20,
13,
115,
4,
5,
4,
5,
618,
8,
3,
2,
2,
3,
3,
2,
2,
2,
2,
2,
2
],
"text": [
"Your brain produces chemicals which attach to sites on neurons (brain nerves). They are a certain \"shape\" like plugging a round peg into a round hole. (NOT really but you get the gist).\n\nWhen a normal person drinks a high caffeine energy drink, all of these round pegs plug into all of the round holes and cause an increase of transmission from one neuron to another. \n\nBut it's not perfect. Sure it fits into the hole, but since it's artificial, they don't transmit as efficiently as a natural round peg would.\n\nBy placing inefficient round pegs in an a brain that overproduces natural round pegs, it actually slows the transmission of signals down.",
"Individuals with ADHD have a biological mixup that causes their brain to react to stimulants differently than the “normal” brain. Not sure of the exact chemical reaction, but for those with ADHD, the neurons in the brain are typically firing as if the person was already using a stimulant and when they do use a stimulant it sort of slows and focus that energy because of the way the brain reacts to it. \n\nSource: Niece and nephew have ADHD and this is sort of how the doctor explain it to us when they were living with us.",
"Well, \"recommended\" probably isn't the most accurate. Caffeine is effective and gets into your system very fast, but it doesn't last very long. It's not the best for a daily use, long term solution. If someone with ADHD needs something immediate, sure. But they should not rely on it.",
"It's like in Civilization III how Gandhi became super aggressive on peaceful mode, because his aggression counter went through the floor of 0 and back around to 255.\n\nGive ADHD kids coffee and their energy stat loops around from 255 to 0.",
"The way I was told it in my psych class is that how stimulants work, more or less, to treat ADHD is by stimulating the frontal cortex (which controls inhibition and memory and such) since it’s the part of the brain that is deficient in ADHD people. This goes for drugs like Ritalin and aderall as well as caffeine and nicotine. To be clear, I could be wrong. I’m by no means a professional. This is simply how it was described to me.",
"Attention deficits are when the part of your brain responsible for self control is lazy or underactive. This is called the executive function. When people with attention deficits get stimulants, it does make the rest of their brains more active, just like other people, but now their executive function isn't lazy anymore and able to actually do its job controlling attention and focus. \n\nBasically, it still gives them energy, but it gives them enough energy to have self control.",
"Have you ever been so tired that you couldn't sleep? So tired in fact that you were actually really energetic or were thinking about things a lot? Like when babies/toddlers get overtired, they actually are really rambunctious or grumpy or arent able to sleep.\n\nThe ADHD brain is understimulated. There are some studies that suggest that ADHD is related to being like a sleep disorder.\n\nSo when you give stimulants to a brain that is understimulated, you put it back at base level where it \"should\" be. Caffeine is a stimulant.",
"I have ADD. I can drink a cup of coffee or take a few Excedrin and go right to sleep. It comes in handy when I have a splitting headache.",
"ADHD is a disorder of your executive function, which is basically your brain's ability to control itself (ELI5 level). As such, people with ADHD have difficulties directing their attention, hence the name. But it's not just attention, it's a lot of other things like motivation and emotions. One common symptom is procrastination, which has to do with only getting the motivation to do something once it's crunch time, whereas people with normal executive function are better able to motivate themselves based off of a future consequence. Some people with ADHD have drastic mood swings because their brain isn't regulating emotions well, leading to impulsive behavior as well.\n\n Caffeine and other stimulants improve executive function, so if you have ADHD and take the 'right' dose, you can more or less have a regular person's ability. Now they can regulate their emotions, which in many people results in a calming down because now they can regulate all of those impulsive thoughts coming into their head. Also, caffeine helps many people with ADHD sleep for a similar reason. Instead of falling asleep with your mind going all over the place, caffeine can restore focus and allow your brain to tune out those thoughts and actually go to bed.",
"Imagine the brain like an office. There are lots of people doing the day to day tasks and some managers to make sure that the employees are working on the proper projects and accounts. \n\nIn the brain of someone with ADHD, those managers are less effective because they don't have enough energy to fully function. The workers bounce around between lots of different tasks and don't see any one task to completion. Drinking coffee(or taking Adderall/Vyvanse) gives more energy to those managers, enabling them to wrangle the workers beneath them and get them back to task. \n\nThis is also why ADHD people are often able to focus on things like video games but not on homework or chores. The adrenaline rush from playing games causes those middle managers to perk up and enable focus.",
"The brain of a child with ADHD is looking for more stimulation than normal. So the child is constantly moving, distracted, etc. because it is trying to gain this extra stimulation from their environment. The “energy”(stimulant) in caffeine (or whatever stimulant they’re taking) feeds the brain’s need for more stimulation so now the brain is happy and fulfilled, reducing the need for the child to look for it in their environment thus being able to calm down and focus better.\n\nSource: completing master’s in early childhood mental health",
"Does this explain why, as an adult with ADHD, I can take my amphetamines with a cup of coffee and then lay down and take a nap?",
"OP, you do realise Ritalin (the most common medication for ADHD where I'm from) is low dosage amphetamines right?",
"ADHD is caused by *underactivity* in the frontal lobe of the brain - the part responsible for organization and impulse control (think of it as “the brain’s secretary and the brain’s breaks). The reason kids with ADHD are hyperactive is because that front part of the brain is underactive - the hyperactivity is because their brain is not active enough to stop them from moving and fidgeting, *not* because their brain is overactive. Stimulants (like caffeine)* increase activity in these areas, which lets them control their impulses better and results in them being “calmer.”\n\nSource: I’m a clinical psychology professor who specializes in studying ADHD.\n\n*Caffeine is actually not recommended for ADHD though, because it is more of a central nervous system stimulant. Stimulant medications like Adderall or Ritalin/Concerta specifically target the front part of the brain, which is why they are used for ADHD.",
"I strongly felt an urge to pitch in here, given what people were posting. \n\nPsychostimulants such as amphetamines and methylphenidate which many of you are probably aware of, are first line drugs used to treat ADHD. It may sound counter-intuitive to say a stimulant drug can treat a \"stimulant\"/\"hyper\" condition, but these drugs increase certain chemicals (neurotransmitters) between nerve endings (synapses) that control attentional function. \n\nThe drugs will increase dopamine and norepinephrine in your brain that interferes with attention negatively, thus bringing the patient back to perceived \"normalcy\". It is similar with caffeine as well. \n\nPS I am a doctor.",
"Folks with ADHD have an underdeveloped area in the brain called the prefrontal cortex. Basically think of it like the secretary of the brain. It’s job is to tell you what’s important to pay attention to and to generally organize incoming stuff. When this area is underdeveloped, your mind basically doesn’t know how long it’s supposed to pay attention to something, kinda like scheduling meetings. It’s not struggling to engage attention with something, it’s also struggling to disengage. When a nonADHD person sees a squirrel, they know whether or not they need to keep focusing on the squirrel thanks to the secretary. When you give a person with ADHD a stimulant like caffeine, it stimulates the area, essentially getting the secretary to do its job. When the secretary is doing its job, the person with ADHD doesn’t have to anymore, which means they can work better and don’t have to work as hard.",
"The part of the brain responsible for concentration is under stimulated in people with add/adhd. This makes it seem as though they are over stimulated but we just can’t pay attention because that part of the brain don’t work so well. When we take a stimulant, for me Adderall, it speeds up that part of the brain bringing us closer to normal to paying attention. People that already have a normal working brain that add stimulates now have an over stimulation causing them to look like tweakers.",
"Dopamine. ADHD is a lack of dopamine. Dopamine is your reward drug in your brain that lets you focus. It keeps you motivated. It let's you function as a normal person. Caffeine activates dopamine. That's all it is.",
"Imagine there are three people talking at once. You want to listen to just one person. So your listen to that one person. A person with ADHD can't focus on the one person. What stimulants do is basically fill the extra sensory receptors to block out the extra conversations so they can focus on the one conversation.",
"The way it was explained to me in an ELI5 way is to imagine a gas gauge in your car that is measuring stimulation in your brain. Someone without ADHD has about a half of a tank of gas, and a stimulant will kick their brain into overstimulation, a full tank of gas. However, someone with ADHD, their gas gauge is closer to empty, and a stimulant will kick their brain up closer to a half a tank of gas, where someone without ADHD would normally be. It doesn't \"calm them down\" so to speak, but rather but eliminates the need for extra stimulation to get to that average half a tank of gas. \nThe actions we see as \"hyper\" in someone with ADHD are actually just their brain trying to get to that half a tank of gas / baseline level of stimulation.",
"Very little of these answers are like we're five, so here is the five year olds analogy. \n\nImagine you are a student in a classroom with 15 other students. Unfortunately, the teacher is there at their desk but they are asleep. The kids go nuts, from watching the squirrel out the window to throwing paper, to picking on the dumpy kid. Bouncing from one new shiny thing to the next new shiny thing. \n\nGive a cup of coffee in for the teacher, the caffeine wakes the teacher up and gets the kids to sit back down in their chairs and pay attention.",
"The simplest explanation here is that our brains don't work the same way as someone without ADHD. It seems counter intuitive to give someone who suffers from a deficit of attention and hyperactivity a stimulant. The thing is ADHD is neither a deficit of attention or hyperactivity, it's an impulse control disorder. \n\nStimulants don't help everyone with ADHD but they do help a lot of people. They act as a ripcord. People with adhd are prone to risky behaviour and chasing that dopamine drip. They act they way they act to get their brain going. They need to push themselves that way to trigger the dopamine response that normalizes their behaviour. That's why people with ADHD tend to also have other issues that stem from impulse control at it's root. \n\nStimulants act as a rip cord. Just like starting up one of those old school gas lawnmowers. The stimulant kick starts your brain and allows it to start producing as close to \"normally\" as it can.",
"Low arousal theory? \n\nFirst off, there are more kinds of arousal than sexual. \nAnything that gets your heart pumping or hormones surging is probably arousing. \n\nThe idea is that the threshold for arousal (the level at which a switch is flipped), for ADHD people is higher than people with normal brains (neurotypical, or *NTs)*. \n\nNTs can easily perk up and pay attention because their threshold is lower. It doesn't take much to activate them. \n\nThere's one doctor who writes about ADHD and says it's like having a race car mind, and having to drive on a regular road. (Or something like that.) \n\nWhen you see an ADHD child fidgeting, or rocking, or moving, but it still looks like they are able to pay attention, this is because they are \"self-stimming.\" \nThese activities stimulate their arousal level to the point where they can pay attention. \n\nOf course, we don't like kids to move or fidget or do anytjing we don't want them to, so it's easier to give them a stimulant, like ritalyn, amphetine, or sometimes just caffeine (i.e. coffee), and artificially stimulate their arousal level.",
"Imagine that the amount of stimulation ranges from 0-100\n\nUnder 20 is too boring, and you can't concentrate. That's like watching paint dry\n\nOver 80 is too hectic, and you get overwhelmed, so you can't concentrate either. It's like like working Black Friday in a Walmart. Or trying to study with a fire alarm going off in the background.\n\nMundane is like 30 units of stimulation. It's not particularly fun, but you can at least concentrate on it enough to work. You can also do other stuff without losing concentration.\n\nBeing tired is like a -20 modifier on stimulation.\n\nCaffiene is like a +20 modifier.\n\nThis is why normal folks can't focus on work or study when they are tired, but they can with a bit of caffiene.\n\nIf you have ADD, your minimum threshold and Max are increased to 40 and 90. You can handle.more stimulation comfortably, but also, you can't concentrate on dull activities.\n\nMundane work is below that threshold. But with a stimulant, it pushes an ADD person above it.\n\nThat's also why ADD people can focus on Video Games for hours. It's not that they are being lazy, it's that videogames are built to be high stimulus activities.\n\nI hope that helps",
"In ELI5 fashion, I over simplify it, and therefore don't explain it 100% correctly by saying \n\n\" people with ADHD and other disorders have their brain wired backwards. If I took their medication I'd sprout wings like the red bull ad and fly away; for them though it just speeds the rest of the world up to how fast their brain is functioning anyway\". \n\nYou can't clinically diagnose most of this stuff until at least 5. So I tell people to slip their batshit crazy kid some no sugar coke or other caffeine beverage (emphasis on no sugar: that's a problem in itself). If the kid all the sudden is chill AF after digesting it, maybe it's time to entertain the idea of seeing a paediatrician for actual medical advice, not just some crazy guy on the internet.",
"Dear subs, stop fucking removing half the responses to every damn question. Not happy that it's ELI9, makes a joke, or you just don't like it? Put a tag or disclaimer for fucks sake. You guys are taking your jobs way too seriously, you're like that teacher that never smiles and loves homework. I get that this is a forum for learning, but if it was meant to be that serious, this sub wouldn't have this title."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
||
1jt3mc | how do we know air (nitrogen and oxygen) is odourless? what if we're so used to the smell we can't detect it? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1jt3mc/eli5_how_do_we_know_air_nitrogen_and_oxygen_is/ | {
"a_id": [
"cbi099u",
"cbigpp6"
],
"score": [
26,
3
],
"text": [
"Those are the same thing. Odour is defined as whatever our olfactory organs can detect and get the brain to interpret. If we don't smell it, it doesn't have a scent.\n\nOf course, a species that evolved in a different atmosphere might well find it has a specific scent. That doesn't invalidate what I said above though. All your sense of smell is telling you is that specific molecules exist and that you're set up to detect them in the air.",
"You could try to lose the scent of it by breathing something apart from air for a while but that probably would not be advisable."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[]
] |
||
69yd2p | what really are radio waves and do they travel at the speed of light? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/69yd2p/eli5_what_really_are_radio_waves_and_do_they/ | {
"a_id": [
"dha9b2y",
"dhaca04"
],
"score": [
14,
2
],
"text": [
"They're a form of electromagnetic radiation, like xrays, infrared, microwaves, ultraviolet, and visible light. They do travel at the speed of light, as they *are* light. You can't see it, however, because it is not at a wavelength that stimulates the rods and cones in your eyes. ",
"The speed of light we often refer to is actually the speed of light in a vacuum. All forms of EM radiation slow down when traveling through different materials. Light is just so fast that we need very precise tools to measure these speed changes. "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[]
] |
||
826kn4 | when planets orbit their star, what stops them from being sucked into the star from gravity? | I would think that after billions of years, the gravity would bring the planet closer and closer until it got burned up. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/826kn4/eli5_when_planets_orbit_their_star_what_stops/ | {
"a_id": [
"dv7qp2y",
"dv7qreu",
"dv7qy0s",
"dv7r1e3",
"dv7rzmh"
],
"score": [
4,
23,
11,
2,
3
],
"text": [
"It’s like a fat guy and a skinny girl twirling around dancing. The fat guy doesn’t move as much but they are still always pulling on each other. The motion of twirling around makes her not get pulled right into him and his fatness. So they just keep happily spinning and twirling pulling on each other until someone or something eventually steps in. ",
"The speed at which they're orbiting. \n\nIn movies, you may hear about \"slingshot effects\" that orbits can take. It was a part of 2001: A Space Odyssey, Armageddon, and Apollo 13. This has to do with Kepler's second law of planetary motion, which states that \"a line joining a planet and the Sun sweeps out equal areas in equal times.\" Said another way, the closer you are to the thing you're orbiting, the faster you go. Unless you're on an intercept trajectory--which is very difficult given how small things in space are and how fast they're moving relative to one another--you'll sweep right by something and get flung out again. It's how comets have predictable orbits around the sun. \n\nBecause there are n-body perturbations on all orbits, no orbit is ever stable. Over time, they will eventually fall into the thing they're orbiting (like satellites falling into and burning up in the atmosphere) or they will eventually break the gravitational hold of the thing they're going around and go hyperbolic (like our moon would do if the Sun doesn't blow up first, which it probably will). ",
" > when planets orbit their star, what stops them from being sucked into the star from gravity?\n\nThey are being sucked into the star by gravity. That's why they don't fly off into space. \n\nThe caveat is that in orbit, you are falling sideways so fast that you continue to miss the planet. So by the time they would 'hit' the sun, they're way off to the side, and now down is in the opposite direction. But as they fall towards *that* down, the falling momentum towards the old down isn't gone either. So now when they reach where they would have hit the star, they're below it (if we're staying with our original orientation of 'down'). \n\nAnd so on. Ultimately, they are perpetually falling in a circle around the star. ",
"Think of a ball attached to a stick with a string. If you twirl the ball around the string, the ball \"orbits\" the stick via the tension force from the string. If there is nothing to slow the ball down, it will keep going round-and-round. On earth, there is drag with the air, so the ball will eventually slow down and crash towards the stick. In space, there is no drag force to slow down the planets.\n\nWhen the sun was formed, there was a large debris cloud around it. By luck, some of the debris was in a stable orbit. Many more chunks of debris weren't. The chunks of debris in stable orbits eventually collapsed together into planets, while the chunks of debris not in stable orbits eventually flew off, fell into the sun, or formed objects with highly irregular orbit paths (comets). ",
"The planets fall with style. As they fall towards their sun the speed makes it so they are always missing."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
|
56axac | military patents, how are they enforced and why bother to make a patent? | [deleted] | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/56axac/eli5_military_patents_how_are_they_enforced_and/ | {
"a_id": [
"d8hqqmz",
"d8hu6xg"
],
"score": [
3,
3
],
"text": [
"Military secrets aren't patented. You'll never find a patent for the firing mechanism of a nuclear weapon.\n\nOther things developed in the course of designing military equipment, however, are still patentable. If you, for example, develop a new type of glue to hold together parts of a nuclear weapon, you can probably patent that if it has civilian uses that don't give other militaries an advantage.\n\nI don't know the specifics of who decides what must be secret or how the decision is made.",
"These things are often designed and manufactured by private companies, and then sold to government customers. The government manufactures almost nothing itself. So all those tanks and planes and weapons are made by businesses like Boeing, Chrysler, Colt, etc. For example, for many decades Colt held the exclusive rights to manufacture M16 and M4 rifles for the military. Other manufacturers could not make a duplicate weapon without violating patent laws and the military's licensing agreement.\n\nHowever, you are correct that any hostile country that really wanted to could copy our equipment. China and Russia don't care about things like patents and copyright laws in the first place, so nothing is really stopping them."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[]
] |
|
8i0fx1 | do lobsters feel pain when boiled alive? if so, is it not cruel to boil them alive? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8i0fx1/eli5_do_lobsters_feel_pain_when_boiled_alive_if/ | {
"a_id": [
"dynxdru",
"dynxfzq",
"dynxxp5",
"dynyabb",
"dyot4fp"
],
"score": [
8,
4,
2,
6,
4
],
"text": [
"Yes and no. As far as we can tell, they sense \"pain\" but not in the way that you or I would describe pain. It is more of an instinctual reaction to move away from the object causing them damage; they don't have a brain capable of forming a thought like \"pain\" in even the rudimentary way more advanced mammals do. The \"screams\" people claim they hear are actually the water boiling way in the shell.\n\nThat said, if you are concerned about it, many chefs have taken to slicing through the head of the lobster (instantly killing it) before putting it in the water.",
"They might, but it's very likely not the complex pain that we as humans feel\n\nAnd on top of that, when people cook lobsters, they often stick a knife through the brain immediately before cooking, killing it. That way, there's no real loss of freshness but the lobsters are also not alive for the process of cooking",
"Depends on how you define cruelty. Many people would say the concept of killing and eating an animal is cruel to it regardless of your method. personally I don't care because they are fucking lobsters dude",
"Americas test kitchen said they have research that suggests they do feel pain when boiled alive. They recommend putting lobster in the freezer for about a half hour to 45 minutes which is supposed to put them to sleep and they will die before they regain consciousness. Plus it cuts down on rogue splashes of boiling water.\n\nThere is other research that suggests they don't feel pain as we know it. ",
"At least one country considers it cruel enough to [ban it](_URL_1_), and at least one UK scientist is convinced that they [feel pain](_URL_0_)."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
[],
[],
[
"https://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/lobsters-boil-alive-cooking-ban-taste-animal-pain-uk-switzerland-welfare-a8217921.html",
"https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/01/10/lobsters-must-comfortably-numb-cooking-rules-swiss-government/"
]
] |
||
74qbid | what is the scientific reason we wash our hands? | I know it is to get rid of germs, but how does hand washing do that? And why is using soap and water better than just using water? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/74qbid/eli5_what_is_the_scientific_reason_we_wash_our/ | {
"a_id": [
"do0b0hp"
],
"score": [
12
],
"text": [
"Soap is a surfactant. Surfactants function by breaking down the interface between water and oils and/or dirt. They also hold these oils and dirt in suspension, and so allow their removal.\n\nUsing water only would get rid of a lot, maybe most of the dirt & germs, but because oil & water don't mix, the oil on your hands will hold onto some of the dirt & germs.\n\nAdding soap will help to break down the oils and wash away oil, dirt, germs and all. \n\nAlso, the mechanical action of rubbing & scrubbing is an important factor. This is why surgeons have a very precise procedure for washing their hands before surgery. "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
|
4j8u7q | heat inside your house | So, two questions. 1: if the temperature is high inside my house due to a heat wave, why does it take so long to cool down when I open the door to let cold air in (or hot air out w/e)? It rained so the temperature dropped more than 10 degrees celsius but after hours of having the door open (to the balcony outside), temperature has dropped only 2 degrees. 2: Often when it starts getting hotter outside with the sun out more often, it heats up my house too. But how is it possible that say 20 degrees celsius weather manages to heat up my house to 25 degrees? How can it be hotter inside my house, by such a large margin, than outside? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4j8u7q/eli5_heat_inside_your_house/ | {
"a_id": [
"d34njt0",
"d34nkzd"
],
"score": [
2,
2
],
"text": [
"Which direction do your windows and doors face? It's possible that you aren't getting enough draft. Is your house older and possibly plaster? Plaster retains a lot of heat, much more than drywall; and isn't insulated as well either. \n\nTry sticking a big box fan at your doorway facing outwards; but remember that heat rises so putting it on the floor won't help.\n\nDo you have ceiling fans? Did you know that ceiling fans have a switch to change their direction depending on the season? When it's hot you want the fan blowing down to bring that hot air off the ceiling, whereas when it's cold you want the fan pulling up towards the ceiling to better circulate what little heat may be there.",
"Stuff in your house retains heat. Any colder air that enters the room is heated by it. \n\nYour house contains heat sources like appliances and yourself. "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[]
] |
|
3aylrb | how nasa's spacecrafts can travel approximately 38000 miles/hr to reach pluto in 9 years | Just saw a post that NASA's New Horizon has travelled 3 billion miles in 9 years.. I can't fathom how we can create something that travels this fast. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3aylrb/eli5how_nasas_spacecrafts_can_travel/ | {
"a_id": [
"csh4qmh",
"csh4s16",
"csh4tj5"
],
"score": [
2,
6,
5
],
"text": [
"It wouldn't travel anywhere near that speed on Earth. Space is a vacuum, physics work differently up there. There's a lot less things resisting it's movement than here on Earth. It hasn't got friction, wind, gravity, or air resistance to worry about.",
"Once you clear the atmosphere and you're no longer butting heads with a bunch of air particles slowing you down due to friction, it's pretty easy to reach crazy high speeds. Think about driving a car where, when you take your foot off the accelerator, you don't slow down, but every time you tap it even a little bit, you still go faster. That's what travelling in space is like. Without (much) friction to slow you down, you can build up a lot of speed over the distance from Earth to Pluto.",
"Well, it doesn't have to stop for gas. Or pee breaks.\n\nAlso, in space, once it gets to speed, it's not going to slow down unless it hits something or gets pulled in by a significant gravitational force. On Earth, you have to constantly apply force just to maintain your speed because of the friction against the air. In space, if you add more force, you add more speed, and the speed stays.\n\nThe hardest part is getting the probe out of our planet's gravity. After that, point it where you want it to go, get it up to speed, and check in a few years later."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
[]
] |
|
9ygqq2 | why the oldest things (like music, movies...) seems to be better than the new ones? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9ygqq2/eli5_why_the_oldest_things_like_music_movies/ | {
"a_id": [
"ea15bdv",
"ea161xx",
"ea162nq"
],
"score": [
25,
3,
11
],
"text": [
"Because only the best of the oldest things are still remembered, and you are comparing that with *all* of the new things.",
"I associate music with memories. Some of my favorite songs aren't my favorite because they are the best songs ever written. It's because they bring me back to good memories. Driving around in my Rabbit convertible in high school, listening to Radiohead and talking with my best friend. One of my first dates with my now husband to see a new band, Linkin Park, at a dive bar. Laying out at the lake, drinking beer, smoking a joint, listening to Sublime, without problem in the world. Dancing with my two year old son to The Rolling Stones when he was up all night with the flu. Coming home to find that same son, now 16, learning to play Pink Floyd on his new guitar. There is certain music that will always be \"better\" to me because I love the memories it brings me.",
"1) Survivor bias. We remember the good from the past and forget about the bad. While when we look at those today we go see and listen to content that are both bad and good and it seem unbalanced. \n\n2) The past have a huge advantage, the number of years. If you look the last 10 years as the ''new ones'' and compare that to the oldest things (centuries when it come to music and more than one century for movie) that's a bit imbalance. You compare a decade to more than a century of content created, statistically you have a good chance that more great content was created in the past than in the small period of time we consider the present.\n\n3) Nostalgia. When we look at an old movie or listen to an old music, it remind us of memories from the past, which increase their value in our eyes.\n"
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
[]
] |
||
30d3rl | why is the way the us government structured in such a way that all houses lack overriding power and make everything such as passing law extremely long and difficult? | Doesnt that give authoritarian governments such as those in Russia and China a distinct advantage? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/30d3rl/eli5_why_is_the_way_the_us_government_structured/ | {
"a_id": [
"cpr9x58",
"cpr9xqt",
"cpr9zqh",
"cpr9zrl",
"cprannk",
"cprjylr"
],
"score": [
8,
2,
3,
2,
3,
2
],
"text": [
"They did that on purpose to make it difficult to pass laws. They didn't want any single body to have too much power to stop authorian systems like a Monarchy from passing laws without the consent of the people. ",
"Yes and no. The US government is structured as it is in order to lessen the power of any factions within the government and to limit the power of the federal government itself.\n\nWhen it was created, the US federal government was not meant to be the primary source of power, it was only meant to be a federation of the states. This is why the constitution contains language limiting what the federal government can do. \n\nOver the last 2 1/2 centuries, the federal government has grown in strength and authority, though it is still limited to a slow and deliberate process for things like passing laws.",
"Because the Founding Fathers wanted an ineffective government. Their idea was that if something was *really* important, the government would work together to solve it, and the states would volunteer to pay for it. And if the proposal was bullshit, somewhere along the way it would be weeded out. Mostly the federal government was supposed to pay the army, while the states sorted things out for themselves.\n\nBut they did their job a little too well in the Articles of Confederation, and they had to strengthen the federal government by creating the Constitution instead... but they wanted the ability to levy taxes without things getting out of hand, so they set up the checks and balances to keep things unbalanced.",
"We had just fought a war to get away from the ruling power of a single individual. The government was specifically designed to require a lot of effort and a lot of people before a law could be passed, as opposed to the arbitrary and capricious rule-making of a king.\n\nAnd as far as \"advantage\" -- advantage for whom?",
"Its how its supposed to be. A slow and difficult process of passing laws makes it so not every new president and his cabinet can just restructure the whole country. Its often the case that a single event causes a commotion and everybody is screaming for new laws in the heat of the moment, but it doesn't seem so important or necessary in 2 or 3 weeks. A slow goverment will make sure that everything that gets passed is actually not just flavor of the month.\nHowever, if something is really urgent and everybody agrees on it, it can pass relativly fast. \n\n",
"Checks and balances. Congress wants a law saying \"Every Friday is Jesus Friday\". Passes. The president then signs it because he likes Jesus. The Supreme Court then says \"Hold up, this violates the constitution, its invalid\". In theory. It works perfect. In a 2 party system, not so much. "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
|
5xputk | why do teenage boys going through puberty get erections randomly? | [deleted] | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5xputk/eli5_why_do_teenage_boys_going_through_puberty/ | {
"a_id": [
"dejxnq5"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"Reasons that men (and teenage boys) will get an erection:\n\nThey are aroused. Teenage boys have a lot of hormones pumping through them, just like teenage girls and both will become aroused often and easily. \n\nThey have a blood pressure shift. This is part of why they get erections while they sleep (morning wood). Natural blood pressure changes will sometimes result in erections. \n\nThey have physical stimulation without being aroused. (pants rubbing, vibration of seat in a car, etc)\n\nThey have an extreme need to pee. You will get a partial erection when you are trying to not pee. "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
|
3tyy72 | given the stalkerish level of technology, how come it took so long to find osama bin laden? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3tyy72/eli5given_the_stalkerish_level_of_technology_how/ | {
"a_id": [
"cxaeldh",
"cxaelw2",
"cxafe5i"
],
"score": [
2,
7,
5
],
"text": [
"The level of technology was not so stalkerish back then, especially in most parts of Pakistan. ",
"You can only be tracked by technology if you use it. Bin Laden stayed off the grid and communicated with written messages delivered by messengers and face-to-face.",
"Bin Laden was being harbored by a country we consider to be an ally. You can't find someone when you aren't looking in the right place! "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
[]
] |
||
3rt6s2 | what's the legality of towing a car? if i take it from the towing company's lot, am i stealing my car from them? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3rt6s2/eli5_whats_the_legality_of_towing_a_car_if_i_take/ | {
"a_id": [
"cwr3mbv"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"Towing cars is legal, subject to state and local statutes. Usually, for property regularly accessible to the public, the owner must post a clear warning that cars will be towed, or place one on the car for a specified amount of time. Then the tow truck company becomes custodian of the car and must keep it safe, until delivered back to the owner. Towing fees are usually capped by law.\n\nIf you take your car from the lot, you're not stealing your car--but you'd be trespassing on their lot, and it'd be illegal to use this maneuver not to pay towing fees that are properly due."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
||
5mh3na | why is it in northern states (us) it can snow several feet and daily life doesn't change, but in southern states ~1 inch of snow can shut everything down? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5mh3na/eli5_why_is_it_in_northern_states_us_it_can_snow/ | {
"a_id": [
"dc3jnp9",
"dc3jq3g",
"dc3n8ny"
],
"score": [
3,
17,
2
],
"text": [
"Because northern states have snow plows and salt trucks, and southern states don't. So they have no way to clear the roads in the south. The snow just sits there, making travel almost impossible. Especially for a populace that has no experience driving even on well-maintained winter roads, let alone roads with several inches of unremoved snow.",
"Infrastructure in place to deal with it, both people's stuff and city wide.\n\nIf you live in an area that regularly gets snow, you have snowblowers. You have shovels. You have winter tires, and they're already on the car. The city has huge salt reserves, plows, you name it.\n\nif you live somewhere that *doesn't* get snow regularly... that's a lot of money to spend on shit you need once every five years, tops! So nobody has the equipment to deal with even a little bit.\n\n\n**edit:** one additional problem warmer climates can have is ice. In colder climates, once the weather gets below freezing it usually **hangs out** below it for some time. So snow stays snow. But in the south, if it happens it only happens for relatively short times. If you have cold enough weather for snow, then it warms up enough to melt briefly, then dips back down again... now you have nice big sheets of *ice*. And that will ruin your day.",
"Northern States have roads designed to handle snow, Have trucks to clear snow, have trucks to sand and salt roads, and have the sand and salt stockpiled. Southern States do not have these things because it does not snow often enough for the cost to maintain those vehicles, workers, and stockpiles is too much for the amount that it is used. \n\nAdditionally the citizens of the south never have enough time in snow to learn how to safely drive on it. As such it just becomes very dangerous to get out on the road."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
[]
] |
||
c2wlm6 | what actually physically happens when hard drive "fails"? does it just ''wear out''? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/c2wlm6/eli5_what_actually_physically_happens_when_hard/ | {
"a_id": [
"ermz5w5",
"ernh0rs"
],
"score": [
9,
4
],
"text": [
"In a platter drive (the older, typically larger capacity ones), they have one or more thin discs of metal on a central spindle, and one or more arms with a sensor that act almost like a stylus on an old vinyl record player. When those drives fail, one of the following has typically happened:\n\n- Physical failure of the central spindle\n- Physical failure of the sensor arm\n- Failure of the sensor\n- Failure of the input/output socket or circuitry therein\n\nOn newer, solid state drives, it will be a problem with the chip or the board that the chip is mounted in. There are no moving parts.",
"The disk drives that have failed on me have done so for two reasons. Most often, some small bit of crud breaks off the surface of the platter or gets into the sealed compartment, and drifts between the platter and the head. That chips off a tiny bit of platter, which destroys that sector (data chunk), and means that there are now two bits of crud in the disk.\n\nWhen drives get very old, sometimes the lubricant on the spindle bearings (that allow the platters to spin) gets thick and sticky. As long as the drive is spinning it can overcome the sticky, but once it's turned off the motor can't spin it up again. For reasons entirely beyond me, chilling the drive will allow it to start. I've had one critical drive do that, and my co-worker has had a second. When the computer is old enough that spares are short, you get creative."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[]
] |
||
1l0r8z | why the woman has the right to "decide not to have a child," yet the man has no such right? is this gender equality? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1l0r8z/eli5_why_the_woman_has_the_right_to_decide_not_to/ | {
"a_id": [
"cbulgnz",
"cbulik6",
"cbum64c",
"cbumg1b",
"cbumvp4"
],
"score": [
3,
2,
2,
5,
2
],
"text": [
"yikes this one is going to get hairy\n\nthis one doesnt involve gender, its a simple question of logistics. fedex doesnt want to bring you the package, you dont get it, end of story, your contribution to it honestly doesnt matter in the eyes of human rights and property\n\nif a man can carry/birth a baby, or find someone willing to do it for him, he can have it",
"Yes, this is gender equality. Because men and women have different bodies, they have to make different decisions, and we can't just pretend like the genitalia and life cycle for men and women are the same. \n\nMen don't have carry a child to term, with a fetus using his biological resources in order to grow inside of him, making him gain weight, vomit, cause cravings, and finally shred it's way out of his crotch. Further, after birth, children tend to stay with the mother (and the law is biased towards children staying with mothers due to everyday prejudices that we still can't get out of the system.) If the man who demands that a woman who decides not to have a child to have one, he can still. just. walk. out of the picture. Sure he'll pay child support, but he isn't obligated to provide shelter/care/medicine/milk.\n\n",
"The man does a have the right to not have a child in a way, he doesn't have to be there physically to care for an unwanted child if he chooses so. The woman can choose the same (this frequently ends in abortion though).\n\n However child support payments are not about gender rights, the purpose of child support payments is to get money to a parent the ensure the well-being of a child. (Fun fact, in 1991 600,000 men were **receiving** child support payments from an absent mother! [source](_URL_0_)). Besides child support I don't see much to support gender inequality.",
"From the way you are responding to the replies, it is clear that you understand the subject, and want to have a debate about it.\n\nELI5 is not for debates, it is a place to come to get explanations of subjects you don't understand. Therefore, I've deleted your question. I'd suggest you re-post it in /r/changemyview",
"If you don't want a child, use a condom and a spermicide. If you do not take this precaution, expect a shitstorm. Pretty easy choice. But, in answer to the question, the woman's rights come first because it is her body and life on the line, not the man's. Gender equality is not really possible in my opinion. Men and Women are too different to find equality. I think it has to be more like a \"separate but equal\" kind of thing. And if you don't have something growing inside of you, you don't have a say in its outcome. "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
[
"http://www.census.gov/prod/1/statbrief/sb95_16.pdf"
],
[],
[]
] |
||
387801 | what is the difference between self-esteem and self worth? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/387801/eli5what_is_the_difference_between_selfesteem_and/ | {
"a_id": [
"crsu1a0",
"crsu2jb"
],
"score": [
2,
2
],
"text": [
"How you feel about yourself vs how valuable you see yourself?",
"A lack of self-esteem means you have no confidence. To lack a sense of self worth is to be humble.\n\nYou can be humble and confident, just as you can be shy and arrogant. (my exgf can attest to that last one, so, so much.)"
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[]
] |
||
3lonjg | how the hell was a gnat able to survive 4 mins in the microwave when my food was fully cooked and steaming? | I gotta know. It literally just happened
Edit: Thank you all. I will consider this myth, "solved". | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3lonjg/eli5how_the_hell_was_a_gnat_able_to_survive_4/ | {
"a_id": [
"cv7y47g",
"cv7y54b",
"cv80gal",
"cv8udbp"
],
"score": [
70,
32,
545,
7
],
"text": [
"Microwaves aren't absorbed equally by different materials. Water, for example, absorbs microwaves very well, so if your food is wet, the waves will be absorbed by the food, but pass through the gnat which has less water in it. This means that the gnat will not be heated as much as the food.\n\nMore about this here: _URL_0_",
"A microwave doesn't heat the whole space equally, there are hot spots and cold spots caused by the wavelength of the waves. That's why there's a turntable - rotating the food evens out the heating. If you put something like a bar of chocolate in without the turntable, you'll get a pattern of melted and cold areas. An insect flying above the turntable could happen to avoid the hot spots and so survive.",
"In addition to the other answers: the size of a gnat -- especially the moist part that would absorb the radio waves -- is actually *too short* to efficiently absorb these waves. Even a quarter of a wave is 3cm long. So nearly all the absorbing is going to be done by more efficient receivers, with the gnat being largely transparent to these gigantic waves.\n\n*EDIT: See below for experimental test.*\n\nSince there were some doubters about whether this effect contributes anything significant in addition to the gnat's obvious ability to move, I decided to do a little experiment. I took two identical microwave-transparent ceramic cylinders, 5cm inside diameter. (It would be interesting to repeat the experiment using a nearly massless but non-absorbent container, but I don't have those.) Into one I poured enough tap water to fill the whole width, around 1cm deep. Into the other I poured 1 drop of tap water, which spread to about 0.9cm wide.\n\nI microwaved both together, on opposite sides of the turntable, so they would get a nice random mixture of microwave exposure. I opened the door ever 30 seconds to measure each temperature with an infrared thermometer, then resumed microwaving.\n\nResults: \n\n (time, large water temp, small water temp)\n 0 seconds, 24.5C, 24.6C\n 30 seconds, 86.7C, 35.6C\n 60 seconds, 90.1C, 42.1C\n 74 seconds, exploded (exceeded 100C), 42.7C\n\nAs expected, the smaller dot of water -- still many times the size of a gnat but much smaller than the significant size of 1/4 wave -- heated much more slowly and gradually than the wider pool of water. In effect, the gnat has *much less* energy absorbed per second than the larger food item, even before the gnat tries to relocate to a cool spot, or even if no spot is truly cool.\n\n\n\n\n",
"ELI5: What's a gnat?"
]
} | [] | [] | [
[
"https://what-if.xkcd.com/131/"
],
[],
[],
[]
] |
|
ox8x8 | how exactly do companies acquire, store, and analyze the huge amounts of personal information and data | I know broadly how it begins to occur (every time a person swipes a debit or credit card, releases information about medical history, signs up for newsletters, makes a donation to a noble cause, opens a bank account, purchases any form of insurance, or makes an online purchase)...
But I want to know the precise method in which companies acquire, sort through, and store all those thousands of terabytes on us? How and where do they store this? How is this searchable if it's unstructured data? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/ox8x8/eli5_how_exactly_do_companies_acquire_store_and/ | {
"a_id": [
"c3ktd9k"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"Realistically, much more data is collected than is ever analysed. Typically, a manager asks a question and an analyst will query databases available to answer it. Some companies have developed tools for finding patterns in the data (e.g. customers who bought X also bought Y).\n\n[There is an AMA here from a supermarket behavioural analyst that may help you also.](_URL_0_)"
]
} | [] | [] | [
[
"http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/jxaqk/i_am_a_behavioral_analyst_for_a_grocery_store_i/"
]
] |
|
2mbgt8 | why did we stop building beautiful and ornate buildings? | I noticed that buildings these days seem to lack details and tend to be frankly, uglier than older buildings.
I know it's not just me as my friends and people in general go to vacations in cities with beautiful and old buildings such as Paris, Prague and Rome. I doubt people take pictures of them purely for their historic value, they also appreciate their beauty.
So why aren't we building ornate and imposing buildings anymore? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2mbgt8/eli5why_did_we_stop_building_beautiful_and_ornate/ | {
"a_id": [
"cm2o31d",
"cm2ou0z",
"cm2zlzp"
],
"score": [
6,
10,
2
],
"text": [
"Styles have changed. The 20th century was characterized by change from beauty to function in architecture. We're starting to see some more artistic buildings in a newer style, such as [Frank Lloyd Wright's \"falling water\"](_URL_3_), [The Walkie Talkie](_URL_0_), [Disney Music Hall](_URL_1_), and the [One World Trade Center](_URL_2_)",
"Cost. Beautiful and ornate are a big added expense. Also lots of old buildings were fugly, most of those get torn down. Beautiful ones get preserved.\n\n",
"At least in the United States we lack the craftsmen to do these jobs. And the ones that ARE available for this kind of detailed work are too expensive now. When you had immigrants coming to America from Europe at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries they would bring a tradition of ornate stone masonry work (for example) and would work for cheap. Now, the guy that does that is $100/hr."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[
"http://tangibleireland.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/Walkie-Talkie-Building.jpg",
"http://archpaper.com/uploads/image/disney-music-hall-losangeles-gehry.jpg",
"http://www.architecturaldigest.com/architecture/2012-09/one-world-trade-center-new-york-david-childs-article/_jcr_content/par/cn_contentwell/par-main/cn_pagination_container/cn_image_2.size.world-trade-center-03-h670x773.jpg",
"http://www.fallingwater.org/img/home_assets/FW_FALL_01.jpg"
],
[],
[]
] |
|
1pziik | due process | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1pziik/eli5_due_process/ | {
"a_id": [
"cd7nggl"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"That's a huge question. Like, in one of my classes we've been studying a [really specific application](_URL_2_) of due process the Supreme Court addressed in 1990. The final answer for us (first year of law school answer) was \"we really don't know which of these 2 interpretations of due process (for this really specific subject) is right because the Supreme Court voted weird... most people think interpretation 1, but some people think interpretation 2, which is 'right' depends...\"\n\n[The basic idea](_URL_1_) is that laws and legal proceeding have to be be fair. The government can't put you in jail unfairly; the government can't seize your property unfairly, and so on.\n\nWhat does unfair mean? Dude, don't ask me. It's like \"what is a reasonable person\" or \"what are traditional notions of fair play and substantial justice\". There's no clear single answer. People have been arguing about it for a long time.\n\nThat's the best answer I can give: [due process](_URL_0_) means that, yes, sometimes the government can infringe on your rights (e.g., putting you in jail) but it can't do so unfairly."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Due_process",
"http://www.lectlaw.com/def/d080.htm",
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burnham_v._Superior_Court_of_California"
]
] |
||
1sokww | if humans, as 3-dimensional creatures, can only view cross sections of the 4th dimension (a point in time), does that mean a 4-dimensional creature can view the entire 4th dimension at once? | This question was inspired by this video at the 3:54 mark:
_URL_0_ | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1sokww/eli5_if_humans_as_3dimensional_creatures_can_only/ | {
"a_id": [
"cdzmzx5",
"cdznx1u",
"cdzot13",
"cdzplg0",
"cdzsq0s",
"cdzutda",
"cdzw9bw"
],
"score": [
18,
4,
2,
9,
2,
2,
2
],
"text": [
"So far as we know, such a time-independent perspective is impossible in our universe.",
"Depends on whether or not the 4th dimension is time. There are other spacial dimensions theorized besides the standard 3+1.\n\nIt's not entirely wrong to view time as a spacial dimension either. There's a bit more to it, but it's a decent ELI5 start. However, an issue is scale. The universe is huge. Just because a being lives \"beyond\" our dimensions, doesn't mean that the entire universe would be visible to them simultaneously.\n\nCareful too though. This is getting into an area I'm currently struggling with. Everything I've seen thus far in relativity points me in the direction of determinism. It's a tad unsettling.",
"you'd find Slaughterhouse 5 fascinating",
"Math may be N-dimensional but physics is not necessarily so. The physical world that we observe has only three spatial dimensions. \n\nMathematically there is no reason that the fourth dimension has to be time. There could be many more spatial dimensions, or temporal dimensions, or other types of dimensions that we are not aware of.\n\nHumans are able to comprehend N dimensions even though we cannot draw a picture of them. Mathemeticians do it all the time.",
"If the fourth dimension is time, then perhaps we are four-dimensional creatures. We don't see a cross-section of time (an instant, say), but we see all the cross-sections of time that we are embedded in (our whole lives). The fact that we can't see these \"all at once\" is the same reason that we don't see space \"all in one place\" - it's a function of what time and space *are*. \n \n \nThe feeling of time passing is what being in the time dimension is *like*.",
"Yes but it looks a bit wibbly wobbly. ..",
"I came here expecting seeing some shortsighted people stating that 4 dimensional creatures cannot exist. It seems I have to wait a little more.\n\nYears ago while in high school I was talking with a friend that likes biology alot. I said what if there are nuclear powered creatures out there in the space and he said it was impossible. Years later I saw nuclear radiation absorbing mushrooms in the news :)\n\nOur knowledge is limited with our experiences. We only connect the dots that we can see. And sometimes we can imagine abit of what can be outside. It is entirely possible that there can be 4 dimensional creatures capable of seeing the whole time. It is possible that there are 11 dimensional creatures. Heck there can be infinite dimensional creatures and maybe structures beyond dimensions as we understand. We know nothing, it is dumb to say that the what out there is limited to what we currently know."
]
} | [] | [
"http://youtu.be/zqeqW3g8N2Q?t=3m54s"
] | [
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
|
735hoz | why some people get the "heebie jeebies" when they touch certain items? (ie sponge foam, peaches, cotton balls, etc) | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/735hoz/eli5_why_some_people_get_the_heebie_jeebies_when/ | {
"a_id": [
"dnnt2hs"
],
"score": [
4
],
"text": [
"It's called a Sensory Processing Disorder. Pretty much certain textures or sounds activate certain parts of the brain which makes it respond negatively. It often happens to people with autism but they don't have to necessarily be comorbid. Not everyone with SPD deals with the same type of SPD or are affected in the same ways by the same thing (as you mentioned) "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
||
aee4yh | why do ambulances use so many different patterns and colors of flashing lights? | [deleted] | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/aee4yh/eli5_why_do_ambulances_use_so_many_different/ | {
"a_id": [
"edoi4g7",
"edojbhg",
"edomq0z",
"edou7ek",
"edoynpu"
],
"score": [
2,
12,
5,
2,
4
],
"text": [
"So people can jump out of the way when the ambulance comes speeding down the street and you don't end up in an ambulance yourself.",
"To maximise visibility, different light patterns and colours make it more obvious, especially if you just catch in your peripheral vision. Several different coloured lights are useful for the significant portion of the population who has non- normative colour vision. Most colour blindness types leave people unable to distiguish two different colours, four colours means that almost everyone will see some change, again maximising visibility ",
"Also the random patterns help get your attention. When it is the same repeating pattern we tend to block it out, but with every change our attention is brought back to the fact there is an emergency vehicle there.",
"Are you sure they are all owned by FDNY? Many ambulances are private owned and are different models with different lights ",
"Red and white are the usual warning light colors for ambulances and fire trucks, Amber flashing lights are supposed to indicate that you may be going slow in traffic but maintaining that you are working an emergency so use caution. Blue lights are supposed to be super visible at night but for some reason can only be used on the rear in New York State.\n\nPatterns vary wildly with each iteration of new emergency vehicle, Mostly based on what seems to be the most effective at the time of install and that new lighting patterns are coming out with each new flasher unit or lightbar."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
|
3fmxn7 | i've been seeing a lot of concerned talk about ai lately. can someone explain to me what the big deal is? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3fmxn7/eli5_ive_been_seeing_a_lot_of_concerned_talk/ | {
"a_id": [
"ctq1r4x",
"ctq25iu",
"ctq2a92"
],
"score": [
2,
3,
3
],
"text": [
"The basic fear is like this. There are evil people out there, people who if they had access to the things that can be accessed over the internet (like WMDs) they would use them to kill millions.\n\nNow if they were able to duplicate the human brain in the computer it could possibly do the same things. Since we are much closer to duplicating human reasoning and not emotion or morality, it would be a cold unfeeling consciousness.\n\nWe are quite a ways off of any of this becoming reality though",
"So imagine you programmed an AI robot to protect your house from intruders. The robot could perceive this as...\n\n- I will destroy the house so no intruders can enter it.\n\n- I will kill everybody in the world so there are no intruders.\n\nCombine this with robots for military use. Robots that can replicate themselves and giving AI all the human knowledge it took us 1000 of years to develop without any learning curve and you can quickly have a very serious issue on your hands. If robots can replicate faster than we can destroy them then it could be the end for us, and even other life in the universe. ",
"People forget that, unlike in hollywood, real computers can be unplugged if they misbehave enough."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
[]
] |
||
5xdroz | what are "multiverses" and why do we treat them differently than groups of different galaxies? what is the difference in classification? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5xdroz/eli5_what_are_multiverses_and_why_do_we_treat/ | {
"a_id": [
"dehac68",
"dehb0ed"
],
"score": [
2,
5
],
"text": [
"Galaxies, stars, planets, and the space in-between, are considered to be part of our universe.\n\nMultiverses, on the other hand, is a shortened form of \"multiple universes\", each universe having its own galaxies, stars, planets, and space in-between.\n\nCurrently we can't travel, or even know if they possibly exist, to other universes. But we can think about the possibility, either from a theoretical physics point of view, or from the mathematics point of view. You assume that certain things will be the same and certain things may be different in other universes (if they exist), and see where the logic / math / physics takes you. For example, what if pi or the speed of light are slightly different?",
"A universe is a collection of galaxies, stars, everything else.\n\nThe multiverse is a collection of universes. It's just a hypothesis whether it exists - it all trails from the many worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics, which while it fits the observed evidence, is not the only interpretation which does, nor is it the more commonly accepted/used one. The idea basically states that every time anything happens, e.g. a decision which can result in A or B, then a universe in which A happens and a universe in which B happens are created. As you might expect, this results in a very, very large amount of universes very, very quickly so it tends to run on the idea that there is a universe out there for every single possibility of events from the start of the universe to the present day. As we said, there's absolutely no conclusive evidence that it exists, it's just a nice idea.\n\nAs for multiverse**s**, by definition you can't really have more than one."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[]
] |
||
5pwcsq | what does a virus or bacteria gain from making its host sick? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5pwcsq/eli5_what_does_a_virus_or_bacteria_gain_from/ | {
"a_id": [
"dcuawcw",
"dcuazje",
"dcub0bx",
"dcub3qw",
"dcuedpb",
"dcuk7wg",
"dcv6mln"
],
"score": [
21,
2,
23,
50,
3,
6,
2
],
"text": [
"These organisms exists only to replicate and spread.\n\nOur bodies fight them, and in the process, we feel \"sick.\" This is our body's response to the fight.\n\nFevers kills bacteria",
"It gets to live and make more of itself. \n\nThe host being sick is just a byproduct.\n\nAlso, the type of illness caused may be beneficial to spreading more of the illness. ",
"The same thing people gain from turning a forest into a grassland, or a meadow into a city, or by fouling a river by pooping in the river rather than pooping in the house.\n\nBasically, the bacteria or virus doesn't see you as a being, it sees you as terrain. That it hurts you, or provokes an immune response that makes you feel bad, isn't relevant. It's just trying to live, and in living it creates waste product, eats your cells, or interferes with your processes as helps itself.",
"Bacteria and viruses don't necessarily want their host sick, or even dead. Complications happen when the virus is in an organism it's not supposed to be in, and that organism isn't equipped to handle the virus. Rats carried the plague and were doing just fine, but when they jumped shipped and infected humans, they wiped out millions in the 14th century. It's the same with the influenza virus, and other viruses. Their goal is to multiply within their host for a while and then spread. Sometimes though, killing your host and exposing its fluids to other organisms is the best way to migrate. ",
"It's troubling to think of these viruses as if we were explaining humans and the host as the earth. ",
"Sometimes making you sick helps the illness to reproduce. Such as making you sneeze and cough to spread infection.\n\nOften times it's not intentional.\n\nDiseases that are new to a host often are the most dangerous. They aren't built to infect their new host so they sometimes kill it. In doing so they can actually make it harder for itself to keep living and reproducing.\n\nMost illnesses that have been in humans for a LONG LONG TIME are quite benign. For example, humanity has gotten infected multiple times from cross species herpes infections.\n\nThe type of herpes we've had the longest is almost totally invisible to us. It can infect over half the population and no one has any symptoms at all.\n\nThe newer forms of herpes are the more obvious and painful ones. The illnesses evolve over time to be less and less harmful and to infect more and more people.",
"The bacteria does not make you sick. \nYour body does it to itself in an effort to kill the virus/bacteria. \n\nAt least, that's the case for fevers. \n\nI don't know about colds though. "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
||
2qyohh | what happens if someone needs an ambulance during a snow storm and the roads aren't plowed? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2qyohh/eli5_what_happens_if_someone_needs_an_ambulance/ | {
"a_id": [
"cnasvl8",
"cnasxyl",
"cnaxe7s",
"cnar802",
"cnar8rf",
"cnar9x4",
"cnaro0s"
],
"score": [
3,
3,
2,
8,
7,
3,
3
],
"text": [
"I'm an EMT. We make every effort to get to someone's house. There was a picture a few weeks ago where responders were carrying someone on a backboard across a snowy parking lot because the ambulance and stretcher wouldn't make it. If you live out in the country, that's a risk you take by living there. We keep a log of addresses or roads that are unable to be accessed during severe weather. Also like others have said, ambulances are heavy and sometimes use snow chains/tires. If we cant make it, maybe a fire truck could. In an especially extenuating circumstance, we could request a snow plow to lead the way to a house but I've never heard of that happening.",
"emt here. i work in michigan and where i live our roads dont generally get plowed until a while into our snowstorm. ambulances are heavy, yes but they still have limits on what they can drive through. they are hard to get stuck but they still lose traction on ice and snow just as easily as a focus. they are (atleast the trucks i work in) are only rear wheel drive and not 4x4.\nthat said, ive worked through snowstorms and we do our absolute best to get to the patient. if the road is say completely covered in snow and our ambulance cant get through we cant simply say \"oh well. try again tomorrow\". \nwe have other equipment we can use such as a stair chair or a portable stretcher (think of a stretcher they used in WW2 in battlefields). \n\ntldr: if someone calls 911 for an emergency, we will get to them. it may take time, but we will get there and get you help.",
"There are actually [emergency plows]( _URL_0_) . those people working give every effort to help. They will be trying no matter the conditions to help. ",
"ambulances are extremely heavy and so are great on driving on bad roads compared to regular cars, but at some point with a bad enough storm the answer is 'you wait and maybe die\" ",
"They don't get an ambulance. Ambulance drivers will do their best to get somewhere but if they can't do it then they can't do it. Often times though a fire engine will be able to make it and fire crews are trained in basic CPR and first aid.",
"Depends on the amount of snow. If you are someplace that gets tons of snow you are used to going places where the roads haven't been cleared yet. If it's really an impossible trip there is always a helicopter ambulance.",
"Commenting from the UK here, some basic stuff I know of operating in my country... All ambulance services have some 4X4 vehicles. Here in London what they have is mostly estate cars etc, but there's a couple of land rovers and the fire brigade have some 4X4s, too. In rural areas, Mountain rescue and coastguard teams with 4X4s assist, as well as Red Cross volunteers. In rural areas, 4X4 owners can join a 4X4 response group, where they can be asked to respond to calls\n\n\nIf the snow is so bad no land vehicle can get through, there are air ambulances and rescue helicopters, and if it comes to it, good old fashioned walking. If you call for medical assistance, the guy/gal on the phone will give advice for basic first aid you administer, too."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
[
"http://i.cdn.turner.com/ireport/sm/prod/2011/01/12/WE00523152/1521307/1294791551579FDNYEMSAmbulancefit-1521307_lg.jpg"
],
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
||
1vynyu | why is the word "bitch" sometimes censored on television programs/radio and sometimes not? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1vynyu/eli5_why_is_the_word_bitch_sometimes_censored_on/ | {
"a_id": [
"cex0zpr"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"If the TV/Radio station has advertisers that don't want to be associated with shows that use that word, then they'll censor themselves. If that's not an issue (late night TV for example) they won't.\n\nThere are some words which must be censored from radio and some tv stations, but most of the time it's self-censorship."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
||
8tv1lx | why can't mute people speak, mechanically speaking? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8tv1lx/eli5_why_cant_mute_people_speak_mechanically/ | {
"a_id": [
"e1agchi",
"e1ah7in"
],
"score": [
2,
2
],
"text": [
"Multiple reasons. \n\nDamage to the vocal chords from illness, infection, or injury.\n\nLoss of tongue will also render a person effectively mute.\n\nThe chords produce sound by vibrating. So anything that could hinder the tissue or muscle affects it. Similar to other muscles. \n\nThere can also be psychological reasons, or damage to the brain can cut off or destroy the portions devoted to speach.",
"It depends on the cause. Mutism can be part of neurological conditions, psychological conditions, learning disorders, developmental disorders, or things like autism. In those cases, the person is \"mechanically\" able to speak in the sense that there's nothing wrong with their vocal cords. Other causes of mutism from things like neurological damage, cancer of the mouth/throat/larynx, or certain diseases of the musculature or nervous system can render a person mute through physical damage to the structures that produce sound or of the muscles and nerves required to produce sound. "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[]
] |
||
2bo4zp | why does islam seem to have more violent fanatics than other religions? | I know that other religions were violent too in the past but today in modern age it seems that Islam is the only big religion that has a lot of people who are willing to spread their religion by violence.
I'm sorry in advance if anyone got offended by this question. I respect all religions, I'm just interested in the background.
**EDIT:** Thanks everybody for answers. I didnt expect this "controversial" question to have so many upvotes. I expected it to be downvoted to hell.
While some of you guys tried to advocate Islam extremists by comapring them to KKK or Crusaders (**I already said in post that I know other religions were violent too - please read the little text under title**) or doing conspiracies about how media made muslims a general dummy, others made quite complex answers that actually explained the background of this situation.
Special thanks for replies to:
/u/the_matriarchy - [post](_URL_0_)
/u/MustafaBei - [post](_URL_1_)
| explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2bo4zp/eli5_why_does_islam_seem_to_have_more_violent/ | {
"a_id": [
"cj78m4i",
"cj78ois",
"cj78pnh",
"cj78pqc",
"cj79szh",
"cj79ty3",
"cj7abai",
"cj7abep",
"cj7aeow",
"cj7arkk",
"cj7awch",
"cj7b3vt",
"cj7b4xf",
"cj7b5tg",
"cj7b9g1",
"cj7bbnz",
"cj7bf8m",
"cj7bkp0",
"cj7bm7c",
"cj7boon",
"cj7bp5e",
"cj7bpue",
"cj7bqfn",
"cj7bqpv",
"cj7br4b",
"cj7bvdr",
"cj7byus",
"cj7c0mf",
"cj7c5rl",
"cj7cdz2",
"cj7ce7o",
"cj7cees",
"cj7cewb",
"cj7cgti",
"cj7ci7a",
"cj7ciaf",
"cj7cizo",
"cj7cj8j",
"cj7ckek",
"cj7cmh6",
"cj7cmv5",
"cj7cnmf",
"cj7cqtu",
"cj7ctmx",
"cj7cugy",
"cj7cx4h",
"cj7cy2n",
"cj7d3br",
"cj7d49g",
"cj7d4vn",
"cj7d7jf",
"cj7d89b",
"cj7d9al",
"cj7d9p6",
"cj7d9s4",
"cj7dbz5",
"cj7ddij",
"cj7dg5i",
"cj7dqe6",
"cj7dqv8",
"cj7dttp",
"cj7duvd",
"cj7dzs0",
"cj7e0eb",
"cj7e1z7",
"cj7e27b",
"cj7e37p",
"cj7e431",
"cj7e4fs",
"cj7e4ws",
"cj7e9hk",
"cj7e9zt",
"cj7ea09",
"cj7ebr3",
"cj7edge",
"cj7ef9h",
"cj7eg7x",
"cj7ejpk",
"cj7ek7a",
"cj7eksv",
"cj7en3n",
"cj7epfa",
"cj7epzc",
"cj7esob",
"cj7etoa",
"cj7eu2q",
"cj7evid",
"cj7exnv",
"cj7f0i1",
"cj7f0s2",
"cj7f0tp",
"cj7f23o",
"cj7f4r9",
"cj7f621",
"cj7f707",
"cj7f8ra",
"cj7fa71",
"cj7fapd",
"cj7fdvw",
"cj7fffl",
"cj7ffku",
"cj7fj6m",
"cj7g2wb",
"cj7ggoa",
"cj7gjtz",
"cj7gn1f",
"cj7gvpg",
"cj7gvpu",
"cj7h4vn",
"cj7hcag",
"cj7hdkg",
"cj7hgkg",
"cj7hn6b",
"cj7ht98",
"cj7ia8f",
"cj7iayh",
"cj7idqh",
"cj7ihfa",
"cj7iiar",
"cj7irmk",
"cj7izcy",
"cj7j0uu",
"cj7j4nz",
"cj7j69z",
"cj7jdkv",
"cj7jj0y",
"cj7jkep",
"cj7kbw0",
"cj7kiip",
"cj7kvai",
"cj7l27z",
"cj7l8vk",
"cj7l9ab",
"cj7l9sk",
"cj7l9uu",
"cj7lk2a",
"cj7lmbb",
"cj7lu25",
"cj7lysr",
"cj7m1xo",
"cj7m54j",
"cj7mes5",
"cj7mkaf",
"cj7moqz",
"cj7mwpt",
"cj7nbm2",
"cj7no72",
"cj7nxk7",
"cj7o79p",
"cj7oaoc",
"cj7of4p",
"cj7oh1n",
"cj7onkt",
"cj7optw",
"cj7ousy",
"cj7owfy",
"cj7p1bx",
"cj7p2zt",
"cj7p5c2",
"cj7p94a",
"cj7pjgd",
"cj7pu5o",
"cj7q3i3",
"cj7qgpl",
"cj7qjxb",
"cj7qzhc",
"cj7rnxc",
"cj7tvoc",
"cj7u5rm",
"cj7upjs",
"cj7uy22",
"cj7v2kb",
"cj7vhjc",
"cj7w6fq",
"cj7wla3",
"cj7wptx",
"cj7x1ap",
"cj7xje7",
"cj7ygvj",
"cj7yyl6",
"cj7zant",
"cj80gmc",
"cj80qaa",
"cj814u5",
"cj817m8"
],
"score": [
61,
231,
4,
6,
2699,
3,
7,
5,
29,
11,
3,
25,
2,
2,
11,
7,
3,
105,
2,
21,
4,
2,
2,
3,
4,
2,
9,
3,
5,
2,
9,
3,
2,
2700,
3,
16,
44,
2,
6,
2,
10,
3,
4,
2,
11,
17,
10,
2,
2,
2,
2,
9,
8,
2,
2,
2,
2,
2,
2,
2,
2,
2,
2,
6,
5,
2,
2,
2,
17,
2,
2,
2,
5,
2,
3,
7,
4,
3,
2,
11,
2,
60,
4,
4,
2,
32,
2,
2,
2,
2,
3,
2,
8,
2,
2,
2,
2,
4,
2,
2,
3,
4,
2,
2,
3,
2,
8,
2,
2,
4,
2,
2,
2,
2,
2,
2,
2,
16,
2,
2,
2,
3,
2,
8,
2,
2,
7,
8,
2,
2,
8,
4,
2,
4,
2,
2,
2,
6,
3,
3,
2,
2,
3,
5,
2,
7,
4,
2,
2,
2,
2,
5,
2,
3,
2,
3,
4,
3,
2,
6,
13,
3,
2,
6,
2,
3,
3,
2,
2,
2,
2,
3,
3,
5,
3,
2,
3,
3,
5,
5,
2,
3,
2,
5,
6
],
"text": [
"Your question is probably gonna get downvoted to hell, but I have heard from a Muslim friend of mine that parts of the Quran actually encourages the killing of non-believers. \n\nBut like most religion, including Christianity, the holy book contradicts itself, and other parts of the Quran actually promote peaceful coexistence with those of other religions.\n\n\nI'm assuming since the killing of non-believers is mentioned in the Quran, the Islam extremists tend to lean toward violence. Most other major religions don't have a violent message that I know of, so extremists of other religions tend to exhibit less violence.",
"Two reasons.\n\n1 - Islam is in a very unique situation that many religions enter at some point or another. People are confusing acts for Islam the religion and acts that people are doing for political reasons and just associating with Islam. Similar to how Christians were in the position where they claimed the Crusades were a Holy War and they were doing God's work, etc. when really it was a political struggle and the foot soldiers were roped in via religion.\n\n2 - Confirmation bias. Mainly by the media, they show us the terrorists and the people committing these acts, and essentially idolizing them (like the Boston Bomber), whereas they don't show the people trying to be nice and normal people, they don't show the muslims in Canada that help out in food drives and charity work (which is one of the central tenets), they don't show the muslims who are every day people.\n\nAnd they do that for two reasons.\n\nA - News stations don't show average stuff, average is boring, we all see average every day.\n\nB - Fear mongering raises view counts. Which is going to bring in more viewers \"Could your hard water be the reason you can't stop itching? More at 11\" or \"Muslim terrorists bomb another puppy and toddler parade, how can you stay safe? Tune in at 11\"",
"All Abrahamic religions have enjoyed spreading their religion by means of the sword at some point throughout history.\n\nThe Israelite's conquest of the Promised Land, the Christian crusades in the Middle East and in Europe against pagans.\n\nAlso, the Old Testament books have some passages about putting nonbelievers to death.\n\nI don't know how much it affects things, but Muhammad was a military man near the end of his life and led armies.",
"I think it is because islam is a major religion in the places where lawlessness is also big. \n\nIf islam for example was the major religion in the united states we wouldn't have the same kind of problem because our laws would protect us from fanatics. ",
"Several reasons, really.\n\nFirstly: Islam is a particularly all-encompassing religion, in the sense that being a \"Muslim\" is supposed to be your primary identity and motivation in life. Arguably one of the reasons that Islam got so huge in the first place was that it encouraged the fragmented and tribal arabian peninsula to put aside petty squabbles for the first time and unite for a common cause. Other areas that adopted the religion followed similar paths: It's a central doctrine that before your race, gender, family allegiance or nationality, you're a Muslim. This is why historically the Islamic world has historically been organized into large, multicontinental caliphates, and it's also why Islamism has been a massive issue in the middle east since the fall of the Ottoman Empire: The fragmented, corrupt and secular arrangement of the middle east is a historical anomaly, and one that doesn't make too much sense from the old school Muslim perspective that the Islamic world should be united.\n\nSecondly: There's a selection bias in the western media that violent muslims must necessarily be religious fanatics. The Islamic world is a massively diverse place, with lots of different issues other than just religion. Palestinian militants are no more fundamentalist muslims than Irish terrorists in the 70's were fundamentalist catholics: Religion obviously plays a role, but it's usually more of a justification than an actual reason. Similarly, the Iranian-Israeli rivalry is typically depicted as a religious one, but in reality the Iranians hate the Saudis almost as much as they do the Israelis (There's a religious element in the Saudi-Iranian rivalry too, but it's still not the dominant factor).\n\nLastly: It only takes a few bat-shit fanatics to make an entire religion look bad. Those guys who killed that soldier in the UK, or that guy who stabbed that filmmaker in the Netherlands obviously make up a tiny fraction of a tiny fraction of the muslim community in Europe. While it's probably the case that there are more Muslims willing to do violence in the name of religion than there are Christians, with both populations you're dealing with a minute fraction of the population that really shouldn't be used to judge the religion as a whole. If the Islamic world *were* intent on bringing down the west, there would be a lot more of them fighting. \n\nEDITS: nitpicking over small but important details\n\nAlso edit: Thanks for the gold, I guess. It's kinda weird because I don't really have anything to do with Islam at all. I don't mind as long as people are learning things.",
"There are many texts in the Quran that can be interpreted in a violent way. Not that other religions don't have this problem, but the Quran just seems to have more of these texts and with more violent implications than the other holy books. I believe that is why we see more Muslim terrorists than any other religion.",
"Because Islam is the biggest monotheistic religion left that's under external duress. In the past religions became violent for the same reasons, like how the age of Crusades started after centuries of byzantine collapse and andalusian wars. Judaism has arguably as many extremists proportionally because of the threats Israel is facing, but they take the form of hard line nationalist/zionists and don't do as many big and terrible anti-western things. ",
"Because Islam is practised in many regions in the world with citizens who have been pushed to the corner with no hope for the future. Which makes them easy targets to be brainwashed by extremists using the narrative of Western civilization tramping over Islamic ones. Even those living outside those region can't help but look at the situation of those fellow Islams suffering and feel a solidarity with them. [Perhaps this will help you understand](_URL_0_). ",
"This is probably not going to be a popular answer, but consider the life of the main figure in Islam (mohammed) vs the main figure in Christianity (jesus) for example; and forget about the fact that, at least today's world, islam is seen as the more violent religion. \n\nIf every muslim was to mimic their life after Mohammed's (which you are supposed to do), who himself spread the religion by the sword and did many other morally questionable things, it's possible to argue that Islam would produce even more extremists than it has today.\n\nOn the other hand, If every christian was to actually mimic Christ's life (or a buddhist Budda's life), \"Christians\" would be pretty nice people, at least compared to muslims.\n\nHope this makes sense, and i know it's an unpopular opinion but i do believe not all religion is the same. \n\n\n",
"Islam has never had a reformation to bring it into the modern era. Protestants had Martin Luther in the 1500s, Catholics - Council of Trent 1500s - Vatican 2 1960s, Jewish reform movement in the 1800s and nothing for Islam.\n\nTurkey is the closest example for a modern reformed Islamic country, brought to them by Atatürk. They are a relatively peaceful society. Indonesia and Malaysia are also relatively calm.",
"There are a ton of good points from other commentators, but there's a major factor in that perception: quality of life.\n\nIt started, like others have said, long ago. It was antagonized by other interests (US is one example). It has been building for years, but the bottom line is that their quality of life is worse (so they believe) than fighting.\n\nI've been to the Middle East. I've seen a large number of cities. Mostly, the people have been taken advantage of by a few, and it has left them angry. Imagine the wealth inequality of the US without government protection. Their infrastructure is significantly worse than ours, they don't have the opportunities we have, and they are hurting. Sure, the US has problems. I know firsthand. It's nothing like other countries.\n\nWhen you have people who don't have basic needs, especially for their family, you will find violence. At the base I was at, we were bombed regularly. It was bombed before the US got there, it just didn't stop. With minimal education, no resources, and a starving family most people would accept a huge amount of money to fire a few mortars towards the oppressor, especially if manipulated into believing it's approved by religion.\n\nPlus, when we invaded, it probably looked completely different from their side. Would you fight to protect your country from an invader?",
"I think it's pretty much just that Islam has most of its foothold in areas where people are having a harder time, and that makes people more likely to do desperate, misguided things.\n\nAlso, when people want to do desperate, misguided things, they seem to want to foist the responsibility onto \"God\" and give the atrocities a religious flair. Combine that with cherry-picked media coverage, unfortunate stereotyping, cultural differences and a religious text that makes it quite easy to find violent quotes (though, as I've mentioned before, the bible's old testament probably isn't much better), and you've got the recipe for trouble.",
"In some ways I wonder if the violence of Islam is actually more of a correlation to a core issue than itself being a cause. Many of the Islamic countries that this violence is originating from are extremely oppressed. When you push people down enough they tend to eventually pop back up in less than pleasant ways. \n\nWhat I mean is that religion may be working as a facilitator but not a cause. It's a lot easier to be willing to sacrifice your life just to try to make a point when you let yourself believe you've an eternal hardon and 72 perpetual virgins waiting for you after death.",
"Islam never went through reformation like Christianity did. The most central tenet in Islam is that the Quran is literally the word of God, delivered verbatim to Muhammad through the angel Gabriel so every line must be taken literally and none of it can be wrong. Before the reformation, the Catholic church felt the same way about the bible, but the reformation allowed for re-interpretation. \n\nIslam desperately needs reformation. ",
"I think where we (as in the Western world) are now is kind of a \"reap what you sow\" situation.\n\nThe majority of developed worlds have just done as they pleased in various other poorer/undeveloped countries - i.e. taking natural resources, dumping toxic waste, starting/fuelling wars for political/monetary gain.\n\nNow for the normal person in the developed world our main concerns are how much coffee costs on the way to work, train prices, switching our internet providers. Sure we watch the news and we don't like seeing our own countries do bad shit in foreign lands but it's not something that (usually) impacts our daily lives.\n\nNow for the normal person in the undeveloped world they seem to be thinking \"am I going to die on the way to school today?\" How am I going to make it through this week etc etc.\n\nIn such circumstances I can see how poor people would turn to violence in a (misguided) way to correct the situation. \n\nAnd in these situations using religion as a reason to commit such acts is really beneficial to the \"bosses\" who organise the foot soldiers.",
"Lots of good points in this thread. I would also add in that Islam is huge. I think there are more Muslims in the world than Chinese and Americans combined. I could be off on that. Also, there have been a lot of politics in recent time with the break up of the Ottoman Empire, European colonization, Soviet/American interference, oil politics, lack of opportunity in the Middle East, the creation of Israel, American wars in the Middle East, etc. ",
"I think there is some truth to the opinion that Islam encourages rigid, fundamentalist strains of thought. Islam was laid out as the all encompassing word of god. Be it morality, law, personal code, religious practices or culture at large, it is all defined by the Islam. Not only that, Islam makes repeated and fervent demands to comply by it. This is not to say that other monotheistic religions are any different. But the west has moved on from the fundamentals of Old or New testament. As frequent as appeals that American politicians make to the bible, it is easy to say that the American constitution as large a departure from the doctrines of the bible, as can be. \n\nThis unfortunately is not the case with much of the Islamic world. Appeals towards Islamic ideals are a daily occurrence. Take the country of Pakistan, which moved away from secular values in favor of adopting a quasi sharia enforced regime which was brought in by General Zia Ul Haq. And what it has done to the country, is clearly visible. \n\nIslam doesn't encourage free thought. You are given a code and expected to comply. That is a stark difference from the quite individualistic lives we live today. And it this conflict between freedom and compliance that I believe is the cause for much of trouble in the middle east today. Europe went through a similar phase through the enlightenment period, I hope for the very same to happen to the Muslim world. ",
"is it just me, or does there seem to be a false dichotomy between confirmation/selection/reporting bias (i.e. \"a few bad apples\") and the possibility that islam is relatively militant?\n\nthe desire to not want to be lumped together with right-wing war hawks and sheltered bible belt christians seems to make people ignore the possibility that islam might in fact be more militant than other major religions.\n\nnot saying that it *is* more militant. nor am i saying that most religions dont have violent histories. or that you cant find a more violent cult somewhere.\n\nbut western media, often characterized as unreliable, tends to be fixated on islamic violence. and this coupled with the appearance that the majority of muslims are peaceful seems to remove the suspicion that islam might actually be fairly characterized as more aggressive than other religions.\n\nevery news story i hear about muslims seems to involve conflict. this doesnt mean islam is a combative religion. people here seem to get this.\n\nbut on the flip side, every muslim ive met has been peaceful and non-violent. this doesnt preclude the possibility that islam is more violent than other religions.",
"I think christians have been atleast as violent if not more so than muslims. Granted most of my information about christianitys history is not exactly from dry history books, but we did burn people alive both for being witches, and later when catholics persecuted lutherans. The latter reminds me of the different branches of muslims killing eachother today. - We also had holy wars, or jihad, where we basically travelled far from europe, in order to lay claim to christianitys holy sites. We killed thousands of people in the name of the christian god. I certainly think a good christian 500 years ago, did find his identity arguably defined by his christianity. That his faith would have governed everything outside of the most basic of everyday routines. - Much like we tend to describe fundamentalist muslims as we try to explain why they are so fanatic. But we used to be much the same. - And obviously although our religion might not have dictacted that we had to wage jihad on everyone else, we apparently did try very hard to convert every new culture we encountered, and waged war in the name of god.\n\nAll of that is in the past, but to my knowledge Islam is a younger religion is it not? - perhaps there is some kind of religious evolution that each religion travels through. If someone with more knowledge was to draw up timelines for christian witch trials, our missionary expansions, and for our holy wars, would the age of christianity at the time, not correspond atleast somewhat with the temperament of agressive islam we see today? \n\nI dont know. But I do think its incredible important to recall that our religion has been violent, and that we have sent missionaries to many countries and civilisations and \"convinced\" the locals to get with the programme.\n\nChristians have mellowed out. We still have fundamentalistic tendencies in western cultures, but they nolonger dictate politics, for the most part, although the US has seen a resurgence over the past decades, of christians wanting to merge government and church, more than perhaps the founding fathers would have liked.\n\nIf we were muslims, faced with christians of the past, would we not describe ourselves as jihad crazed, intolerant and violent when faced with those of opposing faith? If we could time travel and ask the native indians of the americas, would they not describe our christian ancestors as terrorists by our own definations?\n\nI hope Islam will follow the same trends as christianity did, and mellow out. But I wonder if the actual killing in Gods name, isnt as diluted with political agenda for the muslims, as it was when catholics and protestants/lutherans were duking it out in the middleages. If it speaks to the religion only, as some are representing it as here, or if there isnt alot more to it, just like one could argue was the case for christianity.",
"The main issue I have with people claiming that the actions of the few make the majority look bad is that the Holy books (both Bible and Quran) do literally condone the violence that the few commit. It's very difficult to interpret in any other way, especially in the case of the Quran. The religion itself makes the religion look bad. The good people that are part of the religion make the religion look good.",
"Historically, it is the west's fear of communism created the *modern* islamism.\n\n\n\n[CIA Fight Against Communism Bolsters Radical Islam](_URL_0_)\n\nArabic countries were more liberal in the 60's/70's than they are today. I am from an Arabic country and I notice that. Also, the top comment here mentions something important:\n\n\n\n > \"Muslim\" is supposed to be your primary identity and motivation in life.\n\n\n\nThis is also new ! due to life's struggle, people get more and more focused on religion and sometimes they end up doing nasty things. We also suffered terrorist attacks [2003 Casablanca Bombing](_URL_1_) and [Marrakech bombing](_URL_2_).\n\n\n",
"It's the age old sentiment of not \"tarring\" everyone with the same brush.",
"I'd just like to say that the words of the Qur'an must be followed but the situation can change. For example in todays world Apostate can instead be inferred as treason. The Qur'an states that no matter what you must always follow the law of the land that you reside in. Not try to change the law of the land to suit Islam (i.e forcing Sharia Law in the western world). Also Hadiths were sayings of the prophet that were quoted and passed down through centuries It is highly likely that the meaning or the entire quote may have been changed which is why most Muslims don't really follow the Hadiths much.",
"It's not more violent. It's just younger. Christianity wasn't much different 500-600 years ago. And honestly, remember that shit of a human Breivik? There are christian extremists too, we just like to call them \"white supremacists\" or \"racists\" or something different in the West. ",
"Its entirely politics and economics.\n\nFundamentalist Muslims today aren't any worse than Christians were when they were living in similar economic/political conditions. The Middle East is so far back on development.\n\n",
"This is a loaded question. A bunch of assholes are highjacking the religion for their crazy needs.\n\nIf you look into Christian Inquisition, it was well on par or not with some extremist terrorist you see now. \n\nSo making such a general statement is totally wrong. ",
"Islam has a tendency to be more violent because there are a lot of verses in the Qur'an that supports it.\n\n**Surah 9:5** \"And when the sacred months have passed, then kill the polytheists wherever you find them and capture them and besiege them and sit in wait for them at every place of ambush. But if they should repent, establish prayer, and give zakah, let them [go] on their way...\"\n\n**Surah 9:29** \"Fight those who do not believe in Allah...\"\n\n**Surah 9:73** \"O Prophet, fight against the disbelievers and the hypocrites and be harsh upon them...\"\n\n**Surah 9:111** \"...They fight in the cause of Allah , so they slay and are slain\"\n\n**Surah 9:123** \"O you who have believed, fight those adjacent to you of the disbelievers and let them find in you harshness...\"\n\n**Surah 48:29** \"Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah ; and those with him are forceful against the disbelievers, merciful among themselves.\"\n\n* Muhammad said that whoever leaves his Islamic religion shall get killed. (Sahih al-Bukhari 6922)\n\n* Muhammad said \"I've been commanded to fight against the disbelievers until they testify that there is no god but Allah\" (Sahih Muslim 30)\n\n* Muhammad said \"I will expel the Jews and Christians from the Arabian Peninsula and will not leave any but Muslim.\" (Sahih Muslim 4366)\n\n\nAlso I can finish by mentioning that in the Qur'an (Surah 98:6) it says \"Indeed, they who disbelieved among the People of the Scripture and the polytheists will be in the fire of Hell, abiding eternally therein. Those are the worst of creatures.\" This, combined with the fact that Allah is competent to give muslims victory in battle, serves as a very tempting test of faith to some muslims.\n\n**Note:** I am talking about Islam here, not our muslim friends!\n",
"Because during the cold war America funded and facilitated radical sects of Islam in the middle east to fight the Russians who were attempting to gain control the middle eastern oil fields. They aren't any more radical than any other religion, it's just that the sects that are, were supported to fight for America.",
"I think the lack of unity after the fall of the Islamic leadership (Ottoman Caliphate), combined with a variety of interconnected factors like poverty, low literary rates and political unrest and corruption etc has concocted into quite the potent mix for trouble around the world. It's not helped any further by the unbalanced media focus, muslims are to some extent the modern day boogeymen after the cold war nuclear fears, communism and other various storms that have been and gone. It doesn't help that muslims are also being oppressed in various parts of the world, subjected to major wars resulting in massive casualties and their desperation to fight back in whatever means available to them, fuels the fire of these stereotypes.\n\nJust recently somebody asked, that muslims who have such a large global population exceeding 1 billion, if only 1% of these joined together to form a moral and righteous army, that would make 10 million strong, a sure force to be reckoned with. Another muslim replied with a transcript of Shaykh Hamza Yusuf (lecture portion) and some additional commentary on the subject. I want to share it here for some context about early Islamic principles regarding conduct of warfare.\n\n---\n\nit is true that we are forbidden to do Jihad collectively as a Muslim Ummah without an Islamic state or a Khalifah. However, Jay did say that some leader who will take the initiative and motivate everyone.\n\nI have transcribed the following words from a lecture by Hamza Yusuf. It was a response to Jew who accused Islam of being violent so I added a few of my own statements which were in response to his comments and to put things in context:\n\nFor 13 years the Muslims were not allowed to fight in Makkah. They were persecuted by the pagans and polytheists of Makkah and suffered silently. They were forbidden to fight or oppose the pagans by Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him). That was incredibly difficult for the Arabs to sit and watch being persecuted and forbidden to defend because they were raised in a tradition of strength, bravery, magnanimity and so on. This in itself was a test for the Muslims.\n\nIn the end, the Muslims chose to migrate to Madina instead of fighting back.\n\nAs the the numbers of Muslims multiplied in thousands, they went back to Makkah and took back their right to worship at the Holy Ka'ba, through peaceful means without shedding a single blood.\n\nWhile in Madinah, they now also had a legitimate 'state' and had every right to defend themselves just as any other state has a right to defend if they were being attacked or persecuted, which the polytheists continued to do against the Muslims.\n\nSo in Islam, fighting is not permissible when one does not have a state of authority. Fighting was made permissible in the Qur'an after 13 years of persecution and once a Muslim state had been established in Madinah.\n\nIt was at this time after 13 years of persecution by the polytheists against the Muslims that the following 2 verses of the Holy Qur'an were revealed by Allah to the Holy Prophet (peace be upon him) where permission was given to fight:\n\n\"To those against whom war is made, permission is given (to fight), because they are wronged;- and verily, Allah is most powerful for their aid;-\n(They are) those who have been expelled from their homes in defiance of right,- (for no cause) except that they say, \"our Lord is Allah\". Did not Allah check one set of people by means of another, there would surely have been pulled down monasteries, churches, synagogues, and mosques, in which the name of Allah is commemorated in abundant measure. Allah will certainly aid those who aid his (cause);- for verily Allah is full of Strength, Exalted in Might, (able to enforce His Will).\"\n[Al-Qur'an, Surah Al-Haj (The Pilgrimage or Migration) (22):39-40]\n\nAs you can see, the two reasons given to fight were (1) defending your homeland, (2) protecting your religion.\n\nNo other reason is permissible in Islam to go out and wage war against anyone. Precise rules were given to the Muslims by Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) on engaging with the enemy in war. Women, children, the elderly, priests, diplomats and all other non-combatants were forbidden to be harmed. Not even trees and fields in the enemy area were to be destroyed. Poisoning the arrows and wells of enemies were prohibited by Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) (which means prohibition of biological and chemical warfare). Fire was also prohibited to be used in war (therefore no Incendiary Bombs are allowed in war, which the west uses in modern times freely.) The wars were fought at the borders between two states and not within civilian population or residential areas.\n\nAllah clearly explains why fighting was made permissible, that had Allah not used one group of people to stop another group of people, then you would have seen monasteries, churches, synagogues and mosques pulled down and there would be nothing but corruption and chaos in the earth. Therefore, everyone has a right to defend themselves if they are driven out of their homes or fought because of their beliefs.\n\nAllah also clearly says that those who do not drive us out of our homes and those who do not oppose our religion, we should show kindness and justice to them:\n\n\"Allah forbids you not, with regard to those who fight you not for (your) Faith nor drive you out of your homes, from dealing kindly and justly with them: for Allah loveth those who are just.\"\n[Al-Qur'an, Surah Surat Al-Mumtahanah (60):8]\n\nAfter this, Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) made a peace treaty with the Polytheists of Makkah, the polytheists broke the peace treaty by killing the Muslims. This was why Allah revealed the following verses once again to command the Muslims to fight back the polytheists just as they were fighting the Muslims:\n\n\"Therefore, when ye meet the Unbelievers (in fight), smite at their necks; At length, when ye have thoroughly subdued them, bind a bond firmly (on them): thereafter (is the time for) either generosity or ransom: Until the war lays down its burdens. Thus (are ye commanded): but if it had been Allah's Will, He could certainly have exacted retribution from them (Himself); but (He lets you fight) in order to test you, some with others. But those who are slain in the Way of Allah,- He will never let their deeds be lost.\"\n[Al-Qur'an, Surah Muhammad (47):5]\n\nSo you can object all you want about how the Qur'an prescribes fighting. It certainty does. And what a beautiful and Just command to fight against those who persecute us and drive us out of our homes and fight us because of our belief in Allah.\n\nMuslims had been living in peace for centuries. After the Ottoman Empire fell, two major wars were fought, World War I and World War II by the western countries using modern technology, in which over 200 million civilians were killed, unprecedented in human history. Those people were not killed in the name of religion. They were killed in the name of communism, socialism, facialism, democracy and whatever. Everything but religion. So this idea that religion (or Islam in particular) causes war is simply not true. Humans and acts insanity cause war.\n\nIn the total 23 years of the life of Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) since he proclaimed his Prophethood (from the age of 40) and delivered his message of Islam, less than 2000 people were killed from both sides of the battle. The actual number of wars that took place were only a few in a few of those 23 years, but I will give you benefit of doubt and use 23 total years.\n\nAnd these deaths were not as an act of state terrorism, or \"let's go and ambush those group of Jews over there\", no! The Muslims were fighting against the polytheists of Makkah who were driving the Muslims out of their homes. The Muslims knew exactly the names of every individuals who were the killers and aggressors against them. The names of every person killed from both sides has been recorded in Hadith literature in Islam.\n\nSo compare over 200,000,000 (200 million) people which YOU killed in a hundred years in the two world wars, with less than 2000 people in 23 years on BOTH sides. I have not even included the number of deaths from the last 2 decades which the Americans have killed in Iraq, Afghanistan and other places in the world (which also go into millions as well).\n\n- Light-of-Mustafa [ضياء المصطفى]\n\n_URL_0_",
"A mix of poverty, selection bias, and the fact that their holy book is pretty horrific. Most of the idiotic stuff in Christianity comes from the old testament, and the Quran reverts back to this sort of insanity.",
"Sadly, at the moment, virtually all religiously-motivated mass murders are by Muslims (often of other Muslims).\n\nSo it's not \"Islam *seem to have* more violent fanatics\" it's \"Islam *has* more violent fanatics\".\n\nBoth the following statements are true \"99% of Muslims are not violent religious fanatics\" and \"90% of violent religious fanatics are Muslim\".\n\n",
"Because that's what the government/media want you to see them as. It makes people care less when we blow them up for oil.\n\nThis happened to the Jews in the 1930 and 40s lest we forget!!",
"If there was an equivalent question asked in a small village in Afghanistan. It would probably ask 'Why are all Americans so violent'. \nPerception. In our eyes we are the right ones, and they are the 'Baddies'. \n\nIn theirs it's the other way round often. ",
"Turkish here. Growing up in a country where over 90% of the population is Muslim, I have asked this question to myself many times and came up with the following explanations:\n\nExcluding a small part of education institutions in big cities, the culture of education of the public in Islam is not all-embracing and mostly limited to Quran schools and teachings bestowed by family and Imam Speeches, meaning most of the Muslim population in the world are not given the chance to adopt a broader worldview. \n\nThe religion itself, as explained in Quran, professes peace, but this is rarely practiced. The cultural embroidery begins with adoption of a sense of a religious community (Ummah, or ümmet in Turkish), where an enemy image is required to provide cohesion. Reading the history of Islam, one can find many enemy images ranging from Israelites to other caliphs. This mentality of the public regards any sort of questioning (let alone criticism) directed towards religion or religious practices, even if such questioning is made in order to understand, as hostile. Total and unconditional obedience is sought. The word “Islam” means submission in a religious context (though the actual meaning is intended to be the submission to find inner peace). \n\nIn Islam, fear is way more frequently appealed to compared to other religions, the wrath of Allah is commonly quoted in speeches and scriptures; many stories of the old on how Allah destroyed the sinner communities where you can see glimpses of franticness in the eyes of the people. This further precludes questioning. The economic conditions of the countries where Islam is regarded as the main religion does not also help the situation. This creates a perfect flow of power for the ones who could manipulate it. When the generality of the public does not have a broader worldview, they do not question. They are trying to be content and thankful even when all their liberties and economic capabilities are taken away from them. After all, this world is an ephemeral (fani) world and the truth is the afterlife. When you can display a decent portrait as a leader, there are virtually no limits to the things you can do. All of your deeds will either be ignored or justified, even killings, rapes or mass corruption. The more you deprive the public of science or other knowledge and isolate them in a world where they believe that they are here for being tested before god and all this is actually a dream, the more frantic they can get, because this life does not matter. In such cases, they will commit and prolong acts of violence which only the brutes can momentarily summon in the peak of their rage. They will do anything; they will surround their bodies with bombs and do naively believe that when they detonate it, nothing will happen to them. Moreover, when all joys of this world are forbidden or frowned upon, people’s bodies become a frenzy machine waiting to unleash a life’s worth of energy fueled by dissatisfaction when they find a single opening. Give them an enemy image and watch the fireworks.\n\nIn any case, let me finish by saying that Islam as I have learned is a religion that promotes physical cleanliness, cohesion and coexistence of all. Sad to see that what we see is just the opposite. In Islam, for everything you begin, you commemorate Allah, the merciful and the compassionate, but no one is ever merciful or compassionate. My writing this alone is enough for me, in many Muslim countries to experience very hostile and violent repercussions, for the reasons explained above. The search for a heretic, an outcast to sacrifice where one can prove one’s worthiness to a deity is beyond delicious in this mindset.\n\nEdit: Thank you so much for the gold!\nEdit 2: Paragraphs!\n",
"I always see posts like these and it really annoys me. The fact is that the west shows all of the problems in the east while hiding things in the west. For example I remember a while ago there was a guy who shot loads of primary school children and then killed himself. No where in the papers do they ever mention \"Christian\" maniac kills primary school children. If you see a guy from the east who kills several people (not as bad as dozens of primary school children) they instantly label it with \"MUSLIM TERRORIST KILLS 3 INNOCENT PEOPLE\". Its kind of obvious which people will remmeber the most. Its the Media's way of brainwashing people and it's working really well. Every religion has it's fair share wackos and maniacs but its the media who actually tell people about them so they can twist the news anyway they want. EDIT : Just wanted to add that America kills so many innocent civilians in the East but nobody knows about it. They may kill 100 innocent people in one day but on that same day an American soldier dies. Suddenly everyone goes nuts because one soldier died.",
"It's definitely an interesting question. I think Muslims seem more violent to us in the West largely as a result of the way media depicts Muslims. Fanatics help with viewership numbers, whereas they represent a tiny fraction of Muslims. I mean, if we are talking about the number of these Islamist lunatics who actually fight for religion and some notion of the return of the caliphate, we are probably talking several thousand people out of 1.3 billion or so. An Indonesian family having a nice dinner together just doesn't make headlines.\n\nThere are also lot of dimensions to this question, but as stated by several folks, religion is often a justification, but almost never the actual cause for violence. Geopolitics and resources are everything in this world. Palestinians are actually fighting for a nation-state and sovereignty (IRA comparison is pretty valid). Iraq is tearing apart at the seams due to ethnic conflict, primarily a result of the fact that Kurds have long dreamed of a nation-state of their own, whereas Shia and Sunni Arabs have a bitter history with each other in Iraq. Assad in Syria--who is not an Islamist, but falls broadly under the definition of Muslim--is actually the head of the secular Baath party (like Saddam was). So on and so forth. \n\nUltimately, Western media has made it difficult for us to disassociate actual nationalist/separatist movements from the religious beliefs of those fighting in these movements/conflicts. For example, the British considered American revolutionaries terrorists at the time of the Revolutionary War. Do we look back at the Revolutionary war and talk about \"Christian fanatics\" who used terrorist tactics to defeat a superior force? Nope, that was an independence movement. We see American soldiers praying together in Iraq and Afghanistan all the time, but we don't immediately conclude that these are \"Christian fanatics who are violent\", do we?\n\nI think, ultimately, Muslims also seem more violent to us because of the tactics they use (and/or are forced to use) in many parts of the world, namely, terrorism. Suicide bombings, IEDs, car bombs, gruesome videos, and all this other crazy shit that we see and read about are actually all signs of immense weakness. Why did Palestinians use suicide bombings and why does Hamas launch rockets indiscriminately? Well, it's because they don't have tanks, guided rockets, and F-16s to target the Israeli military with. For example, when Turkey uses fighter jets and advanced military technology to bomb Kurdish rebels, I'd bet that that wouldn't fall under your question of \"violent Muslims.\" It also typically doesn't make headlines.\n\nAlso, let me challenge you a little bit here: If we are talking about the raw numbers of deaths and \"religious fanatics\", it's actually easier to argue that \"the Christian West\" has killed a far larger number of people and is more violent. If we, for example, were to include members of the Bush administration under the umbrella of \"Christian religious fanatics,\" then the US has actually killed more people around the world in the last decade than Islamists have in 50-100 years. Then you have events like the genocide in Bosnia, where ultra-nationalist Serbs murdered nearly a 100,000 people (primarily Muslim) in a span of 3 years. The Eastern Orthodox church played a large role in that conflict and \"Christian\" religious fanatics from all over eastern Europe and Greece volunteered by the thousands to kill civilians. You also have Chechnya, where Eastern Orthodox Russians have committed some of the worst atrocities imaginable (and that's not even including mass deportations of millions of Chechens to Siberian labor camps). The list goes on and on. The fact is that nearly every single \"Muslim country\" on the planet has been attacked and faced a war over the last 50-60 years. Israel essentially keeps 4 million brown people in cages and has been slowly ethnically cleansing them for over 60 years, but we (our media) views their acts of violence as \"legitimate self defense.\" \n\nWe could also talk about the resource curse here--the Middle East and many parts of the \"Muslim world\" have the mixed blessing of oil. If conflicts are actually fought over geopolitics and most of the world has a reason for keeping the Middle East either unstable or ruled by dictators, then religion just plays a minor role here to begin with, but you'll definitely see a lot of violence.\n\nFull disclosure: I'm an atheist and generally oppose any type of organized religion.\n",
"Everyone is pointing out some good points, such as desperation, the pervasive muslim identity, selection bias, and the [illusory correlation](_URL_1_), but there's one other posibility that no one has yet to tackle. A combination of those factors results in a high violent and vocal minority, plus an interesting discussion on how the tolerance of polygamy in more Islamic states (e.g. Saudi Arabia) increases the likelihood of having this vocal minority.\n\n\n[Psychology today](_URL_0_) puts it this way:\nMost suicide bombers are Muslim because...\n > > According to the Oxford University sociologist Diego Gambetta, editor of Making Sense of Suicide Missions, a comprehensive history of this troubling yet topical phenomenon, while suicide missions are not always religiously motivated, when religion is involved, it is always Muslim. Why is this? Why is Islam the only religion that motivates its followers to commit suicide missions?\n > > \n > > The surprising answer from the evolutionary psychological perspective is that Muslim suicide bombing may have nothing to do with Islam or the Koran (except for two lines in it). It may have nothing to do with the religion, politics, the culture, the race, the ethnicity, the language, or the region. As with everything else from this perspective, it may have a lot to do with sex, or, in this case, the absence of sex.What distinguishes Islam from other major religions is that it tolerates polygyny. By allowing some men to monopolize all women and altogether excluding many men from reproductive opportunities, polygyny creates shortages of available women. If 50 percent of men have two wives each, then the other 50 percent don't get any wives at all.\n > \n > \n > So polygyny increases competitive pressure on men, especially young men of low status. It therefore increases the likelihood that young men resort to violent means to gain access to mates. By doing so, they have little to lose and much to gain compared with men who already have wives. Across all societies, polygyny makes men violent, increasing crimes such as murder and rape, even after controlling for such obvious factors as economic development, economic inequality, population density, the level of democracy, and political factors in the region.\n > \n > It is the combination of polygyny and the promise of a large harem of virgins in heaven that motivates many young Muslim men to commit suicide bombings. Consistent with this explanation, all studies of suicide bombers indicate that they are significantly younger than not only the Muslim population in general but other (nonsuicidal) members of their own extreme political organizations like Hamas and Hezbollah. And nearly all suicide bombers are single.\n\n**TLDR: you have a young, undereducated, highly indoctrinated bunch of males who do not have the resources to get married (one third of a rich man is better than one whole of a poor man), living in poverty, with no escape. They see their people and their culture, their brothers allegedly being oppressed all over the world in so many ways, demonised by everyone. A large organisation comes to you, one carried through whispers of the night of \"fighting the good fight\", and says, \"you have no life here, why not go to a place where you have a purpose, and as much sex as you want (using a poorly sourced Hadith/quote from the prophet saying 72 virgins in heaven)? We'll take care of your family, don't worry... all you have to do is be a hero to all of us.\"\nHence, a suicide bomber, motivated by more complex reasons than just religion alone... but it's one reason on the calling card.**\n",
"ELI5 strikes again with biased politically charged \"question\" which is thinly veiled political propaganda\n\n",
"Read 2 pages of the Koran. It's full of violence against other communities, from start to finish.\n\nIt was written by a warmongering psychopath Mohammed, who used it as a recruitment tool for his people to increase his power. Shit got out of control.",
"They don't, they just get more media play. I've been studying people, and their trash cans, for some time. They are all jerks. ",
"It's a violent religion. Anyone who admits that is labeled \"islamophobic\" so nobody says it but there's tons of violence in the history of Islam. All starting with Mohammed fleeing Mecca and returning with his followers years later to take over the city and kill anyone who still worshipped the local gods. ",
"There is no \"seem\" about it. Go to any country in the world and lot at the problem they have with religion. Bet your house there are Muslims involved.",
"They dont\n\nWhat they have is more violent fanatics presently.\n\nLook back in history and every relegion has had their time in the sun. Now its the muslims turn",
"Within the US alone, there's a good example of a media and anti-foreigner bias. [Since 911, domestic right-wing terrorists have killed more people than jihadists](_URL_0_), but our law enforcement gives priority to \"foreign terrorists\". We also group our domestic terrorists as \"right-winged extremists\" rather than saying they're Christian terrorists, despite often having strong Christian affiliations, because we're not using Christian as a catch-all like we do for Muslims. Most Muslims who dissociate themselves from the radicals, just as most Christians dissociate themselves from our own home-grown extremists, but we don't see that kind of nuanced coverage in our own media most of the time. In any case, [NBC did a on domestic terrorism as well](_URL_1_).",
"I'd have to say poverty plays a huge role. There are plenty of terrible christians where I live in the US but if you keep them fat & happy with a cheeseburger and a flat screen TV they just mostly spout off verbally or hide their bad side. \n\nWhen someone ha nothing to live for then it seems they act out because they feel they have nothing to live for and nothing to loose. That seems to be the case with what you see in the countries with all the violence and strife. ",
"Every religion and societies has their own crazies. But in the United States our crazies aren't allowed to gain too much power and momentum.\n\nFor example...against abortion? Tons of support? Firebombing abortion clinics and killing doctors? Not even the mainstream far right will support that.\n\nAnti-gay/gay marriage? There's enough support for that. Showing up to a deceased soldier's funeral a la Westboro Baptist Church? = a counter protest 10 times the size.\n\nThis is because America has a great sense of the difference between having an opinion and doing stupid, crazy sh*t. If an anti-Islam group held a rally here there would be tons of public sympathy and support for the Islamic community. However if there was even an informative, innocent 'Jesus loves you' rally in the wrong place there would be violence.\n",
"People like to pretend it's the media or some economic and political reason, but it's really down to scripture.",
"Well the Jews are getting pretty rowdy lately too. Pretty much any religion in a desert where you aren't allowed to fuck strangers will make you cranky.",
"A big reason is that most radicals/extremists/terrorist factions use the Islamic religion as a tool to recruit new soldiers, to justify their actions to their followers, and to even justify their actions in their own minds. Jihad is an idea that is around 1200-1300 years old. Terrorists who claim they are killing in the name of Jihad are respected by their followers. \nNow, the thing is a lot of these terrorist or radical organizations are really just pushing their own political (more so radical) agendas, and wrapping it with a religious purpose to gain followers and popularity with their followers. \n\nIn palestine for example, a lot of kids are brainwashed from a young age that Islam is the only religion and other religions must die (specifically Jewish people). Encompass a kid with religion his entire life, while training him that martyrdom and jihad are the highest levels of religious belief, and you have a terrorist willing to die for his cause. Do this with an entire generation of chilred, and you have a terrorist army. ",
"Hmm, I find it interesting that people regularly attribute violence and fanaticism to poverty/hopelessness. Have we considered that maybe we're confusing cause and effect? That maybe poverty and hopelessness is CAUSED by religious fanaticism and the kind of life it offers people in the lands where it predominates?\n\nFor example, we know that radical/fundamentalist Islam does not allow for the empowerment of women. And we know that the one thing that will bring a society out of poverty is the empowerment of women (look this up anywhere, if it's not self-explanatory).\n\nHave we not joined the dots yet? When will we be prepared to say that religious fundamentalism (of any denomination) is just plain BAD for a society, ie, is the direct cause of poverty/violence/unrest/ignorance...the list goes on.",
"My university class on middle eastern history went through the history of Islam. While not focusing on the religion itself, it focused on the military history. Muhammad was a conqueror. He taught (among many other things) that Muslims should conquer and destroy all non-muslims, and a muslim should never fight a muslim. He unified or destroyed most Arab tribes of his time. When he died, his kingdom was split between his main generals who fought for control amongst each other. They have been fighting ever since, in the regions he controlled while he was alive and world wide. Islam was founded in war. In many primarily muslim countries, to this day, war and fighting is simply a necessary part of life, which is difficult for a western mind to fully understand on any level. Fighting is the way it is supposed to be, to them. Most modern muslims are very peaceful people, but extremely conservative Muslims that believe every letter of Sharia Law feel that physically fighting Non-muslims is their responsibility.\n\nThis is just a summary, and not meant with judgement. I spent the class truly trying to understand the history of it. The history of other religions are no less bloody.\n\nI was close friends with a muslim man in the U.S. for many years and he was a wise and peaceful man who taught at his synagogue. We often discussed our religions to learn more about each others'. He was embarrassed by the actions of fanatics world wide the way most christians are embarrassed by the KKK.\n\n ",
"Because a lot of Muslim countries have very draconian dictators who use fundamentalist religion to hold on to their power. So unless those people leave the country, they grow up and get indoctrinated (read: brainwashed) to the point where crazy stuff seems \"normal\" and \"ok\". \n\nHaving said that, the VAST majority of Muslims isn't violent. \n\nIt took time for secularism and moderation to succeed when it comes to Christianity too, and it only happened once the church lost its power. In Muslim countries, the church and government are often one and the same. Until that changes, progress will be painfully slow.\n\n",
"Imagine everyone in America was a Muslim. Everything else about Americans remains unchanged, ie people from New York think a little differently than people from the south or California or the Pacific Northwest but in general we're all just regular folks. Now imagine we're a very poor country instead of a very rich country but all the sudden a vast amount of oil is found on the Westboro baptist church's land. Now we are all just sort of scraping by but they are rich as fuck and every bit as opinionated and pushy. So, they start building schools all over the country, in many places were there weren't schools before. They also start funding a million different programs all aimed at pushing their fucking bullshit version of religion down your throat. After a few decades it starts to take hold, now the Westboro baptist church is the dominant religion. Imagine what a fucking horror show that be right? Thats basically what happened to the Muslim world. All the normal, nice Muslims you would want to live next to get shouted down by the rich hillbilly Muslims of Saudi Arabia.",
"I expected \"not all muslims are violent, only some of them are, islam is a peaceful religion\" answers in this thread and here they are. We have those types of muslims in my country too, they try to explain all the violence only by saying \"this is not true islam, this is not written on qouran\" etc etc.. \n\nYou really want to learn something about Islam and why it is violent? Check this links please:\n\n_URL_0_\n\n_URL_1_\n\nThe naive level of Europeans and Americans always surprise me. When it comes to Islam, all of you are like a child. I live in this \"peaceful religion\" everyday and believe me, it is not what it seems.\n\n edit= You think violence is limited to fanatic groups only because this is what you see in the news. Like.. a small percentage of muslims are violent, others are so \"peaceful\". In each Ramadan, you can get beaten, stabbed and killed if you eat/drink something in public areas in Islamic countries. This, you do not see on news because they are \"local accidents\". ",
"Because its so fucking hot over there. Heat makes people do crazy things",
"Being in poverty, living in squalid conditions, a lack of formal education, and a lack of knowledge about the world, mainly. I bet if Christians in North America lived in the same conditions over a long enough period of time, they would begin radicalizing too. \n\n",
"Mohammad was actually a warlord who fought many battles with everyone around him. So it is natural that the shit he made up be more violent than other shit non warlord people made up. ",
"Ive read that in parts of the muslim world men must pay for their bride (dalary) and since their are alot of poor people in the muslim world, alot of men can not afford a wife. No sex might make the men go crazy. ",
"ignorance of reality (i.e. the real world, you know based on facts and evidence) combined with some truly misogynistic, idiotic and other such BS in their religious doctrine breeds violence and cruelty... The culture is highly repressive making it's adherents find it difficult to escape from (especially in certain countries where it is a crime to no longer be an adherent), even if they are aware that escape IS actually possible. In short Religion (in any form) hurts humanity both as individuals and as a whole.",
"Correct me if I'm wrong, but this question needs better addressing. \n\nFirst, the question is relevant to the **fanatics of the world** who happen/choose to be the **believers in the religion** than the religion itself. Of course, we are differentiating 'fanatics' on basis of religion here (Sorry, making no two bones about it).\n\nSecond, we have to look outside a religion's prime holy scriptures (The Quran, the Bible and so on) to assess all the affecting factors. I believe geo-politics (in special relevance to Gaza) has a bigger role to play. \n\nMy two cents: \n\n1. People are pushed into war by authorities who are in power and, have resources and influence over people. Money, Religion, Capability to go to war, and so on. Also, not many of such authority figures aren't willing to come clean. \n\n2. Fanatics, the agents of such wars, are mostly misguided individuals. I imagine a traumatized, poor soul seeking refuge to get some sort of stability and acceptance. Schools of faith, religion or otherwise, supply the safe house, something that can be seen in all parts of the world. Sometimes, at a terrible price. Trauma is an absolute limit in emotions. The other absolute is the fanaticism of the preachers. As Obi-wan said, - Only a Sith deals in absolutes.\n\nReligions aren't the best influencing agents today. Failing to guide us in a more peaceful world, they have become increasingly less reverent. \nEdit: Grammar: Verb usage",
"As long as there is Religion and Politics mixed together there is WAR!\n\nI wish all the world could just have \"Peace\" but I am also a realist and know that it will not be possible in my lifetime.\n\nJust Sad!\n",
"Let us not forget that during WWI the Germans sought to stir islamic fundamentalist revolt to create trouble for the English Empire, which ruled over millions of muslins, and that as recently as 25 years ago, the US did the same against USSR. Modern Jihad is not an organic product of a religion or culture, it was bred by empires to throw against other empires.",
"While MustafaBei's and the_matriarchy's answers are great and complete, a simplifying of the issue can be found by comparing it with US Evangelicals. Imagine if every US citizen that did not believe in evolution and/or is preparing for the rapture because of their religious conditioning was instead conditioned to view Jews as less than human affronts to god; women as a source of children, domestic servitude, and sexual gratification; and that killing a person was not as bad as burning a Qur'an.\n\nMustafaBei's point about having no outlet for vice is a key element as well. If these youth could drink or make out with a girl without being severely punished or experiencing crushing existential guilt, they'd be a lot less apt to violence.",
"The Quran condones more violence than any other religious texts. Non believers in Allah are Kaffirs ad should be killed. Those who fight for Islam, by killing Kaffirs, and other acts are sure to go to heaven. Thats why terrorists and Jihad.\nIslam has its own views in all aspects of life and dictates a part of his life. A Muslim has to do daily prayers, their food is different , their dressing is different, their education is different , they respect a different language and a distant land in many countries. When an Ideology or a book dictates all these parts of your life, you will never think beyond it. Islam has some good aspects like hygiene, etc. It was a better way of living around the time when it was created. compared to the life before it. But is definitely outdated during this age of information where no war is holy and no ideology that prevents free thought should be condoned or followed.",
"You know what they say...couple of hundred-thousand bad apples....",
"Because as a religion, compared to Christianity, they're still 600 years in the past.",
"Arab honor-shame culture and Mohammed's VERY bloody, violent example...stemming from honor-shame culture. ",
"Here's a [pew research article](_URL_0_) about the world's muslim population.\n\nI would certainly expect some *diversity* in 1.6 billion people around the world who may hold vastly different views of their religion, just like Catholics and Protestants in the west. Therefore it is likely that a fraction of people from this large population are violent fanatics.\n\nIt also doesn't help that many muslims live in poor or conflict areas of the world, and people in grievances might be easier to fall into the trap of extreme radicalism. America and other western countries being the most obvious targets of outrage, naturally attracts the attention of these fanatics. Western media, nowadays increasingly more focused on sensationalism and talking points rather than analysis or providing context for news stories, would give more coverage to muslim extremists, which in turn perpetuates this stereotype.",
"Let me put it to you quite clearly - watch how a person acts and ignore what the person says. If someone claims they believe in peace but are always violent, then they obviously are violent and talking about peace is useless talk.\n\nIslam came about through warfare from its very beginning. It was violent from the very start.\n\nModerate Muslims claim its un-Islamic to kill those who mock Islam and who leave the Faith but ignore that the founder of Islam actually executed people who did exactly that or was responsible for ordering their deaths.\n\nDo the vast majority of Muslims beleive in peaceful co-existence with their fellow co-religionists? Maybe but there are such strong majorities in various Muslim nations that say the opposite, that its probable a significant majority of the Islamic population is not a peaceful bunch. Even educated Muslims in the West have a significant minority willing to justify the execution of apostates to the Faith.\n\nThe claim that Christianity is the same a few thousand years ago completely chooses to ignore that it was precisely exposure to Islamic jihad that gave the world the concept of the Crusade. This wasnt a part of the Christian faith from its inception. Jihad on the other hand has been a part of Islam from Muhammad himself, who participated in jihad wars himself.\n\nFinally, claiming poverty is the root cause of Islamic terror is laughable when you realise that the men who have participated in terror attacks like 9/11 and the various bombings in the name of Islam throughout the word dont happen to come from poor families but rather from upper middle class well-educated families.\n\nIf poverty was the cause of terror, India and sub-Saharan Africa would be the main producer of terrorists bu5 poor hungry people do not in fact go blow themselves up. They are too hungry and weak to do that. Sorry, but poverty is not a cause of Islamic terror, which is rather a hallmark of the Muslim middle class.\n\nIslam has always been violent - the last act of the Islamic prophet before he died was ordering that one religion and only one religion - Islam - exist in the Arabian peninsula.\n\nHe made it mandatory that all other faiths be either eliminated or be subjugated to Islam. His followers have done exacrly that and as much as anyone wishes to sugarcoat this fact, it remains the brutal truth to anyone willing to see and hear it!",
"I am an American so I tend not to know enough about Islam to get through two sentences, but inference and induction would make me suspect that it has to do with; culture, economics, lack of education, lack of a value for education, politics, the religious text itself, and conviction (Muslim people seem to take their religion farrrrr more seriously than other religious people).",
"Sadly, there is violence everywhere. The world is complicated. Religion and violence is an easy answer to complicated problems. \nThe violence that islamist are using may be harder to understand and just makes them look more violent. It is hard to measure violence.\n",
"the media didn't exist in the middle ages in the way it does today.",
"Social evolution is like a traffic accident.\n\nOne wants to slow down and see bodies yet is afraid to see the blood.\n\n*It will all work itself out. Relax and smoke one.*",
"There's an inherent bias in your question. You have to consider all forms of violence, which includes legal and governmental violence that results in physical suffering and impacts. You have to consider, e.g., the violence we committed against Afghanistan and Iraq. In iraq's case, we even put it's population through immense suffering and are directly responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people and children that died during the sanctions against the whole country.\n\nSome people are quickly inclined to rationalize away that we committed and commit violence against people, countries, and societies all the time; but in reality they are no different than the particular kind of violence you focus on in your question. Think of it in the inverse and ask yourself if it would be violence and justifiable if civilians and innocent people died because the world got sick of America, our government's bullshit and enacted sanctions against us.\n\nViolence comes in many forms, but the USA and Israel in particular, we like to think of violence as the thing others do. We are quite abusive narcissistic supremacists in that regard.",
"I just assumed because it was the newest. Christians have had an additional ~700 years to iron out the kinks. But, during that time, they went through the crusades and Spanish inquisition. Think how bloody the crusades would of been with modern weapons instead of sword and shield.",
"I haven't seen anyone mention the Islamic laws/traditions against moneylending and charging interest. Access to easy loans is one of the pillars of entrepreneurship, which has a great influence on the economy of a nation. I think it's a given that poor and poor-religious people are more prone to violence.",
"Because violence is actually a part of their religion. Their religion literally teaches that if they cannot convert someone to islam, they are to kill them.",
"For more or less the same reason Christianity had so many violent fanatics 600 years ago. While the Christian west was going through massive religious upheaval (go read about the protestant reformation some time, and the absolute horror of it) the Muslim east was actually in pretty good shape. The Ottomans at that time were absorbing quite a lot of people and land.\n\nAs the middle ages came to a close and the renaissance began, religious fanatics started to fade away in the Christian world. So basically, the shittiness of medieval Europe culminated in a lot of religious fanatics murdering each other. Sound familiar?\n\nThe recent shittiness of the middle east has culminated with a lot of religious fanatics murdering each other (and their enemies).\n\nTo be fair, Jesus as depicted in the Bible was more or less a pacifist and Mohammad was not as depicted in the Qur'an. But the current rise in fanaticism in Islamic countries has a lot more to do with stability, politics and the standard of living than anything else. As did the protestant reformation.",
"Because a critical percentage of Muslims still hang on to a patriarchal society/culture with a death grip the West could never hope to match. The West has its issues implementing equal treatment to all, but it is still something only a very small percentage of people have not fully embraced. The West brings the idea that ALL people, regardless of gender, class/caste, and sexual orientation, should have equal human rights. Muslims don't want that. Muslims want the patriarchal gravy train to continue. The crux of the issue is really not as complicated as so many people are making it out to be.",
"Some things that contribute to someone becoming a Islamic extremist\n\n* Little to no education\n\n* Poverty\n\n* Growing up in a War torn country\n\n* Being a kid. There are lots of orphan kids in that region and extremists target them because they are easy to condition and radicalize.",
"I think that Islam being violent is just the product of survivor bias. In a nutshell, the most violent religion survives. \n\nIn a world where there is peace and all is provided for, there is less of a need for divine salvation or promise of a better life. Think about it, why was Christianity a religion of the slaves during roman times? The idea of religion appeals to poorer people, maybe because of desperation, hope or maybe even simply a lack of education. I merely postulate. Maybe you have differing views. But bear with this assumption. \n\nIf that's the case, then simply in a more violent world there would be more religious people to perpetuate a more violent religion and positive feedback. This is the only explanation I could come up with to address the thought that if there wasn't Islam there would be other reasons for fighting. \n\nThere was an interesting study on siege mentality where two groups of boys were camping and weren't aware of each other under the guidance of the people controlling the experiment. The moment they knew about each others existence, there was escalating conflict. Can't remember the name maybe some helpful redditor can link. \n\nBut basically it's the whole feedback system. Which is why we don't really get religions today without bloody pasts. \n\nI live in a Muslim majority country, one hailed as the progressive ones. No wars since independence. But our politicians spout words of evil and accusing the minorities of usurping the wealth of the country and simply stir up hatred against non Muslims as a reason as to why they are poor. It gives themselves the image of a protector and defender of Muslim rights. It's a strong and attractive power base and it commands a lot of political power. Hence the loudest and most violent of political leaders rise to the top. Anyone more moderate would be accused of not doing enough to defend the religion and this sort of petty heckling works when enough people do it. Hence extremism rises. And to be honest I never saw the violence as an Islamic thing. It's just a convincing label of us vs them and the words of the quran have been used and twisted in so many ways to justify their actions. Anyone who tries to denounce them would simply be accused of insulting Islam and all sorts of punishments can be dreamt up. \n\nIn short, being religious is a good political tool. Just like Obama who had his own religion being questioned while don't you think it's more worth it to question his universal health care plan? \n\nBeing religious is just a quick and simple way of being like the majority so that people would think that these politicians are just like themselves. But they are not. I find that they are most often there to gain political mileage rather than promoting a better life whether by Islamic teachings or not. Rather than sending people off to fight in gaza they should look to fix poverty here in my third world country. \n\nBut so long the electorate is easily distracted by matters like this, nothing is going to change. ",
"Some statistics:\n\nSeven percent of Muslims are what Gallup determines as politically radicalized (2008 Gallup Center for Muslim Studies). 7% of 1.3 billion, the estimated number of the world’s Muslims, is **91 million radicals**.\n\nTake this survey for example:\n\n* 12% of Jordanian Muslims say suicide attacks against civilians in defense of Islam are justified.\n\n* 13% of Indonesian Muslims say suicide attacks against civilians in defense of Islam are justified.\n\n* 15% of Egyptian Muslims say suicide attacks against civilians in defense of Islam are justified.\n\n* 38% of Lebanese Muslims say suicide attacks against civilians in defense of Islam are justified.\n\n* 43% of Nigerian Muslims say suicide attacks against civilians in defense of Islam are justified.\n\n* 68% of Palestinian Muslims say suicide attacks against civilians in defense of Islam are justified.",
"Even though this might have been answered I figured to put my thoughts in he pot. \n\nIf you consider the amount of media attention with the size of the population of Islam I think that would sum it up. I may be stretching this but I think the lack of progressive thought in Islam hurts it as well. Its a very disciplined practice. There's little tolerance for going against the grain in my opinion. ",
"Because the religion was founded by a violent fanatic. The word Islam actually means \"submit.\" Mohammed was a murderous tyrant so the religion reflects him. ",
"Actual ELI5: they aren't. They are just another occurrence in religious fanaticism. Just like the Inquisition, Salem witch trials, and other religious acts of mass violence throughout time. They just happen to be popular during our time",
"Islam is more disproportionately represented in poverty-stricken countries. In areas were people are poor and less educated, religion is more of a draw. For one thing, religious organizations are quite often the only organizations around with any kind of money/power. Being part of the organization puts you in a powerful in-group. While religious extremism is present in people at every level of economic and educational status, extremism tends to thrive better and more out in the open in poor areas. The reason for this is simple. \n\nReligion at its very core is a leisure activity. In most cases, worship is not a physically strenuous activity. You go to the church/mosque/synagogue/temple, you sit for a while, you pray, and then you go home and (generally) have the rest of the day off. Imagine having to work in a field all day, every day, with no days off. Now imagine once a week, you get to go to this *beautiful* building filled will nice people and all you have to do is relax, listen to a speech, and then hang out with your friends for a few hours afterwards. If this was the *only* opportunity for a break in the day-in-day-out toil of the field, how appealing would that be to you? I'm an atheist but if I were in that situation I'd sure as hell be going to worship every week. In those areas, religion is often the *only* opportunity to relax and recharge.\n\nIn contrast, wealthy societies offer more (and much, much *better*) leisure opportunities. Religion has to compete. This is illustrated perfectly in the US where the churches who grow the most quickly tend to be the ones who feature live music and entertainment as part of the services. The houses of worship here are competing with sporting events, movie theaters, television, radio, books, etc. \n\nWithout the distraction of those things, it's a lot easier to spend the energy one would be putting into sports, or movies, or hobbies, etc. into religion instead. Thus, rural areas tend to be hotbeds of extremist activity. Not in every case, but there is definitely a pattern. In the case of Islam, only a few countries buck this rule. Saudi Arabia being one of them, but in that case, Saudi Arabia is being artificially held to a strict religious point of view due to the fact that it is A) an absolute monarchy, and B) the most extreme elements of Islam control the criminal justice system. In Turkey, for example, Islam is much tamer (though there are always extreme elements) in general than it is in, say, Afghanistan. Turkey offers more competition for time and thus Islam has to calm itself down in order to appeal to its followers in the presence of other, more appealing time-occupiers. \n\nThis isn't something unique to Islam, either. Islam used to be a lot *less* extreme than it is today. That had a lot to do with not only the economic climate in those countries at the time (in the middle ages, it was the middle east that was wealthy and Europe that was poor), but also the people in charge of Islam (it was more centrally controlled than today) and the culture they were brought up in.",
"I think what you're really asking is why is Islam more violent than Christianity.\n\nI'll only speak to Christianity in that Jesus was the ultimate peacenik. \"Render unto Caesar\" and \"my kingdom is not of this world\" are pretty clear examples of Jesus saying these aren't the things we should worry about. There are entire passages like this:\n\nLet everyone be subject to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God. 2 Consequently, whoever rebels against the authority is rebelling against what God has instituted, and those who do so will bring judgment on themselves. 3 For rulers hold no terror for those who do right, but for those who do wrong. Do you want to be free from fear of the one in authority? Then do what is right and you will be commended. 4 For the one in authority is God’s servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for rulers do not bear the sword for no reason. They are God’s servants, agents of wrath to bring punishment on the wrongdoer. 5 Therefore, it is necessary to submit to the authorities, not only because of possible punishment but also as a matter of conscience.\n\n6 This is also why you pay taxes, for the authorities are God’s servants, who give their full time to governing. 7 Give to everyone what you owe them: If you owe taxes, pay taxes; if revenue, then revenue; if respect, then respect; if honor, then honor.\n\n\nIn short, Jesus was not about Christians establishing governments on this earth, through violence or otherwise.",
"With or without Islam, these acts of violence would still be committed. I would be angry too if I lived in extreme poverty under a totalitarian government. Extremist leaders see that anger and slap their own Islamic agenda on it... Making people believe that Islam is the answer. It is not Islam that is committing the violence...it is pissed off human beings that latched on to a cause. If Christianity was the main religion in the Middle East and Islam in the West, It would have been Christian terrorist behind 9/11. It would have been Christian terrorist fighting in Gaza. ",
"Here is how **Winston Churchill** described Islam: \n\"How dreadful are the curses which Mohammedanism lays on its votaries! Besides the fanatical frenzy, which is as dangerous in a man as hydrophobia in a dog, there is this fearful fatalistic apathy. The effects are apparent in many countries, improvident habits, slovenly systems of agriculture, sluggish methods of commerce and insecurity of property exist wherever the followers of the Prophet rule or live. A degraded sensualism deprives this life of its grace and \nrefinement, the next of its dignity and sanctity. \n\nThe fact that in Mohammedan law every woman must belong to some man as his absolute property, either as a child, a wife, or a concubine, must delay the final extinction of slavery until the faith of Islam has ceased to be a great power among men. \n\n**Individual Moslems may show splendid qualities**, but the influence of the religion paralyzes the social development of those who follow it. No stronger retrograde force exists in the world. Far from being moribund, Mohammedanism is a militant and proselytizing faith. It has already spread throughout Central Africa, raising \nfearless warriors at every step, and **were it not that Christianity is sheltered in the strong arms of science, the science against which it (Islam) has vainly struggled, the civilization of modern Europe might fall, as fell the civilization of ancient Rome.**”\n______________\nAnd he's right. ",
"Might be a few years out of date.\n\nAs long as the Muslim population remains around or under 2% in any given country, they will be for the most part be regarded as a peace-loving minority, and not as a threat to other citizens. \n\nThis is the case in:\n\nUnited States -- Muslim 0.6%\n\nAustralia -- Muslim 1.5%\n\nCanada -- Muslim 1.9%\n\nChina -- Muslim 1.8%\n\nItaly -- Muslim 1.5%\n\nNorway -- Muslim 1.8%\n\nAt 2% to 5%, they begin to proselytize from other ethnic minorities and disaffected groups, often with major recruiting from the jails and among street gangs.\n\nThis is happening in:\n\nDenmark -- Muslim 2%\n\nGermany -- Muslim 3.7%\n\nUnited Kingdom -- Muslim 2.7%\n\nSpain -- Muslim 4%\n\nThailand -- Muslim 4.6%\n\nFrom 5% on, they exercise an inordinate influence in proportion to their percentage of the population. For example, they will push for the introduction of halal (clean by Islamic standards) food, thereby securing food preparation jobs for Muslims. They will increase pressure on supermarket chains to feature halal on their shelves -- along with threats for failure to comply. This is occurring in:\n\nFrance -- Muslim 8%\n\nPhilippines -- 5%\n\nSweden -- Muslim 5%\n\nSwitzerland -- Muslim 4.3%\n\nThe Netherlands -- Muslim 5.5%\n\nTrinidad & Tobago -- Muslim 5.8%\n\nAt this point, they will work to get the ruling government to allow them to rule themselves (within their ghettos) under Sharia, the Islamic Law. The ultimate goal of Islamists is to establish Sharia law over the entire world.\n\nWhen Muslims approach 10% of the population, they tend to increase lawlessness as a means of complaint about their conditions. In Paris , we are already seeing car-burnings. Any non-Muslim action offends Islam, and results in uprisings and threats, such as in Amsterdam , with opposition to Mohammed cartoons and films about Islam. Such tensions are seen daily, particularly in Muslim sections, in:\n\nGuyana -- Muslim 10%\n\nIndia -- Muslim 13.4%\n\nIsrael -- Muslim 16%\n\nKenya -- Muslim 10%\n\nRussia -- Muslim 15%\n\nAfter reaching 20%, nations can expect hair-trigger rioting, jihad militia formations, sporadic killings, and the burnings of Christian churches and Jewish synagogues, such as in:\n\nEthiopia -- Muslim 32.8%\n\nAt 40%, nations experience widespread massacres, chronic terror attacks, and ongoing militia warfare, such as in:\n\nBosnia -- Muslim 40%\n\nChad -- Muslim 53.1%\n\nLebanon -- Muslim 59.7%\n\nFrom 60%, nations experience unfettered persecution of non-believers of all other religions (including non-conforming Muslims), sporadic ethnic cleansing (genocide), use of Sharia Law as a weapon, and ***ya, the tax placed on infidels, such as in:\n\nAlbania -- Muslim 70%\n\nMalaysia -- Muslim 60.4%\n\nQatar -- Muslim 77.5%\n\nSudan -- Muslim 70%\n\nAfter 80%, expect daily intimidation and violent jihad, some State-run ethnic cleansing, and even some genocide, as these nations drive out the infidels, and move toward 100% Muslim, such as has been experienced and in some ways is on-going in:\n\nBangladesh -- Muslim 83%\n\nEgypt -- Muslim 90%\n\nGaza -- Muslim 98.7%\n\nIndonesia -- Muslim 86.1%\n\nIran -- Muslim 98%\n\nIraq -- Muslim 97%\n\nJordan -- Muslim 92%\n\nMorocco -- Muslim 98.7%\n\nPakistan -- Muslim 97%\n\nPalestine -- Muslim 99%\n\nSyria -- Muslim 90%\n\nTajikistan -- Muslim 90%\n\nTurkey -- Muslim 99.8%\n\nUnited Arab Emirates -- Muslim 96%\n\n100% will usher in the peace of 'Dar-es-Salaam' -- the Islamic House of Peace. Here there's supposed to be peace, because everybody is a Muslim, the Madrasses are the only schools, and the Koran is the only word, such as in:\n\nAfghanistan -- Muslim 100%\n\nSaudi Arabia -- Muslim 100%\n\nSomalia -- Muslim 100%\n\nYemen -- Muslim 100%\n",
"It's not. [See statistics](_URL_0_) on why this is a fallacy.",
"What is noteworthy to me about Islamic extremists - how many and whoever they are - is that they do their deeds in 2014. I know other religions are extreme, but forced clitorectomies (female circumcision as in Mosul today) does not seem to be a Christian, Hindu or Buddhist practice.",
"Why is no one mentioning the fact that in the Quran ( the guidebook on how to be a Muslim) there are over 168 direct verses that call for violence against pagans? \n\nAlso, in the Quran, it says that if you die killing pagans then you are directly going to Heaven.\n\nI have nothing against Muslim people but this needs to be pointed out. \n\nThanks!",
"I am going to speak up here: Why are so many people making excuses? The violence is done in the name of Islam, poverty is no excuse for killing innocent people. I am going to anger Reddit by saying that much of the Middle East has a poisonous culture. If 90 percent of the Muslims are against violence, why aren't they condemning and arresting the 10 percent that are plotting to kill innocents? ",
"We see what we want to see.",
"The radical Islamist's are such an INCREDIBLY small number of people who practice Islam. There are over 1 billion members to this religion, and only a tiny, tiny, tiny fraction of those are people who do bad things.\n\nI highly recommend that you watch **The Power of Nightmares** from the BBC(3 films total), this will shed more light on the why and the who, probably better than you can gather on reddit.\n\nAmerica's fascination with needing an enemy is probably at the forefront of why you hear about the bad acts of Islam. \n\nJust a little while ago, the IRA was waging its religion fueled crusade.\n\nDon't worry though, without a doubt, I can see the next 50 or so years becoming less and less dependent on religion, we just don't have a practical use for it.\n",
"Christians were like this in the past as well. It just that because we have a separation of government and church that Christians are \"nice.\" That still doesn't mean Churches in modern times aren't as cold hearted as they once were. It's just that in today's world, you're only excluded from a small community, and perhaps your own family, but in large part you walk away with your way of life unharmed.\n\nJust 50 years ago, Church was a huge thing in the US. Enough to shun people for life and cast out people from their community either with threats of violence or just simply by excluding them from social status. I recall recently a town someplace had a large Mormon community and one day a couple called 911 only to find that the police didn't want to take them seriously because they didn't go to church.\n\n100+ years ago, America had regular, ritualistic killings of people they deemed \"witches\" like their counterpart in Europe. In today's world these \"witches\" are considered urban legends like that Witch of Pongo or otherwise. In Europe during the 16th, 15th, 14th and beyond centuries tend to have Pope dominating the area where religion was the primary drive to stop progresses in science and even regular killings of individuals. Many scientists with \"radical\" ideas had to write under a false pen name just to make it harder. The church had regular groups similar to maybe Germany's Gestapo during WW2 where they go around towns looking for people who are against the Church and carrying out the necessary punishments. \n\nThe reason Islam is such a \"violent\" religion is not because the religion in itself is violent. The text is similar to that with Christian bible where people are instructed to kill outsiders and enforce strict laws just like Islam. It's just that Islam religion are primarily in unstable parts of the world with weak or no government. Most of Afghan and Iraq are nomadic tribes so having a centralized government is near impossible. All it takes is one large group armed with weapons to overtake these small towns and tribes and enforce strict religion rules purely out of control.\n\nIf anything, Islam and Christianity can be considered tools government used to enforce a tyrannical government that stops personal progress and only progress and enrich officials and \"leaders.\"",
"There are some good points made in other replies. The main reason why it seems this way, however, is this: you're not Muslim. \n\nIf you were then you might be posting a question \"why are the Christians always bombing us, invading us, taking our land and stealing all our natural resources?\"\n\nOf course that perception would wrong too - it's not so much Christians as rich, greedy hypocrites. But the reality is we in the west inflict way more violence on Muslims than Muslims inflict on others. ",
"Christopher Hitchens suggested that Islam is particularly violent compared to other large religions for two reasons. Firstly, it is easily the youngest and so is going through the same violent periods that plagued early Christianity for example.\n\nSecondly, and perhaps more importantly, there hasn't been a Reformation as yet like there was with Christianity. While on the face of it the Reformation was simply changing Christian ideals, what it really did was permit inquiry into established religious beliefs, allowing alternative viewpoints, and generally made the whole paradigm far more flexible and hence less brittle.\n\nThird thing, consider that the Enlightenment was almost a wholly western phenomenon, and it raised an enormous amount of skepticism about religion, trust in science, as well as noticeable improvements to general well being. This means that western religions have been contending with an ingrained scientific and philosophical culture for a few hundred years and so have calmed down out of necessity. While middle eastern countries certainly benefit from science, can it be said that they too have a current, perpetual and enduring scientific tradition?",
"I think it's very possible that we wouldn't see the level of violence we do today if it weren't for the oil boom of the 70's and the consequent attention shown by America and Russia in the Middle East, not to mention the forced creation of the Israeli state in an already occupied land post World War II. \n\nOn the one hand, we can look at them as violent, but on the other, we can look at them as the only group of people left standing that have resisted Western influence and are willing to fight to maintain a sense of identity.",
"I have seen some good points here, but Western colonialism and imperialism play a very large role in this. Fanaticism is only born in extreme circumstances.\n\nMost terrorists are born from extreme political circumstances. A couple decades ago we would be talking about Irish terrorist groups who were fighting for a free and then a united Ireland. Eco-terrorists are reacting to an immediate need for environmental change. Hell, even women's suffragists in England at the turn of the 20th century were involved in arson and bombings. Islamic fanatics today are the result of a larger colonial/post-colonial terrorism.\n\nHere's a brief historical context . Islamic fundamentalism really began to pick up speed in the 19th century. Islam was in a state of stagnation. The Islamic World was no longer one of the cultural, political, economic, and scientific powers of the world. Several states were falling under European colonization while the Ottoman Empire was in its final dying breathes. Many Muslims were trying to figure out how Islam had fallen so hard from the Golden Age. The teachings of fundamentalists like Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab (founder of Wahhabi Islam in Saudi Arabia. Lived decades prior to this) became popular as an answer.\n\n\nEven still, Islamic fundamentalism was not powerful for another century. In the first half of the 20th century, nationalists lead movements to free their lands. Most nations became either monarchies or socialist states. In the context of the Cold War, the West tended to partner with monarchies while the USSR tended to partner with socialist states. Due to oil and just a general pissing match, the Islamic World was one of the major political battlegrounds of the war.\n\nIn order to combat Russia's influence in these socialist states, Western powers began backing fundamentalist groups as opposition towards the socialists. The most prevalent example was during the Soviet invasion of Afghanistsan where Al-Qaeda was backed by the C.I.A.\n\n\nTowards the end of the Soviet Union, these fundamentalist groups were primed to take a step into the mainstream as the socialists became less viable.\n\n\nWhen you look at it, the most tumultuous areas have had some Western influence:\n\n**Saudi Arabia**\n \n* Saudi Arabia is heavily backed by the United States and considered a regional ally. The state is named for and run by the Saudi family who are descendents of Muhammad bin Saud who partnered with Al-Wahhab when forming the first Saudi state. The state runs off fundamentalist Islamic thought and have ties towards these various fanatical groups.\n\n* At the same time, the Saudi family is only in power in that region because of the British. During WWI, the British backed Arab nationalist Sayyid Hussein bin Ali, Sherif of Mecca (political rival to Saud). Hussein lead the Great Arab Revolt against the Ottomans of the Central Powers to liberate most of the Arab World. The British promised to put him in charge of a unified Arab state but stabbed him in the back. The British allowed Saud to defeat Hussein and take control of Saudi Arabia. At the same time, this let Britain and France divide up the rest of the region between the two of them.\n\n* For the sake of a political land grab, Britain canned the idea of a unified Arab state and instead put the radical fundamentalist Saudi family in power. America has backed the state ever since.\n\n**Iran**\n\n* Iran's modern theocracy was a pretty direct result of Western involvement. Britain and the United States had lucrative oil contracts in the country. In the 50's an Iranian democracy decided to end these deals in order for Iran to keep the money itself. The British and Americans backed a coup by the Shah to put him in power so America and Britain could keep their oil deals. The Shah went on a bloody and suppressive reign of terror. The Iranian Revolution was a resistance to this reign of terror and Western interference within the country. I would say that most of the people intended for a freer country rather than the repressive theocracy that has arisen now.\n\n**Afghanistan**\n\n* Like I stated, the US backed Al Qaeda and fundamentalists during the Soviet invasion. However, it is often forgotten that the US was pretty cozy with the Taliban prior to 9/11. In May 2001, the US and Afghanistan signed a deal to work towards reducing opiate production within the _URL_0_ really only changed because of 9/11. Prior to that, the U.S. was happy to work with and back them.\n\n**Iraq**\n\n* Our invasion there clearly destabilized the country. There's been plenty of material written which describes the military and politican's cluelessness to the political nuances and complexities of the Iraqi state. Iraq is a diverse state that was fragmented during American occupation. We left a corrupt, incompetent, and sectarian government unable to govern the state. This has created political turmoil that has allowed groups like ISIS to stay in power. At the same time, many people there are pissed off by being occupied by us.",
"If you read the Qur'an with an open mind, remembering, and believing, that there is only one god, Allah, and Mohammad is his last and greatest Prophet, you will have an answer. This Holy Book is written by Muhammad, channelling its prototype in Heaven with Allah. It is the powerful voice of Allah coming down through Muhammad, directly to you, the reader. The injunctions are to fight for Allah and his Apostle Muhammad, killing apostates, and killing infidels if they won't convert to Islam. \n\nMuslims live in the House of Peace and are all brothers, loving each other, everyone else lives in the House of War.\n\nUntil Muslims can put Muhammad and his Holy Book into the context of his own time and place, and declare his violent commands are not to be followed, there can be no peace in the world as long as their are any fundamentalist followers of Islam. ",
"Because some largely Muslim parts of the world are suffering from poverty and war. Once upon a time, it was the near and middle east where we got innovations and social change. The invention of the astrolabe, our modern numerical system, mathematicians predicted that the earth was round based on the stars well before Columbus confirmed it. \n\nMeanwhile, in Europe, they were at the tail end of the Dark Ages. Women were burnt at the stake, people were starving on the streets. But a small few were able to live comfortably. Horrible, horrible things were done in the name of the otherwise benign Christian faith. If we can eliminate the instability in the middle east, it will help everyone. ",
"Because Israel basically controls the US, and the US funds, arms, and trains Muslim fanatic groups to destabilize their countries government so we can invade with ease. ",
"Quit worrying and apologizing for possibly offending people for asking a legimate question. Political correctness has gone WAY too far and it's time to stop with it. Islam doesn't \"seem\" to have more violent fanatics - it does. Everyone tiptoes around trying not to be offensive while people are being killed. WTF.",
"If I had to take a guess, probably because it's the prevalent religion in relatively undeveloped areas where there is already lots of violence and instability and a general violent culture that has little to do with Islam. I'm sure if America/Europe had developed as primarily Islam, and the middle east had developed as mostly Christian, you'd be asking why does Christianity get stuck with the stereotype of violent extremists.",
"Here is my theory: \n\nHistorically, Islam was actually a pretty tolerant and moderate religion. Much of the fanaticism we see today is very recent in Islamic history. Yes, I know there were wars where the Islamic people spread their religion by force. But over all, in day to day life, Christians and Jews living in Islamic territories were not persecuted. They may have been treated like second class citizens and forced to pay a tax for not being a Muslim, but there was no where near the hatred that we see towards religious minorities in the Middle East today. \n\nIn fact, throughout most of history, Christianity was actually the extremist - terrorist religion in many aspects. Anyone who didn't agree with their ideology was tortured and killed - even other Christians. The ancient works/art/philosophy of the previous pagan Europeans was burned and destroyed. Much of the writings generated in the ancient world were actually preserved by Muslim scholars in the middle ages. In the Renaissance when Europeans started becoming interested in ancient philosophy and science, they encountered these things through an interaction with their Muslim neighbors. \n\nScience, scholarship and literature flourished in the middle east. It wasn't until the Ottoman Empire was destroyed in the 20th century that we began to see a very different Middle East. Once the Ottoman Empire was destroyed, many of the Middle Eastern territories were broken up and partitioned among various European countries like slices of pizza. Many of the national boundaries established often didn't make any sense. Example - the fact that Iraq contained territories of Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds who didn't really consider themselves a unified people with each other. \n\nVia colonialism, British and then American powers used religious differences in sects to play people against each other. Divide and conquer is the old motto. \n\nA very radical sect of Islam called \"Wahhabism\" had lead attacks on the moderate Ottoman Empire. When the Ottoman Empire collapsed, Wahhabism started to become a more prominent practice. The Wahhabis took control of Mecca and Saudi Arabia, and began to export their radical version of Islam to the rest of the Muslim world. \n\nWahabbism is to Islam, as Evangelicals/Hard Core Baptists are to Christians. \n\nAlong with the growth of this radical version of Islam, several invasions into the Middle East from European and American powers have further destabilized the region. \n\nFor example, Iraq was once a place where there was a relative amount of tolerance between Shiites and Sunnis. They even had the highest rate of Shiite - Sunni marriage in the world. Yet once the Americans lead their invasion into Iraq, they totally destabilized the region. They created a vacuum of power presided over by a weak puppet government, and pervaded by intersect fighting. With little real authority in place, this created a situation where radicals (ISIS) could sweep through and take over the Northern Part of the country. \n\nThere is also the fact that both Saudi Arabia, Qatar and America are giving the radicals financial aid in Syria. While America likes to say we are only funding \"the moderates\" in Syria, we can't really control who the funding and weapons actually go to. \n\nSince Saudi Arabia is America's ally, we're giving money to a state that is propping up and funding extremist Islam throughout the world. \n\nAnother factor here is the creation of Israel after World War II. I understand the desire of the Jewish diaspora to have a homeland, however there were Palestinians who considered that area to be their home for the better part of 2,000 years. When that territory was taken over, so that the Jews could have a homeland, many of the original inhabitants were either killed or driven out of their lands - much like the Native Americans when the Europeans came to America. \n\nThis treatment towards the Palestinians is enraging the rest of the Islamic world, and creating more conflict and anger in the region. \n\nLONG STORY SHORT: European powers destroy a moderate Islamic Empire at the beginning of the 20th century, cut this empire up into pieces and try to set up puppet governments to protect their oil interests. This creates vacuums of power where more radical Islamic forces sweep in and start causing chaos. ",
"Muslim here, lots of people have given good explanations, now I feel its important to ELI5 the solution. Let Islam (Muslims) have their own enlightenment. Islam is in need of a reformation and the best way to do it is to not lump all Muslims into one Islam. \n\nIt's simple really, the bat-shit crazy extremists believe there is only ONE correct, true form of Islam, their own; and by Allah and guns and bombs, that's the one that will rule the world. Fact of the matter is that the reformation is already underway, millions of Muslims are fed up with the violence and are educating themselves in non-religious morality, millions are shunning Imams and embracing science and empirical thinking. Millions are ignoring calls to Jihad and valuing this life and the good they can do alive instead of as martyrs. Many are choosing the path of self-realization beyond what a book from 1400years ago says and beyond what Imams today say. Many are questioning things and creating new Islam for their own families, their own way to submit to find inner peace and the worst thing we can do is to get on a loudspeaker and reinforce what the extremists are saying - there is only one Islam and it is peculiarly violent. \n\nLets highlight the positive, the good Muslims for a change and see what happens, but that's not enough. Lets also reinforce their differences, just like there isn't one Christianity, there is not one Islam the different sects - Sunni, Shia, Wahabi, Ahmadi, Sufi, and the millions of different ways Muslims are creating for themselves. Talk about their differing backgrounds, cultures, and histories, create a forum for them to reveal their individuality, their dreams and careers and thoughts without fear of being lumped in with killers and murderers. I know its harder, but that is how to speed up the reformation, not by criticizing and calling a billion people violent fanatics, following one violent religion that is the problem and needs to be dumped, but by empowering them to create their own path. ",
"One reason I often see given for the prevalence of Islamic violence is that the Quran explicitly forgives people who happen to commit crimes as long as they are furthering the cause of Islam. I'd love to know how much if any of that is true as I've seen it repeated often.",
"I do not personally practice the religion but if foreign countries had been manipulating my country the way that certain world powers have done to middle eastern countries for literally decades I highly doubt that there would not be deep felt resentment and rebellion; regardless of which religion you practice ",
" we hate the terrorists as much as you guys do . in fact , they kill more Muslims than they kill others . they are disgracing the name of Islam and are using it as means to control people . like I said before ( in another thread ) with a high Arabic illiteracy rate in the Muslim world , and teaching Quran by memorisation , you could simply skip some verses and cherry pick parts of others . you could easily leave out teaching the core principles of analysing the Quran , and take whole meanings out of context . here is a relatively simple example : the story of abraham and Ishmael , peace be upon them both . when God- great is he- asked abraham to sacrifice his son , abraham told Ishmael and Ishmael complied . now if we end the story here , it looks like a story where we should give our lives to god unconditionally and be willing to sacrifice ourselves and loved ones . now if we continue the story , it tells us that Ishmael , while the knife was coming towards him , was replaced with a sheep and was saved . now the moral of the story has changed ; it has changed to that if we rely on god , and follow his messengers - peace be upon them all - he would not fail us and will spare us from harm . and that's just by removing a single verse from the story . look at how it changed meanings so quick .this is how Terrorism spawns , through purposefully making people ignorant . this is what happens when religion and its study become exclusive to an elite few who can easily abuse the lack of proper education . I mean look at who are fighting for the ISIS ; Brits , ausies , French , Germans , Americans , etc ... These are all people who could not read Arabic (or very few could read and understand ) and where easily manipulated . the Quran did warn us against these people in 79:2 :\" So woe to those who write the \"scripture\" with their own hands, then say, \"This is from Allah ,\" in order to exchange it for a small price. Woe to them for what their hands have written and woe to them for what they earn\". They clearly violate 190-193:2 , which state how far you are allowed to go to war and when you are allowed to war \" Fight in the way of Allah those who fight you but do not transgress. Indeed. Allah does not like transgressors.(190) And kill them wherever you overtake them and expel them from wherever they have expelled you, and fitnah is worse than killing. And do not fight them at al-Masjid al- Haram until they fight you there. But if they fight you, then kill them. Such is the recompense of the disbelievers.(191) And if they cease, then indeed, Allah is Forgiving and Merciful.(192) Fight them until there is no [more] fitnah and [until] worship is [acknowledged to be] for Allah . But if they cease, then there is to be no aggression except against the oppressors.(193)\" . in the end of 193 , it clearly states that there is no aggression except against oppressors . were the innocent people in the twin towers oppressors ? Are the innocent Christians and assiryans of Iraq and Syria aggressors ? Wasn't executing 1500 soldiers that were unarmed and defeated not transgression? Is not Muslims killing Muslims fitnah ? \n\n Now if we remove all verses except the first parts of 190 and 191 , then you justify can easily terrorism . but if you were to actually read and understand the whole set of verses , then there is no way on earth you can justify the actions of AL queda and ISIS and Taliban and others . \n\nTl;Dr terrorists and religious fanatics are cherry picking verses that belong in sets to justify their actions . ",
"This is only tangentially related to the question regarding Muslims as a whole, but does address the whole Iran vs. the West thing nicely:\n\n_URL_0_\n\nEssentially, in 1953, the US and UK overthrew the democratically elected prime minister of Iran who had decreased the Shah (King)'s power and refused to allow the UK to continue to exploit Iran's oil reserves for its own gain. In doing so, they left in power a dictatorial kig who would eventually be seen as too close to the West that had hurt the country and would be overthrown in 1979, leaving Iran in the hands of... religious fanatics.\n\nThen there's the fact that the US supported Saddam Hussein with money and arms for decades while he fought a war, then turned on him.\n\nThen there's the Israel - Palestine issue.\n\nThe US and UK have a horrible track record in the Middle East and set themselves up as clumsy interveners... so fanatics feel justified in their hatred.",
"I tend to think it might not be so much Islam as it is the culture of the area where Islam comes from. The likeliness of fanatics seem to be determined in large part by what specific muslim country people are from. \n\nI had a bunch of muslim friends when studying abroad. We would often talk about religion and society. We compared politics in Norway where I am from and Lebanon where they were from. Many of them quite liked what they heard about Norway and wondered why Norway was low on conflict and politics marked by trust and cooperation. I've thought about this question so many times in addition to the OPs question. On the surface there shouldn't necessarily be any difference old society in Norway, Viking society was extremely violent e.g.\n\nBut my current thinking is that this is ultimately cased by geography and history, which again has influence the practice of religion. Flat countries like arab countries are easy for rulers to control. This leads to concentration of power. If you look around the world flat areas of the world have usually been empires and have poor democratic traditions: Egypt, Messopotamia, Russia etc.\n\nCountries with more irregular terrain: mountains, lots of rivers, coastlines or sparser population are harder to control centrally and thus more freedom is given to the people. The rulers will have to negotiate power to a greater degree with the people.\n\nThis is very typical of Scandinavian countries. Central government has traditionally been very weak. One can even see this pattern replicated finely within Scandinavia. Norway is least flat and then comes Sweden and finally Denmark which is really flat. The Danes traditionally had the least freedom and strongest Monarch while the Norwegians were the most free.\n\nIf you look at the middle eastern history it is marked by strong god like kings and very hierarchical society structure. Even between genders the hierarchy is very strong. I believe this was because people lives on plains mostly along some great river. That made it easy for the kings to exercise absolute control over their subjects both in Mesopotamia, Egypt etc.\n\nWhile mountainous regions like Switzerland, Scottland, Norway, Greece have historically had very flat hierarchies. Islam is often blamed for being very hostile towards women but the thing and people think Christianity is better. But religion probably has little to do with it. Women had much worse rights in the middle east before Islam came along and in e.g. Scandinavia women had more rights before Christianity came around. So more equality between sexes in e.g. Scandinavia compared to e.g. Saudi Arabia likely has little to do with religion itself but about how the existing values and dynamics of society has used religion for their purposes.\n\nI don't think this is the whole explanation but that it is an important starting point. European colonisation and later world dominance has probably infuriated a lot of people in the middle east, who can look to a glorious past where Islamic states lead the world in science and economic development. The muslim and Christian world has often crashed into each other through history and that is probably contributing factor towards the hostility radicals feel towards the west. I think matters have just gotten worse by all the meddling the west has historically done in the middle east. Toppling regimes, inserting dictators, taking the suez canal. America placing large amount of troops in Saudi Arabia, their holy land. Radicals simply have a lot of stuff they can point to in history and work themselves up about.\n\nAnd last but not the least \"Render onto caesar what is caesars\" I think is the line in Christianity which has helped a lot in fighting extremism. Sure Christians were more fanatical than muslims at one point, but the more openness to a secular government I believed proved a path out of radicalism.",
"It's not the religion. You could use the Torah or the Bible to justify heinous acts (and many have). It's that the Muslim world is poor and undeveloped. Without jobs and prosperity there are too many angry males running around. It's no secret that many suicide bombers blew themselves up because their families would receive a large payment. It's like the ghettoes in America. If you're in a gang then you are a part of something and you have something to fight for and against. Without the gang you're just another broke nigger wasting away in the ghetto. It's not surprising so many young black males join gangs knowing full well it will lead to their destruction. At least along the way they'll get some kicks and enjoy some of life's material pleasures. And so it is in the MIddle East. Which would you rather be? A young warrior in a holy war to liberate your people from oppression or an unemployed, poor piece of shit living in squalor with no purpose or reason to be alive. If the Middle East experiences an economic renaissance and achieves prosperity levels comparable to Israel, Western Europe or South Korea then all this religious extremism will disappear.\nI know about 9/11 and Osama's background and that of the hijackers. But that's a special case. That's more of a Jim Jones, Charles Manson cult type deal. ",
"Violence will flourish where it is tolerated.",
"I'm an ex-muslim and there are a lot of ridiculous/fanatical parts of this religion. Now, not everyone who's muslim is violent but the media depicts the muslims as being insane and genocidal. Also, just as communists were the center of attention in american media decades ago, muslims are the new scapegoats in this day and age. In a recent interview with a palestinian guest, Sean Hannity didn't even let him express the palestinian's views and attempted to cover his views and make him conform to what he(Sean) wanted to hear.\n\nSource: _URL_0_\n \nIf you consider the situation going on in Gaza and Israel, both sides have uncompromising and hate-filled parties, but the real way to solve this ridiculous onslaught is just to compromise to end the fighting. But at the end of the day, the death and destruction is greater in Gaza than in Israel. Now you can argue that the events and conflicts in the past justify Israel's response, but it doesn't justify the murder of innocent civilians. I will always stand with the oppressed rather than the oppressors even if i'm not muslim.\n",
"Lack of Education + Poverty + Superstition = burning stuff",
"Muslim here. \n\nIt's hard not to think about this but I think it boils down to a few things: \n\n1) Islam is a religion that prioritizes justice over peace. \n\n2) The Muslim world, as it exists today, borders many different non-Muslim ethnic groups. Tensions over borders is a universal reality. The Muslim world just has a lot more of those borders so there are more cases of tension. \n\n3) Coupling points 1 and 2 together creates a fairly volatile situation. \n\n4) The Muslim world did not have, for various reasons, philosophers and humanists who would create the level of doubt needed in the hearts of believers for civilization to flourish that the West experienced. \n\n5) The experience of the first Muslim community underneath the prophet faced an enemy, The Quraish of Mecca, who wanted to eradicate the new religious community. In reaction to that, Muslims were commanded to fight (kill the infidels wherever you find them) in the Quran. Those specific commands have been generalized by groups like Al Qaeda and the Islamic State. \n\n6) The Second Iraq War. \n\nEdit: Formatting\n\nEdit: A group of us are working towards creating a humanistic space for secular and ex-Muslims. I think one of many responses to Islamist terrorism is providing an alternative space. Most of the Muslim world actually lives under secular autocrats so secularism is not particularly appealing to those Muslims. The opposition then will then will turn to a religion that justifies fighting tyranny. As I said though, a group of us are working towards creating a secular opposition. It is summed up in the Free Syrian Army's ethos, \"we did not begin to fight the secular tyrant in order to replace him with a religious one\".\n\n\n",
"Violence is born of poverty, inequality, and desperation. Religion is simply the wrapper that's draped over the violence.\n\nIslam is currently more populated with extremists because more desperate people are currently Muslim. People will find religious justification for what they were going to do anyway.",
"In the Catholic faith, the Pope is there to set the rules, boundaries and beliefs of a community. Even though there are many sects of Christianity, the Pope is able to set a guiding principle.\n\nUnfortunately, present day Islam do not have this central figure. Because of this, different factions of Islam fight over each other on who is \"right.\"\n\nGoing back, the original central figure is Muhammad. During the rise of the Ottoman Empire, the Ottomans enacted the role of Khalif, which is the political as well as religious leader of the Muslim world. The Ottoman Empire even collected different relics around the Muslim World such as the cloak of Muhammad to legitimize its regime and power throughout the Muslim empire. The fall of the Ottoman Empire also marked the end of a centralized religious leader in Islam thus creating the void we see in the present.",
"Honestly, my opinion is that it just boils down to Islam being a relatively young religion on the scale of major world religions. Islam is 1404 years old, go back to the year 1404 A.D. and look at the dumb shit Christians were doing. It takes time for the moderates in a major religion to quiet the zealots, and that's where Islam is now. Hopefully they get their shit together faster than Christianity did.",
"Because you're not counting the violent fanatics who make United States foreign policy. ",
"MustafaBei pretty much told the story of why the killings are happening and why it is not met with resistance either within that country or abroad.\n\nI was born into Muslim household in the rural area of Bangladesh where the population there is 90%+ is sunni muslim (tiny country, east of India, used to be called east Pakistani). Now in my adult life I am an atheist (its a long story).\n\nThroughout history every Abraham religion has gone through major changes and periods of extreme violence. Killings always happened in the most brutal way. the difference (in my opinion) now is that we live this period where the uproar of Islamic violence and it is happening right in front of our eyes. To me it is no different from what happen before other than me physically being here to witness it. It is also helped by the wide coverage of live media that tells us what going on with visuals and in timely manner. you can look up brutal torture devices for each of the decades and kind of get a glimpse of what was really used for those killings back in the day, and medicine was not as evolved as much it is now, so one can argue that the killings back than, were more brutal and painful. If you didn't die from the actual attacks, you surely will die from infection and pain.\n\nNonetheless, the killings that are happening is very brutal and as MustafaBei mentioned, it is heavily tied into education and and finances of that particular area. It is also tied into the recent history of that area. Lets be empathetic for few secs and imagine us being a 13-17 year old child growing up in Gaza or Iraq or eastern Afghanistan. your day to day witness of the violence, carves your mentality. I am a strong believer of your environment being the deciding factor of your characteristics, so imagine growing up and witnessing, your sister being raped, your mother being killed, you father being tortured, and you are being told the reason is westerners and they are causing all of it, they are greedy, power hungry and bunch of other things. What you think you are going to grow up as? most likely a soldier of the militant, as they are the one that can temporarily give you peace. You can't help it join as conditions are terrible, opportunities are taken away from you because of your demographics or your religion. there is really thousands of angles you can look at this.\n\nAnywho, I think i just reiterated mustafa's point with slight different angle. its a bad time for islam and it will settle as time goes on. History will look at this as one of those times of religious killing surge before it goes back to peace again. its a cycle that has been going on for a while.",
"If you look at any Muslim society and you make a scale of how developed they are, and how successful the economy is, it's a straight line. It depends on how much they emancipate their women.\n\n-Christopher Hitchens\n\n",
"Their book both commands them to be peaceful and to kill heathens. The latter commands are what the \"extremists\" are focusing on in the cases where they are allowed to read the entire book for themselves. Regarding many Muslim terrorist organizations, the former commands are taught as irrelevant, with the latter being taught as the true commands.\n\nSo in short, their book commands killing, but also commands not killing in some cases-- the violent commands are used as reason to be violent for some.",
"It seems to because it actually, positively, unequivocally, absolutely does.",
"Sand makes people irritable.",
"Every religion goes through a certain cycle of fanaticism. I read an article once that compared this theory across all religions. Christians were burning jews at the stake and expelling them from catholic Spain not too long ago, at a time where the Islamic ottoman caliph accepted them as refugees in his own domain. He actually sent his entire military fleet to go pick them up. The Israelites had some hardcore religious terrorism going on their day, lots of Jewish holidays are (surprise surprise) celebrations of key victories in religiously-charged battles. Islam just had the luck that our sad \"dark ages\" coincides with a communication revolution that makes it public to all. \n\nThis kind of brings me to my second point, the key word in your statement is SEEMS. I am Muslim, and I believe that to be entirely true, it SEEMS this way, therefore in actuality, it isn't. By fanatical groups you are probably referring to crazies like Boko Haram, Taliban, Al Qaeda, and most recently ISIS. A group SO cray that Al Qaeda literally said these guys are too extreme for our tastes. In the context of the west, many of these groups were funded, trained and even operated by western intelligence in order to combat what at the time seemed like greater evils, communism and Russian imperialism post WWII. Side note, just look at the irony of the situation now, Obama is giving ISIS weapons to attack Asaad in Syria, same fighters hop the border into Iraq and we have our Marines chasing them down. How does this even make sense?\n\nAfter that beast was slain, a lot of these groups (now funded and trained) began to bite the hand that fed them, aiming their efforts at ridding the middle east of foreign intervention and influence (namely the plight of the Palestinians, and US military presence in Saudi Arabia, the hub of Islam). The WEST radicalized the middle east, and now they are paying the price. Most people in the West don't know this, but Saudi Arabia, one of our LARGEST allies due to our dependence on their oil, are the single largest funder of these extremist groups, and their VERY specific brand of Islam (wahabism, salafism, etc) is the sole reason groups like these exist. They have been poisoning the Islamic community for decades now, and even in the West we don't really know how to deal with them. They have a VERY strong network of teachers and educators spreading this kind of hostile mentality even in the states, and its become an internal problem even among Muslims in the West. You can find mosques FULLY funded by the Saudi king in every single corner of america, there's one literally down the street from where I'm typing at work now. In the largest context of the Muslim community these offshoot arab groups really shouldn't be the \"voice\" or \"branding\" for Islam, they make a very small proportion of the entire Muslim population anyway (no. 1 = indonesia. no.2 = asian subcontinent, india/pakistan). \n\nAnother dimension to this entire debacle is how the west currently uses these groups as pretext for their own gains, framing Islam as a religion of hate and violence gives nations in the west a reason to play imperial watch dog and bring \"democracy\" to these regions without the UN or any other groups really giving a shit. You would be ignorant to assume that the American military complex and infrastructure king pins as well as oil companies made zero dollars from all the wars that have been occurring over the last decade. The fear mongering that happens on CNN and Fox News every night, dehumanizing Muslims due to a few crazies that get air time, makes John Doe sitting at Pittsburgh watching the nightly news ok with bombing them into the stone age. He sees them as a threat, therefore his government is given carte blanche to eradicate them at will, and install refineries a few years later. \n\nHope i gave you a more big picture view. \n\nedit: spelling",
"The religion itself, and its bible, is just asking for someone to take it way too extremely.",
"I was thinking about this yesterday. I don't think people joining terrorist groups is much different than people getting into gangs. If you come from a poorer background or see things not being the way you want you become susceptible to the arguments of hateful people. If you look back at Nazi Germany, any group could be susceptible towards a tendency towards violence. Right now, Middle-eastern countries particular the poorer people are probably more susceptible than other areas. I would also say that those countries also have seen a lot of violence first hand and that might cause people to consider violence themselves or seek revenge. Lastly, if you have the gang atmosphere and then add in someone telling you it's what God wants and or your family will be disappointed or dishonored the argument becomes stronger.\n\nTl;dr More environment than Islam itself.\n\nHopefully, my comment makes sense.",
"Looks like a lot of folks like to make excuses for Islam. It is in their core belief of their religion. Economics? Bullshit propaganda. Religion of peace? Hardly.\n\nSlay the unbelievers wherever you find them(2:191)\n\nMake war on the infidels living in your neighboorhood (9:123)\n\nWhen opportunity arises, kill the infidels wherever you catch them (9:5)\n\nKill the Jews and the Christians if they do not convert to Islam or refuse to pay Jizya tax (9:29)\n\nAny religion other than Islam is not acceptable (3:85)\n\nThe Jews and the Christians are perverts; fight them (9:30)\n\nMaim and crucify the infidels if they criticise Islam. (5:33)\n\nThe infidels are unclean; do not let them into a mosque (9:28)\n\nPunish the unbelievers with garments of fire, hooked iron rods, boiling water; melt their skin and bellies\n(22:19)\n\nDo not hanker for peace with the infidels; behead them when you catch them (47:4)\n\nThe unbelievers are stupid; urge the Muslims to fight them (8:65)\n\nMuslims must not take the infidels as friends (3:28)\n\nTerrorise and behead those who believe in scriptures other than the Qur’an (8:12)\n\nMuslims must muster all weapons to terrorise the infidels (8:60)\n\nThe Qur’an certainly proclaims that when the time is appropriate, Muslims must use force to convert the unbelievers to Islam. For the non-Muslims, the alternative to this is to pay the humiliating protection money (Jizya tax) or be killed (by beheading, of course). A militarily dominant Islam, without doubt, precludes the peaceful co-existence with the unbelievers if the Muslims have to abide strictly by the unalterable stipulations of the Qur’an.",
"Because they are fucking nutjobs.",
".\nThere are good muslim people .but there are the terror groups that .commitin suicide terror.\n Terror group like Hammes and Al qaeda and Jihad.\nThose groups believes in terror and killing.\nFor them killing is saint. I mean. How wrong is that?",
"because islam has thwarted the development of Islamic countries, and now they are all backward shit holes.\nObviously muslims are pissed off about that, and their anger is expressed in religiously encouraged violence",
"Because the creator of Islam, Muhammad, was violent as well. It's the way Islam has always been.",
" > I know that other religions were violent too in the past but today in modern age it seems that Islam is the only big religion that has a lot of people who are willing to spread their religion by violence. \n\nThey're just newer, and they're developing into their militant phase during an age where we have a lot of technology and access to a lot of people. Almost every religion has three historical stages: a stage of recruitment, a stage of militancy, and a stage of acceptance.\n\nCatholocism is the ultimate example: Christ's birth follows by centuries of recruitment/ conversion until it becomes embedded into a major power organization. Following that, it becomes a militant force for the next several centuries and is exploited by large political forces in order to gain land/ money/ power. In the twentieth century, we've started to see fall-off from militancy and an establishment of the acceptance/ pacifism stage.\n\nThe Jews went through these phases too, but have been in that last stage for a really long time, which is what makes them a pretty terrific and easy-going religion. There's some religions like Buddhism, or sects of Christianity like Quakerism that do pass these first two stages altogether, but generally they seem to stick to each transformation pretty identically. Muslims have just come into their militancy stage in the last century as their religion is now being coopted by major political and economic forces which see the religion as a clever rallying tool in order to take advantage of political situations.",
"It's becomes Islam was formed on violence.\n\nMohammed is the \"perfect human being\" and formed \"the perfect society.\"\n\nHe used brutal force to conquer all of Arabia. He ordered a poet to be assassinated for criticizing him. He once slaughtered a whole Jewish tribe then forced a recent Jewish widow to be his wife- basically raping her.\n\nHe took bounty and slaves. And on his death bed, he demanded all non-Muslims either convert, leave Arabia, or die.\n\nHis ancestors conquered most of the known world in a mere century afterwards, travelling with their scimitars and Korans.\n\nAnd he promised unlimited paradise- majestic mansions, bountiful food and drink, and magical hora women (note- I'm not making this shit up, look it up) to all who did in Jihad.\n\nSo you want to know WHY Islam today is so violent?\n\nBecause it always has been.\n\nPeople like Osama bin Laden and the 19 hijackers are not bad Muslims, they are good Muslims following the religious edicts left by Mohammed with perfect precision. Of course, they are bad human beings though.\n\nFar too many good human being Muslims try to reinterpret the meaning of Islam to suit their beliefs which renders them incapable of understanding how truly F'd up it truly is.\n\nNOTE- for all of you future downvoters, you should research how the Turks conquered all of the eastern Byzantine Empire.\n\nThat's why the Crusades began- because the Christian world was being sandwiched in between the Muslims in Spain and the Muslims pouring down upon the Byzantines. In other words, it was DEFENSIVE in nature no matter how badly some historians want to portray the Muslims as all peace-loving victims who were mindlessly brutalized.",
"Ill simply reemphasize your point that a lot of other religions are very violent or have been very violent in the past. Standard historical causes like tribalism, fighting for your side, empire expansion... are all there.\n\nSo now I will address what I think makes the Islamic situation different.\n\n1. The religion itself. Islam is very unique in religions in that it claims to be the final perfect way of life. So anything in the Koran or Hadith is considered eternal and perfect. Varying schools of Islam interpret things differently, but for most (sunni/shia, this is a truism) that you can find hard to believe. Having grown up in Islamic school, we were literally taught what foot to enter the washroom with and what prayer to say when getting in car... Why? Because this is what the prophet mohamed did and he considered a model. It's a what would jesus do, taken to a whole new level.\n\nNow, the koran/hadith, like many religious texts contains many things we wouldn't consider good today (slavery, concubines, sex slaves, war, oppression of women, oppression of non-muslims, rules against leaving the religion, violence...) But keep in mind, these are taken seriously. Remember, not standing and peeing is a big religious deal, think about how big a deal the rest of the religion is.\n\nSo for example, these groups will often blow up religious shrines (muslim or not). This is from the religion which bans worshipping anything except God. Again, taking it back to Islamic school... we were taught not to have any paintings with eyes or clothes/teddy bears with eyes. \n\nSo things Muslims are commanded to fight for their lands, and to take over lands and impose shariah law, and impose the jizya tax on non-Muslims... are taken as religious commands.\n\nIt is possible Islam will reform itself to allow more interpretation, and perhaps it is still a very young religion in that sense and hasn't had time to mature. But as of right now, this is a very real issue.\nThat Muslims for example pray 5 times a day, abstain from alcohol/pork... other very specific rules might seem harmless... but understand that for those who take their religion seriously...all the violent and not so pleasant rules are taken just as seriously. \n\nIslam is not a once a week, spiritual, don't have sex before marriage kind of religion. You really have to live the religion and community to understand this part.\n\n\n2. Trying to determine a statistic for a group really depends on how you classify people. Most Muslims are non-European, yet constitute a huge number of people. Most Muslims are still from relatively 3rd world places. Even places like Saudi Arabia was still pretty medieval not that long ago. It developed really quickly thanks to oil money, but at heart, you really have to see the place more like a an African tribe than a Swedish urbanite. So are 'Muslims' really more violent when you consider the violence in the Congo or Rawanda... Do you split people along racial, ethnic, national, religious lines...? you also have a situation where many educated Muslims tend to leave their home country, leaving even more problems behind.\n\n3. Group Identity/Vicitmization\nMuslims have this eternal group identity. I almost never hear for examples Christians in America worrying about Christians in Nigeria. But from the time I was born, every single Muslim struggle was echoed in the Mosque. Help our brother in Palestine, Chechnya, Somalia, Burma... Not to say people actually cared about it or that it was equal, but it is a really strong group identity. Again, this is from the religion as the notion of ummah is really strong. So many Muslims feel more under attack as everything is about them being attacked and this creates a violent resistance mentality.\n\n4. Fighting is a good thing\nFighting is commanded in Islam in self defence and in many interpretations to spread Islamic rule. Dying in jihad is a good thing. Easy ticket to heaven. Which is case you don't know is a big part of Islam. This world is just a test for the final world in heaven. \n\n5. Assumption of Islamic superiority\nIt is assumed that since Islam is the final religion by god, that perfect is attained by Islamic rule. This makes fighting for an Islamic state according to you sect a very good solution to all of life's problems?\nPoverty... it's because we don't have shariah law\nCrime... no shariah law\nNo innovation... no shariah law\ndrugs... no shariah law\ndisobedient kids... no shariah law\n...\nWhat happens when shariah law doesn't solve every problem... well that's just because you have incomplete shariah or false shariah or corrupt rulers not implementing the right shariah... So gotta get rid of them and do the right shariah.\n\n6. An Honor based culture\nThe origins of Islam lie heavily in honor based cultures and continue to do so today. Arab culture, Indian culture... are all heavily based on honor. Violence comes with that.\n\nThat's all I'm typing for now.\n",
"Ex-Muslim here. Islam is inherently a violent ideology unfortunately. Jesus and Buddha didn't kill people who spoke out against them; Muhammad did. Most Muslims are peaceful because they pick and choose which parts of Islam they want to follow. It's always the more devout Muslims who tend to be violent because issues like sexual slavery, pedophilia, mass murder etc. are not only allowed but encouraged by the Qur'an and the life of Muhammad. It's the same way that fundamental Christians are more devout and tend to be psychotic. Whenever someone starts taking their religion too seriously, problems arise.",
"Because Islam is completely intolerant of ANY other religion. ",
"I cannot speak to Islam, but I can speak to fanatiscism as a whole. Fanatiscism, is often times \"chosen\" for the reason, that it is easy, in the modern day world, we have to understand SO much, so much information is being thrown at us every second, that it may be hard to comprehend, let alone incorporate into our lives. In contrast fanatiscism is an \"easier\" lifestyle, as there is often very clear rules for EVERYTHING, this is apealing to a lot of people, and quite frankly I can undestand why, this however does not mean that I agree with fanatiscism, infact I very much don't.\n\nHope that understanding what drives people to fanatiscism, can help us understand the problem as a whole.",
"It seemed the most peaceful religion ever is still Buddhism.",
"Muhammed was a despotic warlord who is credited with personally decapitating an entire town of 900 jews by himself, for starters. \n\nThe Koran takes about 10 hours to read front to back, and is full of hateful and totalitarian ideas, especially in the later books (which override the more peaceful books in the beginning). It is a filthy political movement, under the guise of religion, that calls for the conversion, subjugation, or death of anyone that doesn't agree with them. Sound familiar?",
"The religion itself is more violent. Sorry but true.\n\nSource: I was raised Christian in a 90% Muslim country. Now live in US while most of my family still in Egypt.",
"Most of these comments seem to miss the part where OP stats he's aware of historical violence in other religions..........",
" Afghan/white guy here. When my dad was growing up in Afghanistan during the late 50's to late 70's, the country was for the most part very open and forward thinking. And of course the population was 99 percent muslim. There was a well known hippee trail coming from Europe into Afghanistan, they would come for the easy access to hashish as well as spiritual quests. The hospitality of the Afghans to outsiders was a staple of the culture. My dad grew up watching John Wayne, James Bond, and Rocky dubbed in farsi at the local cinema. Of course there were radical types and the type to try to enforce their* beliefs about God and the Quran on others, but they were more looked down upon in that society. Like it was portrayed in the book;\" The Kite Runner\" Afghans put a high importance on personal freedom. But After more than a decade of the Soviet Invasion (1978-1989), 100's of thousands of Afghans fled the country, and the country descended into chaos and ruin. Which became an opportunity for the taliban and extremists to take power. What a lot of Americans didnt realize after 2001, or care to realize, is that most Afghans you would meet here on the street and abroad hate the Taliban and extremists, for pissing on their country after USSR ruined it and dont see the extremists and fanatics as an example of what Islam really is. Without doubt. Just like most christians dont see Pastor Terry Jones or Rush Limbaugh, Cheney (etc) as what it means as a good example of what a Christian is. Here is a photo of some students in the 1950s in a labxhttp://_URL_0_\n To try and answer your question, i agree with MustafaBei on only one* point about Islam. The world IS temporal. But it depends on how you use that knowledge, you can say \" this life is meaningless and only the afterlife matters\" Or you can use that knowledge by saying \" my time is short here and uncertain, i will try to do as much good as i can to others and society in hopes i can attain forgiveness and eternal bliss\" I believe we are all accountable as individuals and the fundamentalists are using the Holy Texts for political motivations. AND on top of that, the threats of terrorism while very real have been without doubt exaggerated and propagated by the media to fund imperialism and also the developed worlds own brand of Terrorism.\n Ive been Muslim for 25 years and while i have came across a few with radical opinions and a few douchebags who were very dogmatic and close minded ( the ann coulters and ignorant of the bunch) My experience has always been that Muslims are most definitely people of love and tolerance and open minded people. Not just in America but all over. \n\n People who hate Islam will only focus on the worst things they see coming from Muslim regions, and will try to paint \" the muslim world\" as some \"violent desert wasteland that is a throwback to the dark ages\". But the ironic thing is that they dont point out the contributions practicing Muslims throughout the past 1400 years have also made. You want a unique point of view of the Quran then look into mystics like Rumi, and others. Muhammad Ali, not only arguably the best boxer but a very spiritual, wise and loving man, Malcolm X, at the end of his life, was also all about peace and harmony between races and humanity and of course is a hero of Black civil rights. Dave Chappelle has became Muslim. The list goes on. If Islam is as backwards and corrupt as people say it is, and if Muhammad (pbuh) was some \"crazy guy\" from the sixth century, whats the appeal to all these brilliant people who recognize it as a beautiful and logical way of life? Even atheist scientist like Neil Degrasse Tyson have noted that Muslim Scientists helped light up the dark ages, and contributed much to the inventions and technology, science, medicine, culture and math we use today. Although his point was that there is a lack of that contribution today. Which i agree with, but Islam is not to the blame. The fact remains, that Islam itself is not the stumbling block to progression of muslim countries, but poor leadership, and corrupt governments like the Saudis etc. As much as the idea that Muslims are from cultures of \" modern cavemen\" is being propagated, there is a whole other side of things. When MustaBei wrote in the top comment that \" when you display a decent portrait as a leader, there are virtually no limits to things you can do. All of your deeds will be ignored or justified, even killings rapes or mass corruption.\" ( confused Jackie Chan face meme) Wtf? The corrupt greedy saudi arabian government is universally hated and criticized by muslims, the puppet government of Afghanistan is hated. People are trying to take down the Assad government everyday. The majority of Pakistanis hate their political system and corrupt government. Corrupt leaders and governments are the problem, the fanatics use Islam and exploit it for their own causes. People memorize the Quran but have no idea of the meanings. And many of the meanings are twisted to suit their agendas. The violent passages of the Quran that detractors always quote out of context, was about violence after war was waged onto the early muslims. Fighting became allowed but it is repeated over and over do not kill unjustly, do not kill innocent lives, do not be transgressors over and over. \n\n\n",
"* Many Muslims live in poor countries with incredibly corrupt governments. Not only is there a lot of anger because of lack of economic opportunity, but the governments brutally resist any calls for change from the people. When citizens are arrested and tortured for joining secular opposition groups, religious movements become the only form of resistance that is allowed by the government.\n\n* For centuries, the wealthy elites in Muslim countries have nurtured Islam as a way to unite the very rich and very poor. \n\n* Rich elites in those countries often support radical movements as a way to demonstrate their religious sincerity.\n\n* Outside countries like the U.S. and Israel had a period where they supported radical Islam movements as an alternative to nationalist movements, which they were afraid would break away from the West if they ever gained power. (Egypt's Nassar is an example of the kind of Middle East nationalist whom the West feared. Osama bin Laden began his career as a \"freedom fighter\" supported by the CIA to fight the Russians in Afghanistan.) \n\n* Other governments nurture radical Muslim movements for different reasons. For instance, Pakistan's government supports radicals in that country as a kind of military \"strategic reserve\" against India—should India ever invade and overrun Pakistan, the Pakistani generals will call on radical Muslims to become guerrilla fighters in the mountainous regions with whatever is left of the formal military.\n\n* In short, radical Islam exists because it is convenient to powerful people in various countries who use it towards one political, military, or economic end or another.",
"Many comments here say that it is about cultural and economic issues. In countries like Dubai and UAE, which are financially secure you cannot just go and build a church or a temple. Why is that? In most if not all cases, hatred stems from being very close-minded and having a sense of superiority for no reason.\nEvery religion has had its fair share or violence. But it is imperative for the majority and the intellects to question and take the alternative route.\nOnce a society accepts atheists among them (when they can say it aloud with no repercussions) , that's when you know the society is taking care of itself in a good way as far as religion is concerned. That means you are ready to accept another religion with you. That means you wouldn't have an issue with them building a religious place of worship which doesn't look like yours. \nI particularly don't see this acceptance (other religions, atheism, festivals) in almost all Islamic countries. I am curious to know why.",
"Islam does not have a secular/religious distinction. Theologically it is very difficult to create on. This means that the power of religion and the power of the state are deeply intertwined. A theological distinction quickly becomes a political fight. \n\nChristianity used to be intertwined with secular in Europe, but the *theological* roots were not deep. So they could eventually separate. So most of the political religious violence has gone away.\n\n",
"I heard Islam is only 1600 years old. Therefore, they're in their rebellious teen years. Same as Christianity at the same age. It's a faze",
"Because the news outlets give things to do with so called Islamic terrorist more screen time then other stuff to make the weak minded citizens to think all Muslims are like that.",
"Confirmation bias, mostly. You remember the stuff that confirms your biases, and forget everything else. Or the media fails to report anything except what confirms the prevalent bias.\n\nSo anytime some guy who happens to be Muslim commits a violent act, he's automatically a \"Muslim fanatic,\" but when good, Jesus-fearin' Christians are hunting down and killing gays in Uganda (urged on by some US Christian groups like the so-called \"C Street Mafia\"), you just don't hear about it. Or they're not \"Christian fanatics,\" they're just bad people who profess to be Christian. And who, um, use Jesus as the basis of their hate.\n\n9/11 was the act of a bunch of \"Muslim fanatics,\" but the largest terrorist attack in the US previous to that was done by \"bad people who just happened to be Christian.\" See how it works?\n\nUS prisons are FULL of violent Christians, and some of them have committed their violent acts based on their religion.\n\n\n",
"They've been oppresed and disenfranchised so badly during the past fifty years of neo-colonialism that they're desperate enough and have nothing to lose. ",
"Any answer that doesn't pin the blame on socioeconomic status is just wrong.",
"Much of the time, its less about the religion and more about the unstable region. There are constantly new factions popping up looking to seize power of an area, and more often than not, they use religion as a cover to justify their violence.",
"It's the context in which Islam exists in the modern world. Many of the countries where Islam is in the majority have been subject to the wrath of western powers. This has cultivated an interpretation of Islam that promotes violence as the only means of power.",
"I'm a Canadian born Muslim, I grew up in Saudi Arabia. I was raised on Muslim and Arabic standards, but was educated in a western environment British middle school and American Highschool. \nAs Muslims, we feel like we are all one. Borders, to me, just distinguished dictator from dictator, (there are a few exceptions in the Middle East). So imagine growing up and hearing about and seeing images of 3 simultaneous wars going on around your country, Palestine, Iraq and, Afghanistan. Although there aren't nearly as many extremists around in the Middle East as the media would like you to think. Just think about how the sense of uncertainty and being victim would effect you growing up in your young and malleable years. \nMost Arabs look down on fanatics, we're more of a moderate type. \n",
"Many muslim countries have huge economic disparity between rich and poor. When poverty becomes intolerable people look for a means to validate their existence in the face of overwhelming circumstances. The problem is that those people are often manipulated by people who want power. If you look at \"Christian\" countries with severe economic disparity you'll find the same. The Philippines comes to mind. ",
"First you have to ask yourself, why wasn't there a \"Muslim problem\" in 80's,70's, 60's or ever before that? most people didn't even know what a Muslim was before 9/11. So obviously something had happened in recent years to explain these acts of aggression. \n\nExtremists are either guided by politics or a sense of revenge. The use religion to build up armies of uneducated youths, because throughout history religion has proven to be a powerful tool of persuasion. \n\nThe number 1 victim of muslim extremism are muslims themselves, which proves the point of desired political gain. ",
"I came across [this comment](_URL_0_) the other day that seemed to help me understand it a bit:\n\n > Europe and the Christian world has gone through various periods that have served to eliminate the \"horrifically backwards cultural rules\" you read in the Bible. First, the Renaissance, then the Reformation, then the Enlightenment, leading up to a period of atheism and general non-religious philosophy ranging from Schopenhauer to Nietzche to Sartre, etc.\n\n > In other words, what used to be a Christian world has mostly gone beyond living according to what is written in this one book. Stoning anyone is most likely going to lead you straight to jail. The first thoughts that go through the minds of most redditors when talking about \"stoning anyone\" is likely to be Monty Python's sketch about \"nobody is going stone anyone until I say so, even if they do say 'Jehovah'.\"\n\n > There has been no Renaissance in the Islamic world, no Enlightenment, no Voltaires to rock the boat, and no Monty Python.",
"This thread is so depressing because everybody is missing one of the main factors, if not THE main factor in Islamic fanatacism: Western intervention. \n\nWestern countries (mostly the U.S. and Great Britain) have been meddling in Islamic countries for years, stealing their oil, bribing their rulers, etc... On a logical level, any leader of a Muslim country will want to have a good relationship with Great Britain and the U.S. because they are rich, advanced countries that can help the Muslim country. But no matter what kind of a relationship a Muslim leader has with the West he will look to the regular people like a puppet who is being controlled and manipulated to serve the West. \n\nSo the combination of 1) the West fucking with them and 2) thinking their rulers are puppets has turned many Muslims towards fanaticism. Islamic extremism has caught on for several reasons: \n\n1) It is completely anti-Western in orientation. If you vote for an Islamic fanatic, you have no paranoia that they are secretly being controlled by England or the U.S. Paradoxically, some of the fanatics want to secretly be friends with the U.S. for reasons stated above, but of course they can't do that openly. \n\n2) Many people see Islamic extremism as a reaction towards Western decadence. The propaganda machine in those countries makes it look like the West is a gross, corrupt culture where people have no morals, no sense of community, are incredibly selfish, addicted to drugs, cheat on their spouses, etc... They see booty shaking rap videos and Honey boo boo and decide that to \"fight\" that, they need to swing towards a strict form of Islam that supposedly doesn't have those bad elements.\n\n3) Islamic fanatics sell this idea that the Islamic world is weak now but it was strong during the time of Muhammad so the way to get strong is to go back to their Islamic roots. To a helpless and desperate people, this is an appealing argument. \n\n4) The \"bad\" parts of Islam (i.e., the violent verses of the Quran) speak to people's rage and helplessness. The idea that God wants them to attack their enemies (which just happen to be fucking with their countries) is very appealing. \n\n5) Islam unites the people. If you look back 40 years ago, Islamic extremism wasn't as strong in the Middle East. Instead there were secular movements, nationalistic movements, communism, etc... For much the same reason American politics is divided, none of those movements really caught on in a big way. But the one thing those people can agree on is Islam. They don't have a tradition of religious freedom like we do, so pretty much everybody is Muslim, so its a logical step to unite everybody under the banner of Islam. ",
"Because Islam is the last religion with control of governments.\n\nTheocracy breeds violent fanaticism.",
"Islam is an absolutely scourge. ",
"The Crusades are hugely misunderstood by an ignorant general public. Ask any academic who specializes in the subject and they'll tell you the Crusades were a DEFENSIVE war waged against Islamic expansion. They weren't not offensive.\n\nIslam was knocking on the doors of Paris within 200 years of its origin, and they weren't delivering flowers.",
"Stupid parents teach their kids to be stupid like them. It's a stupid circle with Mohammed in the middle. But seriously when Mohammed is around hide your young daughters.",
"Could it be that the obvious answer to this question is the right one? That the Quran preaches violence and martyrdom as acceptable means of spreading the religion more eloquently than it does anything else, that becoming martyred is one of the highest honors one can attain in Islam rewarded with 72 virgins and a seat next to Allah in heaven: maybe these beliefs actually have real effects on people's behaviors. Maybe, just maybe, those jihadists we see footage of saying allahu akbar and giving purely religious reasons for their actions before blowing themselves up, actually believe the things they say they do. We have been made to feel so paranoid about being perceived as \"Islamophobic\" that we have been cowed into respecting something that, on its face, is a violent doctrine. This isn't to say Christianity is innocent either: Leviticus and Deuteronomy are some of the most heinous books ever written. But this shouldn't take a criticism of Islam off the table... ",
"Being a Muslim, I can easily say that Islam has very peaceful followers. The Taliban that you see on TV or the \"Extremists\" are usually brain washed from when they are children and told to kill all non-muslims. They only get taught half the religion and not the other half. Part of the problem of Islam looking bad is because of Saudi Arabia. They fund Wahabism and the Taliban. Muslims are not violent, however we are emotional when it comes to anyone who disrespects our Prophet SAW or our Quran. You don't see us disrespecting Jesus or Moses, or the Bible or the Torah? In Islam, anyone who kills someone without a just cause instant gets made a person of hell. We have a saying that, \"The murder of 1 person is like the murder of the entire humanity\"",
"Because there were so many interpretations of it.\n\nMuslim here, My family's interpretation of Islam is a Sunni Shi'ite mix. We take the good things from Sunni and the good things from the Shi'ite and fuse them into what we believe is the real Islam. Before the prophet Mohammed (PBUH) died there was only one form of Islam, Islam. After Mohammed's (PBUH) death, the caliphate (which spanned Yemen, Oman, Qatar, UAE, Bahrain, and Saudi-Arabia) was still young. The people in the Caliphate were debating on who should be the next Caliph. The Sunnis believed that it should be a democratic vote and the Shi'ite believed that it should be one of the prophets sons (like a monarchy) Things cycled around, but for the most part it was a democracy. \n\nSo that's where the split of Islam began, and that is where it will stay until the prophesied Mahdi will come and reunite the Ummah. \n\nSo Sunni and Shi'ite split even more depending on what the people believed. [Here is a Wikipedia page for the sects in Islam.](_URL_0_)\n\nSome more extreme forms of Islam, such as Wahhabi, is what groups like Al Qaeda formed on. Al Qaeda wants to create the Ummah again but it wants to also destroy all idols and minority religions. \n\nFrom Al Qaeda split off a more violent group known as the IS (formerly ISIS/ ISIL). This group is *so extreme* that even Al Qaeda says their Caliphate is Illegitimate. \n\nSo that's basically it. Most of Islamic terrorism comes from Al Qaeda or ISIS so that's how it all happened. Hope I helped. :)",
"Violent fanatics exist in all religions equally. The common factor among violent religious fanatics is not a single religion but usually a lack of education and a lack of wealth. There are radical christians ethnic cleansing Muslims in the Central African Republic. Buddhist radicals have been massacring Muslims in Burma.Many Muslim countries are very poor and lack a true education system. Radical Islam almost always comes from these countries. (Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iraq) As other people have pointed out places like Turkey with higher standards of living have \"softer\" versions of Islam. This is because they have more wealth, more education, and more hope. They do not need to turn to religion to justify their lives.",
"Because you get western news...",
"It doesn't, \n\nChristianity has the KKK, violent UKIP, BNP\n\nJudaism has IDF, Zionist groups etc\n\nBuddhists were actually killing muslims recently-ish (_URL_0_)\n\nThe reason, in todays world, there is more violence around Islam, is the nature of politics, Israel - Gaza. The War on Terror. Not to mention the amount of propaganda in western media demonising Islam, My friends even used to share videos around school of muslims getting assaulted. It's no wonder you believe that Islam is more violent",
"Someone needs to make an Islamic version of 'The Life of Brian'",
"An important point has less to do with Islam and more to do with history: the Ottoman Empire. \n\nHere, you had a case of colonialism for centuries in which a Turkic speaking group with different social norms controlled much of the traditionally Muslim world. The majority of administrators and leaders were imported from Turkey proper. When he Ottoman Empire collapsed in World War I, it opened up a large power vacuum in the Middle East that was quickly filled by Britain. When the British withdrew from the area at the end of World War II, it gave self governance in one fell swoop to multiple ethnic and religious groups within almost arbitrarily drawn boundaries. \n\nAfter centuries of external administration, millions of people had to build social institutions from scratch. The only social institution that remained was religion, and it at least provided a stable structure. Unsurprisingly religion became more important as an identity. \n\nThis is why Islam in the Middle East has proven to be such a radical factor in social life. In other parts of the world, such as Indonesia, there hasn't been the same level of radicalism because the adjustment to self rule was not quite so dramatic. There are other factors such as food importation and over population, but that history is pretty important. \n\nTl;dr: Centuries of Ottoman rule meant that after the collapse, there wasn't much to unify folks except for religion. ",
"No doubt this will get buried, but here's the deal anyway. So the modern history of the Middle East is one of colonization and weird borders defined less by common cultures and societies than lines hashed out between Western powers defending their own interests. For example, the borders of Iraq were explicitly set up to prevent an uprising against the British--the British figured (correctly) that they'd never see a general popular revolt because the Kurds, Shia, and Sunni had absolutely no shared identity to unite behind.*\n\n\nBUT as is the case with all colonized areas, they weren't exactly keen on this idea of being colonized and did not want to see their culture subsumed to Western culture. Long story short, the Arab Nationalist movement arose in the early-mid 20th century. It was a secular movement based around a (somewhat constructed) \"Arab\" identity of people in the Middle East. The hope was Middle Easterners could unite behind this identity and build nation-states from there, in opposition to the imposed culture and laws of the West. Note this nationalist movement was part of a larger surge of mid-century nationalist movements in colonized countries where the native-born people sought to establish national and cultural identities explicitly separate from the Westerners colonizing them.\n\n\nAnyway, the Arab nationalist movement was fairly successful in the beginning and you saw the rise of a lot of secular, Arab nationalist leaders. However, people are people--a movement can't make up for corruption ingrained in the system from decades of colonial rule, or longstanding tribal rivalries, or resentment of movers-and-shakers who also held power during Western rule, or incursion of Western powers into these burgeoning national politics through a mixture of bribery and force. Dissatisfaction with the Arab nationalist movement grew as it was unable to handle the wreck left behind by colonization in various countries. Then the real death knell was the Six-Day War, which smashed a coalition of leading Arab Nationalist countries and brought to its knees the idea of a brilliant resurgence of the spirit of the great Middle Eastern empires.\n\n\nBut at this point the Western powers are no longer officially colonizing these countries (well, save the various puppet governments set up around the region) and the population desires self-governance. People *still* want change, they *still* want political power, they *still* want unity. So what is another unifying identity in the Middle East? Something that was central to the area's great cultural, historical, and political triumphs. Something that had spread across the entire region and beyond and was culturally central to many Middle Easterners, no matter their particular national identity. Islam! Islamic-based political movements existed prior to this, but the perceived failure of Arab nationalism left a hole they came sweeping in to fill.\n\n\nThus, we go from completely secular, science-based, sometimes explicitly anti-religion political movements to ones completely invested in the idea the only thing holding the Middle East back is lack of religiosity. If we were only to return to this Golden Age of Islam (a gross simplification of the period, but ideologues are not known for their love of nuance) then power and prosperity would return to the region. This is when you see a surge in very fundamentalist, militant interpretations of the Qu'ran, the concept that *jihad* is nearly *exclusively* physical warfare, and all of these really horrible simplifications of the rich textual and jurisprudence history within the religion.\n\n\nMy point is the number of violent movements based in Islam is not a function of Islam but a function of political, economic, and social forces leading to the formation of movements whose goals necessitate violence, and Islam happens to be the way they justify it to themselves. If you were around in the time of the Crusades you could ask this question about Christians, and I'd say the same thing--it's not necessarily Christianity that's the problem, it's the people *using* Christianity as a justification for their violence.\n\n\nWhenever you find yourself asking the question \"Why are all ____ like ____ ?\" first ask \"What's been going on among ____ in the past 50-100 years, and how is that influencing their goals and pursuit of those goals today?\"\n\n\n*An aside: this is pretty much why many Middle Eastern countries have only ever been halfway stable under dictators. They comprise a totally disparate population with few regionally shared identities, the members of whom may have been historically enemies. It's brutally difficult to create a democratic system based on negotiation and consensus when you've got that background behind you.",
"The ideology is very aggressive about forced conversion, the text is very clear about inciting violence against non-believers, and the religion's development is about 400 years behind.",
"look at russia nowadays - the volunteers who s coming to ukrainian east are using arguments like 'we r going to defend our orthodox brothers from the lust of the western civilization' and something like this\n\n\nso its not about only Islam even old-good orthodox church could made such fanatics",
"Again Turkish here. In my opinion problem is that they dont care about this world much. They all think that they must suffer this world and after they die they will find peace. \n\nBut mostly economical reasons. ",
"A huge part of this from my perspective can be analyzed statistically, the majority of these islamic nations are very often nations of poverty and if you compare that to the fact that the crime rate among impoverished civilians is much higher than middle-upper class citizens. People in desperate situations will do desperate things if they think it will improve your life. Think about the things you would do for the sake of your family, and then think about how many people are in a situation where they feel like they have to do something desperate. \n\nDesperation + Religion almost never ends well. Other religions are just as bad, but other religions do not have as large of a portion of its population in poverty. (Mental illness will often take account as well, but its not likely the a higher portion of islams have a mental illness than other religions).\n\nAdditionally if my theory is correct there are theories that due to the reducing % of christians in europe,americas etc. vs the increasing % of christians in africa. It shouldn't be long where both religions will be viewed the same. (this is not meant to offend anyone and is merely a theory based on the evidence i've provided)\n",
"People bringing up the crusades need to brush up on their history. The crusades were brutal and very un-christian and were also a direct response to Muslim invasions. Don't misunderstand me, I am not saying things like the sacking of Jerusalem in 1066 were all peachy brotherly love or some other nonsense. What I am saying is there is a difference between the events, the motivation behind them and the religious dogma that the actions were founded on that makes comparisons of then and now a stretch at best. ",
"\"Where are the Tibetan-Buddhist suicide bombers? If you think for a moment that the kind of violence we see in the Muslim world is born of the Israeli occupation and our misadventures in Iraq, we should see Tibetan-Buddhist suicide bombers. The Tibetans have suffered an occupation every bit as brutal and far more cynical than any that we or the British or the Israelis have imposed upon those of the Muslim world. Something like a million or 1.2 million Tibetans have died since the Chinese occupation. Where are the throngs of Tibetans in the streets calling for the deaths of Chinese non-combatants? Where are the Tibetans blowing themselves up on Chinese buses, at weddings, in crowds of children, in front of the offices of the Red Cross and the UN? It's not happening. It's not likely to happen. It's not that you could not possibly form a death cult out of the principles of Tibetan-Buddhism. In fact, to some degree, Zen Buddhism formed the worldview of the kamikaze pilots in World War II. But you would have to work very hard to bend the core principles of Buddhism into this kind of orgy of violence. You don't have to work so hard as a Muslim.\"\n\nSam Harris on [why Islam is violent and Buddhism & Jainism are not](_URL_0_)",
"\ni believe that the propaganda has alot to do with this, the bad image is \ncapitalized to be the whole situation,\nthere are millions and millions of muslims and the bad side only appears,...\n",
"Because our Western Christian-centric media tells us that's how it is.\n\nI suspect there's a comparable spin put on things in other countries to make Christianity, Judaism or whatever other religion annoys another country/region, seem as equally extreme.\n\nIn reality, it's all just smoke and mirrors for very bad people to justify doing very bad things.\n\nMore broadly speaking, I believe that it's essentially meaningless to defend or vilify any one particular religion anyway (or even Athesim), because with or without gods or prophets, humanity has always been - and always will be - far too adept at creating enemies for itself regardless.\n\nEdit: 2nd sentence for clarity.",
"In the western world, we like to see the dark ages as so eating in the past. This is not true, the Middle East is currently, smack dab in the middle of a dark age. Religious violence is not a cause, but a symptom of all dark ages.",
"One of the *many* components of this is language. The Quran is used by most Muslims in Arabic. The really, really devoted ones think that you can only be a Muslim by reading the Quran in the original Arabic. The unchanging nature of the book means that the language and thoughts and systems of thought are stuck in a 6th century mind set. If the only learning you are given is a 6th century text about the way life went in the 6th century to base your mental model on, you get a 6th century mental model. And since the Quran is considered to be the very recitation of a an angel directly to mankind they are held to a less open interpretation. You follow the words, you don't interpret the words.\n\nSome of the huge changes in the Christian faith have occurred as the Bible has been translated and had other versions made. (Aramaic to Latin to Greek to Latin to every thing else) These allow language, and therefore thought systems, to change to adapt to the times. Since less and less people think of the Bible as THE WORD OF GOD since it is translated, they don't take it as fundamentally a books of specific rules. Just suggestions.\n\nThe more any group or religion takes their book to be an unalterable \"THE WORD OF GOD\" the more they will seem out of place and backwards as time moves on. In some it takes the form of violence and in some it takes an almost innocent refusal to live in the world as it exists. The devout Amish still speak German at home and among themselves and refer to every one else as English. ",
"I'm going to lock this thread. While it had a potentially positive beginning it's since devolved into nothing by flame filled hate posts which really have no place in ELI5. [Please remember our rules](_URL_0_)\n\n**Thread Locked**"
]
} | [] | [
"http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2bo4zp/eli5_why_does_islam_seem_to_have_more_violent/cj79szh",
"http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2bo4zp/eli5_why_does_islam_seem_to_have_more_violent/cj7cgti"
] | [
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[
"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kUEGHdQO7WA"
],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[
"http://www.npr.org/2010/06/05/127500908/cia-fight-against-communism-bolsters-radical-islam",
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2003_Casablanca_bombings",
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_Marrakesh_bombing"
],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[
"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zzXMAtAhftk"
],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[
"http://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/200706/ten-politically-incorrect-truths-about-human-nature",
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illusory_correlation"
],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[
"http://securitydata.newamerica.net/extremists/deadly-attacks",
"http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/domestic-terrorism-task-force-more-overdue-experts-say-n128541"
],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[
"http://www.thereligionofpeace.com/Pages/Games-Muslims-Play.htm",
"http://www.thereligionofpeace.com/Pages/WWMD.htm"
],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[
"http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2013/06/07/worlds-muslim-population-more-widespread-than-you-might-think/"
],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[
"http://www.globalresearch.ca/non-muslims-carried-out-more-than-90-of-all-terrorist-attacks-in-america/5333619"
],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[
"state.It"
],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mossadegh"
],
[],
[],
[],
[
"http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/sean-hannity-shouts-down-palestinian-guest"
],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[
"blogs.crikey.com.au/culture-mulcher/files/2010/07/Afghanistan3.jpg"
],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[
"http://www.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/2bg671/german_protesters_chant_jews_to_the_gas_chambers/cj5nh71"
],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_schools_and_branches"
],
[],
[],
[
"http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-22356306"
],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[
"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PNndF8RP7Lw"
],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[
"http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/wiki/rules"
]
] |
|
5mixzx | why do ukranians celebrate christmas at a different date than the remainder of the world? | Ok, maybe it isn't the REMAINDER of the world. But you get the idea. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5mixzx/eli5_why_do_ukranians_celebrate_christmas_at_a/ | {
"a_id": [
"dc3yv3z",
"dc3zj0i"
],
"score": [
2,
6
],
"text": [
"Well, a lot of the remainder of the world don't celebrate christmas because they're not Christian.\n\nTo answer your question, the main Christian church in Ukraine is the Orthodox Christian Church, and they typically celebrate Christmas on January 6-8.\n\nThe reason being, they use the Julian Calendar, while most other Christians use the Gregorian calendar originally brought in by the pope.\n\nOn the other hand, it's mostly crap anyway because a lot of sources put the actual birth of Jesus anywhere between [June and October](_URL_0_), and keep in mind that Christmas is really just an adaptation of an old Roman feast day / festival (Saturninia).",
"So, originally, christmas was set to be on the 25th of December. This was at the time when we had the Julian Calendar, named after Julius Caesar who popularized it. It was famous for standardizing the leap year, adding a day every 4 years at the end of February.\n\nWell, problem was that it wasn't completely accurate. It was a slight overshoot, and a few centuries later, to fix that, Pope Gregory standardized a new version of the Julian Calendar, named after him, due to new information and accuracy about the length of a year. It added two new clauses to the idea of a leap year, adding an exception to the leap year rule if the year is divisible by 100, meaning any year ending in 00 is not a leap year, even if divisible by 4. And an exception to that rule, where a year divisible by 400 is a leap year.\n\nAnyways, the Orthodox churches didn't agree with this, and slowly, due to this, the calendars drifted apart, with the Orthodox churches keeping with the Julian calendar.\n\nSource: Am Ukrainian, just came back from the 12 course Christmas dinner."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[
"http://www.livescience.com/42976-when-was-jesus-born.html"
],
[]
] |
|
3t9cvb | why arn't men freezing their sperm and getting vasectomies in order to avoid unwanted pregnancies? | Just seemed like a practical idea. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3t9cvb/eli5_why_arnt_men_freezing_their_sperm_and/ | {
"a_id": [
"cx48mka",
"cx48s2a",
"cx4aaen",
"cx4cy31",
"cx4gmys",
"cx4iqyd",
"cx4npmu",
"cx4oklo",
"cx4ptuc"
],
"score": [
44,
3,
10,
2,
3,
2,
3,
2,
2
],
"text": [
"The cost for starters. You'd be paying for the vasectomy (and any time off to get the operation done), paying to have your sperm frozen, paying to keep it frozen and stored for however long (it apparently stays good for about twelve years), and then paying for the artificial insemination.",
"The monetary cost and risk of failure of freezing sperm. The cost of the procedure to have a vasectomy (which is often irreversible) both in the medical costs and the time off. Paying for artificial insemination. The physiological changes of messing with hormonal production as a result of a vasectomy (does not always occur but is a side effect), and the psychological trauma of knowing you are now infertile and therefore less of a man. \n\nThe practical idea is to use a condom. Much cheaper and easier. ",
"Financial cost. Pain. Freezing sperm isn't covered by insurance. You basically have to pay rent at the sperm bank. Frozen sperm is viable but less so than fresh sperm. You only get so many tries when you are working from a limited stock. Vasectomies can be reversible but it isn't 100%. Condoms are cheap; female pill based birth control is highly effective.\n\nI could probably even bypass the sperm bank part. I have zero interest in having kids but you never know what you'll be thinking in 5 years.",
"To get pregnant with frozen sperm, a woman has to go through IVF, which is an invasive process, nevermind the cost and lingering worries that IVF babies might have flaws. Also, vasectomy has some issues, in particular about 1 in 25 men get chronic pain afterwards. But I think that main reason is not practical at all: a man with no children would feel un-manly knowing they were infertile.",
"Freezing sperm can be pricey, and when you're ready to have a baby the sperm may not be viable.\n\nIUI is much more affordable than IVF and is likely what your question pertains to. While it would be an option, it would be just like having sex once with your partner and then crossing your fingers that 1. Fertilization and implantation actually occurs and 2. There is no miscarriage or any other complications that would lead to a pregnancy loss.\n\nFor some perspective on getting pregnant, if you're trying to have a baby and nothing is happening doctors won't even look at you for infertility issues until it's been at least a year. Additionally, miscarriages aren't considered fertility issues until after the 3rd one occurs (mostly - I know every person is different, but these are the standard for otherwise healthy couples). You're assuming IUI is going to work which may only give you a few tries with sperm that's been sitting around for a few years, in reality getting pregnant is not necessarily as simple as introducing sperm and bam, baby 9 months later. Pregnancy loss is common, and if you decide to put a very finite number on the amount of times you can attempt to become pregnant than you're taking a big risk that you'll never have a baby. \n\nFinally, you'd have to find a partner who is totally cool with undergoing an invasive procedure in order to become pregnant, which often includes injecting yourself with medications to ensure ovulation and optimal chances for a successful fertilization. Granted, many couples face this, not too many would go through this unless they had to. The added pressure of knowing that a failed IUI is one step closer to never having a baby would add a lot of pressure to the relationship. ",
"How many of us even go to the doctor when sick and you want us to do it otherwise? ",
"They aren't the one who is worried about getting pregnant - same reason why you see birth control pills and IUDs all for women but no male invasive contraceptives. There are condoms at best but some even forego that claiming sex doesn't feel as good > . > ",
"I know someone who tried to go this route, but since he was unmarried and had no children, his doctor refused to do it. ",
"And trust my lineage to some company? Fuck that.\n\nAlso money.\n\nPlus i've heard genetics in newer sperm is different than that of sperm earlier in life, immunity for example.\n\nIt's really a terribly impracticable idea."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
|
5hcak2 | where does the name "colombia" come from and why are so many things given that name? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5hcak2/eli5_where_does_the_name_colombia_come_from_and/ | {
"a_id": [
"daz3y0c"
],
"score": [
9
],
"text": [
"Christopher Columbus was an Italian explorer (working for Spain) that \"discovered\" the Americas (or more accurately, the Bahamas) while trying to reach India. Subsequent discoveries and settlements were often named for him."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
||
5ootei | is it possible, in far future, use both fusion and fission to make energy with the same fuel? | We know that fusion generate a huge amount of energy and also fission does the same. Then we could get two atoms and make the fusion reaction and when everything is done we do their fission and start all over again?
I know that for fusion is better to use small atoms and for fission big atoms, this is just to know if it would be possible and generate energy. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5ootei/eli5_is_it_possible_in_far_future_use_both_fusion/ | {
"a_id": [
"dckw3c8",
"dckw8c4"
],
"score": [
5,
3
],
"text": [
"No, that's not how it works. Some materials release energy when they combine (fusion), notably the tiny atom hydrogen. \n\nSome *other materials* release energy when they break apart (fission), notably the huge atoms like uranium and plutonium.\n\nBasically, energy is released when you go from a less-stable combination to a more-stable combination. You have to *consume* energy to undo that reaction.",
"No, because what you're trying to get here is a perpetual motion machine.\n\nFurthermore, most fusion reactions have a net negative production of energy - for instance, the basic hydrogen-hydrogen fusion, the initial step in stellar nucleosynthesis. And conventional fusion cannot be used to produced fissionable elements either - everything beyond iron requires a high-powered supernova."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[]
] |
|
1qwba9 | why would a country go into recession if they had no debt? | There was a thread a while back in /r/askreddit that I read about this in. Apparently, if somewhere like the States or Canada paid off all debts, the country would begin to go into recession. Whats the cause and why? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1qwba9/eli5_why_would_a_country_go_into_recession_if/ | {
"a_id": [
"cdh5jj3",
"cdh5m1v"
],
"score": [
2,
4
],
"text": [
"Debt is useful for financing improvements to a country. The US is able to do things because we can borrow easily.\n\nPaying off the entire debt would take A LOT of money, and once that money is paid the country has two choices. Either they start building it (debt) again, or they go into recession as their GDP adjusts to what they country is able to internally maintain.\n\nAs an example, the US Economy is larger than our domestic economy could maintain on its own. If we were to pay off our debt and not take on more then our economy would begin to fall down to this domestic point. Since that point is well below the current level, it would be a recession.",
"A recession in the simplest terms means the economy is not producing goods and services as well as it had previously.\n\n(For the US) \n\nIn order to pay off the debt the US would have to either:\n\n1. Drastically cut spending\n2. Drastically increase taxes\n3. Significantly Grow the economy.\n\nLikely some combination of these three. The problem though is that #3 is very much related to #1 and #2. \n\nIf we cut spending significantly, than the people who would have been paid for some services won't, so they will close down businesses, and people will lose their jobs. In the end, it will cause a recession, the severity of that recession dependent on how drastic the cuts are. So we can't grow the economy by drastic cuts.\n\nIf we increase taxes significantly, than people and buisnesses won't have as much money on hand to pay for services and stuff from other people. That means **those** buisnesses will fail, and will fire people, so less overall money will be spent. In the end, it will cause a recession, the severity of that recession dependent on how drastic the tax increases are. So we can't grow the economy by drastic tax increases.\n\nYou could do small cuts, and small tax increases, and probably won't harm the economy, and you might even help it. But neither of those will reduce the debt within a particularly short time.\n\nThis is why many economists say the harm of the debt is insignificant compared to the harm of trying to make big changes to eliminate it."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[]
] |
|
3pmfqr | why are pencils shaped in a hexagon? | Also I have seen round and triangular pencils but very few. Why the different shapes though? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3pmfqr/eli5_why_are_pencils_shaped_in_a_hexagon/ | {
"a_id": [
"cw7i5tq",
"cw7jlwn",
"cw7js5n",
"cw7m5uy",
"cw7tmia",
"cw86tnn",
"cw8k6nu"
],
"score": [
15,
132,
11,
4,
77,
2,
2
],
"text": [
"Holding purposes basically. Some people are uncomfortable with a triangle pencil or a square one, so to maximize comfort, you see most pencils as hexagons, octagons, or circles. That way people who like triangles can still get a hexagon and people who like squares can still get an octagon, but people who don't like either have something that fits reasonably well.",
"Round is the most comfortable shape, but at the same time round pencils fall off the table. Making it a hexagon is a compromise between the two desires.",
"It accomplishes two things: the flat sides limit it's rolling about (off the desk, under things, etc.), and the relative roundness (why it's not a triangle) makes it easier / more comfortable to hold and write with.\n\nYou can actually find flat pencils in home stores, meant for use by carpenters. The shape makes them virtually impossible to write with, but they don't roll at all. They aren't meant to be used for writing, but rather to mark pieces of building materials (e.g., for cuts).",
"Why aren't chapsticks square/triangle/hexagon? Because that design would plummet sales by 80%.\n",
"Hexagons are a round shape that [tesselates](_URL_0_), so cutting hexagonal shapes out of a square piece of wood reduces waste. \n\n(Triangles tesselate perfectly but are less round - less comfortable to hold in your hand.)",
"Does this belong here? isn't this more of an \"explain because i'm to lazy to google this simple bit of trivia\" thing?",
"Hex or octa (I forgot) have the best shape as far as not wasting space. Bees use this shape with their honeycomb."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
[],
[],
[
"http://www.drking.org.uk/hexagons/tess/tess.html"
],
[],
[]
] |
|
2jnszx | why did some old programming languages like pl/i and "real" basic completely die out, while some like fortran and cobol never get replaced? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2jnszx/eli5_why_did_some_old_programming_languages_like/ | {
"a_id": [
"cldflm3"
],
"score": [
3
],
"text": [
"The rise of Unix brought C and C++ to the fore, and these replaced many languages.\n\nFortran and COBOL have been on the decline for a long time. They stay alive because of large code bases that would be expensive to port to a new language."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
||
14ozru | the legal, non-religious argument against gay and lesbian marriage | EDIT: Any explanation offered here should be presented in an unbiased manner (and most of them are). In that vein, I think it's fair to say that any explanation offered does not necessarily represent the personal views of that user. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/14ozru/eli5_the_legal_nonreligious_argument_against_gay/ | {
"a_id": [
"c7f37xe",
"c7f3mv3",
"c7f4r5b",
"c7f6a63",
"c7f737x",
"c7f7fqm",
"c7f7ty5",
"c7f89cj",
"c7f8q8m",
"c7f8the",
"c7f9mig",
"c7f9roh",
"c7fb2ba",
"c7fe04a",
"c7fffs7",
"c7fjoj8"
],
"score": [
28,
29,
29,
23,
3,
3,
5,
878,
6,
2,
30,
2,
2,
19,
6,
2
],
"text": [
"There isn't one.\n\nGay marriage is entirely a religious issue, there is no other reason to be against it. ",
"I find it funny that a country founded on freedom for religious persucution now uses religion for the persucution of freedom",
"The only argument I have heard has to do with ability to reproduce. They claim it is the government's job to basically make sure we have future generations. To that end, since a gay couple can't produce their own baby, granting them the right to marry would be detrimental to the nation. They try to argue that it must be the innate ability of the gender which makes this so. This is how they can condemn same sex couples, but not hetero couples that are infertile. They also have no argument to support how allowing gays to marry would somehow influence a decline in hetero couples. They also avoid the fact that the only people making these arguments are religious. They just got wise to the fact that religion isn't a good enough reason to make a law. ",
"Because some people believe that marriage, as a religious institution, should have no involvement with the government, and that the government should not be doling out favors to anyone (gay, straight, or otherwise). If you want to give your SO power of attorney in the case of hospitalization, or leave your wealth to them after you die, or any other legal reason, you can get a civil union as a legally binding contract between two consenting adults. \n\nI know its not the answer you were looking for, but it is *an* answer.",
"That there is no compelling reason for government to recognize marriage at all, whether gay or straight. \n",
"Technically, it isn't even illegal. It just was never stated to be specifically legal and it shouldn't have to be. ",
"Precedent. Courts often decide legal issues based on precedent. Since there is no legal precedent for same sex marriage, there is no legal argument in support of it (based on precedent, that is).",
"Marriage is a collection of legal benefits and tax breaks. Generally speaking, the government uses these benefits to encourage people to do a certain thing. For example, we have laws which allow you to get a tax break if you buy a house, and things like that.\n\nMarriage, generally speaking, is a package of legal benefits designed to encourage you to choose a partner and *start a family with that partner*. It encourages stability by increasing the \"cost\" of leaving your partner.\n\nThis system is not perfect - as a straight person, I can get married and not have children, and \"take advantage\" of the system. However, the government has far less reason to provide the same incentive to a family they know will not produce new, productive, taxpaying citizens. (You might say, but they can adopt! True. But adopting does not **add more children to the country**, which is very important right now because of the way population growth is changing and capitalism works and oh god there's no way in hell to ELI5 this, but anyway, moving on.)\n\nBasically, the government giving tax breaks to gay people to get married would be like your mom paying you $5 to play with your truck. You were going to play with your truck anyways. Why should your mom pay you $5 to do something you were gonna do anyway? She could give you that same $5 for cleaning the living room instead - she could use that money to convince you to do something you don't really want to do, instead of giving it to you to do something you'd do for free.\n\nThe government has more of a reason to encourage straight people to start families, and so it's more worthwhile for the government to spend its money convincing straight people to have marriages.\n\nDisclaimer: I am not an advocate of this position. I support gay marriage. I am merely providing the argument to the best of my ability.",
"Some people see it as morally wrong (has nothing to do with religion but personal feelings). Just like there are laws that outlaw polygamy and incest and prostitution, some people feel that there should be laws to outlaw homosexuality.",
"Ok, as an exercise in creativity, let me try to come up with an objectively logical argument, however weak.\n\nLet's see... Well, there's this angle. Straight people are the majority, so being straight is better for you as a person because you have more partners to choose from. Being bisexual is obviously even better, but that's besides the point. Now, presuming you have some control over whether or not you are gay, or that society has some influence over that, removing the incentive to be staight would result in more gays, thus fewer happy people.\n\nUm, disregarding the fact that increasing the number of gay people would make existing gay people happier...\n\nThis isn't working, is it?",
"I am a very blatant supporter of gay marriage, but the arguments I can't defend completely are that if we allow gay marriage, polygamous and incestuous marriages will follow suit. This might sound insulting, but its not the same as the degrading 'then dogs will marry' logic at all. Consider these people are 1) citizens, 2) consenting, 3) can properly raise a family. The only thing really keeping these types of marriages from happening are social taboo. Just like gay marriage.\n\nCommon arguments against incest is the idea that your child is more likely to have some sort of genetic disease. First, this already includes the misconception that we are obligated to child-rearing in marriage. Second, the idea that a couple is more likely to have a genetic disease also applies to a (weak) argument that anti-gay marriage opponents use-- i.e. gay populace is more likely to have disease, so do not encourage this with marriage. In other words, if you banned incestuous marriage on genetic disease alone, anyone-- related or not--that can pass on a genetic disease should be banned from marriage.\n\nMy main argument against polygamous marriage is the idea of possible legal abuse and throwing a wrench into the whole system. This can be fixed by changing the system, but more than that, it confers the idea that the government MUST fix the system in order to allow people to form people life long bonds with other people. (This branches into a bigger argument that marriage should have no place in government, i.e. no tax benefits/breaks for life long bonds, but one thing at a time).\n\nHowever, our first reaction is that incestuous and polygamous marriages usually are not healthy bonds, more so to raise a child in. There ARE genuinely happy polyamorous couples and incestuous couples, whether it be two first cousins or two siblings. It sounds sickening to some, but if they wish to be bonded in life, it isn't really our business how to tell them how to live. \n\nBut for the most part, our only history of incestuous and polygamous marriage usually reflect a lack of consent (religion), history of abuse, instability, thus why I believe it is no longer the norm. So, until we get some major research that a majority of incestuous/polygamous couples are actually healthy relations, we don't allow them to legally marry. Gay marriage, for a long time, has long proved its worthiness as a legal, happy and harm-free bond, thus distinguishing itself from incestuous/polygamous marriages.\n\nTL;DR: There may come a day that incestuous and polygamous marriage-- i.e. the slippery slope-- may come true because they fit the same conditions that gay marriage argues for. \n\nEdit: I'm glad people were open minded enough to consider this argument, I was afraid of getting down voted to hell haha",
"I always understood that for the benefits afford a married couple, they needed to define marriage (so someone couldn't say they are married to the kid,self,cat,etc) and at the time it was just assumed male and female. (Now a days we would say \"2 consenting adults\") but now people who are offended by LGBT marriage are trying to argue that the law prohibits it (when it really was just a definition thing). This is how it was explained to me in school, so I could be wrong",
"There are actually two of these arguments.\n\nOne of them has already been mentioned namely the reproduction argument. Another would be the psychological argument. Some people say that gay marriage is sociological and psychologically unsound (or that there is no evidence to support it as a non-harmful way to bring up a family). These people worry that children psychologically require a father and a mother. These people worry that children raised in a same-sex married household are at risk to crime, social problems, and other issues. I don't advocate this position though it is often purported by people with the aforementioned religious bias and little evidence has been provided for it. \n\n\nRelated to the psychological argument is that some people are worried that allowing gay marriage is a social experiment we are not ready for. They argue that we don't know if this will be good for society as a whole (whether it be by reproduction or sociopsycho issues for some children). \n\n\nAnother claim people have is that",
"Source: I'm a family law attorney...\n\n/u/Zaeron5's explanation that the government encourages marriage through a tax benefit is incorrect. There is no beneficial income tax rate conferred to married couples. In fact, in many cases, there is a (colloquially termed) [\"Marriage penalty\"](_URL_0_) based on the rate structure for married filing jointly or married filing separately. In the past few years, the tax structure has bounced back and forth from being beneficial to harmful to married persons, but either way the difference has been minor and generally short-lived. There are some pretty nice legal advantages to married couples when it comes to retirement accounts, but this is a policy driven moreso to prevent elderly married couples from being dependent on the state.\n\nThe \"legal argument\" against gay marriage starts with the constitution. When you hear people discuss \"equal treatment\", what they are really talking about is the 14th amendment. The 14th, in so many words, states that citizens must be treated equally. Now, obviously there are some instances where a law will only apply to certain people and not others (ex: only people over 65 are eligible to receive Social Security), so the Supreme Court has stated that this amendment is really about protecting certain \"classes\" of people. \n\nWho is entitled to this protection? You could probably guess some - racial minorities, women (to an extent), religious people, the disabled (to an extent) etc. The question here is whether homosexuals/bisexuals/etc. are a class entitled to protection. Here's the rub: **If they are entitled to protection, then laws cannot treat them unequally. If they are not, then the government can make up whatever laws about marriage that they want.**\n\nThe Supreme Court has never decided whether sexual orientation is protected, but has generally looked to whether the class is based on (1) an immutable characteristic and (2) has suffered historical discrimination. It's pretty obvious they've suffered historical discrimination, but is it an immutable characteristic? (please - no spam. this is a rhetorical question). Most people would say yes. \n\nThis is the purely legal reasoning - that **if the constitution doesn't forbid it, the government can do it.** Beyond this, it's a question of why the gov. would want to do it, and I think that's clearly a religious/cultural choice on their part. ",
"I support Gay marriage. That said, here's an issue I could see with it:\n\nIf Gays are allowed to marry, with full benefits (tax breaks, etc), then it is the government acknowledging that people of all faiths/lifestyles deserve those tax breaks. \n\nBut what about people who choose to practice polygamy? It's not the place of the government to say \"Homosexuality is okay, but polygamy is where the line should be drawn.\" So then it's reasonable to say polygamists should receive the same tax benefits. \n\nBut if there are tax benefits to being married, and now homosexuals can marry *as well as* groups of people... well then, what's to stop my friends and I from banding together to say \"Okay, we're all married now. Hooray tax breaks!\" It's not like \"love\" is a metric that can be measured. Groups of people would marry just for the taxes. \n\nSo, if it could lead to this and throw our entire system into question, there are 2 ways to go about it: First is to do away with the tax breaks that come along with marriage, a decision that would piss off way too many people... so the only remaining option is to draw the line *somewhere*, and if it must be drawn, why not at the point that makes sense from a biological standpoint?\n\nThis is admittedly the go-to slippery slope argument, but it has at least some validity.",
"As far as I'm aware, the Constitution says nothing about marriage. Therefore, we have to follow the tenth amendment and leave it up to the states."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marriage_penalty"
],
[],
[]
] |
|
2qazm2 | bail. why is it acceptable that people can pay to leave jail before sentencing. isn't that an opportunity to run for it? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2qazm2/eli5_bail_why_is_it_acceptable_that_people_can/ | {
"a_id": [
"cn4gdvr",
"cn4gg5k",
"cn4gk4j",
"cn4hsf0"
],
"score": [
5,
5,
3,
6
],
"text": [
"If you are referring to those allowed to continue bail after being found guilty but prior to sentencing then it's a judgement call by the court. If they do not think the person is a flight risk they will sometimes give them time to get their affairs in order.",
"You pay bail to get out of jail on the understanding that you will appear in court.\n\nIf you DO appear in court, it is possible that you will receive that money back, though more than likely it will simply go to the bondsman.\n\nIf you DO NOT appear, you can be brought up on charges in addition to what you're already being taken to court for, as well as forfeiting the money outright.",
"If the person comes back to court on time, the bail money is returned to them. The bail money serves as reason for the person to return to court when they're supposed to do so. If the court feels the person is a flight risk, they can either set the bail amount to a very large amount (millions of dollars) or refuse bail and keep them in jail.",
" > Isn't that an opportunity to run for it?\n\nThat's why they make you pay bail instead of just letting you go. You can run, but that's just another crime they will charge you with when they catch you, and they keep your money.\n\nAlso, conditions can be put on your release, monitoring devices, surrendering passports, things like that."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
||
9pfjnz | why do females gain to ability to get pregnant at such a young age? isn’t it unhealthy for the undeveloped to give birth? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9pfjnz/eli5_why_do_females_gain_to_ability_to_get/ | {
"a_id": [
"e81e5ht",
"e81ejpw"
],
"score": [
5,
2
],
"text": [
"It's not ideal by modern standards, but we didn't evolve according to modern standards. In prehistoric times, life expectancy was much lower and it was more advantageous to have children early and often. ",
"I’m no expert, but I stayed at a Motel 6 last night. \n\nPregnancy lasts nine months. My guess is there’s only so many birthing years women have. Biologically they have to start young to propagate the species. "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[]
] |
||
clfn0b | why at some places my cell phone has full phone signal available, but no or very low network connectivity? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/clfn0b/eli5_why_at_some_places_my_cell_phone_has_full/ | {
"a_id": [
"evv1m2f",
"evv1tf5",
"evv2qhu",
"evv4q76",
"evvenvn",
"evvyesj"
],
"score": [
5,
5,
5,
5,
3,
3
],
"text": [
"Telephone signals require much less transmission quality than say 4G internet. When your connection is too bad for 4G it might still be plenty for just good old calling.\n\nIf what you mean is that you have all the bars but still bad internet, that could be because your network is overloaded. Maybe too many poeple are attempting to use your network using the same tower.",
"There could be a lot of things going on depending on your provider and network. Sprint for example uses a 3rd party hardware management team to implement generic fairness algorithms that kick in around when a tower is around 80% capacity. On their website they use the metaphor of adding a traffic light to mitigate the flow of traffic. Those with the lowest priority have to wait in line for connection even though they have a perfect connection with the tower.\n\n_URL_0_",
"Having slow connection on 4G is like driving slowly on the highway. If there's too many people using that tower that you're connected to, it's going to be slower.",
"The cell site you’re connected too is over subscribed, think music festival or similar. Many many times the capacity of the cell tower is trying to connect simultaneously and so the cell tower does the best it can by dividing its capacity out to each subscriber.",
"Voice and data have different travel paths onto the network. Normally if you strong signal, the tower you're on can be overloaded. Also, the website you're going to could also be slow. Use a speed tester app on your phone to check bandwidth speeds",
"* Cell sites have a limited bandwidth to handle the data traffic of all the customers connected to it. \n* If you have a strong signal level but very slow data speeds, it's likely because there are *many many* people connected to the same cell site.\n* This happens often in crowded places especially those that don't have extra cell sites built in. \n* For example, Harvard commencement happens every year in Cambridge, MA:\n * There are some 35,000 to 40,000 people all in Harvard yard for two days. \n * For an undisclosed major US mobile carrier, there is only 1 cell site nearby and it absolutely cannot handle that number of users at the same time.\n * The cell site is *very* close by so all the users from that carrier will see very good signal strength.\n * But their texts, mobile data, and even calls, might be super slow or delayed etc because the site is overwhelmed with the number of connections."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[
"https://www.sprint.com/en/legal/open-internet-information.html"
],
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
||
922xu5 | why does sweat make my legs stick together, but at the same time makes my hands lose grip on things? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/922xu5/eli5_why_does_sweat_make_my_legs_stick_together/ | {
"a_id": [
"e32wkba",
"e34e794"
],
"score": [
2,
3
],
"text": [
"The best guess I have is that since your legs are both equally producing the sweat, the sweat sticks to the sweat from your other leg. Your hands would produce the same effect (think holding hands with a spouse) however, if you're holding an object that does not produce any sweat, it will become more likely to slip from your hands due to no bonding agent (in this case, sweat) being present.",
"The skin on your legs is smoother and the surface in contact is larger. Sweat fills the gaps and help move air out of the way so it create a bit of suction counterbalancing the oily sweat.\n\nWhen you're gripping with you hands there's lot of places for the air to go to and no suction so everything just slides."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[]
] |
||
40cnr9 | how come the news i see in "this week in science," i never see on popular news outlets? | I see so many things in This Week in Science that I never see anywhere else, some of that stuff seems like it would be huge news. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/40cnr9/eli5_how_come_the_news_i_see_in_this_week_in/ | {
"a_id": [
"cytboo6",
"cyth3b4"
],
"score": [
6,
2
],
"text": [
"Science and technology reporting stinks on ice. Ignorant reporters just parrot back any wild-ass thing they hear, and an ignorant public laps it up, while they typically ignore REAL science reporting, because it's boring and hard.\n\nSo either This Week in Science is reporting bullshit and other news outlets aren't, or they're reporting (though probably exaggerating) real stories and other news outlets didn't think they were sexy enough to report.\n\nBut generally speaking, you should always be suspicious of science by press release, or anytime code phrases like \"breakthrough\" or \"it will change everything\" are used. That's a fairly reliable clue that the story is bullshit.\n\n\n",
"There is a metric buttload of things called \"This Week in Science\". Which one of them are you talking about?"
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[]
] |
Subsets and Splits
No community queries yet
The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.