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5yvee6 | Why does older furniture hold up so well when modern furniture seems to break in a few years? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"The modern furniture you're seeing is cheap modern furniture. There's modern furniture that holds up well, but it costs a lot more. Why wasn't there cheap furniture years ago? There was. But you don't see it any more, because none of it survived to this day -- *because it was cheap*.",
"I can't speak to the fabric, but in terms of the wood there are a number of reasons. Historically, furniture was made from hardwoods. Many modern pieces are synthetic (mdf, chipboard, etc) which are not as durable. When solid wood is used, it is often soft woods which grow more quickly making them cheaper to harvest. Joinery in hardwood furniture is traditionally mortise and tenon and similar tight fitting joints which: 1) Do not rely on mechanical fasteners like screws which eventually tear at the wood and loosen up; 2) Work with the seasonal expansion and contraction of wood to remain solid for many decades. This type of joinery is more precise and custom to each piece, so it is harder to mass produce. Modern furniture, by contrast, uses nails, staples, screws, biscuits, etc to speed production thereby saving costs. But ultimately these joints can loosen over time with use. Source: I'm a woodworker who makes his own furniture.",
"I can think of a couple of reasons: 1. Quality of materials. Older furniture is made of solid wood and real fabric as opposed to MDF, plywood, fiberboard and synthetic fabrics. Because of this, it cost more, proportionally, and so there was a customer expectation that it would last. Not wanting to lose customers, manufacturers met this expectation of durability. 2. Because it cost more, people treated it with respect and care. Therefore, the framework for any item to last a long time--maintenance, care and appropriate use--was in place and the results were usually successful. There was no cheap WalMart desk to get as an easy replacement, so people put actual effort into making sure their items lasted. Edit formatting",
"Planned obsolescence. Does Ikea want to sell you a $500 table once or 3 $200 tables?"
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5yvsti | Why do we normally say God/Jesus vs an actual name like Yeshua or Yahweh? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"You say God because you are not suppose to say the name of God in Jewish, Christian, or Islamic doctrine. Instead we designate them a deity (God) or we call them \"Lord\", \"Father\", or a similar honorific. Also YHWH is not the full name of God. It is the consonants in the name, we do not actually know the full name anymore (it has been lost to history). The name \"Jehovah\", sometimes used to refer to God, is a linguistic mistake made by a German speaking translator derived from the practice in the Jewish faith of putting the vowel markings of Adonai (Lord) over the tetragrammaton (YHWH) to remind people to say Adonai instead of God's name. The reason that you only say God in these three religions is that they are monotheistic, meaning they believe that there is only one deity and that all the others are not gods, and because they all worship the same god. As for the name Jesus. That is the Latinized version of the Greek name Ιησούς (Iesous) which is the Greek variant of the hebrew Yeshua. Joshua is the English (by way of German) variant of Yeshua."
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5ywkbg | Throught history, why are most (if not all) superpowers from the Northern Hemisphere? Is there advantages to being in the north? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"The majority of Earth's land mass is in the Northern Hemisphere. Land in the Southern Hemisphere tends to run North-South where trading crop planting techniques with the people 2,000 miles North of you doesn't do any good because you can't plant the same crops. The Northern Hemisphere has a large amount of East-West running land. Information about wheat crops developed in China can then be put to use in France.",
"85% of the world's population lives in the northern hemisphere. It's simple probability that that's where most of the action is going to be.",
"Read \"Guns, Germs and Steel\" by Jared Diamond, the whole book is about this question. When civilization developed, the massive eurasian landmass has a similar temperate/mediterranean climate from western europe to eastern china, URL_0 crops and livestock to be domesticated across the whole landmass, innovations spread easily. Also the eurasian landmass has more domesticable animals compared to the other continents. These advantages have been transferred to the USA now too with similar temperate climate and lots of fertile land. Another good book related to this is Prisoners of Geography by Tim Marshall about geopolitics still dictates how superpowers behaved based on the geography of their nation and trade routes etc interact."
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5ywnu2 | What exactly is gentrification, how is it done, and why is it seen as a negative thing? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Gentrification is when lower cost, lower income neighborhoods are taken over by those with higher income, which raises real estate prices and rents and forces many of the previous residents out. It often also forces existing businesses out and sees them replaced by higher end and/or chains. The typical pattern is that low income but trendy people, ie. the cliche starving artists, or unknown musicians, etc. will discover an area's cheap rents, loft spaces, bars with cheap booze. As they move in, so too do the coffee shops, thrift stores, record stores, and edgy restaurants that cater to these types (think vegan diner, no frills ethnic places). Middle income creative types (graphic designers, architects) discover these areas when attending some live music event or restaurant and notice the nice bones of the older, worn real estate. They start buying buildings and rehabbing them. Landlords start fixing up apartments to charge higher rents. Un-savable and ugly buildings get torn down and new buildings go up. The minority businesses there before the artists can't afford the higher rents, so the ethnic salon or bodega close. Starbucks, cocktail bars, and Dr. Martin open stores. Even longtime home owners have trouble staying as rising home values mean property taxes outpace their income. A farmers market starts up, the local park gets rehabed. Yuppie families who can't afford homes in the upscale areas of town start discovering they can get more space in the gentrifying area, plus it makes them look cooler. Boutiques and baby stores pop up, as well as trendy furniture places. The vegan diner close, and Chipotle opens in its place. It'd both good and bad. It cleans up rough parts of town and expands the amount of nicer areas that people with more income want to live. But it's bad because it displaces others who cannot afford to stay, and who see their community broken up. Often those who helped get the ball rolling by making it somewhat safer (cleaning parks, neighborhood watch) then cannot stay to enjoy the benefits of their efforts. Also, it's most often wealthy whites forcing out poor minorities, so there is the perception of the strong fighting the weak. And too often, independent businesses are put out of business and replaced by generic chains.",
"A lot of people are talking about urban gentrification, so I'll touch on my experience with rural gentrification. I live in a village with a majority elderly working population. People are very poor, and they are being driven out from their homes by these outsiders looking for a nice holiday home in the heartland. The government's response is that this is a good thing, and they offer no benefits for the village to ease this transition. We don't buy houses here. We inherit them. You're born in the house, you grow up here, you move to the nearby town or one of the larger villages for work, and when your parents are too old to go to work you move back into the home you grew up in, and when your parents die it becomes your house. Now when parents die, rich city families swoop in. The vultures buy out the property and set about turning it into their holiday home. I can't say I'd be upset if this happens to me: I've got higher aspirations for my life than living in rural England for the rest of my days. But this threatens the village community. The city folk don't enrol their children in the village school, they send them to a private academy about thirty miles away. The school is going to close in a few years because there's not enough children. The city folk bomb through the village at high speed, and during the school run they try to muscle people out of the road with their America-sized Range Rovers. They don't take part in the village politics unless they are complaining about something, like the Yewtree in the churchyard dropping quills and berries on their softtop, the farmer \"trespassing\" when he closes their gate to stop his cows from going in when he drives them through the village, the constant smell of muck in the air in spring, the farmers going to work at five in the morning, the Army marching through the village on training, or the children walking home from school for lunch (that's now a thing of the past unfortunately). Used to be a time when you knew your neighbour. Used to be a time when you'd just walk round your neighbours if they were having a do in the garden and provided you brought a bottle you'd be welcome. Used to be a time when if your hens or ducks or rabbits went into their garden, you could just hop over the wall and get them back. Used to be a time when you could speak your mind without some soft skinned city sod squalling about racism or sexism or bigotry when it doesn't exist (best example: we're apparently racist for the Gurkhas living in a separate housing community than the rest of the village. It's not our decision where the Army builds their houses). Our families have lived here for a thousand years. These outsiders only live here a few weeks a year, a couple of months in the summer at most. This village is our home, not some rich boy's hobby. Bankers driving beemers and Audis are not welcome here. How do you think it makes us feel when people with more money than sense or decency walk around our home, looking down on us for being too poor to own a car when they have three?",
"Artist: I make like no money making art. I bet I could live in some old warehouse in a near-abandoned district of the city with 20 other artists for almost no money and still make ends meet as an artist, though! **20 artists move into warehouse not really zoned for residence, share a single 100-year old bathroom for 20 years, paint the walls with murals, and make quirky furniture out of garbage they find in the streets. They also paint the walls and sidewalks around the area because no one gives a shit about the area, but artists be like \"fuck it, lez make it pretty! ^_^\".** Musician: Man, I'm barely making any money playing music because I'm not a top 40 chart topper. But that new warehouse district seems pretty cheap, bet me and 15 musician buddies could live out our dreams there! **Musicians move into another warehouse. Maybe nightly bizarre concerts aka people playing music in warehouses at 3 am while smoking cheap weed while other people paint with their bodies on the walls start occurring.** Writer/Poet: There's just no place in the world for struggling writers unless you sell out to Hollywood or some shit. Where can I struggle to be the next Bukowski for a decade or two, drink cheap beer, starve myself and have raunchy sex with artists while listening to bizarre music at 3 am every night? Oh hey, I've heard about that still-pretty-cheap warehouse district! I bet me and 20 of my writer/poet friends could live in one of those hollowed out warehouse rooms there for cheap! **Writer/poets move in; open a \"coffee shop\" sort of a makeshift space in one of the warehouses with water they can filter through a complex series of cloth slow drips that the writers are more addicted to than crack because writers need coffee shops real bad. It becomes a bit of a community hub, though. It inspired some local co-op gardening projects as well.** Kid with $10 million Trust Fund: I need to move to a cool part of the city, that weird warehouse district is pretty cool, totally counterculture! I guess I can buy a floor of a warehouse and remodel it kind of or something. **Coffee shop improves because trust fund kids buy $20,000 espresso machine and water filtration system for it.** Young Professional who managed to land good-paying jobs out of college: I really want to be cool even though I have to work this corporate gig all day. I bet I could buy a loft-sized part of one of those old warehouses and remodel it and it would be cheap as fuck for me, plus that area is pretty dope! **Warehouses now consistently selling in loft-sized units. Over half of the community is made up of trust fund kids and young professionals. There is an organic vegetable co-op that makes deliveries to everyone, the coffee shop has stable walls, and actual cups. There's a cafe that actually makes food for people. The concerts are beginning to get scheduled and start to appear in major newspapers as \"hip events\" in the city.** Real Estate Developer: Hey, the ROI on converting these old warehouses into neo-luxury lofts is like 10,000%, I should buy up these warehouses and turn them into neo-luxury lofts! **Average person living in the area now pays $5,000/month for a super hip loft in a remodeled warehouse that they live in alone, instead of being 1 of 20 people in an illegal warehouse floor. The artists, musicians, and writers don't live there anymore, except maybe 5% of them who somehow made a bunch of money by selling their art to the trust fund kids, or randomed their way into a 9.3 review on Pitchfork media because someone recorded them randomly playing in a warehouse. There are several high-end coffee shops carefully crafted with hundreds of thousands of dollars in Dutch wood paneling and several of the cities hottest new restaurants have opened. It is paradise, and real-estate values are skyrocketing.** Foreign investors: Real estate prices in that warehouse district in X City are skyrocketing! I should buy up as many lofts as possible to protect my massive fortune! Fin.",
"Wow, I woke up to a variety of informative responses! Thanks guys! A common factor, it seems, that effects the poor is taxes. I'm young and don't have a house, but I honestly forgot about property taxes. Holy crap, how is that fair? A couple makes it their goal to purchase a home and raise their family and once they buy their house they have to pay an enormous amount in annual property taxes. Why?! That's just crazy to me! Does one get any of that back when filing their taxes? Do people who are past retirement age have to still pay those property taxes? A state like Sourh Dakota, who has no property taxes, how do they recoup that loss or is it just an altruistic motive by the state?",
"TL/DR; Gentrification is when property values increase to a point that people cannot afford to live in their homes anymore. The key feature that makes gentrification \"bad\" is that at a certain point (A-3 below) people don't have a choice but to sell their home and move. It is a result of market forces of property value, but it also follows racial lines with white/asians forcing blacks/hispanics out of their houses. === Gentrification is a result of three things: 1) The value of a property goes up when the neighborhood around it is nicer; 2) The taxes you pay for a property go up when the value of the property goes up; 3) If a property owner is paying more in taxes, they will charge more in rent to cover the cost. ...so if enough buildings in a poor neighborhood renovate, then the price of all buildings in the area go up. This has several outcomes: A-1) People who own property in the area are more likely to sell. The increased value of their lot means that they get more than they paid for it. Why not move to another neighborhood and pocket a few thousand in profit? A-2) Because more people are willing to sell their property, more property is bought up, renovated, and then sold/leased. This starts to attract real-estate investors and developers who greatly speed up the process. This creates a cycle of increasing value, increasing taxes, and increases in rent. A-3) For people who don't want to sell their house, the value of their property increases as the buildings in the neighborhood are renovated. This means that rent prices increase, and for property owners there are more taxes to pay. At this point, many people don't have a choice about moving out; they can't afford to live here any longer. - B-1) Businesses and local economies collapse. As higher-wage individuals move in, they don't buy the same products or shop in the same places as the lower-income individuals who moved out. Local businesses have to pay higher rent for their location, and also have fewer customers. B-2) As businesses move out, their locations are bought up by businesses that cater to the new, slightly higher-income residents. They sell different products, and so the culture of the location changes. B-3) As old businesses close down and move, they have to fire their employees. If these individuals can't find work at the new businesses then they are forced to sell their homes, feeding the cycle. - Now on one hand all this can be explained through market forces, but on the other hand American economic strata follow racial lines. There are more blacks and hispanics in poverty, and more whites and asians in the middle and upper class. So as gentrification progresses, a neighborhood typically goes from black/hispanic to asian/white. It is also important to note that the only people who benefit from gentrification are the people who own the property in the first place. Property owners typically make money by either selling their property for more than they paid for it, or by charging higher rent. For the poorest people in the neighborhood - those that rent or in government subsidized housing - they are forced to move out because of the increased cost of renting, but they don't have anything to sell. They are just kicked to the curb. Disproportionately these are minorities, elderly, or mentally disabled people.",
"A lot of these answers are describing natural gentrification - where affluent people naturally migrate to poorer areas, bringing up prices. It's also important to focus on planned gentrification, such as in Brixton and other areas of London. This involves the government and/or local council making beneficial changes to an area's infrastructure in order to tempt affluent people. In the case of Brixton, this has upset people in two ways. Lots of businesses have been asked to close for several months, whilst the government improves the rental buildings that they are in and lots of adult-offspring can't afford to now live (buy a house) in the area that they grew up in. It is worth mentioning that pre-gentrified areas tend to have higher crime rates and unemployment, but this is often forgotten or viewed with 'rose-tinted' glasses when people reminisce about the 'old days'.",
"Gentrification is the practice of upper middle class and upper class people buying property in poor neighborhoods and improving said property. That sounds like it would be a great thing, but when you do this you drive up property values in the region very quickly, which drives up tax burden, and rental costs in the region quickly. There is a point where the native population that is living there, often for generations, is no longer able to afford to live there and they are pushed out of their homes and businesses to relocate to new cheap areas.",
"OP, master's in city planning here. You already have lots of great answers here that describe the process, but they leave out a crucial element that's required for what would otherwise simply be neighborhood change, to be become gentrification: time. That condition also means that gentrification is really quite rare. Gentrification requires that the rich folks moving in do so at a rate which outpaces a typical neighborhood turnover cycle. Neighborhoods are not static and nor are the people in them. A neighborhood in which property values rise over the course of 20 years is not being gentrified. The change that neighborhood experiences would be better explained by generational change. You're really only truly experiencing gentrification if this process is accelerated over the course of 5-10 years. I believe it's important to make this clarification because I far too often see general real Estate development demonized as being gentrification, when in reality it's just another part of your typical neighborhood change. Communities and neighborhoods evolve, and for us to expect them not to change, or to politicize and demonize new development, is simply naive and misguided.",
"Gentrification, and its opposite concept *white flight*, are two sides of the same coin where white people can't do right. If you move away from an inner city location, it's white flight and you're a racist. If you move **in** to an inner city location, you're gentrifying the neighborhood and unsurprisingly, that is also racist.",
"Btw if you think it doesn't happen to working class white neighborhoods you're dead fucking wrong. Try looking for a place in South Boston. Yeah, you know South Boston, that tough neighborhood from all the movies? Good luck walking down L street and finding anyone *that actually grew up there.*",
"I'm from Buffalo, NY and am experiencing both sides of gentrification. As you might have guessed, Buffalo is not the nicest place in the world. But the city has seen a real resurgence in the past few years, especially on our West Side. I bought a double in the West Side two years ago, for two reasons. One, I knew the area was improving and it would make a good investment. Two, it was the only place I could afford to buy. I know gentrification is often looked upon poorly, but I think it's just a constant cycle from one area to the next. People are already complaining about gentrification, because a 3 bedroom apartment is $500 a month now. Nationwide, that's still pretty damn cheap. I think gentrification really becomes an issue in higher density cities, like NYC, where finding housing is a legitimate issue.",
"Gentrification is basically the process by which middle class / high-income folks flood into cities because that's where the jobs are, causing all the rent prices to go up, food places to get more expensive, etc and driving out the people who already lived there. There's also usually a racial connotation to it (the people coming in and taking all the housing tend to be white) and a cultural / political connotation (there's a stereotype of it being a bunch of college-educated liberals putting in their expensive vegan restaurants and stuff). It's bad because it displaces a bunch of low-income people who don't have much options to live elsewhere. The problem is that everyone but them sees it as a good thing (\"Oh, the city got much nicer now!\"). It's also kind of an insult because the gentrifiers are people who come there because they like the interesting, authentic, diverse environment of the city but are actually taking all that away from the city.",
"Seems like people are just all about the evil of gentrification. No one mentions the drop in crime when a neighborhood is revitalized.",
"Its seen as a negative thing to some because all the poor people living there will see higher taxes and eventually may not be able to afford to live there anymore. However it also lowers crime and helps the city become nicer. Cities that havent really recovered since 1968 (using Trenton NJ as an example) are slowly becoming nice again because of gentrification.",
"My friend in Atlanta said that the lesbians kick out the crack addicts and do basic renovations. They sell to the gay men who make it look nice and trendy. The gay men move when the rich hipsters offer high price to live in cool neighborhoods. The hipsters move out and are replaced by yuppies. The yuppies have shiftless kids who become the crackheads The neighborhood falls into disrepair and the cycle repeats.",
"It isn't just an urban phenomenon either. Property tax rates are fairly high in Texas, and in the rural area where I grew up outside San Antonio, what's happening is that the city has grown and what used to be a rural agricultural area has now become a desirable area for upper middle class homes. Property values have gone through the roof. As a result, property taxes go up along with them. A 20 acre piece of property my grandparents bought many years ago for $1500 an acre, which was left to my parents, recently appraised for $650,000. Property taxes would be (and this is a rough estimate) nearly $15,000/yr. There are some families out here who have farmed and ranched property for three or more generations, own the property outright, but can't make enough money to cover the higher property taxes every year and so are forced to sell or have their property seized by the state for failure to pay taxes.",
"To those who clearly disagree with gentrification - what would you have the \"gentrifiers\" do? Seems that the initial impetus is people who are forced to buy in worse neighbourhoods and then expend time and effort making their bit nicer. Would you have them just keep things shitty?",
"Gentrification is when poorer neighborhoods get overrun by more affluent populations. This drives up the cost of everything and makes it hard for poorer people to live, so many end up leaving. As far as it being good or bad, it depends on your perspective. I see it as a natural pattern of human migration. People have been migrating for a better life while pushing out others for millennia.",
"I think gentrification can be a good thing. There are shitty places in Seattle that are now livable in because white people have moved there. This kinda expands the livable areas that u can live in Seattle without the high risk of crime.",
"\"White flight\" is when white people move out of the inner city to the suburbs. Obviously, this is a bad thing for them to do. \"Gentrification\" is when their grandchildren move back into the inner city, renovating and revitalizing. Obviously, this is a bad thing too. If you are an American white person everything you think do and say is automatically wrong.",
"Because the middle class is almost always under attack, it's hard for them to find somewhere *affordable and reasonably safe to live. This results in the middle class having to buy property in a poor neighborhood and terraforming it until it's livable. What's involved is dumping a ton of money in your property to fix it up, setting up neighborhood crime watches, forming ties with your neighbors to form a community. The end result is the undesirables are pushed out and you're left with a safe, thriving place to raise a family. The only reason why some people don't like gentrification is because the undesirables you're pushing out will be in large part protected minorities and left doesn't give a shit about you unless you are a protected minority. edit: *spelling",
"Imagine finally owning your home outright after 30 years of paying your mortgage. You retire 5-10 years later and are now on a lowish fixed income. But what's this? Suddenly demand for property in your neighborhood is rapidly rising and so are house values and subsequently property taxes (which on a lowish fixed income you of course cannot keep up with). You're forced to sell your property or lose it(guess you never really owned it in the first place, it was actually the government all along renting it out to you). Motherfucking fuck residential property taxes. (And yes I guess it could be argued that with rising values you would likely see quite the return on your initial investment, but grandma and grandpa weren't really looking to move were they?) Quick edit: I'm in california so we don't see these problems because of prop 13 thank god, we just have to deal with shitty NIMBYism",
"It's most often done with property taxes. Raise them and houses, rental properties, and store fronts become unaffordable and the poor move out. The wealthier move in, and have the extra tax money to create pretty parks and murals. They then pat themselves on the back for raising taxes to help \"the community\" which of course is now them.",
"In Spain gentrification only happens with gay neighborhoods, gay people move to old abandoned parts of city center to be left alone and concentrate, they attract business and make the city hall to invest on improving the neighborhood, crime and drug traffic gets displaced and taxes don't rise because we don't do things like that here. So it's always good.",
"Gentrification is when the cool hole in the wall restaurant that you love is suddenly a Starbucks, and the Mom 'N Pop store down the street turns into a thrift store, then Hanks gas station is torn down and a Circle K is built. Suddenly, the buildings are shiny and new, and there are hipsters everywhere, and none of the cool people you used to know can afford to live there anymore, and moved somewhere else, to restart the cycle.",
"Gentrification is term used to describe an \"revitalization\" of an area. A less-than-ideal community or property is improved by new construction, which may create a desirable neighborhood to live/work. Many gentrified areas may be initially kicked off by a single large development or set, which leads to improvement of surroundings. Gentrification is often opposed because it drives out a lot of the current population, from offers to buy property, massively increased property taxes and rent, or difficult living conditions due to the new residents.",
"Columbus Ohio is one of the best examples of Gentrifaction going on as we speak. It is in reverse \"Great White Flight\". It amazing to see the city growing,one of the fastest in the nation. It is very sad to see minority owned businesses be taking away by large Chains and Condos. What happen in the Short North Neighborhood is insane and is Quickly already starting to happen in my Franklinton neighborhood. And our large artist and large gay community make it easy for this once undesirable areas to become the coolest place to be in the city. People of section 8 housing our being pushed to our outer city suburbs and crime is on the rise. Our Downtown neighborhoods seem much safer then before and much cleaner. Really interesting and sad to see right before my eyes.",
"IMO Gentrification is to put the blame on the middle class and artists instead of blaming the speculation (etc.) on real estate. Instead of seeing the whole picture, the blame is put on the easily visible part (sometime with a beard). Somone needs to take the blame for the exclusion of the poorest I guess.",
"Slightly less poor white people move Into really poor area because cheap rent. More and more do so until it's less likely that u will get shit there because less poor thugs live there. Place becomes safer to live and drives prices of rent and tea estate up. Poor people who used to live there can't live there anymore and soon the slightly less poor white people cant either.",
"When low income neighborhoods are \"developed\" so that they cater to higher income people at the expense of the original residents. Like closing the sack n save to put up a whole foods, creating a de-facto food desert for impoverished residents. Or putting a new paint job on your apartment complex and raising the rent by like $500 per month. I have had to move at least four times since I started college because I suddenly couldn't afford the apartment I was living in. They keep building these trendy college-y apartments all over the city and it gets harder and harder for me to find a place to live every year.",
"Shit holes start getting people who aren't just idiots, criminals and drug dealers living there, rents start going up, crime rates go down, to the point where more people are willing to invest a few million dollars in a store or apartment building in an \"up and coming\" neighborhood without running the risk of the place getting destroyed in a riot after some thug gets shot. Because everyone's become brainwashed to see everything in terms of race now, \"gentrification\" is seen as \"whitey moving back in\", which is fucking dumb. I welcome angry responses.",
"Taxes. It all boils down to taxes. You are poor, and you live in a small, house/apartment in a shitty neighborhood. One day, the assholes next door move out, and a new couple moves in, and starts taking better care of the place. This continues everywhere in the neighborhood and old, falling down buildings slowly get replaced, by people seeking lower cost of living, but generally taking better care of their surroundings. As this is happening, your own property values are going up. \"Yay, I have more net worth now!\" Except now your property taxes go up. (Or your landlord's do, in which case, so does your rent) Your income hasn't gone up. It becomes harder to afford living there. This, in effect, forces you out of the neighborhood. This is great for people wanting cheaper, but still nice, places to live, but bad for people already living on the edge of homelessness",
"Highly recommend a podcast called There Goes the Neighborhood. 9 part episode that takes a very detailed, interesting, and candid look at gentrification in New York and to a lesser extent San Francisco URL_0",
"Gentrification is a natural process where a city cleanses itself of economically uncompetitive subcultures. It saves lives by lowering crime, it improves the lives of everyone everywhere by cramming as much talent into a smaller space. The intelectual churn leading to innovation.",
"it's simply a supply and demand situation there's limited supply of desirable living space in cities and a growing demand from people who want to live there it's considered bad by people who get displaced because they can't afford rising costs of living in their neighbourhood but it's neither good nor bad, it's just inevitable",
"It's seen as negative by people who don't understand history. if you actually look at overall numbers, people aren't losing housing due to costs skyrocketing, but rents tend to go up as residents turnover - so overtime, rents in some areas go up (and down in others.) This is actually great, because it allows cultures to mix. A largely poor area might get an influx of middle class college grads, who will want higher end groceries and coffee, creating jobs that pay well. It's overall a win for all involved.",
"It's not negative. It is the process of improving neighborhoods, but all change has positives for some and negatives for others. Positives: Updated and Repaired real estate. Lower crime rates. Improved economy results in more money for public school improvement. Improved environment as area is \"cleaned up\". Existing residents homes increase in value. And plenty more. Negative: Existing resident's owned homes increase in value but some can't afford the tax and cost of living increase. This forces them to sell their home (for more than they bought it (positive)) and move away (inconvenient).",
"Gentrification would be where people with monetary resources move into a poorer neighborhood and start buying property and fixing it up and prices of housing starts to rise. Other businesses start to move in and property starts to up. The good is there are more taxes for the city and more resources for the neighborhood. The bad would be if you are a renter and your rent goes way up or you are re-qualified and asked to leave. Also if you are a homeowner your taxes might go way up. So gentrification has good and bad depending on your perspective.",
"It's globalization under a new name, with only bad things attributed to it and overblown, and the good things ignored It's done by money being pumped into a low income neighborhood, which goes into making it better and a more desirable place to live. Streets are clean, crime goes down, stores open up, the value of homeowners houses in the area increases, schools typically get better. It's seen as a negative thing because people don't like change, don't like \"outsiders\", and there's a bizarre belief in the last few years that \"preserving the culture of the less fortunate\" is somehow humane and just, even though it just leads to larger stagnation and reduces opportunity to nil for the people who already live there. Because somehow a triple murder being a horrible local event is worse than that being the neighborhood's average Saturday night. It also increases *Rent* prices, which is why you typically get a completely different opinion on it if you rent or own your house.",
"It's changing real estate values. That's it. The inner cities use to be the premier place to live from the start of America until post world war 2. Then suburbs stated to pop up and people moved out of the cities. Not in large numbers though. It's the 1960s that saw \"white flight\" as drugs and crimes in inner cities exploded. The massive beautiful houses got cut up into apartments and rented to people. Resulting in more crime and drugs, making properties even more worthless. Fast forward to 2000 or so, people started wanting to not have long drives to work and saw cheap properties in inner cities. Companies would go in and buy whole blocks. Kick out the criminals and drug users, fix up the places and sell them off. There was that 40-50 year period where if you were white and had money you did not live in the \"city\" notable exceptions being NYC and Chicago. Now that everyone is wanting to live closer to stuff and be in old buildings that have character, the houses/apartments are desirable again and the renters are getting removed. It's not a negative thing. At all. It's a wonderful thing that people are taking interest in and wanting to move back into some of the most beautiful cities and areas in the world.",
"Gentrification isn't necessarily a bad thing. An area could be gentrified, but simultaneously now house 9000% more people. Gentrification is not a 1:1 process of displacing one poor person with one upper middle-class person. Gentrification increases the cost of living of an area, by injecting money into land development in that area. The result is more expensive living options, and businesses that cater to a more expensive demographic. Gentrification can range from being an unintended side-effect, all the way to being completely orchestrated by a group. The result of gentrification is the displacement of those who cannot afford, or do not wish to pay, the cost of living in the area that has become gentrified. This can have negative consequences for anyone who is displaced, and other areas may become worse-off as they absorb the people who were displaced. The term \"gentrification\" is used as a buzz word most commonly. It does not convey the positives or negatives of change. To \"gentrify\" does not guarantee cruelty, or positive change. If someone uses the word \"gentrification\", they may very well not know what they are talking about; specifically, if someone is speaking about a new development as a news or opinion piece, how much do they really know? Those who speak in generalities are often seeking to avoid specifics, because they know very little.",
"Besides the technicalities of it, the cultural response is huge. In SF, for example, the Mission District is experiencing gentrification currently and it's displacing all of the neighborhood kids. The parks they used to play at? Now have loads of young tech people playing soccer in them and theyll take up the whole field- won't even let them join. They GREW UP going to that park, and now they can't even use it. There is no rule, it is unwritten. The park they used to play at is gone. It now has a new identity. Picture mission district as all...yellow. gentrification is green. Slowly but surely these stores, cafes, new apartments sprout up. More green on the map. Now it's specks of yellow and green, but the yellow no longer the dominating culture. Family business shut down because they can't afford the rent, history is lost, people have to move out if they don't have rent control, the cost of living increases because these stores taking over cater to the working tech class ($8 for a coffee Ffs). Worst of all, people who didn't grow up here, who didn't experience the culture and family aspect of the mission district, the old school way of life, they think the green areas are amazing and in contrast the yellow areas need to go. Thus, continuing the cycle of gentrification until the Mission Districts history and influence is lost to the hipsters and socialites of this world"
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5yx2k2 | PLEASE clarify daylight savings for me? | I understand that we push the clocks back and forth to take advantage of the sunlight. But if the sun goes down at 5pm (rather than, say, 8pm) in the wintertime, and we duly move the clocks back an hour, then the sun goes down at 4pm. No? So we would be spending more time in the darkness, and losing daylight. No? What the hell am I not getting? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"In the winter, there is not enough daylight to go around, no matter how you diddle with the clock. That is why DST ends in the winter, there is no hope. The point of DST is that in the summer, you should get up earlier, rather sleeping through the first hour of sun shine. That way you shift a hour of daylight to the evening, when you are still awake, versus the morning, when you are just sleeping your life away.",
"The fall back is to prevent kids from going to school in the dark, adding an hour of daylight to the morning.",
"The point when it was invented, during WW1, was to extend daylight hours later in the evening during the summertime, so that people wouldn't have to use as much fuel to light things up at night. It's basically obsolete, for the purpose for which it was originally invented, because of the widespread usage of modern electrical grids that make it cheap and easy to light stuff up at night.",
"A quote from a native American chieftain was 'Only the US government could cut 6\" from the bottom of a blanket, sew it onto the top and think the result was a bigger blanket'. It's just about better use of people being awake during daylight hours. For instance it's so hot in Perth Australia that they regularly reject calls for daylight savings as they would rather get up before work than have more time in the afternoons. The classic saying about Queensland in Australia is that they don't want daylight savings as the extra hour of daylight would fade the curtains faster."
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5yx697 | Controversial, but... Why do most African-Americans speak with an "African-American accent"? (You know what I mean.) Kids of Spanish-speakers, Russian-speakers, etc. don't often speak with accents, bc the kids are socialized by American mainstream. So what's the diff. with African-Americans? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"If you listen closely, you'll notice that stereotypical Black English sounds very similar to Southern English. That's because for centuries, the vast majority of African-Americans lived in the South: they came as slaves, and then their ancestors stayed put for decades after the Civil War. Now, that started to change in the 1930's with the Great Migration. Millions of African-Americans left the farms of the South to escape racism and find work in Northern factories. When they got to the North, there was still segregation: they could only live in certain parts of town. That, plus the racism that was still present up North, meant that African-Americans really only interacted on a large scale with each other and not their white neighbors. This is important, because like other people in this thread have mentioned, we humans imitate those around us when it comes to our speech. African-Americans brought their Southern speech with them up north, and a lack of interaction with their white neighbors meant that their speech preserved many of those Southern features. This is still ongoing today. Cities are still very segregated, and until that changes, there will be a noticeable difference in how many black people speak.",
"People are going to adapt to the way others around them speak. Those that they spend the most time with or look up to the most. It happens in every culture. Other people, such as Russian Americans, likely don't have a lot of Russian friends they hang out with (as Russian Americans are less prevalent in America). So they're going to adapt to American dialect. Also, I think Ebonics is the term you're looking for. Not African accent"
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5yxlyx | Can the language I speak affect how I think? In some languages adjectives are before nouns, in others, after -- does this, or other differences, change how we think or perceive things? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"There's a lot of debate about this, and the answer is unclear. /u/SleeplessinRedditle quoted a study by Chen, who is an economist and not a linguist, but he makes several very basic errors: for example, he claims English has a \"strong\" future tense and German has a \"weak\" future tense, but in fact both languages express the future in almost exactly the same ways (he claims that English always requires a future marker except in very specific cases which he then sets aside, but this is completely false). His hypothesis also fails to explain why savings rates in different countries with the same languages vary so much: Ireland is near the top of the chart in the linked article, Australia near the middle, and the US and the UK right at the bottom. The basic idea that language can affect how you think is known as the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis (although neither Sapir nor Whorf actually formulated it), and has been floated around and discussed since 1929: it's more correctly called \"linguistic relativity\". It comes in two basic versions: linguistic determinism says that the language you speak necessarily restricts the range of possible thoughts you can have and so dictates how you perceive things; linguistic influence says that the language you speak can have some effect on how you think and perceive in some ways, but doesn't dictate everything. Chen appears to lean towards determinism; if you've seen *Arrival*, the scriptwriters basically took the determinist model of Sapir-Whorf and ran with it. Obviously, learning a new language can't literally rewire your brain to the extent that you can see all of time -- it makes a great movie, but scientifically it's bunk -- but the consensus among linguists at the moment is that there is no evidence at all to support the idea of linguistic determinism. Basically, linguistic determinism says that before you can think, you must have language. People who speak languages that use the same word for \"blue\" and \"green\" can't tell the difference between those two colours. However, research suggests the opposite: that we are all born able to think, and then we learn a language that enables us to express those thoughts. Somebody who speaks a language that makes no distinction between \"green\" and \"blue\" can still tell the difference between them: they just use the same label for them. Anecdotally, this chimes in with my experience. Russian has different words for what we call different shades of blue: I can still see the difference between them, but I take longer than a native speaker of Russian to decide which word goes with which shade. [This study]( URL_0 ) suggests that the language does make a bit of a difference -- just not a big one. Having lived in Germany now for nearly 25 years, I can say that learning the language hasn't made me better at saving money, or changed my perception in any meaningful way. There are some things I can express better in German than in English and vice versa: I don't *think* differently, but I am able to express a slightly different range of thoughts.",
"If you thought this up yourself, then I'm impressed. The answer very well may be yes. [Here is an article about some findings that support the idea]( URL_0 ). It simplifies it all quite well in ELI5 terms for the most part.",
"What you're talking about, the idea that our native language shapes our cognitive process, is called the \"Sapir-Whorf hypothesis\" it was a very popular idea in the social sciences in the second half of the 20th century. Nowadays, most social scientists seem to accept a \"soft\" version of the hypothesis. That is, language has an effect on our cognition, but it is not nearly as strong an effect as originally proposed by Sapir and Whorf. Here's an example that is often used to demonstrate the idea in social science classes. If you take 4 different objects, and arrange them in a cross, have the subject look at them for 4 seconds, have them close their eyes and move to the opposite side of the cross from which they observed it, scatter the objects, and ask them to rearrange them. One of two things will happen: either the person will rearrange them correctly, or else they will rearrange them correctly, but mirrored. This is because there are basically two ways that humans considers space and relationality: we call them \"egocentric\", where you use your own body as the ordinal point. This is what results in the mirrored arrangement. There is also \"geocentric\", where you ordinate based on the cardinal directions. In English, when we relay directions, it is most common to say things like \"take a left up at the light, go five blocks, and ten right\" this is egocentric ordination. For this reason, usually when the experiment is conducted on native English speakers, they will arrange the objects in the mirror pattern. But! Here's where it gets interesting, and how we come to the acceptance of a \"soft\" Sapir-Whorf hypothesis. I am a native English speaker, but I am also from the Great Plains. People from areas like the Great Plains, or deserts, or seafaring peoples, due to a lack of landmarks outside of cities, tend to ordinate geocentrically regardless of their native languages preference for expressing direction. So when I did this experiment, I arranged the shapes correctly, even though my perspective had changed. So while our language does affect our cognition, it can be proven to be \"trumped\" by other factors such as home environment, etc. Now to give a counter example of why the \"strong\" Sapir-Whorf hypothesis has largely been discarded: (please remember this is an ELI5 so I am vastly oversimplifying) consider the Japanese language. In Japanese, there is not really a proper future tense. It is implied through context, or through using the present tense but marking location in the future. If we accepted the original Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, this would lead to the conclusion that native Japanese speakers are not able to fully consider the future in the same way as speakers of languages with a dedicated future tense. However, we can see this to be fallacious by looking at household savings rates in Japan as compare to America, where English, a language with a dedicated future tense, is the primary language. Japanese household savings rates are on average, much much higher than America's. This would seem to discredit a \"strong\" Sapir-Whorf hypothesis. I think this is a little thick for an ELI5 so I apologize, but I hope that helped a little.",
"There's a theory called the Sapir-Wharf hypothesis that claims that your mother tongue will alter the way you perceive the world. Wharf was a motha- fuckin genius who was a chemist that studied the causes of factory fires back in the 20s/30s/40s. His research started on language when he saw that \"empty\" oil barrels was a cause of an explosion when workers threw cigarettes onto them. The word empty means void of anything or nothingness in space. But what our language made us think was that empty meant everything visible. So back then, vapors sitting in that barrel didn't \"exist\" because they were empty. Some great examples of this hypothesis is cardinal versus perceived directions (North East South West versus Left Right). In America I tell you to go left on Warner and the Right on Hoille. Aborigines know directions as in cardinal. They can say go West here and then South there. And no matter what they'll understand which way is what. This changes the way we see the world how exactly? Perceived directions are ever hanging depending on the way we face. My left is your right, and vice versa. Cardinal is always the same. No matter where you stand north with always be north. Now this is an extremely abstract example that's hard to understand how it changes the way we see things. So example 2 Hopi time and Western time. I am going to the store. Now I'm at the store. I was at the store. Future, present, past. There is things happening before now and something will happen after now. That's how western nations (mainly the whole world actually sees time). The Hopi though don't have a future tense. It be We are leaving for the store right now. At that point we are going to 7/11. And there we are going back home. Everything is happening now, it's not going to happen cause the future tense doesn't really exist (and it's incomprehensible in the English language to explain it because we don't use those terms) Final example, probably the easiest to understand. Feminine and masculine terms in French and German. Bridge in German is a feminine term, and the Germans, when describing bridges give it femine descriptions such as sleek, long, slender, while bridge in French is masculine and is described as durable, strong, bulk. Just by changing the way a word is described (masculine versus feminine) it changes the way people see non-gendered items in everyday life Edit: I study anthropology and have taken a few courses on linguistics and culture Edit: I switched German and French by mistake",
"I have zero science to back this up, just personal experience. I've spoken English and Portuguese fluently since I was a child (I also speak Spanish and basic Russian now). I live in the US, but when I spend about a week back in Portugal, I feel like something \"switches\" in my brain. I start dreaming in Portuguese and my tone, speed, inflection, and volume are all much different when I speak it. I vaguely remember reading an article once saying people who natively speak more than one language can experience different personalities. I believe it. I feel more outgoing and funny when I speak Portuguese, and I'm much more cynical and sarcastic when using English. Edit: through the powers of google here's the link to the above referenced article URL_0 There is a KEY distinction it appears between bilingualism and biculturalism which seems to be the most important factor. For me, it seems the \"differences\" I feel when speaking the two languages have more to do with cultural influence and less to do with the grammatical structure of the language.",
"As someone else said, the Sapir-Whorf theory says that language can determine thought. I'm pretty sure the research shows that people can still perceive dark blue, even if they don't have a word for it, but I guess the Sapir-Whorf theory has an element of truth in that, before we english speakers used the german word schadenfreude for the emotion of shameful joy, it becomes easier to notice and label the experience when you see it. Politically correct language is another thing to come out of Sapir-Whorf, the army \"depopulating areas and neutralizing threats to this great nation of ours with some collateral damage\" sounds better than \"dropping firebombs on other army guys and also catching civilian terrified men, women and children in the blast area, ripping them apart like meat confetti\" There was an article about how English tends to blame people more by saying \"John knocked over the table\" rather than other languages who would say \"the table was knocked over\", I guess the takeaway message is language can slightly influence things and allow you to express a few things you couldn't in other language but doesn't completely change all perception.",
"Check out the podcast \"Spoken and Unspoken,\" on Ted Radio Hour (free on iTunes). This concept is one of the things they focus on. Extremely interesting and only about an hour long. Enjoy!",
"The book, Nineteen Eighty-Four, talks about this quite a bit. One of the reasons that the government (in that book) reduced the complexity of the language was to remove the ability of the population to conceptualize abstract thoughts.",
"I heard that it has strong influence in terms of patience. Example given by the person who told me was \"in X language sentences are built with verb on the end of the sentence which makes it impossible to interfere someone with your counter-opinion because you don't know what he wants to say till the end\" wheras in my language, Polish, it's the other way around hence our tendency to interrupt each other and be generally less patient in conversations.",
"Yes! I heard a story on npr the other day about something like this. It's called the subjunctive. Languages like Vietnamese don't have the vocabulary to describe things like would've, hadn't, or might've to describe the future or past tense. As a result, they don't tend to ponder what could have happened in the past or might happen in the future. Blew my mind. This is a really interesting story URL_0",
"Yes, sort of. There is a lot debate about how numbers are represented/said and early math development. In many languages the words for a larger number is spoken as a math equation is some respects. It's three hundreds and(plus) three tens and 3 ones, not three hundred thirty three. So there is some speculation that (especially earlier in life) this helps people learn math easier because as they were learning to say numbers they were also learning how to use math. And it made math make more sense to the children. It must have been very hard to do any difficult math in say Roman Numerals in stead of our alphanumeric. (Come to think of it I wouldn't know how they would say LXIV) However, to the best of my knowledge there is no indication that this continues well into adulthood. Obviously, how one speaks and specifically how one speaks (and writes) well, would have significant differences in thought for languages, especially considering poetic devices, idioms and general placement of words that are unavailable in other languages.",
"I speak fluently three languages, English and two Latin derived ones, and I feel that learning English just accelerated how quickly I can communicate some thoughts. Since Castilian and Catalan average 20 to 25% longer words, Spanish people we tend to talk faster to make up for it. Unless you are Mexican ;) Learning English did change how I think... but it might also be that my personality grew by being outside of my homeland for more than a decade , exposing me to a wider variety of cultures and attitudes. So it's hard to tell if it was living abroad or the language that changed me. Probably both. I do find that I once in a while I'm talking to family back home and get stumped trying to find a word or turn of phrase that I want to use and then realise that it only exists in English. Therefore I have a nuanced idea that I have to translate into an explanation in Spanish instead of a word. But a good story about this language changing how you think is my wife, she grew up in an English speaking country but her family is originally from Indonesia. And she tells me that her parents don't understand sarcasm. Because there isn't sarcasm in the Indonesia ( less to do with language and more to do with a cultural thing ) Still she had a hard time relating to her parents as she grew because they didn't \"get her\", since she is very sarcastic and her parents take everything said at face value.",
"Arrival 2016 expert linguist Louise Banks says yes URL_0"
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5yyna7 | Why has there been a rise in anti-Semitic crimes in the US? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"There isn't a rise, you're just noticing it now because the media is actually mentioning it as noteworthy. Anti-semitic crime in the US has always been the supermajority in religious hate crimes.",
"My guess is it has something to do with antisemetic jokes normalizing negative mindsets toward Jewish people, and conspiracy theory nuts spreading lies a lies about them. Jokes like that are a good way to affirm the negative beliefs that antisemetic people already hold.",
"It's hard to tell what specific group is behind these acts. To me it almost seams like the original incident caused a domino effect. Like it's several antisemitic groups (like the KKK or islamic extremists) who became inspired by the first incident. Like it was a universal signal to rise and act on their hatred.",
"Psychologists studied this and found out that people with bigoted beliefs look at the people around them for social cues. If the people around them (friends, family, the media, politicians, etc) make it clear that saying and doing bigoted things is not okay, the bigots will still hold those beliefs, but they are much less likely to act on them. Then Trump got elected. He talks a lot about immigration and race and religion, mostly in terms of fear and threats, and he and his team (and then the media who report on and debate these arguments) give off all these social cues about it being okay to discriminate and exclude people now. This is called 'dog-whistle politics': using words and phrases that your target audience (the bigots we're talking about here) will notice and interpret in a certain predictable way (that bigotry is okay), while claiming that that was not what you said or meant at all. The bigots who have always existed suddenly feel better about speaking up; and the more extreme, more violent ones feel more confident about acting out their bigotry. So there's been a rise in hate crimes, including anti-semitism. The media is reporting it more, because more threats & attacks are happening, and because Donald Trump and his team are making these issues of race, religion, and discrimination more obvious by talking about them so much, and also making mistakes and telling outright lies.",
"For starters, you should understand that all hate crimes have risen this year. Its just that Anti-Semitic hate crimes have always been the most prevalent kind so that is the first thing that is being noticed and reported on. That being said, in general the level of hate crimes tend to go up or down in relation to large and high profile national or international events. For example, after 9/11 there was a dramatic rise in hate crimes. The stuff that got the most reported on was anti-Muslim hate crimes because it was a sharper uptick, but numbers rose across the boards. As far as why, that is hard to say. I would guess that people are scared and confused and rather than deal with those emotions they lash out at those they perceive as a threat to their way of life."
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5yypb0 | Why do Americans pronounce Nissan "nee-sahn" but Brits pronounce it "niss-en"? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Americans are apparently speaking the anglicised Japanese. The Japanese would pronounce it closer to nee-sahn. In romanised Japanese, a double-consonant represents a slight pause, but doesn't affect the vowel. We do this (the pausing) in English too, a good example is the word midday. The British are pronouncing it as if it were an English word. It's niss-en rather than nee-san, because of the double-consonant after the vowel which *does* make a difference in English. In general, this makes a short vowel. Compare diner and dinner, hoping and hopping, etc."
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5yzk9n | Why do some Asian people wear mouth protection, both at home and in other countries? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"I know that in Japan, it's frowned upon to take sick days, but it's also frowned upon to hamper workplace productivity by getting sick. So people don the face masks when *they* are ill, to prevent the germs that are coming out from sneezing and coughing from entering the air. They are also effective for hay fever in the spring. A younger generation in Japan started wearing the masks as a fashion statement and means of achieving some privacy in public as well, though. This trend was called da-te masuku. Some girls wear the masks so they don't have to put makeup on or if they have a blemish they don't want others to see. Some do it as a protection of their introversion, as it adds a physical barrier between themselves and others.",
"It's a politeness thing. In many Asian cultures, particularly Japan, it's considered polite to wear a mask when you are feeling sick so you reduce the risk of infecting anyone around you.",
"From my experience in China, most Chinese people wearing mask in public places are sick, they wear a mask to protect from air pollution mostly if they are riding a bike or on very polluted days. The mask is supposed to reduce the possibility of spreading the disease to other people. As a lot of Eastern Asian country have a very high density of population it makes sense to wear a mask when you are sick to protect others.",
"Japan is a funny one in that regard because it is pretty much entirely a politeness thing. So a sick coworker will show up wearing a mask...but, get a phone call? Mask off. Eating lunch? Mask off. Speaking to a high-ranking superior? Mask off. There are so many little customs-within-customs that wearing a mask doesn't really do anything. It's the thought that counts, I suppose.",
"The truth is we should all wear those masks when having even a hint of a cold or flu or cough. It would cut down on the darn viruses spreading by a significant amount. I think countries with very dense populations do this because it's a health necessity, and it's become a social necessity.",
"Many people in Japan wear them to protect against pollen during allergy season. My seasonal allergies were so bad there I started wearing masks outdoors and it really helped.",
"I wish it was common place to do it here in North America. I'm a nurse so wear one at work when I'm sick or when people are sick around me. I work in homes in the community so it's acceptable by my employers/clients. I really dislike seeing sick people out in public without a mask on...",
"Just FYI, disposable face masks don't do a terribly good job in preventing common illnesses. The effectiveness of the masks decreases as water vapor from your breath accumulates on the mask and the seal on such a mask will often not be tight. In addition, many diseases spread through multiple methods, such as via touch. I'm not saying the masks are useless, it's just that sick people wearing them and then going to work and into crowded areas is really unwise.",
"I'm aware that there are many other factors at play,but a possible reason could relate to fashion. More recently it has become a sort of fashion trend, especially in South Korea to wear these masks even without needing to.Here's an article on it: URL_0 It doesn't talk about it in great detail, but I hope it helps :)",
"Over the years, particularly in larger cities in China and areas stricken with smog, it's become a very well known issue to have deep, thick smog in the air. The Facemasks are to help keep your body from breathing in thick, toxic fumes that accumulate due to the over abundance of Fossil Fuel burning in these areas. Plenty of cities in China are the same size as American cities but 3-5x as dense. This means thousands of more citizens, cars and ultimately, more pollution. It also stems from breakouts over the years of diseases like Avian Flu and SARS. Airborne diseases spread rapidly due to the poor health conditions, particularly in China. I refrence china alot in this, because they are really the focal point for the phenomenon you bring up, and they are also the country most associated with the issues from above. While it is also a problem in other high density asian countries, China is really the one on the frontend of everything."
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5yzy7l | Why is some music written in, say 4/4 when it could be written in 2/2, or 3/4 when it could be 6/8? | How does the composer decide which is right? You could write something with a tempo twice what it could be and use minims instead of crotchets, for example. Why one way and not the other? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"The difference between 2/2 and 4/4 is how you group the notes. Recall that the denominator instructs you which note gets the beat. Thus, in 4/4 time you count four quarter notes per measure, and in 2/2 time you count 2 half notes per measure. Visually the pulse looks like: 4/4 time: 1-2-3-4-/1-2-3-4- 2/2 time: 1---2---/1---2--- You can see that the pulse of the two time signatures is different. In essence, both time signatures have the same number of notes, but the notes are grouped differently. I suggest you try counting aloud both. As for why a composer would choose one signature over the other, [try clapping or tapping the beat along to this piece]( URL_3 ), Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata[(Score)]( URL_1 ). When you feel that you're tapping at a rate that feels natural, you're tapping the pulse. You can feel that the pulse of the piece is not sixteenths notes, so a 16/16 time signature would be ridiculous. This is why Beethoven does not chose 16/16 as the time signature. Similarly, 1/1, another alternative, is too slow. For this reason, I'd be willing to bet most people would tap to the piece in 4/4 or 2/2. The way this pianist plays it, I personally hear the piece in groups of 8 sixteenths, or in 2/2. Incidentally, Beethoven marks the piece in 4/4, which is how [this pianist]( URL_2 ) plays it. You can hear that the different pulse makes a significant difference to the character of the piece. Part of the difference is that the pianists play at different tempi, but the way they group the notes is also important. In my opinion, for Beethoven's piece 4/4 sounds more active and agitated, so the pianist who plays it in 2/2 is missing the point. To me, her playing sounds like a blur of notes, which may be why Beethoven marked the piece in 4/4 instead. A similar logic applies to other time signatures. A quick note for 3/4 and 6/8: In Classical music, 6/8 generally implies that the music is split into a 3 + 3. i.e. 3/4: 1-2-3- 6/8: 1--2-- Edit: There seems to be some misconceptions in this thread. 3/4 is not twice the speed of 6/8, and 2/2 is not \"twice the speed of 4/4\", as another user claims. It tells you what note value gets the beat, and how many beats per measure, nothing more. Also, [this response]( URL_0 )...",
"4/4 is not the same as 2/2 or 2/4. 2/2 is twice the speed of 4/4 for example. The emphasis of the beats is also different. In 4/4 you have Strongest, weakest, Strong, Weak. In 2/2 it is just Strong Weak. 3/4 is Strong, weakest, weak. While 6/8 is a two beat pulse that is Strong, weak, weak."
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5z0qas | What are the different factions of Islam, and why do they seem at odds with one another? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Mohammed was born in Mecca, he was raised by his uncle in the Quraysh tribe. At the age of 40, he had visions, which were direct messages from Allah. His wife persuaded him to talk about his visions with the people in Mecca, and he quickly gained a large following. Mohammed and his followers then left Mecca for Medina, Mohammed died in 632. Allah had told Mohammed that he was the last prophet, so the movement decided that the community had to have a new leader, a caliph. They were not a replacement of Mohammed, but more like his messengers on earth. These caliphs consolidated their power by conquering other lands to grow their faith, but after the third caliph died, the Muslim community fractured in the Sunni and Shi’a communities. Sunnis believe any person can be the Caliph, while the Shi’a Muslims believe it can only be a direct descendent of Mohammed. After the fourth Caliph was assassinated these differences were crystallized. The fourth caliph’s son, Husayn, challenged the fifth caliph’s throne, but lost in the civil war that followed and his entire family was killed. The Muslim world has 1.6 billion people, most of them turn to the Qur’an, the Hadith, and the five pillars of Islam. The Qur’an is the full account of revelations from Mohammed, the Hadith are the written practices and deeds of Mohammed. The five pillars are the essential practices followed by all Muslims. These are profession of faith, daily prayers, almsgiving, Ramadan, and pilgrimage to Mecca at least once in your lifetime. Sunni and Shi’a Muslims agree on the core tenets of Islam, but have different identities and traditions. Both identify the mosques in Mecca, Medina, and Jerusalem to be holy sites, but Shi’a Muslims also see the places where the fourth caliph and Husayn are buried to be holy sites as well. Shi’a Muslims place great emphasis on formalized and institutionalized religious authority; Shi’a clergy are educated at sanctioned seminaries where they study law, theology, and philosophy. In Sunni Islam, anyone can become a religious leader. There's also Salafism, which is named after the first few generations of Muslims, known as the salaf. During the British rule in the Indian sub continent, many major differences emerged in the Muslim community, which led to the intra-Muslim rivalry. It was in this period that many sects came into view such as deobandi, brailvi, ahle hadith, and Salafism. To them, centuries of different interpretations have corrupted the true meaning of Islam and lead to a decline in the Islamic world. They follow the scholarship of Taqi al-Din Ahmad Ibn Taymiyyah who lived during the Mongol invasion, the destruction of Baghdad, and the assassination of the last Abbasid caliph. Ibn Taymiyyah argued that Islam was corrupted in this era and that a return to the beliefs of the salaf people could create prosperity. Where Sunni Islam believes Prophet Mohammed is an enlightened and guiding soul, the Salafi Muslims believe he is a normal human being. Salafi Muslims have their own mosques and schools and rely solely upon the Quran and the hadith. Salafi Muslims do not believe in saints and emphasize upon the obliteration of bida`h, or wrongful innovation in Islam. For example many Sunnis kneel before graves, that is strongly opposed by the Salafi Muslims. Sunni Muslims also celebrate the birthday of the prophet and saints, Salafi Muslims denounce these practices. Sunni Muslims follow a Taqlid, which is an earthly person to follow for guidance, Salafi Muslims do not believe in this practice. Salafi Muslims instead place great emphasis on rituals and making religion a part of your daily life, They try to follow the examples of what Mohammed and the Salaf people would have done. They follow what they consider the proper methods of prayer, strict rules on how to dress, what to eat, how to marry, etc. Modern Salafism has been split in three different factions; the first is the Quetist Salafism faction. They don’t engage in politics because they believe it’s un-Islamic, and often don’t respond to any events in the world at large. The second faction is political Salafism which rejects the idea that political activity is un-Islamic; they had fled from Egypt in the 60s and 70s and injected their pro-political ideas into Saudi Arabia. In the 80s and 90s, a movement of Salafi political activists had taken root in Saudi Arabia. A man named Sayyid Qutb was a central figure in the growing Salafi political activist movement, and the Salafi jihadist movement that followed after. A big disagreement between these factions is that of takfir, this is a declaration of being a Muslim nonbeliever, because the person in question doesn’t follow the teachings of Islam correctly. Quietists need religious trials to denounce someone’s faith, but both of the other factions believe that this isn’t necessary to the same extent. The third faction is Jihad Salafism, because of the Soviet war in Afghanistan, many Salafi political activists came into contact and radicalized and turned to Jihad. Jihad has a very wide meaning in Islam, to some it means being a good person, but to Jihad Salafism it means fighting the enemies of Islam on the battlefield. The general consensus is that only the government can declare jihad as an option of last resort, but Sayyid Qutb proposed that only through a violent revolution could the people be re-educated in a just society. He proposes redistribution amongst the poor in a classless society without the exploitation of man. Mohammed Abd al Salam Faraj rejected this re-education, and proposes direct jihad against corrupt regimes. Wahhabism is a more conservative Salafism, but the differences are next to nothing. founded by Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab, it could be called ultra-conservatism to Western standards. Mohammed Ibn Abd al Wahhab drew on the writings of Ibn Taymiyyah and argued for a strict interpretation of Sunni Islam to achieve this prosperity. He formed an alliance with the house of Saud, and together they created the first Saudi State.",
"It was a matter of succession. Some believed that Mohammed died without an heir, and so the 'community' elected his successor, Abu Bakr. Another group believe Mohammed's nearest blood relative, a cousin (cousin and son-in-law), should have inherited. In a grossly simplified explanation, Sunni backed Bakr, and Shia backed the son-in-law. There is a third school, Khawarij, that believed a sort of extreme version of succession by righteousness. They emerged a bit later. In time, classism developed. The Sunni 'won' with their choice for Caliph, and became a sort of ruling class. This division has persisted and been exacerbated ever since."
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5z0u5t | Recently scientists tend to support the existence of extraterrestrial life even though there is no evidence. Why? | In recent years scientific views have shifted to generally accept that there must be some form of life out there. While this is not backed by any new evidence/discovery it seems be the case of new cultural developments. Why has this change in perspective occurred? Context: URL_2 URL_0 URL_1 | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"The big change recently is that we have swiftly discovered about 1000 planets outside our solar system. Given how few places we've been able to look, this means there must in total be *billions* of planets out there. Decades ago, it was *believed* that there were lots of planets out there, but now it is *known* that planets are in fact extremely common. Once you know there are loads of planets, then it becomes a matter of statistics that some of them probably have life.",
"the statistics are pretty overwhelming. there are bazillions of planets in the universe. first google result say 10^24 planets. thats alot... So to assume that atleast some single cell organisms have formed somewhere seems like a foregone conclusion.",
"It's probabilistically nearly impossible for there not to be exdtraterrestrial life. The sheer amount of planets far outweigh the complicated combination of variables needed for life.",
"There is evidence for life in space. Us. So if it can happen here, it can happen anywhere. Here's proof that [It can happen]( URL_0 )"
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5z11lk | Why does China seem to be relatively under control compared to most of the world? | They actually seem to be able to accomplish stuff, they're not dictatorships like other communist countries have been, and the people aren't constantly rioting. What's different about China? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"China is a dictatorship in the sense that it has a Supreme Leader whose commands are not subject to explicit restraint, but does have some practical checks in the power of the Communist Party oligarchy from which the Supreme Leader rises. The central government as a whole does wield absolute power, and is not subject to public review, criticism, or election. It also wields total control of information, which is why stories about its internal problems are generally rarer in global news coverage than in other countries. But unlike some other authoritarian states that have total media control, China also has the economic power to punish private companies abroad that publish or broadcast negative stories about it. It also punishes entertainment companies that depict the Chinese government negatively, which is why it hasn't been a villain in a movie in two decadse: They offer the massive Chinese audience market to companies that depict them well, and cut it off if they don't. So, to put it bluntly, they give the appearance of being under control because they censor the entire global media through economic pressure. But news stories do come out occasionally - massive riots by workers, purges of ethnic minorities and dissidents, massacres, etc.",
"China is absolutely an authoritarian nation. However, they're not a completely *dysfunctional* one, which is what you might be getting at. While you could probably write a thesis on why, I'd suggest two fundamental reasons: 1. Non-populist leadership. Once Mao was out of the picture, China proceeded to be run by a series of boring bureaucrats who were motivated less by ideology than they were ensuring their personal and family position within the government. As a result, there's a great deal of corruption and manipulation within the government, but its largely directed at the government itself rather than the people. 2. Lack of resources. China is a large country with a population that outstrips its resources. What this means is that the economic engine of China is its people rather than its land. Controlling land just means you need to build a fence and kill anyone who objects. Controlling people means you need to pay attention to their needs so they can continue to make you rich and powerful. So while this may not lead to the flowering of Jeffersonian Democracy, it does mean that those government bureaucrats running China actually care whether or not their people starve. If you look at most of Asia's success stories (Singapore, South Korea, Japan, Taiwan), they generally started out as authoritarian societies with minimal natural resources. Only as they prospered did social and political liberalization occur.",
"> They're not dictatorships. They are though. It's incredibly totalitarian over there. Most social media is blocked so communication is limited, and people vanish if they criticize the government. The whole 'China is under control' thing is literally that. They are under control in a very effective way. China gets things done that it wants to get done in a hurry with no riots or anything because God help you if you riot or don't get it done.",
"Everyone's hit the nail on the head, but one thing omitted that is key to their success is the immense amount of legitimacy the government has amongst the people - the people trust the central govn't and believe they are doing the right things. This was achieved through control of the economy (giving the people wealth through targeted policies) and control of the media. Most dictatorships fail because they're not sharing the love (economy) and they can't control the media.",
"China is absolutely a dictatorship. They are an authoritarian oligarchy, with a strangle hold on the public that dwarfs even Russia in its hey day. You think the US government is spying in its citizens? China is worse. The government of China actively censors media that disagrees with its policies. In the US, you can tweet \"Trump's policies are tearing America apart.\" In China, on Weibo, you will have any post removed if you question Jinping's moves in Hong Kong. When things really heat up, expect to see all reference to 'Hong Kong' scrubbed from Chinese media amd social media. They are constantly engaged in hostilities with their neighbours. Remember Tibet? That's still a whole...messed up...thing. They lock journalists up. Don't like Megan Kelly? Throw her in jail, never to be heard from. They are wracked with corruption, classism, and poverty. They persecute religious minorities - Google Uighur for a fun example, or Falun Gong. I think the problem is you don't know enough about China."
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5z1buy | Why are most Mexican/Latin foods spicy? | My mom just asked me this question, which sounded like a no-brainer at first (Latin America has a lot of peppers and spices), but it seems as though everything they eat involves chili powder or something similar, such as fruit and candy. Is there any real reason why, or am I just ignorant? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Not all latin food is spicy. I'm Argentinian and I can't think of spicy local food. This doesn't mean that there's not a trend in latin cooking, but it may be due to what you mentioned about availability. If you're American, then your experience may be biased by the latin food which is sold in the USA: Tex-Mex food is terribly spicy, more so than Mexican food in my experience.",
"It's because all of their other food options are very bland, it's the same way with other largely agrarian societies (such as in India). Where as meat based societies (such as Western Europe) focus on meat, breads, and cheeses.",
"URL_0 Reasons why it happens: Antimicrobial properties that aid in food safety in hot climates prior to refrigeration, local food culture, and to keep food from becoming boring. Reasons that are deemed false: Spices provide macronutrients, evaporative cooling from sweat, and disguising the taste and smell of spoiled foods. I've also heard that it aids in digestion when the body is warm, which might be included under the antimicrobial thing.",
"Taking a stab at this. My dad grew up in rural mexico, came over when he was 13, and all his life has eaten peppers. He raised me on spicy food and I think most savory food needs to be spicy unless it's already bringing a lot of bold flavors to the plate. Eggs, bacon, and hashbrowns? Eh. Add some tobasco, and boom, delicious. At this point for me it's almost like another flavor category and a lot of food just feels like it's missing something without it, like how some foods feel like they need some acidity or something salty or smoky/bitter to balance them out. Also, it's definitely not all of Latin America that does spicy food. Peppers grow well in the desert climates of Mexico which might have something to do with their heavy usage there"
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5z3kyd | Typically, why do most abused children date abusive partners in their future? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Lingering self-confidence issues often draw them toward partners who are more controlling, who are therefore more likely to abuse them. Once abused they are also less likely to report it or leave the relationship since this treatment has been somewhat normalized in their own mind, as such they are less likely to be shocked enough to take action.",
"Conditioning to the environment in which they were raised. They may come to accept it as normal and comfortable. They might then seek that \"normal/comfortable\" environment in their adult lives. If two flower seeds are planted, one in the shade of the pine tree, the other in the open. Which one grows to its full potential?",
"If a teenager is vulnerable, like if they've moved out of their abusive childhood home and stay somewhere else, a lot of nice normal people will be friends with them, but not take advantage of them by dating and sleeping with them, because they know they're vulnerable and need to heal first, and to sleep with them would just confirm that that's all they're good for. There are also people without morals though who will take them in, give them a roof over their head and say they'll always look after them, just so the teenager becomes attached to them. They'll spend so much time together that the teenager will lose any friends that they have, and any residual connection to the family, they spend all their time trying to make the homeowner happy. Eventually the person looking after them will get tired of them and lose respect for them and turn abusive, emotionally manipulating like \"if you loved me you'd be happy with the current arrangement\". The teenager will feel like they have nowhere else to go because they'll lose the one stable relationship in their life, and don't have anywhere to run to, even if they did have family they've chosen this person over them so don't feel like they can go back. They might not have their own cash and just feel like they're not good enough for education or work, and all they're good for is sex. This is a common path for teenage child abuse, and can happen both in straight and gay relationships. Even if the child got on with their parents, by choosing to date and eventually live with someone will drive their parents and friends away until they have nobody.",
"You stick to what you know. If this is how you grew up, then this is all you know of relationships and love, so you find yourself attracted to those type of people. When you don't know real love, it takes a lot more work to find it.",
"Children who go through abuse usually end up repressing, suppressing, or using some other form of coping to \"get by\" in their environment. The problem is that we, as humans, are creatures of habit and will end up finding ourselves in similar situations in our lives. The reason a past abuse victim, especially if it happened during childhood, would go to an abuser is because while their abuse is bad, the victim's brain is already set to deal with it because of past events. Usually the victim will end up creating a list of positives that outweigh the negative abuse going on. i.e. \"While he does get rough when he drinks, he also is really good at keeping the house clean.\" This form of coping is common because children are not supposed to be exposed to such an adult concept. Doing so forces the child to use their already limited brain to try and cope and understand a very serious and complex problem. This tends to create unhealthy behaviors in exchange for surviving through the ordeal. It's why adults who went through abuse might have negative behaviors or act in certain ways. A good example is an adult who immediately becomes defensive when asked questions. If they suffered verbal and physical abuse for not answering correctly as a child, this fear of failure and not answering right can extend into adulthood where a simple question such as \"Why do you look so mad today?\" can set a person off the wall. And so, knowing that, try applying that logic to someone who may have witnessed an abusive marriage between their parents. They will grow up thinking that is such the norm, to be abused, because that was all they were subjected to as a kid. Being drawn to what is familiar isn't necessarily a good thing."
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5z48tj | Who decides how many days we work per week ? If everyone (I mean everyone) worked 3 days a week, what would be different ? Is the number of work days and hours a natural process ? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"At the beginning of the 20th century, it was usual to work 60 hours a week. Then, unions, labour strikes and movements changed that (thankfully) and went down to a 40 hour week. That's what we've been working for 100 years already. Now, with the automation it would be fair to think we're up for a new reduction of the week work. Some countries such as France have gone down to 35 hours, without seeing much of a change (neither an improvement not a worsening of the work). In some countries they are trying the 6 hour day such as [Sweden]( URL_0 ), it's going well for many of them, but nobody does these experiments long enough to actually see results. 3 days a week, 8 hours = 24 hours a week. That's almost the 30 hours a week that the Swedes are trying. The [new economics foundation]( URL_1 ) actually suggests a 21 hour week. In general, arguments in favour of reducing the time we work per week is more time for our families, more time for other activities, more time for consuming goods, better work life balance, happy employees, less unemployment. Not everything is producing things (aka working long hours), people need to have the money, the need, the willingness to buy them and the time to use them. That all makes economy boost.",
"I just did a bit of googling. Several industrial companies in Germany (the Ziess optical factory in Jena and a couple of others) did experiments at the start of the 20th century. The Ziess plant switched from a nine-hour work day to an eight hour workday, and found that the workers actually got more work done. At the same, the workers were paying premiums to an insurance fund. When Ziess had a twelve hour day, the company would have to pay money into the fund each year because medical costs for the workers were higher than their premiums. After the switch to eight hour days, the fund started making money, because there were less worker injuries and thus less money had to be paid to doctors. See [this magazine article]( URL_0 )",
"There's a long history of moving towards the 40 hour work week through the 1800s and 1900s. In the US, it finally became federal law that any work over 40 hours was \"overtime\" in 1938 for all industries. It's something that unions & the labor movement fought long & hard for - prior to that 10+ hour days were common. URL_0",
"It's a critical mass thing, coupled with supply and demand. If everyone worked three days a week as the norm, there will always be a certain proportion of people who want or need more money. So they would take a second job and work six days (illegally if necessary - if people were legally limited to three days, I guarantee a black market would result). If there is a critical mass of people like that, they will drive up house prices and the cost of luxury goods. Then others will have to work six days if they want to have a house, and the critical mass becomes bigger, driving up the cost of necessities as well as luxury goods. Then everyone has to work six days to live. The work week we have now is basically the meeting point of the hours most people are willing to work for what most corporations are willing to pay for most types of jobs. There are people who will work more, but they're outliers. They aren't big enough numerically to push the \"standard\" hours up across the board. However, you will find some professions have official or unofficial different hours - in those cases there is a critical mass of those professionals willing to work that way that makes that possible, typically in direct exchange or indirect recognition of higher-than-usual money or prestige.",
"There's another reason the days/hours worked over time has declined that other commenters have not mentioned: technological progress. Even in the most egalitarian, low inequality society imaginable, it takes a certain quantity of food, water, and shelter to keep one person alive each day. If the efficiency at which those things are produced is low, everyone has to work many hours every day. If efficiency improves greatly, say, by agriculture or mechanization, then the minimum required hours of work per day to keep each person alive decreases. Now, it should be noted that what we consider \"basic requirements\" does increase over time. Today, we consider running water, sewage systems, electricity, TV, radios, refrigerators etc.., as basic equipment everyone needs to have. However, that said, production efficiency has eclipsed basic needs so massively that the hours an average person works per year has been slashed dramatically. How dramatically? In the 1830 US, the average worker worked over 70 hours a week and over 6 days a week. They generally had no paid vacation, few paid federal holidays, no personal days, no sick days, no paid family leave of any kind. Today, the average is ~34 hours a week and while those benefits aren't ubiquitous (except federal holidays), they're common. In all, Americans work about 40% of the hours they did in 1830's.. while at the same time have vastly better lives (in general).",
"The first guy to finish the maintenance training program at my job worked out an agreement with management where he was officially our weekend guy. He worked a double on Friday, double on Saturday, and day shift on Sunday which gave him Monday thru Thursday off. The company made sure to never give anyone else thus kind of deal.",
"In the USA, you can thank the communists and labor activists for the long and hard fought battle to reduce work hours to 40 hrs. Many literally died at the hands of state forces and paramilitary groups (such as the Pinkertons) hired to kill them. Others were threatened, beaten, and humiliated, but in the end their struggle won out for the 40 hour work week. There are many books available that recount these histories of the 1800's and early 1900's. They are as fascinating as they are sobering. In some instances, labor groups even engaged federal troops that were deployed against them (look up the Pullman Strike URL_0 ). Karl Marx explains, in his works, how additional labor force (beyond the ordinary amount) is stolen from the worker by the capitalists when the working day is unrestricted in length. You might check out \"Capital Volume 1\" which explains the concept in detail in one of its chapters.",
"To an extent, it is an economic process. Think of your work as a product called \"labor\" that you can sell to a company that needs it. You are willing to supply a certain amount of labor at a particular price, also known as your wages. If someone offers you a higher wage, you might be willing to work longer, up to a certain point, at which you become exhausted and can't work any more. Likewise, if the price of your labor goes down, you'd be willing to work fewer and fewer hours...again to a point, as you need to make enough money to live. The person buying your labor, the employer, has a similar function. The cheaper the cost of labor, the more time they'd want you to work; but eventually either they wouldn't have enough money to keep paying you for all those hours, or you'd quit from being overworked. If the cost of labor was higher, they'd prefer to pay you for fewer hours, but eventually they won't have enough hours of labor to accomplish whatever it is that they're trying to do. Do this enough times with enough people, and you'll find that an equilibrium occurs: there's a point where how much money the employer is willing to spend for a certain amount of labor and how much money the worker is willing to sell their time for are the same. (or vice versa, the number of hours for a particular wage is the same). Of course, there are other things at work here. In general, there are other costs associated with hiring more employees, so employers will always tend to want fewer employees working more hours, and sometimes people don't have a choice but to work a job they feel they aren't valued at because they need the money. Generally, governments must intervene to prevent workers from getting screwed in these situations, as they individually have much less money and power than the companies that employ them. This is why you have labor unions and laws governing working hours, overtime, minimum wages, and so on.",
"Most of the other posters have talked about the history of the 40 hour work week in terms of union activity. There's another aspect at play, which is that the more time off workers have, the more time they have to spend the money they earn. Up until about a decade ago, South Koreans typically worked five and a half days a week--Monday through Friday and half of Saturday. The government promoted the idea of only working five days a week so people would have time to travel around Korea and increase domestic consumption.",
"You'd also have to remember the retail and restaurant employees, doctors and nurses, janitors, etc. not everything can be reduced to a three day work week without a silly number of employees to rotate through.",
"Regardless of how many days per week you work, you still want to eat 7 days per week. You have to find the balance between earning a living and enjoying life. Also, you are not a machine (presumably) and you could work really hard for an hour but wouldn't be able to sustain that level of work for 8, 10 or 12 hours. If you try to work 18 hours per day 7 days per week, the work you do in a typical hour would be a lower quality than the work you could do in an hour if you worked one hour per day for 4 days per week. A previous boss I had (so take this with a grain of salt) showed me a study done by the US Army (pass the salt please) that indicated that people generally got the best return on investment at 10 hours per day for 5 days per week. So after 50 hours per week, the quality of your work per hour dropped enough that you would start to see diminishing returns. Here's a link that downloads a study from Sanford that found similar results. I couldn't find the Army study. URL_0",
"An historiographical perspective: Marx said in *Capital* in 1867 that a 6-hour work day was enough, and that the surplus (at the time the actual number was closer to 12) went to the owners of the means of production. In 1930, Keynes predicted the number in the future would be as low as 15 hour *a week*, in his paper \"Economic Possibilities for Our Grandchildren\". In fact, Keynes wasn't far off - we could probably sustain ourselves just fine on that. There are several reasons why we don't, but the main reason - [according to Benjamin M. Friedman]( URL_0 ) - is rising inequality. Work is becoming more efficient, but the surplus isn't going to workers. So in that sense, Marx had a point."
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5z4kde | Why do people lie on the internet? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"They are banking on people not fact checking. For every person that actually fact checks there's 10 others that will blindly share on social media."
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5z4tbm | What is a Filibuster in American politics? How is it used and where did it come from? | As an adult who has read and re-read the wiki, i still have no idea how this thing came about. So how does it exist? How does it work? And how is it allowed? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"It is a consequence of the Senate's rules. A Senator can speak for as long as they wish, but only once per debate. A filibuster is when a Senator intentionally speaks for a long time in order to prevent a bill from being brought up for a vote.",
"The US Senate has a rule that, in general, allows for unlimited debate on any bill before them, with no rule that the topics discussed be germane (ie, related to the actual content of the bill). Debate on a bill ends either when no one else wants to speak or when 3/5 of the chamber agrees to end debate (a process known as *cloture*). Because of this, a single devoted Senator or group of Senators can continuously speak to prevent the Senate from voting on a bill unless 60 Senators stop them, which effectively means that 60 Senators are required to pass any contentious legislation. In practice, because the Senate has a lot of things to do, the minority party will simply declare that they're going to filibuster a bill and the majority party won't even schedule it for debate if they can't get 60 Senators together to vote for cloture, so the filibustering Senators don't actually have to go through with the talking for hours on end portion."
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5z4v2j | Supreme Court Voting | How do the Justices actually vote on a case? What are the mechanics of the voting? Do they use paper ballots, or an electronic voting system? Or do they simply sit around a table and take an "yeah" or "nay" roll call vote? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"The justices vote on the disposition of cases during their private conferences, when only the justices are present (no law clerks or secretaries or anyone else), so it's theoretically possible that Chief Justice Roberts has changed the procedure. However, historically, the justices go around the table and state both their vote and their reasoning for that vote. The details vary from Chief Justice to Chief Justice, but as I recall most have allowed each justice to have an uninterrupted opportunity to argue their position in turn, and then once everyone has had a chance to say their piece, a free-flowing debate begins. When that debate ends, anyone has an opportunity to change their mind, and then the positions are recorded. Note that the votes aren't final until the opinions are released. At any point before that, a justice can send around a memo telling their colleagues that they've changed their mind, which might even result in a different outcome for the case. It's only when the opinion is published that the judgment of the Court is really final."
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5z5dhe | How did the Polynesians have enough food and water to travel such great distances in canoes and why did they do it? | What made them think they'd ever find another island in the Pacific Ocean? It seems like many of them would have died trying. | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Carrying enough food isn't really a problem, especially 2,000 or 3,000 years ago, when there were lots more fish in the sea. I sailed 12,800 km, from Panama to New Caledonia on a 11-meter sloop. We left with 100 liters of fresh water for 4 adults. We caught rain running off the mainsail and put it in the tank. Never was short of water. We towed two fishing lures the entire time. We caught good sized tuna every other day, usually two at the same time. We would catch one or two dorado every 5th day or so. As we emptied the jars of vegetables and other foods, we would refill with fish and a court bouillon, then water-bath can the jars on the boat's stove. We arrived in Noumea with all the jars full of fish, which were given away to the skipper's friends.",
"We do not quite know. It is possible that they were looking for new fishing grounds and were experienced in celestial navigation to get back. It is possible to live quite a long time on a diet consisting of only fish. However this may require you to eat parts of the fish guts. It is possible the Polynesians were aware of this. A similar journey of discovery we do know quite a lot about since it is recorded is when the vikings ventured to Iceland, Greenland and America. The reason behind this was overpopulation in Norway which forced a lot of young people out to find a place to settle. The problem was that everywhere they turned all the land were already settled. So they were forced to plunder or sell themselves as mercenaries. However they did found some uninhabited islands in the North Sea. This caused them to travel further out in search of land and found it. It is possible that the Polynesian discoverers had similar problems home. They may have been forced to look for far away islands as there were nothing for them back home.",
"Two things. One they were very adept watermen who knew how to discern the lay of the land from swell patterns. The [stick charts]( URL_0 ) are one example of knowing how to identify islands from swell patterns as they refract around them and create specific patterns. Of course, this only works within a certain distance. For long journeys, it's been theorized they still had a strategy for searching for islands safely (relatively). They would find a path with a prevailing wind/current back home, wait for some weather pattern to slow or even reverse this, and set out then. If they had to turn back, they could at least rely on the wind/current to eventually kick back in and expedite their journey home.",
"> It seems like many of them would have died trying. Many of them undoubted died trying. In primitive cultures, especially island cultures, there is often more people than the resources can sustain. This leads to conflict, and people were often driven away, especially surplus young men. Many would have died, some would have gotten lucky and discovered new lands, and some would have returned with news of them."
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5z5phu | How did the American Southern accent develop? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"It's more the other way around, and relates to the question \"When did American English break from British English?\". At first American and British English were the same, but then British English developed into what it is today. American English has not changed as much, and is actually closer to British English of 200 years ago. American Southern has been even slower to change (because of the relative isolation of the speakers), and is even closer to British English of that time!"
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5z611e | What's the difference between a Business and a Corporation? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"A corporation is just an organizational structure that someone may choose when starting their business. The corporate structure has advantages and disadvantages; an advantage is limited liability for owners, meaning an owner (stockholders) is only liable for the money they willingly give to a company. The stockholders are not personally liable for any of the corporation's debts. Personal assets are also protected from a legal standpoint, so long as they aren't obtained illegally through the company. A disadvantage of the corporate structure is double taxation. Because a corporation is its own legal entity, it is responsible for paying taxes. A corporation pays income tax, then the owners again pay taxes when corporate income is paid out in the form of dividends.",
"\"A business\" in this context is a general term for some sort of entity that exists to make money/participate in the economy. So you could have a drug dealing business or do freelance edits as a business, or you can be a Fortune 500 conglomerate that makes billions and be called a business. A corporation is a specific type of legal entity that is often/usually used to conduct \"business.\" It's one of a handful of ways to create a separate legal \"person\" that serves as the organizing structure for the business, and insulates the owners and workers from things like debt and liability.",
"In UK legal terms I would describe a business as a set of activities that a person carries on for the purposes of profit. A person can carry on more than one business (I might have a business selling cars and a separate business manufacturing and selling chairs, for example). The \"person\" carrying on a business can be an individual (self-employed) (referred to as a \"natural person\") or a \"legal person\" - in the U.K. a (private (usually owned by relatively few shareholders) or public (usually owned by lots of shareholders and listed on a stock exchange so that anyone can buy or sell shares)) limited company, an unlimited company, or a partnership. Different countries have different forms of companies but the idea is usually very similar. A legal person is (for many but not all purposes) treated the same as a natural person, and it can own assets and owe liabilities in the same way as a natural person. A legal person can sue other legal persons or natural persons to enforce its rights. The shareholders of a company own the company and so, indirectly, the company's assets. One main reason (apart from more favourable tax treatment) for people to operate a business through a company whose shares they own is that their liabilities are limited (hence \"limited\" company) - so usually the most that shareholders can lose if the business fails is the amount they paid for their shares and creditors of the company can't (usually) try to get money out of the shareholders if the company owes it to them. If this weren't so people would be very reluctant to invest in new businesses - because they could lose more than they invest. It also allows multiple people to invest into a business without handing over their money to one individual who could run off with it - there are strict rules about what a company can do with its money and other assets."
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5z6t1h | Why do people identify with ethnic origins of a few hundred years ago, seems arbitrary to stop at those points in time, instead of going all the way back, way back, to the African Savanna? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Folks want to point back to cultural achievements and be identified with them. A lot of what we call advance civilization didnt happen until the species left the continent.",
"Well, I can give you the example of Germany. Before 1871, what we call Germany now was just a very lose collection of duchies, kingdoms, free cities and all sorts of tiny areas with a few big ones. In 1870 it turned out that when all these groups got together under one banner, they were quite formidable. In fact, France was considered to be the greatest land military nation and was beaten surpisingly quickly by the unified German armies. Basically, the \"German identity\" turned out to be immensely useful in combining the disparate peoples living in the area who had previously all their own very strong identity, such as Bavarian, Ulmian, Prussian and so on. I guess one could call it a \"national spirit\" which is immensely useful for a country to have since you can get everyone pulling in the same direction. As such, Nations tended to stoke these ideas as it could be a huge asset."
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5z6xf4 | why do some languages have upper and lower case letters. | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Actually the reason is a lot simpler than you might think; Usually languages started out having only upper case letters. That's why on really old professional documents, lower case letters aren't really anywhere to be seen. It was only after scribes discovered that they could write much faster and take up a lot less space if they wrote smaller. So they rounded their letters to make them less spacious and soon the lower case letters were made. Good question!",
"Charlemagne gets at least some of the credit for lower-case letters in the so-called Latin alphabet. Cursive writing had become so sloppy by Charlemagne's time that it was practically unreadable and when monks would copy manuscripts the state of the writing made corruption of texts nearly inevitable. Aside from his military conquests, Charlemagne was all about promoting learning and preserving knowledge, so he actually passed laws mandating reform of the script. The result was a font called Carolingian minuscule that lives on in our lower-case letters."
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5z726n | When cars are towed, how does the owner know that it was towed rather than stolen? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Cop here: A lot of times there will be a sign that tells you what tow company tows from that area. We do still get a lot of calls about stolen cars that end up being towed, though. In my state, tow companies are required to submit every car they tow into a database that's searchable by police. 9 times out of 10 when you call 911 to report your car stolen and give the operator your license plate, they'll be able to tell you where your car was towed to. I've had a handful of cases where a car was towed and didn't get put in the tow file (usually repossessions). In those cases we'll do a report, the car will be entered into NCIC, and then we'll find out later it was towed and just have to close the case. Again, this is my state, I can't speak for states that don't have this system.",
"When your car disappears and you call the cops, they usually have a list if it was towed by the city. Otherwise they will ask you if you are on private property, like a private parking lot, and if you say yes, they will usually tell you to look around for a sign, which will let you know what wrecker company took it. Parking lot owners are required to clearly post this info if they plan on towing cars."
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5z7cx6 | Why do people rush to the grocery store in the masses in preparation for a large snow storm? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Because with a large snow storm you can be trapped indoors for weeks, not just a single day. Now getting perishable things like milk is a little silly, but they may have a large family that goes through multiple gallons of milk a week. They may be buying for multiple families, or they may run a daycare and simply be restocking for a normal week.",
"Because they have to make French toast for the masses! On a serious note, if you are going to be trapped inside for a few days, maybe a week (depending on how far out you live) you want to stock up. And sometimes you are getting essentials for multiple families. The real problem is people don't really no what the essentials are anymore nor how to plan for the possibility of not leaving their home for a few days.",
"> The most you'll be stuck inside is like a day. Um, no. I live in a major city, and I have been stuck at home for as long as three days. I probably could have made it out after two, but it is a whole lot easier just to stock up before the storm hits. And if you don't live in a major city, it can be much worse. My brother lives maybe a half hour away, but up in the mountains, and he has been stuck for as long as a week.",
"People sometimes do go overboard, and way overboard pretty frequently. However, large snow storms---like Hurricanes and other major disasters---can at times disrupt not just your personal power supply, but also the distribution of goods on a wider scale. To the extent you are potentially facing a significant storm, having extra supplies can get you past a period where, say, shipping is slowed and the local grocery store loses power for a few days and needs to restock.",
"If Hurricane Sandy is any indication, people can be out of power/water for days/weeks. But what is ridiculous are people who buy a bunch of frozen foods/perishables where lack of power is going to be the biggest issue."
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5z841w | When electing a new Pope, how do the Papabile get determined? | The papabile are the "favored" candidates who are seen as the most likely choices for being chosen. How is it usually determined though? Do they all share similar characteristics? Also, and kind of a side point, but some people were elected Pope without being among this group, most recently John Paul II. Why would someone not in this group all of a sudden get elected? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"There isn't an official list or anything, the papabili are just the people commenters think are likely to be elected pope. It's like saying who the likely Heisman trophy contenders are before the season begins or who the front runners are in a US election before primary season has even begun. The cardinals are going to pick whoever they think is the best choice, and commenters are just trying to guess who they might pick."
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5z86gg | Why is Jazz not as popular now as it used to be in the early/mid 20th century? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Actually jazz is very popular still. Just not mainstream because music business needs newness to sell and make money.",
"Elements of jazz live on in modern musical genres. The largest element of jazz music has always been improvisation. Improvisation existed before jazz - for example, most of the great classical composers like Mozart and Beethoven were incredible at improvising, but they improvised by themselves. Jazz took it to a whole new level by getting a whole band to improvise together in a way that was spontaneous and flexible, while just structured enough to keep everyone in sync. On top of that, most of the improvisation was on top of up-tempo, danceable music, and the combination was phenomenal. That said, hard-core jazz was never really mainstream. During the 40's, swing was popular, but it was kind of a watered-down genre that played simple, repetitive, dance music - occasionally with uninspired or insipid lyrics, with just a little bit of improvisation on top. And that was by far the most popular and mainstream of other jazz genres. (The most serious jazz, like be-bop, was never mainstream.) Improvisation is still alive and well today. You'll find great improvisation in country, bluegrass, ska, salsa, and rock, among other genres. You'll find great musicians across all musical genres who love jazz and who are heavily influenced by jazz. You'll also find plenty of excellent new jazz music being played and recorded. Thanks to the Internet, it's never been easier to find and discover thousands of great jazz artists - everything from small piano trios to full big bands, and also lots of new ensembles that fuse traditional jazz with modern genres of music. High-school and college big bands are thriving. A lot of jazz instruments are found in modern bands like Moon Hooch, or in riffs in Hip-Hop songs."
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5z8obs | What is the Louisiana Cajun accent | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Cajun Vernacular English is the dialect of English spoken by Cajuns living in southern Louisiana and, to some extent, in eastern Texas. Cajun English is significantly influenced by Cajun French, the historical language of the Cajun people, who descended from Acadian settlers and others. It is derived from Acadian French and is on the List of dialects of the English language for North America. This differed markedly from Metropolitan or Parisian French in terms of pronunciation and vocabulary, particularly because of the long isolation of Acadians, and even more so of Cajuns, from the Francophone world. English is now spoken by the vast majority of the Cajun population, but French influence remains strong in terms of inflection and vocabulary. Their accent is quite distinct from the General American. Cajun French is considered by many to be an endangered language, mostly used by elderly generations. But Cajun English is spoken by even the youngest Cajuns, and is considered to be part of the identity of the ethnic group."
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5z94dt | what actually IS "kosher", and why is it still relevant, at all? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Kashrut is a set of rules in Jewish theology regulating the content, storage, handling, preparation, and consumption of food. It's \"relevant\" if you're a particularly observant Jew or wish to sell food to those who are.",
"It's a way of preparing food in order to minimize risks associated with said food. For instance, the no shellfish or pork thing comes from those animals being considered unclean, do to how they live and eat. (Shellfish are bottom feeders for instance) The reason behind rules such as no meat and dairy in the same meal, is so you don't have a double exposure\" to a disease that may be in the livestock those things come from. Really, nowadays, it's just tradition.",
"It originated as a way to avoid food poisoning or disease, they were very strict rules about what you could ans couldn't eat, for example kosher rules stop you from eating pork, as pork is well known for leading to really really bad food poisoning if undercooked at all. Other rules involve processes for cleanliness and what foods can be prepared together (things like don't cut raw meat on the same chopping board you use to prepare salad). While some of the more stringent rules are no longer necessary (we know how to prepare pork safely now) the general concept remains relevant. People continue to follow it mostly out of tradition nowadays however as some parts really aren't necessary anymore."
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5z9beo | Why is Mussolini taken a lot less seriously in Italy than Hitler is in Germany? | Just finished watching a documentary on Mussolini during WWII in class, and in the end it mentioned how Mussolini's tomb is on public display in Italy, and it has become a tourist attraction with a museum nearby. It also showed gift shops and street vendors nonchalantly selling Mussolini keychains, shirts, mugs, etc. He was treated as a kind of laughing matter, with people standing on rocks and exclaiming "Il Duce! Il Duce!" This seems so different from Hitler, which I've heard is like mentioning Vold*mort in Germany. Obviously Hitler was worse, but the contrast is stunning. | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Mussolini didn't start a genocide that killed millions of people, and didn't start the worst war in history. Additionally, in the last few years of Mussolini's life he came to be seen by a large portion of his own country as a ridiculous failure and became widely mocked and disobeyed; he was removed from power against his will, driven to exile, and when he was killed by his own countrymen, his corpse was put on display so the locals could stone it for fun. After the war, there were millions of people who still felt a deep loyalty to Hitler and his ideals and felt he was killed unfairly by foreigners before he could finish making Germany a brilliant superpower and complete his mission. So there was a very serious attempt to educate people about the Holocaust and fanaticism and prevent a resurgence of neo-Nazism, and he's obviously a massive serious and dark mark on German politics and history. In comparison, Mussolini became a failure and a disgrace in his own lifetime and was widely mocked and despised at the time of his death, so there were far fewer people looking to immortalise him, revive his ideas, repeat the experience, etc. Of course, there were still some. Still many, still are, lots of fascists still around. But because he was pretty undeniably a failure to a majority of people and because he didn't do things as nightmarish as Hitler, it's just not treated the same way. Of course, he was still an absolute scumbag who created a police state, cult of personality, crushed the media, fostered racist and ultranationalist ideas, etc etc and should absolutely be reviled, we should all love to lob a few rocks at his body if it were still up. Just not as reviled as Hitler, which you could say about literally everyone else who ever lived, since Hitler's a good candidate for the worst human being in history in terms of what he directly did.",
"I mean, the Italian Fascist party was never anywhere close to as repressive and, well, insane, as the nazis. Additionally, the occupation of Italy was way less thorough than the process Germany endured after the war, when considerable effort went into rooting out and discrediting basically anyone with ties to the nazis. Additionally, Italy was, well, never really that much of a threat in WWII and wasn't the primary aggressor or instigator of the conflict.",
"While there was anti-semitism in Second World War Italy, it remained essentially uninvolved in the Holocaust and indeed on several occasions outright refused to co-operate with Germany in 'rounding up' Jews. While Mussolini allied with Hitler he did not share all of Hitler's views."
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5z9lk7 | When Kings gave speeches to their armies (like in the movies), how was everyone in the army able to hear/get motivated by them? | Were there men stationed every 10 yards with the task of repeating what the king said or what? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Ancient armies were just not very large by modern standards. Henry V at Agincourt (who has [arguably the greatest pre-battle speech in literary history]( URL_0 ) ) commanded only about 6000-9000 men. You could fit that many people in a large auditorium. So pretty much - the king spoke loudly and everyone could hear him."
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5z9wrh | why are there no comedy categories at the Oscars | I've read some of the threads of why dramas usually win more than comedies (even nominated more),but why are no categories for comedies? the Emmys have comedic categories so why not the Oscars? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Each awards show has their own thing. You're probably aware of the Oscars and the Emmy, but there are like a hundred others with their own style and categories. However you're not alone in your thinking. Not having a separate comedy category has been a regular criticism of the Oscars. They tried to assuage this a bit (and add some flair and promo to the show) by upping the best picture category from 5 films to up to 10, hopefully to allow more diverse films outside of dramas (such as animated, comedy's, and sci-fi films), but this is still pretty new. They changed the voting on it a bit too, but its unknown if this had any effect on the eventual winners. In other words... this particular award show does its own thing, just like the others, and this does not seem like something they are particularly interested in.",
"Because the Oscars itself are a joke. ... baboomboom chich Need to fill a few more lines to make this a long enough answer.. And one more sentence ahould do it...."
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5zaqhb | Why do airline pilots have to go through security screening at airports? | I mean, they're flying the damn planes. Clearly they have been vetted enough to be entrusted with that responsibility. What is accomplished by forcing them to go through the same public humiliation as the rest of us? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Airline pilots go through security screening because * flights may be international and the regulations with respect to allowable carry-ons differ from country to country. What might be fine on one national flight might not be fine on another. * Pilots need to prove they're pilots. * It's trivial for them. They fly all the time so they KNOW what's problematic and what's not, so they pack accordinly. It's a very minor delay for them, at least in the airports I see them get checked in at. * Someone could raise a challenge to the system if they weren't. \"I got held up by a security check but the flight crew didn't! That's unconstitutional! I'm gonna sue!\". Yes, that's a ridiculous argument, but reducing idiots that pursue it reduces potential legal costs and time wasted in defending against them. * In almost all service industries, companies don't want to be seen treating their staff better than they treat their customers. Many flying clients are nervous, and smart airlines want to give them every chance to see that the pilots of their planes are humans too and have to go through some of the same process that they have to go through, including some aspect of security checks. It's just smart business that increases your trust in the person delivering your service.",
"Well you can't be certain that the pilot hasn't considered smuggling drugs with him/her? Not to mention, peoples views change all the time, maybe something happened that specific day and they weren't feeling all too happy. Better safe than to be falling out of the sky at 33,000ft."
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5zchns | Why is it called "going commando" when you don't wear pants under your trousers? | I wondered if there was some cool historical anecdote related to this. | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"It comes from the British Commando which were a WWII special unit that were supposed to go deep behind enemy lines to attack them where they were most vulnerable. This meant that they would often carry very light gear to be fast and travel far. Any unnecessary equipment were left behind and required equipment were even modified to become lighter. And when life and death were dependent on how little you carried then some pieces of clothing were unnecessary.",
"The history was in an earlier response, but the real reason soldiers don't wear underwear is simple. Chaffing. Lots of chaffing. In the desert sand/dirt/dust gets in the bands mixed with sweat and it's not a fun time. To this day I still don't own a single pair and I've been out for years."
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5zcod1 | When the military lifts bans on a group from joining, why does it seem to throw them all together in one regiment instead of having a few integrated into other regiments normally? | I constantly learn about all black, all women, etc. regiments accomplishing great things thanks to history-savvy redditors but I've never really understood this. Why did the military clump them up into one group rather than divvy them up normally? Edit: Solved | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Prior to WW1 the military was organized by where you were from. You were in a platoon with people from your village. You were in a company with people from the surrounding villages. You were in a battalion with people from your county. You were in a regiment with people from your State. The purpose of this was if you were a coward on the battlefield, everyone back home would find out about it. Given how segregated the US was/is, this would naturally increase the likelihood of being in a segregated unit. On top of that, the US had a racial segregation policy in the military until the Korean War.",
"because that is the way segregation was everywhere. It wasn't an immediate integration, but a slow process over time. It's the same reason there were different bathrooms and water fountains."
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5zcpd1 | Whats the difference between a band, orchestra, and symphony? | I hear people throw around these three terms all the time. But is there any difference between them? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Well a symphony is actually an extended piece of music written to be performed. An orchestra is a large ensemble of musicians playing a variety of instruments (woodwinds, horns, drums, strings, etc). Orchestras perform symphonies (hence the term Symphony-Orchestras). So when people say they are going to see a symphony they really mean they are going to see an orchestra that is performing a symphony. A band is any group of musicians playing a certain type of music. So an orchestra could be considered an example of a specific type of band."
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5zd9m8 | How do fraternities work? | I obviously don't live in the US or any other country that homes fraternity-like organizations, so i don't really understand what they are about. I did some research, but i just ended with much more questions, so i thought i would ask here for some enlightenment. What are fraternities about? how do you enter one? what do you do inside of them? do you pay expenses or is something that you earn with food and beds and stuff? are they endorsed by the university? are they located inside the university? how many people do they house? etc. I'm sorry to be asking so much in one post, but the doubts hit me pretty hard, and thank you! in advance | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Ok so first of all every fraternity is different. Even ones with the same letters but at different schools can be completely different, so keep that in mind through out this. I'll use the example of a fake fraternity XXX (or chi chi chi) Basic structure: A fraternity is a national organization with local chapters. These chapters are usually 'endorsed' by a college/university. The school allows the fraternity to set up a local presence, the rules for this vary widely from school to school. Each of these chapters will be called by the national fraternity name XXX, most of which have a sanctioned nickname in this case tri-chi. however they also have a chapter name (also greek letters) so this is XXX, alpha alpha chapter. How do you join? Well this can vary from school to school, but the whole process is called 'rush'. You might hear \"rush week\", that's a week when most people will try to join a fraternity, the word is also a verb (\"I'm rushing XXX fraternity\"). Basically this is just getting to know you and each house will be different. Some places with throw huge parties to get to know you or other events. The goal is to meet everyone in the house and hope they like you. Each house has some sort of voting procedure to get you in the house. if they like you they will extend a 'bid' basically them asking if you'd like to join, you could get several bids from different houses (another term for a fraternity) if everyone likes you. You picked a house! Now what? Well most of the time you'll go through a process of pledge ship. This is a process that takes around a semester to complete and is very different for each national fraternity. However every XXX house will have a very similar process across the country, which is kinda neat. At this point you aren't privy to any secrets of the fraternity for the most part. You might get a few bits and pieces but it's really a second vetting period to make sure you fully understand what the fraternity is about. You made it through pledgeship! Now you go through initiation. which is a ritual to fully accept you in the house. After this you are usually a full fledged member. You can live in the house now, you have all the rights of other brothers etc. Your other questions: What do you do? well it's a collective of men going to university together that have some shared idea that is verbalized through fraternity rituals. Like a cooler version of a very involved church goer. Expenses: yes you pay, even if you live somewhere other than the house. All fraternities will have a national dues since they put on educational seminars and have to pay for certain things for all local chapters. Some fraternities have an actual house that people live in. You'll probably pay rent for this and some will also provide a cook which you'd pay for as well. Are they inside the university? Not usually, most have a physical house that's not really 'on campus'. the land may be owed by the university but sometimes it's private land. How many do they house? depends on the size of the house. some do 10, some do 70.",
"Fraternity Alumni here. Here is some basic info: - fraternities are essentially social clubs, many of them founded years ago (mine was founded in 1922, and was formed from a previously founded literary society that was created in 1909). I can't remember when we were founded nationally, but essentially, a national organization exists and then a smaller social group at a university can petition to join the larger organization and \"become a chapter\". - they can be about anything. At my university we had some which were primarily engineers, some were primarily jewish guys, etc. Some are more \"career specific\" and may be part of the school of accounting, or art school. - Dues do exist. Ours were $450/semester. Part goes to the national org (to cover insurance costs for the chapter and its house), some goes to the social budget, some goes to the charity budget, and some goes to cleaning and food supplies. - at my university the houses were off of campus. Depending on the type of university, and city, there may he a \"frat row\" where all the greek houses are on one block, or in a consolidated area. We had a house capable of having 60 guys living in it, and members were required to live-in at least 1 year. - Inside the house, each room rented is furnished by the tenant. Rooms were picked by seniority, and new guys had doubles. There was a house cook, and each room had cable and Internet provided. - joining is done through a rush period. Some houses are run by assholes and believe in hazing. Some do not. Once you join, you have the opportunity to take part in greek events and the huge network available. Some people join to meet people (maybe they are out of state students and dont know anyone); i joined to expand my social circle and break away from the same group of people i saw every day of my life. This is from mobile. I can post more later!",
"A fraternity (or sorority) is basically a social club. They're normally (not always) gender segregated, and they sometimes have a specific racial, cultural, or religious focus. Members pay dues, have the option to live in a communal house, and participate in social events with the rest of the fraternity. College fraternities generally have to be approved by their school and have to follow certain school guidelines - members must maintain certain grades, follow anti-hazing policies, etc. Houses are sometimes part of the school's property or sometimes off campus, depending on the school and organization. But frat life is basically like being in a very active club - they tend to have charity events, social events, occasionally huge parties. Most frats have secret meetings which include ritualistic elements - these are a traditional thing and are usually kept very secret among the full members, with initiates (called pledges) not allowed to fully participate until they have been fully vetted and accepted into the group. Most also have certain mottoes or creeds (sometimes secret, sometimes public) that are meant to guide the members towards common values or common goals. So basically, it's a very active social club that has members across the country. You can be pretty sure that you'll have a lot in common with a fellow member from a school across the country, as you've shared rituals and creeds, even if you don't know each other. Of course, all of this comes with its own controversies - exclusivity, elitism, encouraging poor behavior, covering up members' misdeeds, hazing, nepotism, sexism, etc. are sometimes criticisms of certain frats, or of fraternities as a whole. Like everything else, these are going to vary based on the group and the school, but these are some of the common controversies that they run into."
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5zdkp0 | why was it acceptable and expected for male game show hosts to kiss female contestants on the mouth in the seventies? | The satellite is out at my house and I am watching family feud from the seventies. To me, the host is creepy.. asking questions like "have we kissed yet" to female hosts, while their husbands stand next to them. Was this common or is this host just creepy? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"\"Common\" and \"Creepy\" are not mutually exclusive when looking at media from 50-ish years ago.",
"In the 70's that was considered charming and chivalrous. I bet Richard Dawson is who you are watching. I like family feud with him (way better than that other guy who came later in the 80's, so annoying) but I don't like the kissing and general mild sexual harassment of the female contestants. It was considered normal everywhere in real life, not just on game shows. It was a bit more on Family Feid because it was also a bit of Richard Dawson's trademark as well (if you watch Match Game it's still there, but not as much). This is where you can really see what a difference feminism and standing up for women's equality and rights has made."
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5zdspa | Why are some people surprised that the CIA, being a spy agency, has top of the line spy tools to protect the country? Isn't that what they're supposed to do anyway? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"They're not supposed to be using spy tools to record audio and video of citizens who are not suspected of any criminal activity. That is a misuse of power and technology, and an overreach of authority. It crosses the line into a \"surveillance state.\" We shouldn't be surprised that the police have guns to protect citizens and battering rams to break down criminal's doors. But if every night, the police beat your door down and held you at gun point while they searched your house, despite you not being suspected of criminal activity, that would be a misuse of their power and technology. It would be an overreach of their authority. It would cross the line into a \"police state.\" Here's a list of some of the things uncovered in Vault 7: - CIA had spyware more powerful than the NSA that it kept secret from all forms of checks and balances. This is problematic, because without lawful balance, this sort of power over citizens can lead to tyranny. - CIA produced malware to gather all information from iPhones and Androids technology, and record & store data from the microphones and cameras even when the user was not using those functions. They then *lost control* of this technology, putting it in the hands of governments worldwide. - CIA worked directly with major tech companies, including Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Amazon, Skype, Cisco, and more, to get secret backdoors onto their devices and gather your information. Skype even had *every* conversation automatically transcribed and stored in CIA databases. - CIA turns smart TVs, gaming consoles, smart phones, and even appliances into open mics which record data without your permission and give it to the government. - The CIA had tools installed in cars, trucks, planes, and medical devices that could be accessed remotely for covert assassinations against citizens. - The CIA had tools to bypass civilian encryption and things like Tor. - The CIA was deliberately mimicking other countries domains to mask their own hacking as foreign attacks. Can you really say none of this is surprising? None of this is an over-reach of power or authority of government? Without privacy, we do not have freedom. This country was founded on freedom.",
"You do have the same discussion about the NSA leaks that you now have with the CIA leaks. However the mainstream discussions were on the bigger legal question rather then the moral one. And sometimes arguments were used in both discussions. The big moral issue here is that when you discover a fault you can do one of two things. You can either tell the manufacturer and have them fix it before you tell the entire world about it. Or you could use the fault for your own gain. The problem about the second option is that if you found a fault then others might also find the fault. So when the CIA have found a way to turn on the web camera without the light turning on then Russia or China could also find the same fault and use it against American officials. So the CIA have to weigh the offensive potential of this versus the defensive benefits. This discussion were more relevant with the NSA since they are tasked with keeping Americans safe from these things and are working close with manufacturers and even develop code and standards which is supposed to make the devices we work with safe from enemy agencies. After the Snowden leaks a lot of NSA developed material got black flagged and people refuse to use it in fear that there is a hidden trap in there."
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5zeikb | What would happen to the economy if the USA cut defense spending by 50%. | The USA spends the most out of any country. It spends more than the next 7 countries combined. Per capita/GDP we don't spend the most out of any countries. URL_1 Would economic collapse be inevitable if we cut our defense spending drastically? Out of all the political crap that's going on this always was the hardest for me to stomach. Such a huge chunk spend on defense that could be going to such better programs. URL_0 | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"I'm not going to debate the necessity of our large defense spending, but if the next budget that got approved had a 50% cut to defense spending a lot would depend on how we wanted to downsize. You would likely see massive unemployment in the D.C. area and smaller bases throughout the country would shutter their doors absolutely ruining the local economies built around those bases. At the end of the day cutting what amounts to hundreds of billions of dollars from the budget, especially when the vast majority of that money is spent here at home would have massive ramifications and ripple effects throughout the entirety of the country.",
"The Military budget is a small part of the economy. In that way the impact would be small. However, there are side effects of a superpower's military. Freedom of navigation in international waters is only a thing because the US Navy says it is a thing. Without the US Navy, we'd be in pirates of the caribbean maritime world. That would impact the super low cost of maritime transport, which would upset a lot of markets. It also depends on \"US cuts 50%\" vs \"Everybody cuts 50%\". If the world shifted to China or Russian superpower political concepts, that would also upset a lot of markets."
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5zf1k3 | Why is the stereotypical political demographic of internet gaming culture far-right? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"First, the vast majority of gamers are male which automatically skews more conservative on a political spectrum. Second, gaming, lends its hand to a more analytical mind rather than an emotional one; traits often more prevalent on the conservative side of things. Third, pessimism, gamers are notoriously pessimistic when it comes to believing in their fellow man/woman and therefore politically align themselves with more conservative ideologies (an ideology that lowers dependency on government, this is also why you will find a rather large libertarian following online that does not translate to the broader public) Do note, that I said conservative and not republican or 'right'. Anyways...this is going to turn into a shit show if this post gains any traction",
"If this is a stereotype, it is only a stereotype in very limited social circles. If you've seen this become a stereotype somewhere, it is probably due to Gamergate. Most people, gamer or not, either don't know or don't care about Gamergate.",
"I've literally never experienced any ties between conservative views and the gaming community. But Im also not aware of what happened with jontron. I think any perceived far-right leanings come from trolls on 4-chan and youtube video comments(which I would think means most of those people are 10 years old). Doesn't mean the gaming community as a whole is that way. It would be interesting to see what the political demographics are for IGNs reader base or from r/gaming ."
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5zfo02 | Why do Americans seem to argue much more in favor of big corporations than other nationalities? | Whenever I see someone on Reddit defending big coporations, trickle-down economics, tax cuts on the rich, privatized healthcare or education etc. they're 99 times out of 100 Americans. I really wonder why is that so. I'm a European, from Luxembourg, and no one I know defends big corporations like that. Are Americans raised in a different mindset than us, in that matter? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"I'll put it in the form of analogy. I don't mean this to be some sort of conservative shill session for corporatism- I just want to frame this in slightly different perspective for you: Look at your smartphone (if you aren't already.) A smartphone is a fucking miracle of human technological achievement. Even 20 years ago, the iPhone I'm typing this on would have been science fiction. A smartphone is intuitive, practical, portable, and yet still broadly affordable for all but the most impoverished members of Western society. All smartphones are the products of massive, profit-hungry, extraordinarily wealthy multinational corporations. These corporations certainly aren't incapable of wrongdoing, but the smartphone as we know it could not have come from any other type of entity. \"Small businesses\" could never have developed and commercialized smartphones. No government could come even close. Only a private entity with a massive amount of scale and capital could research, design, market, and sell such a complicated tool. Not coincidentally, the power players of the tech industry who continue to pioneer this technology are overwhelmingly based in the United States. The reason why many people, Americans especially, shy away from demonizing large corporations is because they understand the role that they play. There is no alternative to providing goods and services for the masses. That's not to say they should be unregulated (and they're not), but one has to understand the vital role they play in a consumer economy. They're a bit like the role great white sharks or tigers play in an ecosystem- they can eat us if we're not careful, but overall the system would be unsustainable without them."
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5zg4dz | If alcohol tastes terrible, why do people drink it? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"I think you start drinking it for the effect and then start to enjoy it after a while. It's like coffee as a kid I thought it was gross and then started liking it as I got older and like the affect.. maybe it's the same. It definitely doesn't taste great but it kind of tastes like relaxation and good times 👍🏽",
"To get rickety wrecked! No, there are various reasons why someone might drink alcohol despite it's taste. Addiction is one that I can think of. Peer pressure to look cool might be another reason. Maybe a person just hasn't found the one that they enjoy yet (I'm very particular about what bier I will drink, and that's not many). Another reason that just came to mind would be paring it with a particular food. Maybe it changes the flavor all together. Again, I don't drink that often, if at all anymore, but from what I remember, the points I stated seem to answer the question in my mind."
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5zgmyj | How does British royalty work? | What's the actual definitions and duties of different members of the royal family and such? Like, what makes Elizabeth II a queen but Philip is "only" a prince, not a king even though they are married, and what are dukes and duchesses, etc? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Duties vary, but a lot of it is essentially diplomacy and politics. Although by convention not stating political views publicly, the Queen is kept up to date with government developments and meets the Prime Minister every week. She meets various people, and she may travel to officially open things. You might remember seeing her at the Olympic Games after her stunt double jumped out of a helicopter, that's a very high profile example but there's a lot of similar but more mundane and local stuff. Typically the monarch is male, titled King, and his wife is titled Queen. When the monarch is female, which is rare, she is also titled Queen and to avoid confusion and make it clear who's actually in charge her husband is titled Prince. Other princes and princesses, such as William and Harry, are descendants of the royal family or partners of such. 'Royal Dukes' (and Duchesses) are traditional titles assigned to certain members of the royal family based on their position. For example the Duke of York is usually the second son of the monarch. Such titles can be created or can lapse when nobody holds them. Other dukes are inherited titles, passed from father to son in the aristocracy over generations."
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5zhydw | Why do humans clap to show appreciation? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Historians actually don't know. It was already traditional in the Roman Empire, though. The act of clapping is instinctive even to babies, so it didn't have to be invented. The Romans used it as a practical way for a large crowd of people to all indicate how they felt. URL_0",
"VSauce did an interesting video about this about three years ago. If you're interested, you should check it out! URL_0",
"The Romans had a set rituals at public performances to express degrees of approval: snapping the finger and thumb, clapping with the flat or hollow palm, and waving the flap of the toga. Emperor Aurelian substituted the waving of napkins that he had distributed to the Roman people for the toga flapping. In Roman theatre at the close of the play, the chief actor called out \"Valete et plaudite!\", and the audience, guided by an unofficial choregus, chanted their approval antiphonally. This was often organized and paid for. Similarly, a claque (French for \"clapping\") was an organized body of professional applauders in French theatres and opera houses who were paid by the performers to create the illusion of an increased level of approval by the audience."
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5ziu0d | Why is abortion, contraception and sex ed. such hot topics in the US? | Is it really about religion? Is it about white men choosing for the poor (black) and females do with their body? In Freakonomics Steven Levitt argues Roe v Wade was the primary cause for the drop in crime in the '90ties. | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"In part because of religious reasons and in part because of a true misunderstanding of what is being discussed. When you hear your whole life that certain things are bad, and a list of reasons why, it becomes difficult to shake that bias. Many politicians embrace the false information that they learned, and use that to make decisions. Though I will admit that there is a sense of entitlement to other people's bodies, especially those with vaginas, on behalf of the largely male politicians. They feel that they are entitled to make decisions for other people, and don't want to let anything get in the way of that."
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5zj57y | Why is beer most commonly sold in six packs? | Why are most beer types from most beer companies sold in six packs? Is it because a six pack is just the most effective way to carry a set amount of beers? Why not four beers or eight beers? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"While the origin is still argued today, there seem to be two main factors: 1. It's an easy size to carry, and even fits into a grocery bag. 2. It's exactly half of a dozen, which has long been a traditional size of crates (4 by 3 items). URL_0"
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5zjsvc | [Culture] Why is 666 the number of the Beast? | I can't find an answer better than it's in the book of revelation chapter 13. Why pick 666 not, 17 or 104? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"The Revelation is actually written in a kind of code. This is most likely because it was written at a time when Christians had been persecuted by the Romans, and so the whole book is a kind of political propaganda that uses a lot of metaphor, especially religious metaphor, so that the Roman authorities would just think it to be the insane, but harmless, scribblings of a religious nut. It tells Christians to be prepared, because the time would come when the Roman Empire would be destroyed and Judaea set free. Most theologians think the book written sometime in the last two decades of the 1st century, when Domitian was Emperor, although he doesn't seem to have violently persecuted either Christians or Jews. Still, it was the long-held desire of Jews at the time to throw off the shackles of Roman occupation (some of Jesus's closest friends may have been, in effect, anti-Roman terrorists). The Revelation is an example of what's called \"apocalyptic literature\", and this genre was very popular at the time. The Beast is thought to represent a previous Emperor, Nero, who had persecuted Christians. In popular mythology, there was a belief that Nero would one day return from the dead. The passage in Revelation suggests the \"number\" of the Beast can be \"calculated\". In those days, letters were used to represent numbers (think of Roman numerals). The Revelation was written in 1st century Koine Greek, the language used in most of the Roman Empire for communication (Latin was really used for government and administration); the reader would need to know to translate the Greek into Hebrew. In Hebrew, the phrase \"Nero Caesar\" can be represented as \"NRWN QSR\" -- vowels were not usually written, although the letter waw (the \"W\") could be used to represent the Latin \"o\". These letters stood for the following numbers in the Hebrew system: N = 50 R = 200 W = 6 N = 50 Q = 100 S = 60 R = 200 Whether this is the original meaning, we can't be sure. But there's a good piece of evidence to support it, because some early versions of The Revelation give the number not as 666, but 616. You might have noticed that there's an extra N in the Hebrew for \"Nero Caesar\" (which comes out as \"Neron Qaisar\"), which was his name and title in Hebrew. But in Latin, it was \"Nero\", not \"Neron\", so if somebody was taking the *Latin* name, then transcribing that into Hebrew and calculating the number from that, they would get 616.",
"There is a theory that 666 is the numeric encoding of Emperor Nero's name, and it gets into the possible hidden meaning of Revelations."
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5zjvbj | Why does the UFC still use PPV? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"text": [
"they still make a shit ton of $ of PPV buys, way more than the extra exposure they would get on free tv. UFC got 8.3 million buys in 2016. multiply that by whatever the cost of the ppv is. that's a lot of cash. the fighters in boxing and ufc fight maybe once or twice a year. whereas basketball and baseball play very frequently so there's no demand to see them. i do think they should lower the cost of ppvs, it would encourage more people to buy them. example, 10 people buying a ppv at $20 is much better than 5 people buying a ppv at $40. same $ but more impressive buy rate."
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5zjxp8 | Who controls the Internet? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"text": [
"The answer's a little complicated! By design, the internet has no \"head\" location and is a distributed network. Previously, the US government had formal control of the domain name system (ensuring URL_0 goes to where we want it) but has ceded that control to ICANN, a private nonprofit organization with representatives from 111 nations. But there's a difference between \"formal ownership\" and \"actually has control of the gizmos and hardware and could potentially throw a wrench in the system if they wanted to.\" In this regard, no one corporation has *total* control but a lot have plenty. ISPs are probably the most familiar to you, but backbone and cloud providers also have enormous power. ISPs network of smaller lines eventually connect at one point to a \"backbone\" line, these fat pipes of data cross mountains, borders and sea floors and the companies who own them have the power to partially cork a continent's internet access if they really wanted to. Cloud providers also have a lot of power these days too. Systems like Amazon's AWS, Google Cloud and Microsoft Azure are buildings containing hundreds of thousands of servers, creating massive pool of computing power and storage that can be freely chunked up as needed for whoever needs it. And hundreds of thousands of companies, governments and individuals are their customers, meaning those few companies are sitting on a LOT of valuable personal info. So in the end there's no one \"owner,\" but hopefully this sheds a little light on who can do what."
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5zkayt | Why is heaven most commonly referred to as being up above the earth while Hell is most commonly referred to as being down below the earth or in the ground? When did this tradition come about? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"It's really old. The ancient Egyptians had this notion, 5000 years ago. The Jews, and then the Christians, and then Dante colorized them as we think about them today, but the idea goes way back.",
"There is a certain logic to the heavens being above us. The Greeks reasoned that the heavens were very different from the Earth, being ordered and not subject to decay. It was thought that the heavens were composed of an entirely different type of matter (aether) than the four elements that made up the Earth. Astronomical observations eventually disproved this view, Newton showed that the law of gravity explained the orbits of the planets and other solar system bodies, and spectroscopy proved that stars were composed of the same elements as found on Earth. Also, that our Universe is in a constant state of change and evolution, but on its own rather than a human timescale.",
"Many early religions and the basis of modern religion appears to be based upon worship of the sun. The sun of course is in the sky and appears to go away \"into the ground\" as the sun sets. Celebrations centering around the solstices or lunar cycles highlight this relationship to celestial bodies."
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5zknif | What is a Pop Up Bar? | What are these types of bars and how to they make money if they only are supposed to exist for short periods? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"text": [
"There is no real definition of a pop up bar/restaurant, other than that they typically exist for a very short period of time and often occupy a space that is not meant to be a restaurant or bar. The ideas is that since they are limited duration, they are very trendy and people flock to go while they have the opportunity to do so. The owners can charge higher prices and have full bookings because there are so many people that want to experience it while they can.",
"Pop-ups typically use other space's existing infrastructure, and often that space may be donated as part of a collaboration, ie. an art gallery hosts a pop-up bar during the run of a show. There maybe licensing to get, particularly for alcohol service, but they might be able to use a catering license, etc. or and may twist the terminology (ie. suggested donation vs. firm cost for cocktail, or free cocktails but there's a cover for the art show and some is shared with the pop-up) to avoid getting a permit (and take their chances w/ the law). Also, they're often not looking to maximize profits, but instead to experiment and make a name... so the pop-up bar tender might working on concepts for a physical bar they plan to open but want to test out the drink ideas, promote his upcoming project."
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5zm0cd | The Ides of March | What was it? How was it observed? Were there "Ides" of other months? Is it still considered to fall on March 15 even though we use the Gregorian calendar? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
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"text": [
"Ides are the halfway mark of each of the months. The Ides of March is famous because it was on March 15th that Julius Caesar was assassinated. The term \"ides\" was made further famous by William Shakespeare because in his play, \"Julius Caesar\", the title character is warned by a soothsayer to \"Beware the Ides of March\", which is dramatic foreshadowing of Caesar's death. URL_0",
"The Ides were the middle of any month, on the Roman Calendar. It was supposed to concur with the Full Moon of each month. On the Roman Calendar, March (called Martius) was actually the first month, so the Ides of March was the first Full Moon of the new year. All Ides were sacred to Jupiter, the Roman supreme deity, but the Ides of March in particular involved celebration and tradition to welcome in the new year, celebrating the deity Anna Perenna. The notoriety of the Ides or March was changed when Julius Caesar was assassinated on that day. Interestingly enough, Julius' Julian calendar changed the first month of the year, altering the Ides of March's original significance."
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5znnau | Why is depression such a pervasive theme throughout reddit? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
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"text": [
"Reddit is a fairly liberal place that likes to focus on fighting for marginalized causes. Depression and mental health are largely ignored in general society and affect a huge number of people, so naturally Reddit wants to talk about it. Also, since Reddit is an anonymous community, it is much easier to talk about our problems when we are anonymous than in person.",
"Because a lot of people suffer from depression and better to make a joke of it than wallow in it. I think Reddit has almost helped me with my depression because I don't take it as seriously anymore."
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5zo7t2 | How many sentences can we form in the English language? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"text": [
"You can use the same word more than once. There are actually an infinite number of possible sentences. For example, you could say \"My favorite number is one\", \"My favorite number is two\", etc. There's an infinite amount of numbers, so you can build an infinite number of sentences by following that format."
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5zo7yo | How do dollar stores work? | I sometimes see name brand stuff in the dollar stores and they aren't expired or near the expiration date so how can dollar stores get away with selling things for so cheap whereas other store sell them much higher? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"text": [
"Usually dollar stores will sell smaller sizes of that item, i.e. 1.5oz of deodorant vs 3oz, which is the 'regular' size. But you wouldn't notice that because you see the '$1' sign, whereas you might be paying around $2 anyways, or even less, on the 3oz deodorant. Other reasons could be that the items are second-grade, meaning that they have been deemed not to sell as well in grocery/department stores in that condition. The items are still perfectly usable, but their packaging may have suffered. Or possibly the dollar store companies will take a hit on their profits in order to maximize revenue/market share.",
"The same way that all stores work. They sell the product for more than they spend on it. Several things happen with dollar stores: 1) They are often networked with other chains and take surplus supply of various things. This lets them buy the product extremely cheaply. 2) They often carry knockoff versions of things. Those things that are name brand tend to be things already in their price range. 3) They will often set a smaller markup than other stores. They often do this by reducing overhead by having smaller stores, and only one or two employees on duty at any given point in time.",
"There are dollar store variants of some name brand items, for one. For two, some mass market manufacturers can sell their products that cheaply and still turn a profit. They might make more profit per unit selling to higher end retailers, but profit is still profit, so they'll sell to lower end retailers at a smaller profit to expand their market. Say you make dish soap. The shopper in the upscale store is willing to pay $4 for the soap, so that's what you sell it for. If you priced the soap at $1 in the upscale store, the upscale buyer would assume it's junk. Example: Whole Foods. You're really good at selling your soap at Whole Foods. But you've run out of buyers. There are only so many upscale buyers. Whole Foods customers have all the dish soap they need for now. How can you expand your market? At the \"regular\" grocery store, you price it at $2, maybe with different branding than the upscale store. Same crap in the bottle, but the Whole Foods label has a picture of nature and claims to be natural, while the regular store version has a picture of lemons or whatever. Cool, now you're making money from two different markets. So now you rebrand again and sell to Trader Joes and they sell it for $1.80. Same crap in the bottle, but now it has the Trader Joes logo, and that gives Trader Joes shoppers a nice chub. I mean, it must be better right? Cause we all know Trader Joes is *so cheap* but everything they sell is *so great*, right? At the dollar store, still the same crap in the bottle, but maybe the bottle is a bit smaller, or the soap is a little watered down. Now the extremely value-oriented buyer thinks \"Hey, I'm getting a deal! Name brand for only a dollar!\" Let's say a single bottle costs you 80 cents to make. Obviously, your biggest margin is selling to Whole Foods, but there's still profit to be made at the dollar store level, and at all points in between.",
"They usually aren't the same. There was a recent article talking about how \"outlet\" stores are selling goods with cheaper materials and construction methods. Like Nike shoes for instance. They all say Nike but the outlet store ones never get sold in department stores for the full price. Same with dollar stores, the name brand manufacturer will purposely make a version with either a smaller package size or cheaper ingredients, just for sale at the dollar store. Or maybe one version is made in USA and the other in China. There are lots of tricks they can use."
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5zozn3 | Why do humans express ourselves creatively? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"text": [
"**TL;DR**: *We have intelligence and spare time and a desire to accomplish something and to leave something behind or give something to other people. Being creative uses the first to fill the second and fulfill those desires.* In terms of flair, this isn't so much about culture as it is biology. The first reason is that we're a thinking animal that isn't driven solely by instinct. We have thought processes that very very routinely move us out of the realms of \"automatically do X when the environment is like Y\", which cause a caterpillar to munch when placed on a leaf or a deer to run when it hears a loud noise. Then there's our lifespan and living standards. We do not sleep or have to search for food and shelter and comfort and mating every single second of every single day. We have \"down time\" and the intelligence to both use that \"down time\", and want to use that \"down time\" somehow or we'll get bored. Finally that intelligence causes many of us to seek creative satisfaction, and to serve some purpose. We want something called 'fulfillment' out of life. It can be a public form of fulfillment for some where they're recognized by others for what they do, a feeling of pride for having helped others feel better by doing an excellent stand-up comedy or rap song or dance routine that spreads joy, or an entirely internal drive which causes someone to feel very satisfied when they have accomplished something creative like completing a work of sculpture. All three things - time, ability enabled by intelligence, and the need for some form of personal fulfillment, lead to creative expression. And the level varies greatly from person to person, dictating how central that need is to the way they live their life."
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5zp4or | What makes a name sound like a female name or a male name? | Why do the names 'Emily' and 'Olivia' sound like female names with 'Noah' and 'Mason' sounding like male names? What about names like 'Alexander' and 'Alexandria? Why is the former a male name and the latter a female name? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"It's a cultural thing. In the West female names usually end in vowels or vowel-sounds, such as in your examples. Male names usually end in consonants. There are of course exceptions, but it's often because of a name being old or foreign, like Noah which is a very old name. Other cultures have different systems for naming boys and girls, or they don't have a gender differential for naming.",
"Female names sound female because the people you know with them are female. Ditto with male names. Consider these two ideas: First, if I made up a completely new name, not based on any current name in any language, would you be able to tell if it was a male name or a female name? Is Mork a male name? It's a made up name, but if you know the character played by Robin Williams, you might have thought male. Or maybe you thought it was male because it sounds like 'Mark', a male name. Every perception we have is colored by our experiences. Second, think about names that have shifted along the gender spectrum. Names like Kelly and Casey seem like female names, but they used to be male names. Again, these are our experiences coloring our perceptions. tldr; Female names are names of females, vice versa"
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5zq7ys | How did countries establish whether they would drive on the left or right side of the road? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
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"text": [
"Archaeological evidence suggests that the ancient Romans may have driven their carts and chariots on the left, and the practice seems to have carried over into parts of medieval Europe. The reasons for this are not entirely certain, but some believe it arose as a matter of safety. The majority of people are right handed, one theory goes, so driving or riding on the left would have allowed them to wield a weapon with their dominant hand if they crossed paths with an enemy. In the United States, meanwhile, many researchers trace the beginning of right-hand traffic to the 18th century and the rise of freight wagons pulled by large teams of horses. Since these vehicles often didn’t have a driver’s seat, drivers tended to ride on the left rear horse to more easily control their animal team with their right hand. As the wagons became more popular, traffic naturally moved to the right so drivers could sit closer to the center of the road and avoid collisions with one another. History. com",
"I believe it goes back to when people fought with swords. Imagine you have a sword, you want to face your opponent. But now imagine both of you are mounted the fighting techniques isn't static but dynamic. You or rather your horse will gallop to your opponent and so will he. Now which side will go? You don't want to gallop straight to him but you want to go near enough so you can strike him with your sword. Being mostly right-handed, mounted soldiers would ride on the left side. I believe French General and Emperor Napoleon broke this ancient implicitly agreed-upon rule. He would have his horsemen trained to ride on the right and while still being right-handed, have them strike the enemy being on their left side. That technique happened to be very successful like at Austerlitz. Eventually Napoleon spread this habit and forced civilian horsemen to ride on the right side. When first cars appeared there was little hesitation. People in cities where already \"driving\" on the right so auto makers built cars with driver sitting on the right side of the cars. But if the driver drives on the right side of the road and sits on the right side of the car, it become difficult to evaluate the distance separating you from the car passing you on the left. For safety reasons, auto makers switched and placed the steering wheel on the left side of the cars. Which also had the convenient advantage of placing the hand break in the middle of the car, making it easier for (mostly) right-handed drivers. You might have noticed how countries that drive on the left (UK, Japan, Malasia) have cars where the steering wheel is on the right, for safety reasons. TLDR; Napoleon forced European nations to horseback ride on the right. When cars happened, there was a period when cars and horsemen coexisted, so cars complied with the existing setting."
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5zqdjj | Why do we use milli, micro, etc. seconds for small units of time but minutes, hours, days, etc. for large. | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"df04dc8"
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"text": [
"because of tradition. the concept of dividing days into smaller parts basically comes from ancient Babylonia. If I'm not mistaken they used a system based on multiples of 12, so a day was divided into 2x12 parts called hours (one group for day, one for night), then those were divided into 60 = 5x12 parts of an hour called minutes, then those again into 5x12 parts called seconds. and that's as small as it got back then. By the time parts of a second really became a thing we used a form of the modern system. But since everyone was already familiar with the concept of days and minutes and the like, we kept that for multiples of seconds (like kiloseconds or so). similar to how the US still use their Imperial system for lots of non-scientific stuff."
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5zrh5x | What are "twin towns/sister cities"? | What do they do? How do they benefit a place? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
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"text": [
"It depends. The idea is that you could set up some infrastructure to more easily facilitate learning between the cities. So for example some city officials want to visit the sister city to see how they do things and maybe they could learn something from it that would benefit them. Having a sister city would make the choice of city obvious and you could have some prior knowledge of the city from previous visits, remote studies over the years and prior contact with the officials in that city. Similarly schools could cooperate on projects that stretch across boundaries. In general it is easier to visit people you know then strangers. However in practice the sister cities is often no more then a nice gesture to each other. You are dependent on the contacts maintaining their partnership and that can be hard in some cases. The benefit of it might also be lost on some people or there might be little benefit to it at all in some situations."
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5zs24a | Is there a cultural explanation for the stereotypical pinching hand motion associated with Italians? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"df0l1ai"
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"text": [
"Italian is a language that has gestures as well as spoken words. (Sign-language is a famous gesture language.) For example, depending on what you do with your hands, arms or facial expression, saying the word \"drink\" can mean several things, such as \"wine\", \"beer\", \"champagne\", \"water\", \"milk\" and so on. Probably the most famous of this aspect of the Italian language is the phrase that means \"what are you doing\". Depending on the hand gesture, this can mean many things, anywhere between a friendly greeting to a threatening interrogative. This has been shown in a number of movies and TV shows in the last century, and then parodied in other movies and shows. Pop culture then distorted it and carried it the rest of the way through history."
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5ztbjl | How do fictional languages develop? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"That depends: since these fictional languages -- perhaps we should call them \"conlangs\", which is an abbreviation of \"constructed languages\" -- were deliberately created, each has its own history. For example, JRR Tolkein (the writer of *The Hobbit* and the *Lord of the Rings* books) was a professional philologist -- one who studies languages -- and had even already constructed a few of his own, when he discovered Finnish. This inspired him to create the Elvish language, which later inspired him to invent Middle Earth (so the languages came first, and then he wrote stories about the people who spoke those languages). Linguists had by then already discovered most of the important rules about how languages changed and evolved and split into new languages, so Tolkein would invent one language, and then apply those rules in various ways to create other, related languages. And so he came up with a whole family of Elvish languages: Valarin, Quenya, Sindarin, Telerin, and so on. Klingon has a slightly different history. For the first *Star Trek* movie, it was decided that the Klingons should be heard speaking their own language instead of English all the time. James Doohan, the actor who played Scotty, came up with some meaningless gutteral words that sounded like the kind of language an agressive alien warrior race might use and recorded them for the actors to copy -- but they were just random sounds. In the second movie, *The Wrath of Khan*, there was a scene in which the Vulcans Spock and Saavik have a short conversation. Originally they spoke English, but somebody suggested they should speak their own language in that scene. A linguist called Marc Okrand was given the job of taking that scene, and rewriting the dialogue in an alien language that, even though it sounded completely different, \"coincidentally\" used the same lip movements, so the actors could simply dub over the original soundtrack. In the third movie, *The Search for Spock*, the Klingons had a lot more dialogue. The producers had been so impressed with Okrand's work on the previous movie, that they called him in again to create a proper language for the Klingons. He drew on his knowledge of many languages, mostly south-east Asian, for inspiration. He created a phonology -- a set of rules about which sounds the language used -- a grammar and a vocabulary, and he had a few rules: 1. It had to match the meaningless grunts Doohan and created. 2. The native English-speaking actors obviously needed to be able to actually pronounce the words, but... 3. ...it had to sound as much as possible totally unlike any human language. To meet that third criterion, he intentionally broke some of the most important rules of human languages. For example, the Klingon version of the \"d\" sound is pronounced with the tongue in a different place from the \"t\" sound, which is very unusual; Klingon (ironically) also has no \"k\" sound (the Klingon for \"Klingon language\" is \"tlhIngan Hol\" -- the weird capitalizations are actually to remind the actors that those letters aren't pronounced exactly as they are in English). Basically, he chose a combination of sounds that you wouldn't expect in a human language. Okrand didn't invent a complete language, but just enough to write whatever lines he needed to, so he added to the language whenever necessary (a nasty moment for him came when he was asked to translate the famous \"to be or not to be\" line -- he'd already decided that Klingon had no word for the English verb \"to be\"). Sometimes the grammar developed by accident. On more than one occasion, an actor would get the line wrong, but if it sounded good enough to Okrand, he would allow it (he was on set at the time), and just retroactively tweak the grammar rules so that what the actor said was officially grammatically correct. Unlike Tolkein, who began with a language (or rather, a whole family of languages) and then invented a race to speak it, Okrand started with a race and invented a language for them to speak."
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5ztvvu | Before toilet paper was invented, what was the main source of cleaning oneself and how bad was hygiene? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"if you didn't have a banana leaf around...then you get handsy. there's reason why in certain cultures, you don't eat or shake hands with your left hand.",
"The ancient Greeks used stones/clay. The Romans used a community sponge on a stick (they kept it in salty water in a bucket at their bath house). In colonial America the old farmers almanac had a hole through the corner so it could hang in the outhouse (people could rip out sheets to use). Toilet paper began commercial production in 1857, but evidently they caused splinters until Quilted Northern invented \"splinter free\" in 1935.",
"Note: Some of the content below might sound gross to some, but this is/was the way of life for a huge chunk of people that you might never come across. Also, please don't judge them if they are so poor that they can't even afford a proper toilet. I am from India and it is true that we (the general population, not the elite or upper middle-class) use our left hand to wash off the bum with water after nature takes its course. It is one of the first things that we are taught when we are around 3 years old (till then its your mom/dad/elders, because Indian style squatting toilets are not safe for kids and need supervision). We are taught to wash our hands with soap immediately afterwards. It is so ingrained in your psyche that transition from that habit to Western habit of using a toilet paper was so painful because I would never \"feel\" clean after using toilet paper. Also, I come from a lower-middle class background in India, and when I was a small kid and we used to go to our grandparents house in rural south-India, they didn't have a proper toilet. They had dug a pit in the estate behind their cottage and adults used that to take a dump. Kids would just go into the woods and take a dump where no one is seeing them and clean up afterwards. You always take water with you to clean up afterwards. Back when the caste-system was still very prevalent in India, people from a certain caste were responsible for cleaning up other people's shit from common area (dump sites like woods). It is still true in many rural locations in India, but education and general social progression is slowly changing it. Current Prime Minister, Mr. Modi, even started a campaign called Swachh Bharat (or Clean India) under which a chunk of the budget was allocated to build toilets in rural India and generate awareness in those area. As a side-note, as the living standards are rising, people are moving towards toilet paper in India too and having a western-style lavatory in your house is considered a must have and a \"status-symbol\" (because we love to copy western culture as a mark to show better life-style). It is important to note that squatting is the most natural style of taking a dump, rather than sitting on the toilet seat. It is more healthy and less strenuous on the body.",
"I'm reminded of the \"nursery rhyme\" In days of old when knights were bold and paper not invented they’d wipe their ass with bits of grass which left them freshly scented Source: URL_0",
"Does toilet paper seem primitive to anybody else?",
"Many places in the world still use the barrel and bucket. Wipe your bum with your left hand (two sides to each finger, finish with the thumb). Clean your left hand by running water over it. In places where water is scarce, you have to reuse the water. Try not to touch anything with your sinister hand. Source: Used to work with the poor in the Middle East.",
"Before toilet paper sponges were used, like the ones you find diving in Tarpon springs. Then were was a \"moat\" if you will or stream with running water nearby which you would wash your sponge after use. I suppose it is similar to reusable diapers and assuming you cleaned your sponge thoroughly each time it was probably more clean than using toilet paper today. This was at least the model for ass wiping in Ancient Rome I can't speak for other civilizations",
"My dad used to laugh about using dried corn cobs in the outhouse. And once, just once, I did \"The Fido Scoot\" on my ex mother in law's family room carpet. (maybe two feet, but the pleasure has lasted for twenty-three years, now)",
"Pouring water from a small can or jar actually works really well. Then with the left hand kind of dry it et voila.. Imo this technique is more legit than toilet paper, it makes your butt cleaner and is better for the environment.",
"A while back I was making friends with a lovely old woman and we had some fun looking through a recent reprint of a Sears catalog that was from the time she was a young girl. I remember her telling me that the main difference between an original catalog and the reprint was that the paper in the original was way softer. She said she would never want to wipe with that reprint paper.",
"Did a tour of a fs replica of cooks ship Endeavor. Was interested to see a section at the bow, that was basically a short plank with a hole in it jutting out over the water. Next to plank was a bucket with a short length of thick rope with a very frayed end (about 3\" loose strands by 1 1/2\" thick) . Technique was to dip the frayed end into the bucket and clean with that. Bucket and rope-end shared by entire crew of about 20 men.",
"Ancient Indians used hands and water to wash the bum. Then use soil/clay as a cleanser. They would rub soil and hands on a rock. Still prominent . But soil is replaced by soap.",
"Pretty sure it was a clean break because there was no Doritos and sour gummys giving us all gut rut",
"Why are more people not using a bidet?! They are like $30 on Amazon, install on your regular toilet in a breeze. Do your business, rinse, then dry with a bit of TP. Seriously, TP in and of itself now seems so primitive.",
"It greatly depended on where you lived. Many people used dried corn husks, leaves, or even paper from newspapers, catalogues, and flyers. Other people might use rags or textiles that could be washed and re-used. As far as hygiene they could sponge bath or bath to keep clean after using the out house or chamber pot.",
"I know you were asking about the past but I can tell you: In the future, they use 3 shells. I don't know how it works though",
"If people squat instead of sit on a toilet, everything comes out easily and with usually no wiping required. People that have squatted their entire lives have wiped but question why because the paper was clean. :)",
"I feel gross for using toilet paper now. What's the best option besides a bidet?",
"My father grew up in a small town. His family of 7 used a communal rag that hung near the toilet. You picked an edge and used it to wipe your butt and when it got really dirty, they cleaned it. He was born in the 50's not in the US. Sorry if this is more anecdotal than historical.",
"According to this website, \"Ancient Greeks used stones and pieces of clay for personal hygiene. Ancient Romans were a bit more sophisticated than the Greeks when it came to cleansing: They opted for a sponge on the end of a long stick that was shared by everyone in the community. When not in use, that stick stayed in a bucket of heavily salted seawater in the communal bathroom.\" Also, it says some people used corncobs. URL_0",
"Have you heard of water? People wash down there too. Long before toilet paper.",
"Water? In my country, for generations, we use flexible hose and attach it to pipe head / faucet.",
"Washing yourself clean after a bowel movement makes sense to me if you use soap and water. But water, unless it is high pressure which I'm assuming won't be the case, doesn't feel like enough to make you clean. I agree that soap and water will be cleaner than toilet paper. But just water feels totally inadequate to me. Can anyone explain."
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5ztw35 | Who protects countries with no armed forces in wartime? | I'm not referring to unique defense structures like in Japan's self defense forces or Iceland's coast guard, etc. I mean countries with no military whatsoever, like Liechtenstein, Vatican City, Costa Rica and others. In a situation where one of these countries was invaded or pulled into war, what kind of measures are taken by its allies to intervene or assist and how are these agreements forged with other countries? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"These countries will be defended by their powerful neighbors to avoid having them become a base of operations for enemy troops. For example, if China decided to invade Costa Rica (they love bananas), the United States would defend Costa Rica as it is in its own interest to defend the Monroe Doctrine. Mexico would assist as well. Invading Vatican City is such a world-class dick move that it would surely trigger a massive response by NATO as well as majority-Catholic countries. Again, Italy could call on the United States to back it up as well.",
"The reason those countries don't have a military is because they don't see war as a possibility. For example, Lichtenstein is surrounded by Germany, Switzerland and Austria, 3 countries that aren't really in the business of invasion. Plus, if they *did* decide to invade, Lichtenstein would lose, military or no military, because of how small it is."
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5zu97q | Why is censoring TV & Radio not a violation of the first amendment? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Access to the airwaves is not uncontrolled, because there is limited spectrum. Thus, you must have a license from the FCC. When you agree to a license, you agree to the FCC's rules on language. If you don't like this, you can use cable TV. HBO had a whole show mocking the TV restrictions about showing female nipples (Dream On) in the early days of Pay TV. You can also use the literal \"freedom of the press\" to buy a printing press and print any darn thing you want - not unlike Larry Flint did.",
"My understanding is that the freedoms of speech and press are meant so the government cannot punish you for saying something against them. You are allowed to say anything you want in regards to the government in speech and press (media). These freedoms have nothing to do with saying anything and everything you want at all times through any mode of communication."
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5zufda | Why and how were the borders of North Ireland and the Republic of Ireland set up? | From what I can see, there are no major physical boundaries that really divide the two entities, nor does it appear that latitudinal and longitudinal lines were used, so why plot a border between two uneasy neighbors through indistinguishable farmland? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"The Government of Ireland Act 1920 implemented by the British split Ireland into two constituencies, Northern Ireland which consists of the six north eastern counties (Down, Derry, Antrim, Armagh, Fermanagh, Tyrone) and Southern Ireland (now the Republic of Ireland) which consists of the other 26 counties. The main difference between the constituencies was religion, with the north being predominantly Protestant and the south being mostly Catholic. Following the war of independence and the signing of the Anglo-Irish Treaty, Southern Ireland became its own country while the British remained in control of the north. The border is essentially separating what belongs to the Republic of Ireland and what belongs to the United Kingdom",
"It was set back when Ireland was first being incorporated into the British Empire. North Ireland was the region that Scottish (and to a lesser extent English) colonists were settled in an attempt to weaken the Catholic hold on the country and to establish a base loyal to the crown. The border is set along the land ownership borders of the farms and cities they took over. There are also border markers and even border walls all along the border that are often only slightly larger versions of the traditional stone walls used to mark the borders of a farmer's property."
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5zuz0d | How did different countries determine which side of the road they drove on. | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Arbitrarily mostly. Napoleon had a lot to do with right hand driving. He conquered so much of Europe and he preferred traffic on the right side so most of Europe, and areas influenced by that just stuck with it when cars came along. He never conquered Britain so as a result the English and it's empire such as India and most former/existing colonies go on the left. [Here's a great picture]( URL_0 ) of the day Sweden switched from side to the other. And they just kind of did it at noon I think. But it's mostly arbitrary."
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5zv8kp | Why is Ethiopia in its' current state even though it was the only African nation to resist colonization? | After resisting colonization from Italy in the late 1800s, and a stockpile of modern weaponry, how did they manage to become one of the poorest nations in the world today? EDIT: Thanks for all the answers! | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"There are likely people who can answer this question here (though, I'm not one of them), but you may get better results from /r/AskHistorians .",
"I'm no master of this topic, but aside from the difficulties of modernizing on such limited resources, a civil war struck in the 70's that drastically altered the course of the country. Somewhat typically for a totalitarian military state, modernization did not go on seamlessly and neither did development. Seizure of property by the militaristic government agitated violent conflict, and attempted reclaiming of ethnic lands continued the fighting. Other things occurred, violent civil programs by the government that did more harm than good, before the regime decayed under the strain of famine and drought. They've since established a more democratic government, but there was a lot of lost time in addition to the struggles they faced natively. **TL;DR** Things were already hard and they lost a lot of time with mismanagement and the international struggles of the cold war.",
"Your question implies a lot about colonization, specifically that colonization is inherently a net detriment to a country's long-term development. Because imperialism has taken many forms throughout human history, this isn't necessarily the case. For example, being part of East Africa as it is, Ethiopia- had it been colonized- may have fallen under British rule, which was a form of imperialism that was actually often materially beneficial (India, for example, owes much of its modern success to the legacy of British rule.) Korea, to take another example, languished for years under incredibly brutal and exploitative Japanese colonial governance and yet South Korea rebounded phenomenally in the decades that followed. Ethiopia actually very nearly became an Italian colony towards the end of the age of imperialism, however, and this likely would have been quite materially detrimental to the Ethiopians."
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5zvwo6 | Why did Asian languages develop to be more tonal rather than say be like Romance languages? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"I read somewhere a long time ago that it had something to do with how humid the air was which allowed for tonal languages to be more possible"
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5zvy0z | Why does seeing something agressive or evil in a rorsharch test indicate mental illness? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Rorsach tests reveal the way you see the world. Such people see aggressiveness & evil even in benign things where no evil intent or aggression actually exists. People who see imagined aggression are often/always on the defensive, taking offense in the simplest situation or comment. Aggression is at least an action that can be observed. Seeing yourself as the victim of an endless world of aggressors never lets you rest, sleep well, or have any sense of peace. If mental illness isn't present already, it soon will be. People who see imagined EVIL are taking a step beyond merely responding to actions & are attempting to read thoughts & intentions in others' even in places where no evil intent exists. While evil does exist in this world just as aggressive people exist, to see nefarious bogeymen in innocent & otherwise normal situations are doing themselves potentially irreparable mental harm. Again, no peace, no rest, high stress, etc. Sadly, this can also indicate an inner battle inside their own mind between desire & control. The base desire is to lash out in aggressive behavior but thr conscious mind is struggling to act in a proper way. Similarly, the inner desire may be evil, but they are trying to hide it from others. As before, this inner turmoil can only go on so long until the mind snaps & settles on one of the 2 modes as the core integrity of a whole person. Either they accept the evil & act out on it in aggressive behavior, or they find Greater Power to purge the evil & aggression from within themselves & find the peace they seek. A split mind is irrational & a danger.",
"Imagine giving the same Rorschach test to two different people. One says \"Looks like a tree.\" The other says \"Looks like some Hollywood actress put a hand grenade up her butt and pulled the pin.\" Who would you want to hang out with?",
"Experts are hugely divided on the test. Some think it's a useful way to gauge personality and provides insight on how someone sees the world. Others think it's an embarrassing holdover from the days where we treated \"insanity\" by stabbing you in the eye with an ice pick, and has no clinical or predictive value whatsoever. I suspect we will eventually get rid of it, but it's deeply ingrained at the moment (covered by insurance, admissible in court) so who really knows.",
"Those tests are meant to measure the subconscious mind, or what you don't force yourself to see. So what you see, is generally how you would perceive something. If you see something aggressive, you are subconsciously more aggressive as a person."
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5zwbyd | How was Communism/Socialism actually implemented in the Soviet Union for citizens? | I'm having a surprisingly hard time finding a real explanation for how the Soviets implemented a form of communism into their country. I know that in practice it was very different from the original ideologies of the early 1900's but I can't find exactly how it DID work for workers/citizens. | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Wages were standardized across the country into a few different \"skill\" categories, with higher skilled workers earning more than lower skilled workers. The hierarchy looked something like this: Farmers ** < ** unskilled industrial labor/low level government positions ** < ** skilled industrial labor/tradesmen/mid-level government positions ** < ** engineers/scientists/highly skilled or specialized laborers ** < ** top level government positions. How exactly wages were paid varied throughout the Soviet Union's history. Initially all laborers were paid on a per unit system where they earned a set amount per thing they produced. So, for example, a coal miner would get paid a certain amount of money per < x > kilograms of coal they produced. Workers also had set quotas for how much they had to produce. Underproducing would result in fines and other punishments, while overproducing would be rewarded with bonuses and perks. As the Soviet Union got older they attempted to move away from that system and towards a system of flat monthly wages with bonuses for exceeding quotas but they never fully adopted this system. Non-laborers were always paid a monthly wage with bonuses being distributed at management's discretion. However, paid wages were a small fraction of a person's total income because many basics, such as housing/education/healthcare were essentially free. But access to those basics was restricted based on your job. So, for example, the housing and healthcare provided to you as an unskilled laborer were substantially worse than that provided to an engineer. Likewise, the primary and secondary educational opportunities afforded to the children of unskilled laborers were substantially worse than those afforded to people higher on the pay hierarchy. Higher education was free and admission to university was theoretically based entirely on a merit based standardized testing system. In practice the children of high ranking or otherwise important individuals were virtually guaranteed a university spot, and the low quality of education provided to the children of people on the low end of the payscale was somewhat of a barrier to university admission."
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5zwqbt | What is cultural appropriation and why is it bad? | I always see that phrase thrown around regarding hairstyles, food, clothing...and I can't really wrap my head around it. What is cultural appropriation? What harm does it cause? What benefits does it have? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Cultural appropriation is copying things from another culture, without regard for how it is used in that culture or how the people of that culture feel about it being taken. Say, for example, a certain culture has a shirt that is only worn by those that have earned it. It's a humungous badge of honour. Nobody in that culture would ever think of wearing one without having earned it. It's incredibly special to them. If Hot Topic then copies that shirt and starts mass producing it so teenboppers can all buy one for five bucks a pop and wear it around, that is going to be pretty upsetting to the people of that culture. They can feel like they've lost something or that their culture is being made fun of. That'd be cultural appropriation. Note that this doesn't mean the exchange of things between different cultures is always appropriation. If one culture has a certain dish they make freely and share freely with everybody who visits and they even encourage people from other cultures to try, it is not appropriate if that dish then makes it into another culture.",
"Well, let's see it form this point. \"What kind of power do I have over X group?\" a) it's kinda insulting for religious stuff. Especially if you're native American and said white people are largely in part responsible for the population decline of your people and you're living in your ancestral homeland but treated like a immigrant. Or if you're black, and pretty much everything you do people think of as gangbanger or ghetto activity, but then it becomes cool because of alternative white chicks. People don't think black people or Native Americans are cool for doing these things, they think parts of their culture are cool and profitable. b) It sometimes changes the way people think of a culture. For example, the stereotype of Asian women being submissive, domicile and oppressed by rigid cultural expectations comes from a very famous and fetishy opera called Madama Butterfly, which was based on a book written by a guy with a weird Asian and suicide fetish. But I don't think it's inherently bad, but I see how fucking annoying it is when black guys who smoke weed and wear dreads have been getting shit all their lives (sometimes even going to jail), turn the corner, see white girls wearing dreads and white college students smoking up and now they wanna legalize it. Oh and before anyone asks why is appropriating white people ok...speaking from experience it's also about survival. If you come to a foreign country or born somewhere you aren't the majority, you have to adopt a majority culture or not get a job in mainstream society to survive. You can't get a good job if you speak too 'ghetto' for example so it's good to practice a good white accent and have good white clothing for the office. And as for foreign countries, well business culture is largely and part influenced by white culture, people would not take Japanese companies seriously if they showed up in kimonos so in the 20s and 30s most Japanese business men started wearing western clothing. Because western people were rich, western clothing was 100% serious 100% of the time.",
"Cultural appropriation is using aspects of other cultures without actually knowing/respecting where those traditions came from and the history of those cultural aspects. When people appropriate culture, it basically degrades the initial meaning of those things, and degrades it. huge examples are seen in halloween costumes and in fashion",
"Hard truth time: It is both good and bad, right and wrong. Cultural appropriation is copying things from another culture. Sometimes this is done for good, wonderful, enriching reasons. When disney makes Pocahontas and some 8 year old girl starts dressing up like Pocahontas and running around wishing she was her: that's a good and wonderful thing and \"we-izes\" (whatever the opposite of other-izes is) natives. It also makes that little girl much more interested in actually learning about native art, culture, history. Play, pretend, superficial appreciation are all necessary steps along a path to true cultural understanding. Sometimes it is done for racist reasons. When someone puts on blackface picks up a container of jello, and a bottle of pills, and goes out for a costume party... well they are trying to be an asshole and they are succeeding. The problem is the middle ground. Is it a good thing or a bad thing if a white guy writes a story with native american gods as characters, and twists native mythology for the purpose of plot? Natives might say 'listen you are interacting with our cultural heritage in a disrespectful manner'. And the writer might say 'culture evolves. For every thousand fiction novels about your gods that get written probably only one is even going to make it into widespread reading and it will do so because it has interesting insights and then it will only contribute one small piece of a conversation. If culture is to survive it has to be a living thing interacted with by the people of today.\" So personally, my feeling is that it isn't about what you are doing so much as it is about intent. If you intend to be an asshole you are doing something wrong. If you don't intend to be an asshole you are not doing anything wrong. BUT... in western culture, today, when it comes to race, no one gets the benefit of the doubt.",
"Cultural Appropriation is an ad hoc \"justification\" for people who believe that cultures mixing is bad. Enjoying cuisine or clothing from another culture is not wrong in any way. Having said that, cultural disrespect is still a very real thing, but one that can be easily avoided through common sense."
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5zwta7 | Why "In God We Trust" is the official motto of The United States | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"> but would atheism not be considered a religion? No, atheism (as opposed to theism) is the lack of theistic belief. \"a\" is the latin prefix which means \"without\" or \"not\". An atheist is \"without religion\". It is a word describing the default state that anyone or anything is in (regarding religion) when they have no belief in gods or religions. Atheism is to Theism as darkness is to the spectrum of light; as 'off' is to a television channel; as abstinence is to sexual activity; etc.",
"It comes from the Star Spangled Banner, written in the War of 1812 against Britain/Canada. America sees this war as a patriotic victory over their old colonial overlord. It being the motto was passed into law in the 50s to counter the USSR essentially forcing atheism on its people. The US just wanted to be anti-communism. It doesnt violate separation of church and state because it just says they believe in a higher power. It's a phrase in Jewish, Christian and Islamic texts. It doesn't favour any religion at all, and has been used as a way to bring solidarity between Christians and Muslims",
"Fun fact for you, In God We Trust was never on US currency until introduced on the two cents piece in 1864. One of the main reasons was to say that God was on the side of the north during the civil war. Now people take that to mean all sorts of balogna but that's how it started"
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5zwyt8 | What is the reasoning behind the US congress having no term limits? | I'd also really love an explanation as to *why* they get healthcare coverage for life when military members etc don't? In my mind, the position of congressman/senator is a public service, not a right of passage to comfortability and wealth. | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"The *President* didn't even have term limits for almost 200 years. The reasoning behind that is that the President is 1/3 of the government by himself, as well as the commander in chief of the military. That power can be abused, especially by a president who stays in office for many years and uses his power to weaken political opponents. By contrast, a Senator or Congressman is just 1/100 or 1/435. Even the most powerful of them can't really do much on their own. I personally don't believe in congressional term limits, because the people should take the responsibility of monitoring their representatives and replacing them when necessary. Term limits are a lazy and half-assed way to avoid that responsibility. Lastly, former members of the military do get lifelong healthcare if they're wounded in action. Additionally, anyone who retires from the military can stay on the government's plan for cheap.",
"The positive case against term limits goes like this: Ultimately you want people in government to be able to govern effectively. Legislators need to be good at the job they do to ensure good governance, and a large part of being good at your job is experience doing your job. For this reason, a representative who has served for 20 years will likely be more effective at serving his or her constituents and country than one freshly elected. Take, say, a committee which deals with national security issues. Arguably a representative who has been receiving classified briefings for twenty years will have a better understanding of the context in which new information is presented than a representative who only started receiving classified briefings six months ago. The experienced representative will be better able to understand how important a particular piece of intelligence is, whether something is normal or remarkable. The other factor is who you *don't or can't* limit the terms of. Civil servants have their careers for life, unless they do something specific to get them fired. It's their job to know their departments inside and out, and as they become more senior they get to know other departments workings too, and get to know other senior civil servants. This is critical to the efficient functioning of our governments, it ensures continuity between administrations, it ensures problems can get resolved, it ensures representatives can be properly briefed on what's happening in the actual engine of government, so correct policy decisions can be made. It takes decades to make a good and experienced civil servant who can keep a government department running, and it's still basically just a regular career so you probably don't want to put term limits on these jobs. If there are strict term limits on elected representatives, this breaks the chain somewhat between the elected and unelected portions of our governments. If representatives don't have a clear and solid grasp on what government departments do and how they operate, a lot of the actual power in government then falls into the hands of unelected civil servants, who are able to run rings around the inexperienced representatives they're theoretically accountable to. And lastly, lobbyists. You *can't* put a term limit on a lobbyist. Lobbyists influence all politicians, regardless of whether they're new or long-standing, but arguably lobbyists influence new representatives more than they can experienced ones. When a new rep gets to the legislature, they don't know the ins and outs of how the system works, they don't know the back channels, they don't know who to talk to in order to get x or y done. Generally the experienced members of the party will help with that, but what if there are no members of the party with a decade in the legislature, due to term limits? Well, along comes a lobbyist, a former legislator who now works for Big [Industry You Don't Like]. He offers to take the new legislator under his wing, show him how things work, smooth over a few things. Before you know it the new legislator has the lobbyist as his mentor, and so lobbyists find it even easier than they do now to influence government policy to their liking. ----- Now that's not to say there aren't counterpoints to these arguments, and others have covered more cynical reasons for it to be as it is, and there are definitely arguments *for* term limits which I haven't covered because you've asked for the opposite, but the above is the basic outline of how those opposed to term limits would argue the merits of having legislators with long service. **tl;dr** Experience is a valuable commodity in politics. We want our legislators to be experienced enough to govern in our interest, and we want the people with the most experience to be the ones we can directly control through elections.",
"had a government professor in college who was an expert at keeping his political opinions a mystery, but he did take a very firm stand against congressional term limits. His two biggest points were that it was undemocratic for the government to take away the people's choice of their elected officials and that it was unnecessary because the average person only serves about 10-15 years in Congress. That means most people who serve only spend a fraction of their working years in Congress. That's only two or three elections for a senator. There are a few extremes, but in general there is already high turnover in Congress. Occasionally I see a Facebook post claiming that serving just one term gets you a lifelong pension, but that's not the case. You have to put in a lot of time to pull a full pension.",
"Title vs actual text - pick *one.* If the people like their representative, why shouldn't they be able to keep re-electing them if they feel they are doing a good job and voting the way they want them to? My own rep is Maxine Waters, who is a bit of an embarrassment but I sure as shit would rather have her than *ANY* Republican (or some dipshit Green for that matter) because I know that she has consistently voted 100% they way I want her to vote on the bills that matter most. And 90% on the rest. While *Congress* might get low marks on the whole, people like their own Representatives much better. At least the *majority* of those in a district like their reps. **Term limits have very bad unintended consequences, namely lobbyists REALLY start writing the laws.** Just take a look at my state of California, which stupidly passed term limit laws and now most of our really important laws dealing with major industries are written by the lobbyists for those industries. Why? Because with term limits not only do the legislators not have time to learn either their jobs or the issues they have to govern over, but they worry about what ***job*** they are going to have when it's over. Lobbyists are very good about dangling post-office positions in front of these A-holes to get them to vote in their favor. Without term limits, the **public** has the job they want to keep.",
"The biggest reason why Congress doesn't have term limits? Because in order to enact them, Congress would have to pass a law and they're too interested in keeping their power, status, etc. from their positions."
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5zx3zu | Why are baby boomers so hated? I know they got lucky to be born in an age of prosperity, but what did they do to fuck over younger Americans? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"They borrowed from future generations. Adjusted for inflation, their education cost very little, they bought homes for 1/3rd of the cost, and set up social services that benefit them, but are paid for by the generations that followed. Everyone from Gen X forward has been starting life in progressively more debt. The hate comes from that generation telling the next generations that they too can have the dream if only they work harder despite these generations working more than they did. It is misplaced anger. In many ways the boomers created a better life for everyone. The villains are the top few of every generation who are dismantling the middle class.",
"Baby boomers were born into an era of unprecedented prosperity: cheap college educations, tons of well paid blue and white collar jobs, cheap homes, etc. They also spent the last 40 years squeezing every penny they could from the government: * tax breaks during their prime working years * massive government deficit spending to keep the economy afloat * crazy low interest rates so they could buy huge houses and watch the values of their homes skyrocket * Cheap gas prices so they could drive huge trucks and SUVs * short term fixes for Social Security and Medicare designed to cover themselves and not much else Then after all of this, they have the gall to blame GenX and mostly Millenials for the bad economy we've inherited FROM THEM. They also take every chance to pat themselves on the back for creating \"the best music\" or for driving the cultural changes of the 60s and 70s, etc. They are a generation who couldn't keep their hands out of their kids and grandkids piggy bank, greedily borrowing more and more benefits today, knowing their kids and grandkids would have to foot the bill someday, yet still blaming younger generations for their lack of opportunities and wealth. Fuck the baby boomers",
"Most of the economic reasons have been listed. The thing that bugs me, however, is the rhetoric they use to put down millennials. Have you ever heard of \"participation trophies\"? Those are, somehow, used against millennials as a way of showing our entitlement. The trophies that my generation got *as children* are used to say we are lazy and entitled. Who the fuck gave us the trophies, and why?",
"The easiest way to explain this is that they sacrificed the future at the alter of their comfort. I cannot think of another generation in history that had as much power so young and the opportunity to actually change the entire world in a meaningful way. Think about it - they actually had enough clout to get Congress to amend the Constitution to lower the voting age! Can you imagine millennials trying to get an amendment to say, stem climate change passed? Instead, the hippies of the 60s became the coke dealers of the 70s, junk bond dealers of the 80s, internet bubble chiefs of the 90s and finally, reaching the height of their power, destroyed the economy in the 00's. They traded idealistic action and power for home shopping and drone strikes. Plugging their ears against the onslaught of messages telling them they are dooming their children and grandchildren to a life of fewer opportunities and perhaps catastrophic consequences, they persisted in short term gains. Now at the end of their time in power they are politically taking their ball and going home. Their parents (the WWII generation) ensured they would live in a prosperous, strong place. They saw war for what it was and did everything they could to ensure those horrors would not come back to the world. They used their power for science, for the arts, for education,for the good of all mankind. You know, the things the boomers said \"well, we got ours, fuck the rest\" to. They speak of how younger generations are \"entitled\", fully aware that the economy they grew up in was stronger, the cost of living was less, the wages were higher, the education cheaper, the housing more affordable. It's a lie. It's them trying to shift blame for their actions by blaming someone else. It's the tactic used to those who come to the end of the line and still don't want to own up to what they have created. I know many are not like this. But the fact is that they voted in all the power that allowed it to happen this way. So yes, I lay most of the problems future generations to come will have at their feet.",
"Hmmmm let's see... they came from a time when they can work a summer job flipping burgers or delivering mail and that alone could get them through college debt free. Nowadays, you have students working jobs all year while going to school full time, taking UNPAID internships and balancing extracurricular activities to pad their resumé and the boomers have the audacity to call that \"lazy and entitled.\" The greed of the boomer generation's bankers and home buyers gave out or took out loans they couldn't afford and crashed the economy in 2008. Overwhelmingly voted for the Orange Menace. Generally intolerant of gay rights and the LGBT community. Borrowed against social security and never paid it back. Don't think they plan to either, so future generations are probably gonna see it collapse if some drastic restructuring doesn't happen. Since most boomers are old and old people use up most healthcare services, this puts a incredible amount of strain on the healthcare system and drives up the premiums. Their demographic is one of the largest in history but they're also living longer than past generations which adds even more strain to the healthcare system. Oh and living longer means most put off retirement (also cuz retirement age keeps going up) which means they stay on those sweet, juicy jobs at the top of the food chain, stagnating promotions and opportunities for younger generations. Just off the top of my head.",
"Set up social security so that it would last long enough for them to use for retirement but no one else. Basically when baby boomers took over the government, they did a lot of high risk quick reward type stuff that paid off for them and fucked over anyone who came later. They didnt have to worry because they had money from coming of age in a prosperous time. Google can give you the details",
"To be fair every generation stereotype is BS, and nothing new. I mean even Socrates called the next generation lazy and entitled because he had to memorize books, but they could just read them. It's nothing new, and the next generation is always seen as the worst. Having this view so widely doesn't really make people take kindly to them. Their political policies were also pretty short sighted and aimed more at enriching their own lives rather than the lives of future generations. Things like Medicare, housing markets, and getting paid literally more $ (before inflation too) for less work.",
"One thing I want to add that I haven't seen. The only thing I really blame boomers for (besides everyone gets a trophy, which for some reason people think millenials started... in 30 and everyone gets a trophy was around when I was 4, hell some leagues didn't keep score) is the mentality that you have to go to college. I work for a major insurance company and we have job openings right now that require a 4 year degree. You don't need a degree in anything specific, just a degree. That is asinine. The idea that getting a college degree in anything makes you more qualified to do a job that we train you at anyway makes zero sense. This also kept people from Going after skilled labor. Plumber, welder, mechanic, lots of things pay just as good as your average lawyer these days and don't cost a quarter million just to qualify for the job. It's that mentality that you just need to go to college that I blame boomers for, the economy screw up wasn't a generation wide event.",
"In short, when Baby Boomers were young they directly benefitted from the economic and social fruits of the Civil Rights movement, but now that they are old, Baby Boomers tend to vote for pre-Civil Rights era policies. That is to say, progressive politics once benefitted them, but now that they are well off and approaching death, Baby Boobers are maximizing their wealth by voting against the interests of the young and the poor, at the expense of the young and the poor.",
"Hopefully not too late to be seen, but how about the political issues that they've allowed to sneak in and take over? They've allowed completely partisan politicians to become so entrenched in today's climate that we may not be able to completely get rid of them. Lobbyists have become sponsors of certain older politicians who've been in Congress for decades. And this politicians have the power to dictate what gets even discussed let alone what gets voted on.",
"Boomers lived in the most prosperous age in recorded history. They started the enormous amount of public borrowing that we still see continuing today, resulting in a debt that they will never have to pay back. That debt will either cause a catastrophic economic collapse sometime in the future, or it will have to be slowly paid off by future generations. This problem was made significantly worse by the fact that the boomers did not have many children of their own. They did not produce nearly enough future tax payers to shoulder the burden of their reckless spending and borrowing. Ultimately they didn't know what they were doing until it was too late. Your average boomer out there didn't understand economics enough to tell the government not to establish so many social programs that they couldn't possibly afford, so you can't really blame them.",
"Their parents were called \"The Greatest Generation\" but I like to call Baby Boomers \"The Luckiest Generation\". Baby Boomers are essentially the start of the modern day America as a concept and practice. The idea of a good job, good house, good healthcare, good retirement, 2.5 kids, 2 cars in the garage, and a nice TV. You can have it all! And your voice can be heard. You can be a modern day consumer. You can have stuff and the life and the best healthcare... etc. And its not all that hard to get as long as you just \"work hard\". Best part is the kids can have it too! ... except we most definitely aren't. A lot of what is considered and what made \"Modern America\" starts in the industrial revolution and mostly stopped evolving in the 80's. Realistically not much has changed since then: -Medicine may be better but the idea of a healthy lifestyle really is nothing new now. And the idea that medicine will make life better is decades old. -Social Media is new but all it REALLY is is the instantaneous communication of ideas and the democratization of that. Decades ago ideas, news, etc. could be instantly shared around the globe via TV, radio, telephone, etc. and be mass consumed. Interesting note here is that the phones we use now are built soley on the refinement of decades old technology. GPS, touchscreen, cameras, LCD, internet, wifi... all decades old. -Cars may be cleaner but they have been around for quite a while now. Getting better and fancier, and pushes for emissions and efficiency have been around since the 70's. Just look at the 70's gas crisis, Leaded gas, catalytic converters, etc. For safety... Ralph Nader, and the wheel speed sensory. The list goes on. -Social Rights may be gaining a lot more traction than ever (a good thing) but social movements and protests are nothing new. Been going on for a long long time. I'm rambling a bit but suffice to say that the only big thing that has come about since the Baby Boomers had kids was the internet. And the baby boomers gave us that. So this means that the Baby Boomers either were born with certain concepts of America in place or they shaped and changed them directly. And they did a LOT of that so that much of our world is directly influenced and made by them. And that is modern day America! We are paying now for all of that prosperity they got to have. So much borrowing against future generations. Whether it be the environment or economy. They really got it easy in a lot of ways. The cost to entry to a middle class life now is much higher than it used to be. And that class is disappearing. But then again the middle class of America didn't come about til the boomers were born so there is that factor as well. So they grew up with the idea, in the midst of, became, and the essentially drove the middle class as we know it today. I could literally type for hours as the \"Baby Boomers vs later generations\" argument is one of my favorites... But let me bring up the 2 things I hate the most: Corporations and Investment Banking (Wall Street). The boomers took corporations and turned them into machines of capital generation through innovation and deregulation. But ultimately corporations are only \"responsible\" to only the boardroom and the investors. And they are the only ones who make any money. And since they are so woven into society now, no one knows how to stop this... or they are very afraid to. That boardroom is the head and will gut itself to keep the head alive. So goodbye quality products and employees if you put any pressure on a corporation via taxes. All the while they just keep exclaiming how they are \"the backbone of the economy\" or some such BS for what all they actually do for us. And then Investment Banking. I remember from school learning when I was 9 the idea that you put your money in savings and it generates interest! Now that's just silly. Simple banking is only for the poor and uneducated now. Now its hedge funds, mutual funds, stock market... whatever!! Literally through deregulation and some good creativity we have entire BS money markets that the boomers came up with to get rich or to invest for retirement! We literally have this idea now that money gets created in mass quantities out of nothing and its mainly just BS and a LOT of risk. Just look at the housing crisis and recession. Its all just made up money and bullshit. At least when you make something there is a tangible product to it. But now? That's the new norm and VAST quantities of everyone's money is tied into that working. Mainly boomers like it for their retirement accounts. But at this point anyone who can afford to buy into some investment wants it to pay off. Its easy free money. And it just doesn't really work that well in the long run. You can debate a lot of this back and forth but ultimately the boomers loved the idea of retiring at 65 and living comfortably and healthily. Sadly its just NOT TRUE. Society can't afford to have people living that long while doing nothing. And to generate the capital needed to afford \"that sweet retirement life\" while working only so long requires a lot of gambits, risks, and making future generations buy into a system that just wont work. Between BS investment banking, and social entitlements like medicare, medicaide, social security, government pensions, etc... Well we are just stuck with a system that doesn't work now thanks to the Boomers. Go to a good school, work hard, get a job, work hard, get a house, work hard, get a family, work hard, retire on what you've earned at 65-70... its all just a system that doesn't work. They grew up with a lotta prosperity. And we are left with a system that mainly benefits those that are born into money. It doesn't even need to be a lot of money! But what matters more now is what your economic factors growing up are than how \"hard\" you work. If you want to find the American dream go to Canada. Its actually easier to get ahead there than it is in the US. That said most of our parents are boomers and we still love them. and many boomers are NOT doing so good. So no need to run around hating them personally or anything dumb. Ultimately we are all born, we all meet the same fate and die, and we are all in this together. ::EDIT:: Thank you for the Gold fellow Redditor!",
"They had it easy and now they tell future generations that they just aren't working hard enough. \"I had no problem getting a fantastic job, buying a house on just my salary alone, and raising six kids.\" .. and they refuse to believe that times have changed, that such things are *impossible* now. They can't or don't understand, and they throw blame on future generations whenever such discussions arise. They want to live in the past, refuse to see how much the world has changed, *and vote based on their own ignorance*. That's where the hate comes from. Even if they didn't all cause the problems we're facing, the fact that they refuse to acknowledge such problems exist makes them just as guilty.",
"I think part of it is also this lack of self-awareness around the Boomer generation. They see the problems, but cannot see that they are part of it. The following is a sweeping generalization. Individual results may vary. They put in place the education system that allows for standardized testing to rule education. They are the teachers, the administrators, the voters, that put the systems in place that educated those of us born between 1980-1995. But they call the following generations lazy, entitled, self-congratulatory. \"Special snowflakes.\" Etc. We all had to succeed or they would cut funding to schools. They voted in administrations that started bank de-regulation. While they were busy patting themselves on the back for Civil Rights, they allowed Wall Street to sneak into government. And then they blamed the Clinton/Bush era for the Wall Street debacles. Not saying the blame rests solely in the 70-80s, but they seem to forget who they allowed into office, and what they allowed them to do. Corruption cannot seep in unless someone has poked the holes for it. They won't retire. Not can't, won't. The natural cycle of employment has stuttered with Boomers holding onto jobs way past the age of retirement. But the poor job economy is Clinton's fault, Bush's fault, Obama's fault. They won't invest in future generations. They resist change. While they spearheaded great efforts to help their own situations - voting age, drafting, Vietnam, Medicare (for them) - they forgot to plant seeds for the rest of us. Now that we are trying to improve our situation - immigrant students, LGBTQ rights, climate change research and action, food insecurity, failing infrastructure, a struggling economy, an antiquated economy, a housing market gone amuck - now they resist. They vote, in droves, to prevent having to spend their tax money on current or future programs. \"What is a legacy? It's planting seeds in a garden you never get to see.\" - They went to our garden, planted nothing, pissed on it and told us it was raining, and then asked why we didn't grow. BUT - the Boomer generation VOTES. That's why they continue to have the power they have and fuck us over. We need to VOTE. Small elections, special elections, location elections. [This is a map of the 2018 elections.]( URL_0 ) Set a reminder on your phone, and vote.",
"They spent trillions of dollars on the Iraq war which accomplished nothing besides creating ISIS, they didn't learn their lesson and always want to put boots on the ground in the Middle East again, they caused the Great Recession, they elected Trump, they were a bunch of drug addicts who really screwed up hugely again and again throughout their entire lives despite the best of circumstances, then they created at will employment, got rid of pensions, etc so the next generation would be screwed.",
"from a previous time this question was asked (not my words): 1. reagan. they make him an icon when most if not all economists said his concepts were horrid. that doesn't even include all the foreign and domestic policies he had. 2. they are the \"i got mine\" generation. they took way more then they gave. people used to be able to buy a house and live comfortably on one income...that went to hell, mainly cause of #1, but because of their own greed. 3. they refuse to retire because they feel the world will stop if they don't work anymore. 4. they lived in excess...didn't save for retirement, and now because of #3, they are screwing everyone else. 5. draining social security...it was meant to supplement retirement savings , but now draining it dry because of #4. but damnit to hell if people who lost their jobs because of outsourcing have any medical coverage, because they need their medicare and casino money.",
"I think the other part of what they have done as a voting block is completely ignore climate change. This will end up being their lasting legacy on this planet.",
"The should be labeled \"The Worst Generation\"... The inherited a strong currency which they allowed to be devalued by switching to fiat currency. It's now around 93% of its original value. They inherited real property and mortgaged it to the hilt. They took a conservative federal budget and allowed it to balloon with debt to further devalue the currency. They cheered the dismantling of the constraints and regulations of the government, allowing the farms to be taken over by the banks in the 80's, exported the industry in the 90's, and hyperinflated the home and school loan markets in the 2000's. They invested almost no maintenance in the roads and bridges that their parents built. They weakened or sold out any protections for the American middle class, allowed the private prison industry to boom, held no one accountable for the many wars based on lies, importing of drugs, or treasonous arms sales to hostile countries, and more. Essentially, they inherited real property, hard currency and a nation of laws, and allowed it to be mortgaged, devalued and broken. It's as if they inherited a new car, ran it into the ground, sold it to their kid, and then criticized them because it doesn't drive the way it did for them. That's why they are viewed as selfish. Ugh.",
"Ironically the most self indulged, entitled generation to date. This generation defined its all about ME !",
"It is a fact that in many ways people of the baby boomer era did have things far easier. The hate comes from how very outspoken people in that group won't acknowledge it and they look down upon younger generations for not doing what they did when it isn't possible anymore.",
"On Reddit, which is predominately young people, you will see boomers hated. If you head over Facebook, which is infested with boomers, you will see the hatred of young people and millennials. But, to answer your question specifically about boomers, they come across to young people like those judgemental nosy neighbors that fail to realize their own issues.",
"The thing that probably kills me the most is they were the generation that got almost free public education and low-cost houses. They had it pretty easy in that realm. Then once they got out of college, and started paying taxes, collectively, they started not supporting such high taxes (which funded their nearly free education). So the nearly free education transformed into what we have today, with many students getting out with debt that they wouldnt pay off for 20, even 40 years later. Also, many students cant find decent work out of college that coresponds to their $100,000 minimum debt. The part that makes me, and probably many others, really pissed off at them, its that these baby boomers often see a student struggling in life and instaintly have the solution of \"I worked while in college and paid it off, you have no reason to complain.\" TL:DR; They benifited from low cost housing and nearly free education (in california at least) and talk shit on the current college crowd and their struggles which are directly traceable to baby boomers refusing to support high taxes which paid for this nearly free education.",
"There are 3 groups that make up the Baby Boomers: Conservatives, Moderates, and Liberals. Traditional conservatives have sold out their principles to win at all costs in elections, while Christian conservatives, whose political movement began defending segregation, moralize to our nation with hypocrites and charlatans. Moderates have let themselves be dragged further and further right to the point we can't really call them moderates anymore. Then, the liberals, who became Yuppies because it was easier than trying to change the system, sold us out and became their parents. To top it all off, you won't find one person in their generation who will admit to being for segregation, rarely find one who supported the war in Vietnam. They think that 60s music was awesome; it mostly sucked. They think their television was great; it was mostly schlock. They think their movies were great; they were mostly crap. The 70s were a better period, but just an extension of their hedonism. By the 80s, they were in full on nostalgia mode, with shows like Family Ties, building an apocryphal image of themselves as the young idealists who changed the world, where they all supported King and civil rights for women, all from their suburban homes where nary a black person is found. They harped on their children not to do drugs with commercials about eggs, after doing drugs themselves and glorifying its use in music. They put fake Indians on television to cry about the environment before proceeding to rape it. They liked to think of themselves as tolerant and open minded, but it says a lot that Elton John and Ellen didn't come out until the fucking 90s. Meanwhile, they perfected the art of advertising to children, then castigated Gen-X'ers and Millennials as being materialistic. They gave us free love and the AIDS crisis. They gave us disco, and gave us hell for our mindless pop music. Millennials are squares to Gen X'ers like me and fucking angels when compared with Baby Boomers. They smoke less, don't do as much drugs, are more educated, more responsible, and are more social and politically engaged. Most actually have black friends, gay friends, and treat women like equals. All this while eschewing self-congratulation, unlike Boomers, who treated the fact that they voted for a black man like they should get a medal. Anyway, sorry for the rant. TL;DR: []( URL_0 )",
"As a Canadian millennial with luckily 0 debt, decent job, paid off school and car, can save money, but there's no way I'll ever be able to afford a house. Lots of the older generation are buying homes for $600,000+ and the new minimum down payment is 20%! Even though I love my life, job, and everything around me I can't see a future that I'll ever be able to afford my own home. Even the cheapest 1 bedroom condo I could find is $300,000+. My parents bought there house for $120,000 which is a very reasonable price but I don't think I'll ever find a place that cheap unless something major happens.",
"I'll echo the major sentiments in this thread: economic burdens, destroying social fabric and then blaming others when it's gone, siphoning entitlements yet claiming others are entitled, hoarding good jobs and then wondering why nobody is buying houses and getting married, etc. Furthermore in service positions, they are always the worst to deal with. They are the most rude and entitled people out of all the folks I have ever had the pleasure of interacting with. It is impossible to verify an anecdote, and I'm sure there is some bias there, but it's always the boomers that act like fucking children when they don't get exactly what they want.",
"It's not so much that Baby Boomers benefited from the greatest economic peacetime period in American (all of the world, actually) history. It's more of their blind exceptionalism to even acknowledge *why* their generation got such an economic gift compared to their elders and children, and their sheer, willful ignorance to defend it. The Boomers were the product of the returning, Greatest-Gen G.I.s after the war, who then became the hippie, Woodstock peace-and-lovers. But they then took a hard-ass 180° to fall in line with Reaganomics and trickle-down/deregulation/privatization/NIMBY/fundamentalist concepts to become the Yuppies, the conspicuous consumers, the \"we'll party hard, someone will pay later\" generation. Fast forward to now, and their Millennial children are now dealing with the consequences of Boomers' destruction of society in more ways that one. But rather than acknowledging their mistakes, Boomers blame Millennials for all the world's problems (*BOOTSRAPS!*) while happily electing alt-right Populist figures (Trump) who're more than contempt to blaming society's underclass for the world going to hell other than themselves and their greedy ways.",
"Here's an NPR (US) interview with Bruce Cannon Gibney. He wrote a book titled: \"A Generation of Sociopaths: How the Baby Boomers Betrayed America\". URL_0",
"Okay, I'm boomer. We were born into really fantastic social conditions on the whole. I had my children relatively late in life -- they are 21 and 18 now. I care about their world. I'm a divorced, single mom. Financially, I've been pretty much a failure; I live paycheck to paycheck and the most I ever made in a year was 27K, back in the late 80s/early 90s. I know my kids aren't lazy. I never finished college, despite trying very hard. Life situations kept popping up. I still have college loans to pay, and I'm 59. Despite that, I've done a great deal of interesting things so far. There are a lot of \"me's\" out there. One thing many don't understand is that computers -- the internet -- changed everything. Kinda obvious. Before our age of constant contact, the pace of *everything* was, naturally, slower. And not global. \"Progress\" has given all of us the means to be in a nonstop online universe. I believe the \"misplaced anger\" should be directed toward the anxiety and seclusion the internet creates. As for education costs, I am wholly for fully-subsidized higher education. That goes for trade schools as well. My kids know what it's like for a fairly intelligent mom, without a college degree, to get by in the world. As for their future work life, I can only hope they find jobs that compliment their strengths, and allow them to live a less stressed-out life than I have so far.",
"Huh? Didn't realize that I'm hated by younger Americans. Thanks for the warm fuzzies, OP.",
"Because reddit takes a few truths, declares them universal, piles on with a hive mind, and creates an irrational narrative. Apply this formula x2 when it involves shifting blame to someone else.",
"I had the realization that Boomers sucked America Dry when I watched Jimmy Carter's malaise speech. Prior to this I kind of thought of all of America's problems kind of like smoking before people knew it was bad for you. Almost like Boomers didn't know there were issues with fossil fuel dependence, arming foreign rebels, underfunding social security, etc. just like grandpa's smoking habit before anyone knew it was bad. The problem with this is that Boomers knew the errors of their ways and ignored them because it was convenient for them. In his '79 speech Carter lays out many of the challenges that we still face today that Boomers ignored and made worse. Not only were these warning ignored, but mocked. The malaise speech is the name that the media gave this speech. The actual name of the speech was \"Crisis of Confidence\". The Boomers knew exactly what they were doing when they soaked up all of America's prosperity and left little for their children.",
"The easiest way to think about it is Red Foreman from that 70's show. That guy is the reason everyone hates baby boomers. He continuously votes for policies that ends up hurting his kids. His entire life is based around the fact that he killed \"commies\" which apparently makes him some sort of \"hero\" and he has no idea how to express love in any meaningful way so he just shits on everybody and everything. Boomers have this attitude like money is so easy to come by and if you just put in a little hard work anyone can get rich and it's total bullshit. They had it comparatively easy to all the subsequent generations. It's a hate that comes from millennials remembering as kids that they were told that they were special one too many times or that they're lazy or any of that crap and then now that millennials are fully grown adults themselves and they're assessing the damages that they've inherited through the rampant corrupt politics that boomers put into place we're being like \"wait a minute it's not our fault. It's YOUR fault\". It's just so many of the problems we're going through currently can be attributed to that generation. I mean look at Bill Clinton. People used to love that guy but now that the people who are critically thinking about his presidency aren't by and large boomers we're realizing that he TOTALLY fucked SO many people over. He even admitted it and apologized for it himself in recent years: URL_0 tl;dr Boomers lived in age of prosperity, destroyed system for future generations, blame younger generations for their lack of prosperity and \"work ethic\" even though it's by and large boomers fault that us younger generations are in this mess in the first place. Bill Clinton apologized, Red Foreman probably died.",
"> Baby boomers were born into an era of unprecedented prosperity That statement doesn't even begin to describe what they were born into. To really understand it you have to look at the previous generation, and the way they lived. Think about all the things you have in your house that you take for granted. . Refrigerators, toasters, vacuum cleaners, Ovens WITH stoves, televisions, etc. . .the Baby Boomer's parents likely didn't have that when they grew up unless they were incredibly wealthy. Their parents went to war, came back and they built industries around making life better in America. . . so far as to get a man on the Moon. THEN just as we did that. . .the baby boomers came of age. Early 20's and late teens. The 70's hit, and **nothing has happened since.** * Their one war was too hard, so they gave up on it. * Debt soared. * Well paying jobs were holdovers from their parents days. * Regulations were loosened so that the small income disparity of their parents generation started to unbalance. Then the 80's hit. Babyboomers are now in their late 30s early 40s. Their Kids are getting raised by television. And the ME first culture came from the same people that were \"Make love not war\" a decade earlier. (I got to see this first hand with my own parents. When I was young we had a VW Vanagon and went bonfire camping in Baja while singing kumbaya. . .they were hippies still in the late 70s. by the mid 80s my father was a VP at a bank and all the stereotypes that goes along with that. . .talk about a transformation.) And this is the generation that started to create the dreaded \"participation award.\" Government Policy was still being run by their parents, but their parents were trying to buy votes from these Boomers that so far had had everything handed to them. By the 90s they started running the show and have ever since. . . AND THEY DON'T KNOW HOW! They want to live the glory of their childhood and make the younger generations do the work for them, because their parents aren't around to do it anymore.",
"Boomer here. Born 1958. Put myself through college went to bed hungry served in the Army (I am female) at a time that was rough for women in the Army. Worked my tail off my whole life. Have a 30 year old at my company that started at $75 k per year. I make $60k. Pendulum swings both ways.",
"Gen X checking in: This is one of my favorite rants. Boomers got \"Tune in, turn on, drop out.\" Gen X and forward got \"Just Say No. Drugs are bad, m'kay?\" Boomers got free love. Gen X and forward got Silence = Death. Thanks, Boomers for your HIV! 'Preciatecha. Boomers could work for one summer at minimum wage and come up with enough money to pay college tuition, room & board for a whole school year. Starting with Gen X, min wage couldn't cut it anymore and now the debt load on college grads is insane. Note: Boomers are the ones who voted to cut higher education funding state by state. Boomers are the ones who dismantled retirement plans and put 401(k)s in place, which do not yield anywhere near what old Defined Benefit plans once did. After they got their own retirement situated of course. Boomers voted to raise the age for collecting full Social Security benefits to age 67 -- they did this in 1985 or 1986, when Gen X and forward were not even old enough to vote yet. Boomers made NAFTA, which in turn sucked all the manufacturing industry out of the Midwest and sent it off to Mexico and Canada. Good luck finding a job in Flint, MI. Boomers are the ones who decided that everyone should get a trophy for participating and everyone's a winner. If Gen X or Y or Millennials are \"spoiled\" or \"entitled,\" who the fuck do you think raised us? We didn't spoil ourselves. I can go on and on. Every time I hear some smug, smelly, goddamn hippie talk about their glory days and how they changed the world, I just get all stabby. They changed it alright but clearly gave no fucks whatsoever about subsequent generations.",
"They accept unfunded entitlements without asking how they were going to pay for it. It's like finding a credit card on the floor with the PIN. Spending on it and then shrugging when the card holder asks you to pay the bill.",
"They aren't. This is something I've found to be **almost** exclusively isolated to Reddit, along the same lines as any discussion that involves the terms \"post-scarcity\". This site turns into an echo chamber for people with niche ideas, and they end up being over-represented. **Edit:** in bold.",
"Lot's of misplaced anger and scapegoating. Yes, their generation had it easier for the most part, and millennials are envious and bitter about that. However to blame each individual member of an entire generation as a whole for a massively complex situation is really just oversimplification and reddit echo-chamber magic. Baby boomers benefited from an unsustainable bubble of post-war prosperity. It's not their fault they were lucky. It's a little bit their fault if they can't understand that they were lucky. But not enough to scapegoat them for everything.",
"Boomers are white, black, hispanic, arabic, asian, christian, jewish, atheist, jehova's witness, amish, rich, poor, middle class, republican, democrat, socialist, etc. They are also sometimes grouped as 1946-1965 and sometimes split into Boomer I and Boomer II generations. I was born in 63 and share little philosophically with someone born in the 40's or 50's. To blame boomers for fucking over younger Americans is scapegoating and misdirection. The people fucking over the young people today are the same as the ones who were fucking over young people in the 40's, 50's, 60's, 70's and so on.",
"I can only speak for myself, but it basically comes down to an entire generation that had everything handed to them, and still managed to fuck it all up...WHILE blaming their kids and grandkids for the world's problems. *Typical Boomer* \"You know what's wrong with the world today? Nobody takes any goddamn responsibility for anything\" *Gen-X and Millenials* \"Well, it's not like I was even alive to have a vote on [insert just about anything up to 1990]...\" *Boomer again* \"Well don't blame me!!!\" Seriously, George Carlin did an awesome riff on why that generation is so reviled. I'm using my iPhone for this right now, so let me go retrieve the footage for any and all viewers. Here we are: URL_0",
"We (old millennials) were given a lot of undue guilt at a young age about the changing world and changing economy. I remember being a little kid in elementary school and having my teacher talk to us about how much better kids in Japan were. Japan (late 80's to early 90's) was excelling past the U.S. in several industries and who was to blame? Apparently eight year olds were to blame. Seriously. We were blamed by some teachers for the state of the educational system and lectured about it. We were told we weren't nearly studious or educationally disciplined enough while simultaneously being told we don't play outside enough. A boomer teacher would tell you in one breath about how much time they spent free to have childhood adventures and in the next breath tell you why you should be spending your free time doing more educational things. But also, magically have the time to get off your lazy asses, you kids are too damn chubby. The chubby thing was true but also the result of the piss-poor nutritional standards set in place by the previous generations. That being said, there's a lot of really great boomers out there; never lump them all together.",
"Generations don't actually exist. They were invented by writers to sell books. They're not even recognized by the US census.",
"I'm a member of Generation X, but I don't begrudge the Baby Boomers for the situation. Society changes and evolves over time, and I think most of the animosity is because they happen to be born in the enviable position of right place and right time.",
"Ask me how much my loans were. Does everyone think student loans are a new thing?",
"I'm not saying there aren't legit reasons, but I'm wondering if it isn't tradition to hate or blame your parents' generation.",
"Today's young Americans hate Baby Boomers because they mortgaged their economic future, just like we are mortgaging our descendants' environmental future.",
"A lot of people have covered the major points, but there's also a reactionary hate between the baby boomers and the millennials. The former thinks the latter is too entitled and complains too much while the latter thinks the former caused many of the problems they have and takes no responsibility.",
"\"I know they got lucky to be born in an age of prosperity\" Okay, two things are wrong with this statement. 1) There was no luck. The world is how it is because of our elders, our forefathers. 2) It was a less prosperous time than now. They just pretended that it was a prosperous time and lived beyond their means. Making purchases in the names of their children and grandchildren. All the hate and vitriol that's being cast upon them is entirely deserved.",
"Boomer here, and I get it. Think about Brexit. Do the younger generations want to leave the EU? In large part, no. But they're now stuck with it. Plenty of examples here in the USA as well. Hey, I have a suggestion for my fellow elderly. You really don't want to spend the last six months of your life in pain, in bed, and racking up the medical charges do you? That money would be better served going to the next generation, wouldn't it?. Hint hint...",
"Regardless of your opinion towards Boomers or any other generation, take some time today to watch this Vsauce video about Juvenoia - \"The fear or hostility directed by an older generation toward a younger one, or toward youth culture in general.\" URL_0 The Baby Boomers are guilty of Juvenoia, and the backlash from Gen X and Y is the result. (since this has somehow turned into a controversial post, for the record, I do subscribe to the Boomers are evil Reddit hive mind position, this was just a video about generations shitting on younger ones forever.)",
"Top answer pretty on point, but let me add: Any attempt at reducing the programs that are choking the new generations - Social Security and Medicare, mainly - is met by hard opposition from your generation. You are hamstringing your children while truly believing you aren't as entitled as these programs make you. Ultimately the buck is going to become due, but it won't be paid by you. You'll be gone, and even if you aren't, you would have realized the benefits regardless. This will leave us, the subsequent generation, and our progeny to deal with it.",
"Follow the money and legislative focus. In the 70s/80s college was basically free as states subsidized universities and everybody had middle class income jobs with pensions and healthcare waiting for them as they entered adulthood. In the 90s/00s, as they reached middle age, the housing bubble happened. Houses used to be affordable to buy. Then, because boomers tied up all of their worth in houses and because legislation all but facilitated the \"get rich quick schemes\" of real estate swapping, the market became impossible to enter. The bubble got so bad the entire damn economy crashed when it popped in 2008. Meanwhile things like college became no longer affordable as states stopped subsidizing universities to pay for other things. Now in the 10s and going forward legislation is focused on healthcare (and housing recovery of course). Every step of the way for the last 40 years Boomers have demanded the economy adhere to their needs and desires rather than society's as a whole.",
"Everyone has brought up the economic and political reasons that cause newer generations feel betrayed by the boomers, and thats valid, but honestly I think it's attitude that gives the boomers such a hated reputation. It's absolutely true that boomers grew up in a time where making a living was just _easier_. But try to tell that to one who's living in a house they bought in the 70s and has had the same job 25 years. A lot of boomers simply don't want to accept that things are kinda fucky now and it might be their fault. When we where young we just accepted what they said with wide eyes, \"follow your dreams\", \"anything is possible\", \"Hard work and determination\". All sayings that we heard growing up. And as my generation got older, things turned out to be a little less idealistic than we where lead to beleive. When getting a job turned out to be a difficult endeavor, we where met with condescending remarks about being lazy, and needing to \"put ourselves out their\". When we got older and tried to move out, we where thrown into a housing market in turmoil. Making it extremely unrealistic to move out and continue education. Forcing many to chose one or the other. Boomers call this \"having poor work ethic\". I don't really beleive that anyone of them intended to create a worse off place for their kids to grow up. I just think they where extremely careless, they didn't think of the future beyond themselves at all. And for many that's cause enough for resentment. For me, the dislike comes from the fact that many of them seem to live in a bubble. Forever thinking that America is just as good as its always been and griping at newer generations for being entitled when they express grief that things are difficult now. But perhaps the big one for me is the sheer number of baby boomers. They have an overwhelming voter infulance, which is highly distressing and has allowed them to make huge impacts in the country long after they should have passed the buck on to newer generations. And it's not going to change for at least another decade. Millennials only passed baby boomers in number _last year_. So it'll be a while until they have a reasonable amount of voting power. Though it would help if more young people got out voted! I'd like to point out that I've been lucky enough not to deal with most of the condensation that boomers dish out. Well \"lucky\". My family started losing our home when I was 16, I got about a year of the \"you need to have better work ethic\" talk before my dad started desperately looking for another job to try to save our home. He was met with the pretty gross reality that the job he'd held for the last 13 years is the only place he's going to make that much money with his level of education. And he still makes far more than most people with a mid-level education just entering the job market. Needless to say, being kicked out of our house after 4 years of struggling and having to move back in with my grandparents put a sharp end to the. \"Entitled generation\" garbage. They are still stuck living with them as 4 years later."
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5zxkb4 | Why is the drinking age 14 in Germany but 21 in the USA? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"In the 1970s and 80s, the US had a huge rash of drunk driving fatalities caused by drunken teenagers. The two reactions considered for this was either raising the drinking age or raising the driving age. The US opted for the former. Whatever you may think of the drinking age in the US, it had the desired effect -- drunk driving fatalities plummeted.",
"America has a deep streak of religious puritanism which ends up driving a lot of \"morality\" laws...Remember, this is the same country that tried to ban alcohol altogether, and currently spends a massive amount of money persecuting people who use drugs recreationally.",
"Drinking age is not quite 14 in Germany. It is 18 for wine and 16 for beer. If you are accompanied by an adult who buys the beer you can get drink beer at 14. You won't be able to buy beer anywhere yourself if you are under 16 and no hard liquor under 18. Every salesperson knows that they risk their job if they don't card you when selling alcohol so these rules are usually enforced very well. If you are younger than 16 you won't be able to buy anything but inns etc may be allowed to serve you alcohol as long as there is a parent or similar adult with you who pays for the whole deal and allows it. Under 14 they can't let you drink at all even when the parent says it is okay.",
"Because laws can be arbitrary. There is no magical age at which every person becomes physically and mentally mature and/or able to handle drinking alcohol. Legislators some time ago decided that the age 21 seemed like a good idea and so that became the law. I'm sure the specifics are more complicated than that and vary by state, but that's the basic idea. In Germany, drinking was probably more culturally acceptable at a younger age, so their lawmakers picked a lower age.",
"I guess they figured if 16 year olds were old enough to defend Berlin from the onslaught of the beastly Soviet hoards, then they were old enough to enjoy a beer. If they lived long enough to order one.",
"21 is not the drinking age in the USA, it's the age at which you can purchase alcohol. You can drink earlier than 21 if your parents are present and consent. I'm not intimately familiar with Germany's laws, but from some quick Googling it looks like a 14 year old in Germany can only drink with their parent's consent as well, and only drink beer or wine. They can't drink without a custodian or drink spirits until 16 and 18 respectively, so there's still a difference, but not quite as large as 14 and 21. As for the reasons for the difference, like the other posters said it's just cultural. There's no official cut off point at which people are old enough for X or Y, so every city/state/country just makes laws for what they think is best."
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5zyw85 | Why aren't clothing sizes standardized for all countries, brands, and clothing types? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Because different countries have different \"standard\" sized people. People in Japan are much smaller than people in Russia per se. Size is relative."
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5zzdn9 | Whats the difference between confirmation bias and cognitive bias? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Confirmation bias is when you believe X, so you only look for evidence to support your belief/claim. Confirmation bias is a form of cognitive bias. There are multiple cognitive biases."
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5zzq3d | What is the purpose of "50" in 50 Shades of Grey? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"The main character calls the dude she's fucking \"50 shades of fucked up\" and then he thinks that's cute and spanks her till she bleeds"
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5zzsoz | the success of Alex Jones | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Simple. It's math. 7 billion humans. .014% is 1 million people. Tricking/lying to .014% is easy. It's the same reason there are people who genuinely believe the earth is flat. Or that we didn't go to the moon. Or 9/11 was an \"inside job\". Or we're all being sprayed by \"chemtrails\". Or socialism is a good idea. Lying to a tiny percentage of the population is easy. Alex Jones knows this and makes 4 million a year exploiting it."
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6006p9 | Why is popcorn the most common snack eaten at movies? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"* Popcorn is cheap. Incredibly cheap. Odds are the bucket it's in cost more than the popcorn. * It's cheap and easy to store. It doesn't require refrigeration and is tolerant to a wide degree of temperature fluctuations. So no expensive refrigerators or freezers to store it in. * It cooks very quickly, needing very little staff training or supervision. * When it is cooking, it has a very enticing aroma that spreads out all over the lobby. You don't smell the milk duds or M & Ms -- you smell the popcorn. The movie theater operator is basically in the concession sales business, since almost all of the money at the box office goes to the movie studios. So something that they can buy for pennies, sell for several dollars, and that gets people to the counter where the might buy more things is the perfect snack.",
"During the great depression, popcorn became very popular as an affordable snack. This was right around the time movie theaters were becoming popular, so many people would go to see a movie with popcorn they had bought off a street vendor. Soon after movie theaters started selling popcorn themselves, which cemented the association. [You can read more about it here.]( URL_0 )"
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600h66 | How was Mark Wahlberg, a convicted felon, allowed to train for gunplay for his films while remaining a felon? | I thought felons weren't supposed to use firearms? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Because he is rich, and the people who employ him are even richer. He is a felon, and even a prop gun is good enough for a \"felon with a firearm\" charge in CA. Not to mention the times he and his studio employers have bragged about him training with real guns. But because he is a millionaire, the law doesn't seem to apply to him."
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601zze | Why is China's role in WW2 such uncommon knowledge? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"In the United States, it's because the war on Germany took precedence, so we learn more about the Western Front, briefly touch on the Soviet Union and the Eastern Front, and our experience with the other side of the world is mainly limited to the Pacific War with Japan. China's not covered because, to be honest, the vast majority of our servicemen were deployed elsewhere. All we ever hear about from the Chinese Theater of Operations is the Flying Tigers.",
"It's not well-known because we as Western countries wrote a history that shoehorned the China-Japan-Pacific conflict into the European-centered war. That's not necessarily wrong: the Japanese did attack European and American territories, and they did that (ultimately) because of their conflict in China. These things are absolutely connected. But the idea that China was a nation like Western nations, and that it had a \"role\" in the war like France or New Zealand is not quite accurate. China was horribly complicated in the 1930s. So in China the Second World War has to be discussed in the context of their history. Most countries in the war operated together. We call the winning side \"the Allies\" because- with a few serious exceptions- they collaborated closely. China had the benefit of aid from the Soviets and Americans, but they did not have the ability to project power into other theaters or provide men or material in return. They didn't cooperate internally, much less with other governments on other continents. China didn't even have a single government: it was a quilt of warlord territories, most of which had been assembled together by Jiang Jieshi (Chang Kai-Shek) into Kuomintang (Nationalist) territory like a syndicate. The Communists under Mao Zedong controlled roughly one province. Other warlords and potentates controlled their own provinces and regions, including places that still give the Chinese government a headache, like Tibet and Xinjiang out west. The efforts each government made differed too, with the Communists putting up remarkable resistance when they faced off against the Japanese, and the Nationalists losing ground continuously for eight years. With all that in mind, it was not realistic to expect the Chinese to do much outside of China. Their place in the history of the war is crucial, but the story that we tell- about industrial superpowers, an engineering arms race, intercontinental strategy, and the wills of mad men- doesn't really fit with the events in China. Source: wrote thesis on China in the 1930s, lived in China for several years. For my pet theory: the conflict with Japan should be put in the context of Chinese history broadly, under the idea that China has a cultural center (including places like Sichuan, Shanghai, and Bejiing) and a cultural border (including places like Japan, Manchuria, Vietnam, and Tibet). Every few centuries one of the border countries rides in and tries to take over the center. The Mongols and Manchus pulled it off. The Japanese tried but failed. That theory will probably not hold water, but I'd like to try it out on some Japanese people anyway.",
"After the war, our government was worried that Japan would become communist like Russia and China. A lot if the atrocities committed by Japan weren't made public since our politicians wanted to rebuild and make an ally of them. They wanted a presence in the region. There was really no way to talk about China without talking about what the Japanese did there.",
"Here in Britain we learnt about it. The Burma road and all. I'm really starting to feel like American teaching of history sucks. Who won the war in Europe? The Soviets obviously, I think the right statistic is for every German that died fighting Americans or British, 30 died fighting the Soviets. Yet you talk to Americans and they make out they won the war single handly. Yea cheers guys thanks for selling weapons to both sides, getting rich then only joining the war when Hitler directly declared war on the US.",
"One of the simple reasons is because we call it the \"Pacific War\" on the eastern front. Where and when did it start? Pearl Harbor, December 7, 1941. This entirely takes out the starting point in which Japan began hostilities against China, September 18, 1931 during the Mukden Incident. An entire decade had passed before the USA joined the eastern front, but we don't even bother to mention it.",
"The Rape of Nanjing occurred, where Japanese soldiers seized control of the Chinese capitol (at the time) and raped/killed as many people they could find. At the same time, Japan committed a lot of messed up medical research during WW2 through torture, some may say even worse than the Nazis did. Unfortunately, these findings were deemed important to the U.S., as they could help advance the search for cures of some diseases and other things. The U.S. made a deal with Japan to obtain the medical discoveries in return for no punishment for the Rape of Nanjing. If this deal never happened and the Japanese got their rightful punishment for their crimes, I am very sure that we would hear of China's role in WW2 more often than we do now. What's even more messed up is that medical researchers would have made a *portion of these medical discoveries sooner or later. So stupid. *Edit: A portion, not all",
"Much of China was occupied by Japan before and during WW2. China was also still largely an agricultural \"peasant nation\", not industrialized nearly the extent of Japan or western powers. Thus their capacity to mount resistance was limited. Their main role (from the allies' standpoint) was to force some extent of japanese troops tied up defending the territory, raid supply lines, sabotage war resources. Their history during WW2 is limited because their impact on the war was limited.",
"> **It’s a good reason to remember that on its own. I would say that one of the single facts, which is worth remembering if you want to annoy an official in the Chinese Communist Party, is to remind them that the reason, the primary reason, that China today has a seat in the permanent five on the United Nations Security Council, the top table of global diplomacy, is not because of anything that Chairman Mao did. It was because of the wartime efforts of Chiang Kai-shek, and essentially as a direct result of China’s involvement on the Allied side in World War II.** > China now finds itself — more than 65, 70 years nearly after the end of World War II — as the only non-European, non-white power to sit at that top table. So these things do have a great deal of significance today. > **When were they forgotten? Put very simply, China’s wartime experience, suffering, and contribution to the Allied cause fell into a hole created by the Cold War. Neither side had an interest in recalling what China did.** > On the Chinese side, after 1949 when the civil war was over, the Nationalists had been exiled to Taiwan, and Mao was victorious on the mainland, you had essentially a virgin history in the mainland of China — that the only people who had made a contribution to fighting and defeating the Japanese were the Chinese communists. The contribution that had actually been made by the much larger Nationalist army was essentially either dismissed or wiped out of the official history that was taught in China itself. So there’s sort of an historical black hole there. > But we can’t put any of the responsibility by any means on the Chinese communists on the mainland. You have to remember that in the West, we very quickly forgot about that wartime contribution as well. The reason is that Chiang Kai-shek, the Chinese wartime leader, was essentially seen as a sort of embarrassment — this Cold War relic remaining on Taiwan, looking more and more irrelevant year by year, associated with incompetence and corruption, with a whole variety of qualities that the West didn’t find very attractive. > But what was forgotten was the leader, through a whole swath of decisions, many of them very problematic and difficult, had nonetheless kept China in the war against Japan. First of all, on his own for about four and half years, and then of course as part of the very difficult alliance with the West for another four years after that. URL_0",
"I was unaware of the atrocities committed by Japan in China until in undergrad my Chinese history professor gave us a good couple hour lecture solely on the subject. Eye opening to say the least.",
"It's due to the post war hostility towards communism. Essentially, there was two stories of WW2. The one that really happened, and the one where the US sallied in and kicked everyone's ass. Now guess which version cold war high school class rooms were teaching. The result is the current state of affairs with a bizarrely warped perception of how and by whom WW2 was fought that persists to this day.",
"One reason is because it makes the chinese communist party really upset when you remind everyone that the only reason they are in power is because the actual democratic people's republic of china lost all it's military power fighting tooth and nail with the japanese imperial army. Mao Zedong's communists basically laid low like a bunch of opportunistic cowards during the war while the japanese raped and murdered everyone, and then moved in to take over the country after the republican government had exhausted all its man power. Then they went out of their way to rewrite history and pretend that they were actually the saviors of the people/fought the japanese. Since china is an important trading partner and chinese culture puts a huge emphasis on the concept of face (face basically means public respect), we all collectively agree to ignore it.",
"The history of countries that sometimes cause the US aggregation are seldom studied in depth in grade school. Very few people know about the rape of Nanking who haven't done some digging and research out of real curiosity because it's not talked about often. You could say the same for Vietnam before the war, or Korea before the war etc. World history is painted in with the broadest of strokes.",
"It's well know in the majority of the world. The US education system is based on glorifying the US role. This is how the fact that the US didn't help the Allies in Europe (particularly France) until ¾ of the way through WW1 isn't well known. And then it didn't want to help Britain and Europe in WW2. It demanded all of Britains wealth for assistance and sent it broke. No one remembers that either. So it suits the US image of itself to tell the history that makes itself look good.",
"The same reason we think America won the European conflict despite Russia killing 90% of all Nazi forces, almost all the tanks and the eastern front being the clear deciding front of the war. Germany pulled forces away from the west, even after D-day, to stop the Russians, and some German officers intentionally surrendered early so that Britain/America could get to places before the Russians. The west talks about the west kicking ass because the western soldiers came back with their stories. Very few Russian soldiers came back to make Hollywood films about the Eastern front. Very few Chinese soldiers made Hollywood films about their experiences.",
"The massacre of Nangking was awful. The Japanese had no humanity in such atrocious acts against the Chinese.",
"Because it ended with Mao, and it's a lot easier to forget why Mao got power and just accuse him of mass murder. It's hard to have an in-depth understanding of the factors that led to his popularity and still blindly accuse him of horrible things.",
"Well, to sum it up simply, Japan had already conquered much of Asia by the time the US joined the war and those parts were generally not liberated. Japan still held that territory when they surrendered to the US, and during that part of the war Russia swept in to claim territory for the communists. It made for a somewhat awkward ending to the whole thing and the Soviet land grab at the end sort of triggered the cold war stance that followed.",
"China Marines and the Flying Tigers etc? Those were the main things other than Role as victims of the Japanese I knew of growing up. Disney doing the Patch for the Flying Tigers and Newsreel stuff.",
"Yeah I'm from the NL and you can already guess what we talk about most. We did a really cool thing though where the teacher gave us a couple of subjects and we had to make a presentation about one of them. I chose operation barbarossa as it isn't that well known and I am a history fan. But I think western countries don't talk about the stuff they weren't involved in that much. I don't know about the situation in Germany or Japan but you'd think they'd learn more about the Eastern front and China."
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6026he | What are the psychological benefits of having a crush on someone you've never met ie why do they happen? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Having crushes developed when people rarely met others outside their clan/tribe/whatever. Technology has tricked our brains into thinking it knows people we've never met (you can see extreme examples of this in obsessive fans). So, when someone appeals to you and your brain thinks it knows them, a crush can develop.",
"Safe distance to experience/practice/work out romantic feelings. One of my high school students wrote an astute essay on how her boy-band crushes did just that.",
"Because you are biologically never meant to see someone without meeting them. Technology allows us to project the image of people, but during our evolution if you saw someone, you were close to them physically."
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602fvj | why is it called rule 34? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Since time immemorial (i.e. at least the early ’90s), there have been various lists of “rules of the internet”. Different lists contained different rules in different orders. A witty observation could be phrased as a new “rule of the internet”. The number “34” is arbitrary; the idea that there is a single authoritative list, of which a given rule is the thirty-fourth, is part of the joke. Several people have mentioned lists created on 4chan. One older list is as follows: 1. There is no cabal. (That is, there is no shadowy organization running everything on the internet. This was meant to be tongue-in-cheek, because there *was* an actual “[cabal]( URL_0 )” reorganizing major parts of the internet) 2. The internet interprets censorship as damage and routes around it. (Corollary: “information wants to be free”) 3. To every opinion there is an equally loud and opposite opinion. (Corollary: “In cyberspace, everyone can hear you scream.”) 4. “Godwin's law”: As a conversation goes on, the probability that one participant will compare another to Hitler approaches one. (Traditionally, once this happens, the conversation is over and the one who made the comparison is considered to have lost.)",
"rule 34 is named as such because it is the thirty-fourth rule of the internet on the great list of internet rules. apparently there was a comic and 4chan was involved I think they are all [Here] ( URL_0 )",
"It was made by 4chan a while ago, probably a decade ago now. Dubbed the rules of the internet, they go as follows. 1) Do not talk about rules 2-33 34) There is porn of it. No exceptions. 35) The exception to rule #34 is the citation of rule #34. 36) Anonymous does not forgive. 37) There are no girls on the internet. 38) A cat is fine too 39) One cat leads to another. 40) Another cat leads to zippocat. 41) Everything is someone’s sexual fetish. 42) It is delicious cake. You must eat it. 43) It is a delicious trap. You must hit it. 44) /b/ sucks today. 45) Cock goes in here. 46) They will not bring back Snacks. 47) You will never have sex. 48) ??? 49) Profit. 50) You can not divide by zero. There are other versions which people are linking, but this is the original."
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602rve | Why is Christianity not considered mythology? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Really, it is. If anyone argues that it's not, you're just arguing the definition of the word.",
"It is in that category technically but unfortunately people treat it like fact and for that reason, people refuse to recognize it as mythology."
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603q46 | Why do races or groups of people get blamed for or associated with the actions of ancestors from 100+ years ago? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Simply put: because sometimes the actions of 100+ years ago are still felt because the fallout from those actions was poorly handled. In the case of American slavery, there is a lot of bitterness between African and Anglo America due to African-American history starting with slavery, and continuing for such a long time that much of the country was built by slavery. America fought it's most gruesome war over this, and slavery was abolished after tens of millions^^WRONG of *white* American lives were lost. At this point, fairly understandably, a lot of white America felt like the debt had been repaid. That may or may not be true, but the reality was that more needed to be done beyond simply making slavery illegal. Slaves had not been educated on how to live as free people because, sadly, slave owners would have been stupid to teach those skills. There was important work to be done after the abolition of slavery, but at that point America was weary from a brutal civil war and it just didn't happen. It also doesn't help that racial issues are often capitalised by the elites to stop the poor recognising that the real problem is class, not race. Edit: 10s of millions, hundreds of thousands. What's the difference right? No but seriously, my bad.",
"Basically, because those actions still affect us today. The most obvious one is probably slavery in the US. If you're white in the US today, you probably (hopefully) don't own any slaves, but you still benefit from \"your\" people holding slaves generations ago. It created a lot of wealth for white people, who still benefit from that. It created a society which treats white people as better/more worthy. It created a legal system in which black people are inherently suspect. These effects still exist today, and they benefit some, and disadvantage others. It is not about \"blame\", though, but rather about acknowledging these actions and the effects they've had. It is about recognizing that \"yes, my ancestors did something bad 100+ years ago, which has made life better for me, but worse for you. I recognize that this is unjust, and agree that we should work to correct it\".",
"It is mostly because the \"100+ years ago\" part is just the origin of a current problem. Right now, actions of our society are negatively affecting specific racial groups. The problem is that today it is not so obvious as slavery. It is hidden in the everyday. No one should be blamed for something that happened over a hundred years ago, but not acknowledging the problems of today is our problem today. ELI15: If you're interested, off the top of my head, here is a list of racial issues that presently affect people (note: this list is largely of white/ black issues in the USA): * having to deal with micro aggressions on a daily basis (I'm not trying to blame the micro aggressors because we all have them and they're generally not intentional. Micro aggressions are small differences in how we treat others based on our subconscious assumptions about them. As such, they are hard to change or control.) * being treated with suspicion by store clerks (being followed around stores/ being watched/ not being treated like other customers) * being treated with suspicion by the police (who's duty is supposed to be to serve and protect you) * given harsher sentences in court for equivalent crimes * America has more people in jail than any other country on earth (so much for \"freedom\") and it's disproportionally minorities (in this stop-and-frisk world, many black people essentially live in a police state) * being told that bringing up any of these issues is you \"not being responsible with your life\" no matter how responsible you are with your life or where you are in life * that if you fight for your rights, you are a problem, while if you are white and you fight for your rights you are a patriotic American. * not being represented by your government (There has been a growing problem with voter suppression. I personally don't have a problem with voter ID laws as long as the government allows reasonable access to getting an ID for underserved areas. Also, if a voter ID law pops up right before an election it is pretty obvious what it's for. A legitimate voter ID law would give citizens enough time to get a state ID.) * not being treated like a \"normal\" person in a crowd of your peers * being told most hair styles you can do are not professional * that in tests identical resumes, one with a \"normal\" American name and one without, will most often result in the Anglo resume getting the call back (this is even before anyone has seen each other) * that in America, society can treat you as more of an outsider than when you move to another country * that it was just one generation (or two depending on how old you are) ago that \"colored\" bathrooms and restaurants and venues were a thing * that you can't even talk about these things with liberal, self proclaimed antiracist, white people without making them feel uncomfortable (they feel guilty even when you aren't blaming them or their parents or their parent's parents) * I think the very biggest problem is because plausible deniability of systematic prejudice is so simple (each individual isn't doing anything bad, but society as a whole most definitely is). It's the \"not my problem\" conundrum. Race can makes people feel awkward, guilty, or blamed. Minorities don't bring up these issues to blame white people (or at least that's not the main goal). They bring up these issues because they are issues that desperately need addressing. Every generation it gets better and the reason is because the inequalities of the day are brought up and fought against. Americans shouldn't stop bringing up issues of inequality just because it's better than it was.",
"> Why do races or groups of people get blamed for or associated with the actions of ancestors from 100+ years ago? Because the ones applying the blame have been able to gain great political power through making those accusations. They resulted in massive amounts of money being taken from people the accusers don't like and given to those they do. Those accusations convince millions of people to vote for certain political candidates. Really, it comes down to power. The big question is why do so many people *accept* the blame for the actions of their ancestors 100+ years ago. Or people 100+ years ago that looked vaguely like them?",
"Most of these answers discuss leftover privilege however I do not think it makes sense to blame someone for being born into privilege, for having said privilege? Trying to make people feel guilty will make most defensive as opposed to what you are trying to accomplish, further dividing everyone. I think everyone needs to stop assuming malintent and start focusing on the actual problems, instead of trying to find the people to blame for said problems. Maybe I'm just biased because I'm the one being blamed (but that sorta proves my point)",
"It has more to do with privilege and systematic racism. While I, as a white American, may not be inherently racist, I still benefit from privilege associated with my race. I don't have to worry about representation from the media, police don't think I'm more dangerous because of my skin color, and generally the areas where Caucasian people live in America are nicer. As a child, I grew up in a primarily black area, and the school system is definitely different. The school I went to was underfunded, teachers gave up halfway through the year, and if something was broken it wasn't always fixed. When I started high school, my parents moved and we were in a primarily white area. The school I went to there had a lot of nicer facilities. Our campus was kept nicer, we had all new textbooks, we even had some of the latest technology in class (like interactive white boards). It wasn't until I was older that I started to learn about how this happened. Housing discrimination, illogical school district set up (gerrymandering is the term in politics), and a focus on test scores to determine funding (ie, don't give money to schools when their students aren't performing well). Also racially biased questions on these standardized tests. While I personally didn't cause any of this, I still systematically benefit from the privilege that comes from it. And it's not just in America. I did a minor in Asian studies, where I learned a lot about Japanese and Chinese relations after WWII. I can't personally attest to the culture, but from what I studied there are similar issues in these countries (if anyone has a more personal insight I would love to know it). In essence, nobody is blaming individual white people for slavery today. The focus is on realizing how certain actions lead to a culture where people are discriminated against, and opening privileged people to the fact they are privileged. Not so we can feel \"white guilt\", but so we can help shape the system to benefit non white people as well.",
"my views on stuff like slavery are simple i was not there, i did not do it ,i have not personally profited from it therefore i don't give a shit... anyone who says it was my fault can get fucked and jump into a wood chipper for being retards"
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603rw2 | " Peace doesn't mean the absence of war." What does it mean ? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Put it this way: At the end of the Korean War, nobody won. The war just stopped. No peace was offered or accepted. Today, there is simply the tenuous halt of combat. This is not peace because if provoked either side would gladly restart the fight. It's like ending an argument with both sides angry. Ending the argument is not peace. Hashing out your differences and becoming friendly towards each other is attaining peace.",
"The full quote is that \"Peace is *not merely* the absence of war but the presence of justice, of law, of order —in short, of government.\"",
"Usually this phrase is about positive peace vs. negative peace. **Negative peace** means simply there is no war and large violence. **Positive peace** relates to a peaceful, calm and just society. E.g. South Africa during Apartheid was not at war, but nevertheless was not a peaceful society due to the racial discrimination and tension. Similarly, right now, Eritrea does not have positive peace. The country is not at war, however many people are fleeing it because they face torture and brutal, decade-long military service. more stuff (rather ELI15): URL_0",
"In an international development/education class I took in grad school, the professor put it like this: there's positive peace and negative peace. Negative peace just means that there isn't an active, armed conflict right this moment. That doesn't necessarily mean that people are secure or that social problems are being dealt with or that the threat of future conflict isn't there. It just means that there aren't bombs exploding around you or soldiers shooting people. Positive peace is when society actively works to solve social ills (which often exacerbate or cause conflict) and people feel secure. Or to put it another way, it's like being not-sick and being healthy. If you just don't have cancer or pneumonia or the flu right now, that doesn't necessarily mean that you're healthy or there isn't anything medically wrong that could become a worse problem later.",
"A totalitarian state where the citizens are prevented from being able to resist the government would be \"at peace\", but not necessarily \"peaceful\". Just because people are prevented from fighting doesn't mean hostilities aren't simmering beneath, waiting for a chance to unleash.",
"From the musical *Rent*, \"The opposite of war isn't peace: it's creation.\" Peace is the opposite of war like not being hungry is the opposite of being hungry. Sure, the two are mutually exclusive, but there's more that could be done, like being completely full, or contributing good into the world, rather than just letting everything stay the way it is.",
"Here's another example: I hate this guy, he hates me. We fist fight all the time. But we got tired of it so we agreed to just call each other names. It really isn't peaceful but you can still consider it fighting. Only when we stop fighting and start liking each other is when its considered peace.",
"Peace is defined as freedom from disturbance. There can easily be peace during wartime considering the fact that there was a Christmas Truce during World War I, one could consider that peace even though there was no true absence of War. Pasted the link below if you're interested URL_0",
"As a \"peace scientist\" we conventionally think of peace in terms of the absence of conflict. This is largely because we conventionally study the \"correlates of war\", or, the factors that lead or do not lead to peace, the most influential factor typically being the regime types of two states. Consider the democratic peace, which typically holds that two states that are democratic do not go to war with one another. That does not tell you about whether the two states have peaceful relations, but rather, just do not go to war with one another. Consider the enduring rivalry of India and Pakistan. While the two states have not gone to war recently, one can hardly call their relationship peaceful. It is in a stalemate, where truth be told, war could occur at any point in time should the two states determine that commitments they previously agreed to were now not credible. Alternatively, consider the relationship between the United States and the United Kingdom. They haven't been at war in a while, but, they've transitioned into a period of positive relations marked by common affinity, partnership, and peacetime military cooperation. For an extensive answer, see \"The Puzzle of Peace\" by Goertz, Diehl, and Balas. This is a new approach to understanding what we often refer to as \"positive peace\" (peace) in addition to \"negative peace\" (peace in absence of war). In the peace science tradition, we are just revisiting the idea of positive peace, which has largely been neglected since the 1950s and 1960s."
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6042vw | Turkey's Constitutional Referendum | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"TLDR: this is a move by Erdogan to consolidate power. There are 18 proposed changes, including one to remove the Prime Ministerial office, and another to increase the number of MPs. Ultimately it gives Erdogan more power. Questions have been raised about separation of church and state, democratic freedoms and judicial processes. It appears that the conservative government supporters want the bill to pass. There are claims of intimidation and suppression of those against the changes. Source: URL_0",
"There are different amendments being voted on by the general public. some good, some complicated and some downright terrible. The good and complicated ones are however only there for marketing purposes. The whole thing boils down to a power grab by Turkey's current president Tayyip Erdogan, in essence he is trying to make the role of president significantly more powerful by taking power away from other branches of government and giving it to the President(himself). These changes are purportedly in response to last years failed coup. They are generally supported by the ruling AKP party and opposed by everyone else. The AKP says they are needed to fight terrorism and future coup attempts. Now a little history. Turkey has a long history of coups, but a little different to what you may expect. Coups in Turkey are generally carried out by the military when the government tries to subvert democracy and in general becomes too tyrannical. So these coups are generally carried out to preserve democracy and secularism. This is odd to say the least if you know anything about coups. TL;DR Over the past few years Erdogan and the AKP have become increasingly authoritarian. There was a failed coup attempt in 2016, this has been used as further justification to crack down on civil liberties, free speech and the press. There is a constitutional referendum planned with the general aim of giving the president more power in 2017.",
"Erdogan is reversing Turkey's secular culture left over from the 1900s, when the predecessor to Turkey, the Ottoman Empire was dissolved. Due to increasing influence by religious fundamentalist minorities, he feels empowered to systematically dismantle first the military, then the courts, then the remaining legal obstacles that would stop his religious backers from maintaining power. Since he has largely succeeded in these acts, he has now managed to reach the most basic layer of the civilian legal system in Turkey - its constitution. To legitimize his actions and ensure that there cannot be a legal counter-revolution against him and his religious fundamentalist backers, he is rewriting chunks of the constitution to effectively outlaw his opposition or actions they would wish to take to under mine him.",
"What I don't really understand is why his people want to give him more power. What can he possibly give the Turks by getting more power?"
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6044cx | If parts of Yugoslavia were part of the Austro-Hungarian empire, are there still Mediterrean, West-European, and Slavic minorities within these countries as a result? | And what about other parts of former Austro-Hungary? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"To put it simply, yes. My dad is Croatian and grew up in what is Bosnia today. Back when it was all Yugoslavia, you had a lot of small communities. There were predominantly Croatian villages, Serbian villages and so on. Larger towns were a bit more diverse. You can still see the effects of this today, because when Serbia attacked Bosnia in the 90's, the Serbian villages were mostly left untouched, whereas in my dad's Croatian one the houses were all completely destroyed. What this means for today is that it is very common, much more than in other places, for people to have a nationality that is different from their birthplace, without them (or their parents) being immigrants at all. Also, what I do know is that there is a sizeable Croatian community in Styria and in Burgenland in Austria. URL_0 This is a good read, if you know German."
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604epn | If singers can perform others' songs, why can't comedians use jokes from others? | With proper acknowledgement, like in the beginning of the act the comedian would explain there will be jokes from others, maybe even list the originator of the joke. After all, I just want to be entertained, do I really care from whom the joke came from specially if I never heard it? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"When a singer performs another person's song in public, or records and releases that recording to the public, the songwriter not only gets written credit but also gets payments over time at rates based upon the sales of that recording or performance. When an honest comedian uses other comedian's jokes, the honest comedian has purchased the right to perform those jokes. Nearly every comedian has purchased jokes, and most will tell you where they came from if asked. Most recent discussion has been about a female comedian who did not purchase the rights to some jokes, and then used them in a performance AND made money from that performance. That's the problem.",
"When singers do covers or sample, they pay to do so. When they don't pay, courts generally have an easy time backing up the creator. Jokes are harder to quantify in monetary terms and originality terms than music. So it's much harder to bring a case against someone who has stolen jokes and also be worth it to the plaintiff. So, it is just frowned upon and looked very badly upon in the comedic community."
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605iyl | How can restaurants offer 5% off if you pay cash? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Because they don't have to pay the credit card company for the transaction. When you pay with a card, the processor charges a fee to the merchant. If you pay cash, then there's no fee for the merchant to pay, and they can offer you a discount."
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605jh2 | Where did the asian yellow skin thing come from? Maybe it's just me, but their skin doesn't really look even remotely yellow to me. | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"URL_1 Apparently yellow has been repeatedly been used to refer to Asia as a whole since the 400s BCE (Greco-Persian Wars, when \"Persia\" encompassed a bunch of different peoples). It could be similar to how society shifts it's perception of color (i.e. red hair is more orange to us today, or that the ocean was \"wine colored\" in Homer's Odyssey). The world yellow is also etymologically close to gold, and I would say that you could accurately describe some Eastern Mediterranean skin tones as \"golden.\" Edit: New source of info and we're back to square one. \"Applied to Asiatics since 1787, though the first recorded reference is to Turkish words for inhabitants of India.\" URL_0",
"it actually is sort of yellowish in southern China and Southeast Asia, not so much in Korea, Japan and northern China, they are as white as Caucasians and of course Indians are brown",
"I'd say some Asian people are as \"yellow\" as some white people are \"white\" or black people are \"black\"",
"I myself am asian, and I used to think the same thing, however, if you actually compare skin tones side by side, the difference can be seen. Most of the time, I can spot a slight yellow tint, but from a distance, it's hard to tell. This doesn't apply to all asians, but it definitely exists.",
"Well, if you're talking undertones, we generally have yellow undertones. As opposed to a white person with pink undertones. When shopping for foundation we'd pick one with a yellow undertone or else we'd end up looking orange.",
"I'm no expert but I'm half-Japanese half-Chinese; and most of the east asian people I know look distinctively yellow-brown tinged, especially in the light and when compared to the pink-white hue I see in \"white\" skin. I'm wondering if it looks that way simply because my mind is incorporating the stereotype, or if the melanin actually reflects some shade of yellow.",
"Because back in the day China used colors for cardinal directions. China often considered itself the center of the map, which was identified by the color yellow. Also China was said to be founded by the \"Yellow Emperor\" so that probably contributed too.",
"It's not that complicated really, look how accurate other slangs referring to skin color are. Do all white people look like white A4 letter paper? Do all black people have a complexion like black construction paper? No of course not, but humans have always had heavy motivations to categorize and label everything in our world. When we were closer to caveman it was for safety purposes really, and even the words themselves were simpler, who is looking to \"invade my tribe\" if you will. Just like there was \"deep blood\" before there was \"purple\", before there was \"mauve\", and etc. TLDR: We, as dumb humans, have a biological imperative to separate ourselves in a variety of ways, and create \"us vs them\" narratives. One of the easiest ways is to call on a visual image, our databank for visual 'stuff' is quite large because it serves an evolutionary purpose. Just like white people can be more red in skin tone, black people more light in skin tone, asian's can have a more yellow skin tone.",
"It's probably due to the fact they have slightly thicker skin than Europeans, which is also why Asians seem to age less. It might not seem to be that different now but back when the upper classes of the world were in a race to become the pastiest the slightest variation from milk white was noted. It also may seem strange now because while the west have embraced tans many counties in Asia are still aiming for palour with huge sales of whitening creams, you aren't currently seeing fully natural skin tones in either area."
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605op0 | in the Jack Black version of King Kong, there is a scene on Skull Island where he is operating the camera and cranking it by hand. How the hell would that even work to give a consistent playback unless you were so skilled so as to be able to maintain a perfectly consistent speed? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"They weren't consistent: you can YouTube old newsreels and see the unnatural movements. Playback rate was consistent (once the projectors were electrified) but the record rate was not - until batteries. There were a few spring-powered cameras, but even those were flawed; faster when the coil was released, slower when it approached its expanded size, irregular when met with resistance.",
"They had internal speed governers similar to the ones found in 78 victrolas. Any overcranking would be met with resistance, keeping the frame rate within a tolerable limit.",
"They didn't. The speed varied quite a bit which is why many of those early silent films seem to speed up and slow down, with people walking too fast. Hand cranking was regulated to some extent by a flywheel but it still relied upon the camera operator having a very steady cadence which was difficult to maintain. You might find these articles interesting [Undercranking]( URL_0 ) [Speed of Silent Films]( URL_1 )"
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605v8g | What were Saddams Husseins actions that lead to the gulf war and 2003 Iraq war. | Why was he considered evil, and is it believed he was linked to 9/11 in any way? Thanks in advance. I know very little on the topic. | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"In 1990, Iraq invaded its neighbor, Kuwait. Iraq (Saddam) accused the Kuwaitis of \"slant drilling\" or drilling slanted oil wells that withdrew oil from deposits that were within Iraq's borders. This accusation was a pretense for war, as Iraq owed Kuwait $14 billion in debt for financial assistance in a previous war with Iran. Kuwait refused to forgive the debt despite repeated requests by Iraq. After occupying Kuwait, a coalition of several nations led by the U.S. launched the Gulf War during which the Iraqi military was soundly beaten and retreated from Kuwait. The international coalition set up punishments and conditions on Iraq, making it pay for the war costs, establishing no-fly zones over certain airspaces, and requiring that UN inspectors be present in Iraq to monitor its military operations and watch for any developments that could lead to war. Between 1991-2002, Saddam continued to act in belligerent ways, antagonizing the U.S. and its neighbors, chiefly by expelling the UN inspectors. This led the U.S. to adopt a pro-regime change policy aimed at removing Saddam from power. The September 11th 2001 terrorist attacks on the U.S. altered U.S. foreign and military policy significantly. Prior to this, (and this is post-Cold War), U.S. policy generally was to intervene in conflicts only when another country was acting aggressively, and to act \"multi-laterally\" or in conjunction with other allies. After September 11th, the U.S., under President George W. Bush implemented policies centered on \"preemptively\" engaging in conflict if there was a belief that such action may eliminate or deter a threat to the country, and to act alone (unilaterally) if necessary. This policy, which became known as the Bush Doctrine, led the U.S. to invade Afghanistan whose Taliban government harbored Al-Qaeda, the group responsible for the Sept. 11th attacks. The Bush Doctrine, coupled with the policy goal of removing Saddam from power, is what ultimately led to the 2003 invasion of Iraq. In the run up to the war, the CIA and other intelligence officials began issuing reports that Iraq was developing \"weapons of mass destruction\" or WMDs. These included nuclear and chemical weapons. The Bush Administration began building a public case against Iraq (that Iraq was threatening the U.S. and other countries with its WMDs), despite little actual hard evidence that Iraq was developing WMDs. The U.S. and several other countries, through the UN, issued an ultimatum that UN nuclear weapons inspectors must be allowed to inspect Iraqi nuclear and weapons facilities or face \"serious consequences.\" The other members of the UN Security Council stated that they did not intend for those consequences to include invasion. Saddam accepted the ultimatum and allowed inspectors back in the country, who found little evidence of WMDs. Despite this, the Bush Administration continued to push for war, arguing that Saddam was developing WMDs and must be removed from power. The Administration launched a public relations campaign aimed at boosting support for the war, including presenting what was later determined to be false information to the UN. In March of 2003, President Bush demanded that Saddam and his sons leave Iraq within 48 hours. The U.S. and its allies, outside of UN authority, later began the bombing of Iraq prior to the end of that deadline and the war began. Saddam was a brutal dictator and was considered very evil. He used chemical weapons on civilians, imprisoned and tortured civilians who were dissidents or perceived enemies, and murdered political opponents. His sons, which held significant power as well, were extremely sadistic and engaged in murder and torture as well. Saddam used his power to extort Iraq's wealth. He was not generally well liked or respected by any other nation, and was considered a disruptive power in the middle east region. Iraq did not have anything to do with the September 11th attacks (aside from probably providing some support to Al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups). The Bush Doctrine of preemption that arose from Sept. 11th was used as a justification to invade Iraq based on perceived (but false) beliefs that Iraq threatened U.S. security.",
"Besides the ethnic clensing of the Kurds and Shia Muslims? He invaded Kuwait, a small country bordering it and it forced NATO to respond."
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605vrq | Why do people only fill half the glass when pouring wine? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"So - flip your question....why are wine glasses too big. Obviously, if you filled the glass you would be having a LOT OF WINE and get super drunk, super fast. The reason the glasses are bigger than the serving size you would want is to let the aroma of the wine fill the extra space. That way when you take a sip, you're also sniffing the smell of the wine from the space above it in the glass. You'll notice that typically - a red wine glass is larger (because aroma is a more important part of the experience with red wine ) whereas a white wine glass ( where aroma isn't as important ) tends to be smaller.",
"Part of drinking wine is the smell. If you fill the glass, aroma can't accumulate for you to smell as you drink.",
"Custom more than anything. The glasses are supposed to be shaped in such a way that they aerate the wine and that effects the flavour. It also guides the smell to the nose when it's sipped. A full glass doesn't allow for that."
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605xzb | Why is Russia such a threat to NATO (Europe+USA) when it has an economy the size of Italy? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"The majority of Russia's economy belongs directly to the government or has the Russian government as a major stock-holder. This means that if they wish to wage war, they have a massive ability to fund it.",
"It's not a massive threat, but it is a credible one. Russia has shown an expansionist mindset after annexing Crimea, which scares a lot of the Eastern European countries that used to be a part of the Soviet bloc.",
"Military officer here. Their general expansionist attitude and military positioning are a great concern. Main concern other than that would be their technology development and how efficient they've been in combat in Ukraine. They have been continually developing for conventional warfare while the US has been focused on counter insurgency since '03. Its put us behind the curve. We have an outdated tank with soldiers who haven't even been on them for a while. The US Armor community is extremely worried about going head to head with their armor and their anti tank capabilities.",
"because of their ability to wage war. you can't throw money at your enemies to make them go away. you have to use weapons of war. and they have a lot. probably more than most of the smaller countries of europe combined. if we're talking about the entire military of europe + usa vs russia. that's a one sided fight. but politics get in the way. and if russia attacks one country, the other countries will help, but it's not like the other countries are going to commit most or even 1/4 of their forces to help."
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