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6853n2 | How would the world change if we limited each family to two children worldwide over the timespan of 100 years? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"The population would fall. Enough children would die before reaching the age of sexual reproduction and enough people would choose not to have their quota of children. Note this is what we will see in the future. Population growth is negative in many places (before immigration) already and we expect the fertility rate of most countries to also fall to around 2.1 before long as the fertility rate tends to drop as wealth and education increases. The human population is expected to rise and then stabilize at around 10 billion before dropping back to around 7 billion within a century."
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685ovr | Why do people from different regions call dads definitely ex: Dada, Baba, Papa, while moms are usually always called mama. | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"In most cultures and over the years, mothers are the principal caregiver and nurturer. Has to do with breastfeeding at a minimum, but gender roles too. Babies start their language with simple motions of their mouths, the simpler the better. Their first words are going to be the easiest to shape... and \"M\" and \"A\" require no tongue movement and are by far the easiest to shape. Close your mouth and breathe through your throat in a way that makes sound: \"M\". Open it and do the same \"A\". (edit/added a bit later for clarity: and it's clear too, unlike cooing or babbling or making nonsense sounds. \"mama\" is a very clear conscious construct due to its repetition) \"D\" and \"P\" and \"B\" take a little extra timing or tongue movement to say right and get that hard stop in the case of the P or the B. So MA-MA is recognizable even when slurred, and very easy for baby to make and then latch onto as a first \"word\", and then to understand that it refers to the parent who is around more than the other one (who is out hunting mammoths or buying cigarettes or whatever). But DA-DA requires tongue manipulation, BA-BA and PAPA requires some timing to say correctly. So the \"second most familiar parent\" gets those when the baby learns to say them too.)",
"It's an illusion. It's not actually true that fathers are usually called dada/papa/etc. while mothers are usually called mama. Here is the word for *mother* in assorted world languages: Aymara (Andes): *taica* Japanese: *haha* Filipino: *ina* Cebuano (Philippines): *inahan* Kannada (India): *tāyi* Marathi (India): *ā'ī* Samoan: *tina* Turkish: *anne* Mongolian: *eej* (pronounced somewhat like the name of the letter H) Kyrgyz: *ene* Amharic (Ethiopia): *inati* Cherokee: *unitsi* I am sure there is similar variation in words for father among world languages. So why is \"Mama\" used in most languages around Europe and the Middle East? Many of these languages are related to each other. In fact, most languages in this part of the world descended from one of two ancient languages, abbreviated PIE and PAA. So it's not surprising that a basic word like \"mother\" or \"father\" would sound similar after hundreds of years of language change. But why do they sound similar even in unrelated languages? For example, English descended from PIE and and Arabic from PAA, so why do we call our mothers *mama* in English and *'um* in Arabic? This may be what linguists call an areal feature. Due cross-cultural contact including intermarriage, words and word-sounds can \"diffuse\" or spread between cultures, even when they speak unrelated languages. So why do babies tend to say \"dada\" or \"papa\" instead of \"dad\" or \"pop\", and \"mama\" instead of \"mom\"? These are usually some of the first words a baby learns to say, and they learn them at a stage of language development called *canonical babbling*. Yes, that is a technical term! In canonical babbling, the baby repeats a syllable over and over, possibly with a slight change (\"ah-bah-bah\" or \"me-me-me\" for example). This repeating is called reduplication. So it's not surprising that these first words would be reduplicated. In my own \"original research\" (I'm the mom of 4), almost all the early words a baby learns get reduplicated: \"baba\" for ball, \"wawa\" for water, \"key-key\" for kitty. In English, a lot of \"childish\" words are reduplicated: no-no, uh-oh, nighty-night, peepee, poopoo, bye-bye. But this isn't universal. In some other languages like Japanese, reduplicated words don't sound childish. For example, *miru* means \"to look\", while *jiro jiro to miru* means to look intently or stare. EDIT: formatting the list of words for \"mother\""
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686jls | Why does the FTC require clothing manufacturers to display the specific country their clothes were made in? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Because Congress passed laws called the Textile Fiber Products Identification Act and the Wool Products Labeling Act that require all garments to have a label identifying whether they are American made, and if not, their country of origin, along with their fiber composition (e.g. 100% cotton)."
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687zpr | Why is "show, don't tell" such an important aspect of storytelling? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Because \"show\" lets the reader/viewer/listener witness the events as they happen, whereas \"tell\" makes them sit through a history lesson or court proceedings. The immediacy of showing makes for a much more vivid and exciting story. Keep in mind though that many great writers have stated that longer stories (like novels) require a mix of both because \"showing\" is too time-consuming and should thus be used mainly for important, dramatic parts of the story."
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68872x | How come a majority of humans suffer from not having 20/20 vision? And how did we adjust to those people back in the day? | I won't lie I'm watching game of thrones right now during battle of the basterds and somehow Jon snow and others can easily see across the battlefield. And I'm wondering 1. Why on earth are some peoples eye sight just naturally shitty and 2. Before the times of contacts and glasses, I feel like all the people with shitty eye sight were just cast aside. How did those individuals adjust to society? I can relate because if I take my contacts out I'm absolutely useless to anything outside of a three foot distance. | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"I'm no expert but something tells me that not having perfect vision is not so detrimental to your chances of producing offspring or surviving until you can that it puts evolutionary pressure on us to select for better eye sight. In today's world, my shitty eye sight makes it difficult for me to read traffic signs but in the past my vision would be fine enough to notice movement and spot things like nuts and berries from bushes just as well as anyone. Also, humans are social animals so I would imagine that having deficiencies in some of the senses are not as troublesome if other members of the group posses the abilities that another member lacks. So, if one individual has shitty eyes but another has perfect vision, they both don't get ambushed by that lion because the 1 with good vision could still see it. Therefore, they both get to pass on their genetics. Edit: words",
"Back in the day people did not read. So having good eyesight was really only needed for ranged hunting, and detail crafting work. Your average person did not need to see good detail, they just needed to see good enough to get by.",
"**TL;DR**: *Specialization due to our social nature and our intelligence allows those with imperfections like bad eyesight to survive.* There are three ways you have bad eyesight. * You're born with it. Couldn't really directly do that much about that one until corrective lenses came along. * You grow into it as you age. You might have decent vision but around 40 most people's quality of close-up vision starts to deteriorate. For some people it's a lot worse than others. * You suffer some sort of damage or eye disease such as glaucoma along the way, often resulting in full blindness. In every case what happened is society often ended up looking after those people, or giving them a chance to look after themselves, by specialization. Back when we were just a tribe of monkeys, non-functioning eyes could have been much more likely to be a death sentence due to predators or being kicked out of the group. But once we settled down and started working together with some doing one role and others doing a different one, there were roles for people with inferior vision, even blindness. You could still do a lot of the cooking, thresh grain so you could bake bread, do hard physical and repetitive labour like sharpening stone knives... lots of different physical jobs or ones that could be done through touch alone. Or you could become a shaman or lore-master or storyteller... or of course, beggar. And that kept you fed and living. As to why our eyesight is sometimes shitty, it's often because our parents with shitty eyesight survived to have kids and passed the trait along to us in a world that tolerates shitty eyesight."
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688ijp | What is the concept of objectivism, really? | I have heard it time and time again about Ayn Rand's philosophy but I never managed to get a straight and detailed answer. I heard that plenty of people hate it because it justifies selfishness and self-centredness and allows use to anything you have for your own self-pleasure, whether it is moral or not. Others see it as a decent philosophy that is a concept of hedonism and maximising life and self-satisfaction. So what is the objectivism, really? And why is it usually ignored or rejected by many philosophers? **EDIT** - I will add this. The first time I heard of objectivism is when I played the game Bioshock *(if you never heard of it, I highly recommend it. It makes you question a lot of things)* and saw it as if putting the concept of Nietzche's Ubermensch or Will to Power and putting it in a much larger group. Meaning, you are living in a society whose morals and policies are ... there is none. Everyone has their own way of living and nothing is stopping you from getting what you want. *(or I could be totally wrong. I am not a philosophy student. I am just someone who likes to read philosophy so please excuse my ignorance)* | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Objectivism is perhaps best observed as a reaction to Marxism. Where Marxism demands that the individual subordinate themselves to the state - down to the point where such subordination is viewed as the only rational course and any attempt to avoid subordination is 'disordered' in some manner - Objectivism demands that the individual act only in their self-interest. As a result, the Objectivist would argue that the best society is one in which people are not constrained in following their self-interest. The reason you don't see much support from academics for such a philosophy is that it presupposes an omniscience not possessed by actual human beings. When you read Rand's work, you need to keep in mind that her characters are really just comic book superheroes. They have absolute certainty and absolute authority over their own fates. People are nicely sorted into 'good' and 'evil' varieties, based solely on their presumed competence. Moreover, Rand never really deals with the problem of conflicting self-interest but rather borrows into the Marxist notion of societies self-organizing. Where a Marxist assumes that a society's interests are everyone's interests, an Objectivist assumes that everyone's interests are a society's interest. As a result, serious thinkers tend to discard both philosophies as hopelessly utopian - the world just doesn't work that way. Indeed, it's not just human beings - even abstract concepts like data or unintelligent organisms like plants don't work that way."
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688ndp | Why do TV shows use pre-recorded computer screens instead of letting actors use them naturally? It doesn't make it look better... | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"The visuals for most computer software are designed to be seen close up by someone who's in control -- they rely on detail and context. It's pretty hard to glance at a program you don't know and instantly understand what's going on. So they carefully stage computer screens designed to be easy for the audience to follow. Even then, they don't make the actors physically operate the software because (1) it's often fake/inoperable and (2) it's just one more way to screw up a shot, adding hugely to the cost of making the show."
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68916f | How is it that although we don't know all of the words in the dictionary by heart, we can easily spot when something is not a word? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"1. Recognition is easier than recall, so if you see a real world you usually recognize it, even if it's not one you use. 2. In a specific language, certain letter combinations are rare or completely unused. Here are some realistic non-words: famp, droom, pank. Here are some plainly unrealistic ones: qqaq, eoao, thethith, yfg.",
"If you try and write down every word you know, you can't possibly remember each one because your memory is limited. If however, you see one you didn't remember you'll still recognize it. Sort of like not remembering all the people you meet but recognizing a familiar face. Then there's ones which are real words which you didn't know about, but they look real because of their structure. That can be due to being in a family of words or the prefixes/suffixes involved. For example, someone might not know that precognition is a word but knows recognition is - they'll be able to figure out what precognition means based off the context."
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6899zq | Why are video games, or gamers themselves, viewed in such a negative light by a large portion of society in relation to other mediums? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Some people who play video games let it consume their lives and stop them from accomplishing things, giving all video gamers the stereotype of being lazy.",
"I think it's most likely to do with it being such a relatively young form of culture. Once we reach a time where most grandparents and politicians etc grew up gaming, it will likely be more established form of culture.",
"**TL;DR** Based on what I've seen, video games often have the potential to be much more consuming than other forms of media, to the point where they infiltrate people's interest outside of playing the games themselves. And when we see tonnes of kids constantly screaming and getting upset while playing video games (but continuing to play them anyways, like a alcoholic drinks, even though alcohol makes him angry), we begin to question whether they're simply a harmless hobby, or something much more damaging. **Long Answer** This is going to vary based on who you ask (there will be no scientifically proven answer, as everyone's reasons for looking down on gamers will vary). Despite this sub's rules on speculation, it is required to answer this question. All of the people I've seen who look down on gamers have done so because they view gamers as being rather one dimensional. People who read Stephen King's \"It\" don't typically think much of it outside of when they're actually reading the book. They don't have toys made from \"It\" characters, they don't watch videos of other people reading \"It\" and they don't spend hours a week reading \"It\" for five years straight. I'm a gamer myself, and I don't do anything game-related outside of actually playing them. My little brother, on the other hand (who is ten years younger than me), not only plays Minecraft, he has Minecraft figurines, watches Minecraft-related Youtube channels, etc. Put bluntly, he doesn't shut the hell up about Minecraft. Also, we see a lot of younger people get addicted to video games. Now, I've dealt with chemical addiction, and I can't possibly imagine how someone could get addicted to video games. However, it happens. Once again, we don't see this happening with movies and books. Unlike video games, we don't see people getting upset and throwing their remote while watching a movie, but then just continue to watch it anyways. Edit: I'm sorry. I didn't link a single source for anything I said. That's against the rules. I apologize for going against the grain of the subreddit.",
"It's just a new medium and old people fear what they don't understand. That is really it. They complained about Rock music, I'm sure they complained about TV and probably even radio to start with. Times are a changing though. It's far more acceptable now than it was 20 years ago. And personally, I think for a parent/child relationship its far more engaging than watching TV. At the end of the day is it more harmful than binging on a season of GoT in a day? I doubt it and I also doubt that it is no more addictive. For those saying people don't watch 6 hours of films a day, poppycock. A huge proportion of western society comes home from work and watches tv until bed time without moving.",
"People always searched someone to blame for. Before games, they blamed tv, rock and metal music as \"propagating violence\".",
"Something I've always said, What the difference between sitting in front of a tv watching a football game for three hours and sitting in front of a screen and playing video games for three hours. One is accepted the other is not. But people get addicted to video games! Same for sports. I know guys who would watch \"the game\" during important events. A guy was watching football on his phone during his own daughters wedding. Can't miss the game. It's laughed off as someone just being a big sports person. Yet doing the same with video games is bad. Both involve sitting in front of a screen. Video games work your mind more than sports. Moderation is key here. Video games just get a bad rap.",
"Most people who have never played games get most of their experience through advertising. The most common places that they are exposed to that advertising is on tv and in the cinema. And which games have budgets big enough to have tv ads? CoD, GTA, Battlefield etc. If all you knew of games were the trailers for these games, you probably wouldn't hold games to a high standard either.",
"Because they're **very** new compared to other forms of art. Music, painting, poetry, acting, etc have all been around for thousands of years. Even movies are old enough that most people currently alive have never lived in a time when motion pictures with sound didn't exist. Video games on the other hand are new enough that there are still a significant amount of people who grew up, and had their tastes develop, in a time where video games didn't exist. And even after they did, they started out as toys for children, so that's the first and often only exposure many have had to them.",
"Video games are relatively new media, as compared to film, TV, and print, and the old media perceive it as a threat, so they tell their audience defamatory things about video games and gamers.",
"It all comes down to labelling. What do you see as the stereotype of someone who reads books as their main source of entertainment? Probably a scrawny young child or an elder who wears glasses all the time. But you know that few book readers are ever like that. What do you see as the stereotype of someone who watches movies as their main source of entertainment? Well, chances are you don't have one, because almost everyone in the US watches movies at least once a year, and no clear stereotype truly exists as someone who would be addicted to movies. What do you see as the stereotype of someone who plays video games or interactive media as a source of entertainment? The answer is obvious: a white male in their thirties who lives on chips and soda, has been unemployed outside of minimum wage jobs, is incredibly obese, has never exercised, has a triple chin, never showers, has bad hair, has no fashion sense, constantly swears, is on the PC 24/7, lives in their mum's basement, and acts selfish and childish. The reasoning should be obvious at this point. The stereotype of bookreaders isn't very detailed, and not all of the bits we know are inherently negative, so we don't find reading so appaling. Because the US doesn't have anything to go off of when offending movie goers, there isn't a way to portray movie watching as negative (unless one follows the stereotypes of video game players). Because we have so many negative traits attached to video game players (and all traits above except for race and gender are negative), we can demonize not only those who play video games, but video games themselves. Video games are not guilty of these traits, and not all video game players share some or any of these traits. Even if 1% of the population who plays video games at least once a week consist of people with most of these traits, it isn't right for video games or their players to be given this demonizing label. Yet others do so anyway. This isn't limited to video games. Music (listening or playing), comics, tabletop and card games, sports, celebrity followers, Facebook readers, etc. are capable of being \"not vulnerable enough\" like book reading, \"too common\" like movie watching, or \"evil in its purest form\" like video games.",
"The vast majority of the anti-video game logic is just a regurgitation of the most commonly held stereo-types that have existed in society for years. It's nothing new and the mere fact that you stand behind them proves you never actively engaged in video games and have no credible opinion in the matter.",
"While most of the stigma is definitely in relation to people getting \"sucked in\" and ruining their lives, a lot of it seems to be a blame game. Every one wants a reason for what's wrong with today's youth. Video games just seem to be the current target. Happened with rock music, tv, magazines, all sorts of things. It really isn't going to go away until most politicians have grown up gaming. Right now there are still a few that lobby against video games; saying that they make children violent, or rot the brain. Even a few weeks ago CNN compared that video of the Cleveland shooter to an FPS. The only way someone changes their opinion on this is to experience video games for themselves and most of the people who stigmatize them see themselves as better than that.",
"Video games, especially mmorpgs, have certain traits that are designed to be addicting. They're well designed skinner boxes (see BF Skinner). I think society looks at someone who shirks responsibility for family, friends, etc for any addiction in a negative light. You can be addicted to video games, in the same way that a lab rat will choose heroin over food and starve to death. It's the same effect. Dr. Nick Yee of Stanford studied this with population studies of earlier games like Everquest. Biggest problem I have with video game addiction is that it tricks the brain into thinking you are self actualized, when you really can barely take care of your own basic needs like eating well, having human relationships and working to support yourself. If you are satisfactorily maintaining offline relationships and holding down a steady job, I don't think anyone has a legit issue with that."
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689fm7 | Why is so much emphasis placed on the first 100 days of the U.S. Presidency...why not 60 or 120 or any other number? | I know that the beginning of a new administration is a good litmus test for how effective it will be, but why exactly 100 days? Is there something specific about what can happen during this timeframe, or is it mostly arbitrary? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"It dates back to FDR's first 100 days in office. During his first 100, he created a madhouse of policy change, bill drafting, signing, and law shifts in the nation. It was considered so intense that it became common place to measure the first 100 days of newer presidents against it. While we no longer compare to FDR for the 100 day rule, it's generally believed that the first 100 can give us insight into what might be the new norm. If they can hold their promises, unify, or in some sad cases. Divide.",
"The effective time that a president can actually govern is a lot shorter than most people think it is. Congress is elected every 2 years, and they are fairly unlikely to actually get anything done in the year before an election (since everyone's focus is on campaigning, no one wants to take direction from the president during this time). So your second year is basically toast. The last year you are running for reelection, so it's toast too. You only really get your first and third years to do shit. So the president starts January 21st as their first full day. Congress is basically useless after December 31st, but nothing happens over Christmas so let's make it Dec 1st. And you lose August since that's Congress's summer break. So you only really get 9 months in that first year. So when it comes down to it, the number 100 is selected basically brutally but it's around 1/3 of your total effective time in the first 2 years. It's long enough that you should have had time to build your government and get your people confirmed, then move on to the most important parts of making legislation. In a normal (nontrump) world, legislation is a LONG process. You start it by proposing a bill, then there's endless debate and amendments before the damn thing actually gets voted on. For big plans, this can take a long time. Obamacare took something like 18 months. So if a president wants to make something happen in their first term, they REALLY need to have already started on it within that first 100 days. So while the actual 100 number is somewhat arbitrary, having a measuring point for a new president is actually quite useful. As for why it's not shorter, it takes a few months to get the confirmations through with. So making it something like 60 days does not have much time for the president to turn their attention to legislation. Longer might make sense, but really a president does not get very much time and if you make it longer you start to get away from their \"beginning\" of the presidency.",
"In addition to good answers by /u/TheTurge and /u/Miliean1 , I'd like to add that just because a period of time is arbitrary, doesn't mean that its useless. As long as you're comparing *the same* arbitrary amount of time between administrations, it's still perfectly valid to make comparisons.",
"In the case of President Trump, a lot of it has to do with the amount of time he spent campaigning about how much he would accomplish and change with his 100 day plan to fix America. Since the 100 days have passed, people are now looking at the plan and seeing if he accomplished the major parts of it. That and 100 is a nice round number that most people won't question as a milestone."
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689nvp | Why does most of Europe still smoke so heavily and regularly? | Edit: I apologize for the overgeneralization. My question is based on observation alone. I've just noticed during my time in European countries that smoking still seems to be a big part of their culture. It seemed like everyone (again, overgeneralizing) was constantly smoking--including many very young people. I was just wondering if, despite the obvious health risks, it simply hasn't been brought to the public's attention as much as it has in the states. It was especially ubiquitous in Italy, where people would smoke a cigarette right before they got on the metro, and would light up again as soon as they got off. | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Europe is a diverse continent, and I would advise against generalising in this way. If you look at the 2015 smoking rate tables [here] ( URL_0 ), you can see that, compared to the USA (17.2), there is less smoking in Denmark, and in several countries the figures aren't a lot higher (in the low-mid 20s): Ireland, UK, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Belgium, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Portugal. The French don't smoke as much as they used to, and less than Germany (27 vs 30). From there you have to look to Spain or Eastern Europe to find the heavy smokers. I'm in Ireland, and the data backs up what I've seen: smoking rates have dropped a lot.",
"URL_0 Because its very cool, very modern, very European.",
"Different laws and culture. The reasons vary, especially between the different areas. Some places the teens are able to get them easier and it may be seen as more socially acceptable than elsewhere, for example. Prices/taxes also sway many people in places where they can vary by well over 200% difference in markets."
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689wrv | Why does stoner culture accept getting high as an end goal, but in drinking culture there's still stigma associated with getting drunk as an end goal? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Unfamiliar with this \"stigma\" against getting drunk as an end goal in drinking culture. It absolutely is the end goal in my experience",
"I tend to disagree with the premise of this ELI5 on the whole. Specifically, I believe there may be a stigma about the goal of 'getting drunk' in certain groups, but there are certainly those who 'party hard' for the sake of being drunk as a group. Age has nothing to do with it. I've been out with 40 somethings that party harder than I can handle. And frankly - That's ok. As long as they aren't a public nuisance or a danger to themselves/others... have fun! Cultures also vary. Someone mentioned pulling out a joint at a party of kids - it has a stigma associated with it in some circles for the same reason that (at least today) smoking cigarettes around kids has a stigma. But there are also groups who don't care about that either... I also think that lumping all recreational drugs into a singular 'getting high' and separating out alcohol as a different state (i.e., 'drunk') does a disservice to the positive aspects of certain drugs. Caffeine, for example, is a drug that is almost universally socially accepted. The 'wakefulness' is its high, and the impacts on productivity are dramatically positive, and there are (as with all things) some negative aspects that have to be considered on an individual basis. But we don't see headlines about the epidemic of coffee addicts in this country, because on the whole we perceive it as a positive thing. I think another perspective I disagree with are the comments on the 'historical societal value' of alcohol vs. other drugs. While there is going to be some fundamental truth to the fact that the flavor and experience of drinking an alcoholic beverage is inextricably linked to culinary culture, I think comments like that seem to dismiss the appreciation that cultures have had in history for those 'other recreational drugs'. There are numerous accounts of creative people who have found themselves better able to find that sense of 'flow' when they've smoked pot. Some liken it to the ancient greeks 'muses', and there are many ancient historical references to the use of cannabis in Greece (~~Bacchus~~ (thanks /u/Hixhen) Dionysus knew how to party - yo.) It might also help to separate out unproductive 'stoners' from 'marijuana enthusiasts' because that distinction is lost on most people, who seem to lump the two together.",
"Unlike most recreational drugs, alcohol has value as a food/beverage, both nutritionally and aesthetically. It has long been a part of culinary culture, and people drink them for the taste and how the pair with food. With marijuana, the aesthetics are all about what kind of high it gets you. Also, because alcohol is legal and socially accepted, it is easier to combine with other activities, even when children are present. You pull out a beer at a big picnic, no one is going to care, not in the same way as if you pulled out a joint. Marijuana is typically used in private, alone or in a small group of like-minded users, and the primary activity is getting high.",
"Watching someone super-high is just watching a person with strange and intense thoughts. Dreamy. Maybe a bit dim. It's non-threatening. Like watching someone shift around while they're asleep. Watching an someone extremely drunk is watching someone who has been poisoned, their bodies and minds becoming more and more erratic. They are unpredictable and sloppy; violent toddlers, with all the strength of a grown person. It's scary. There is an inherent threat- to the person themselves, to the people around them, to social ties and fragile property. The 'stigma' is just recognition of that ongoing risk.",
"Being \"drunk\" isn't the goal. Being buzzed is the goal. Also, from what the TV tells me, being super-high on pot just means being super-high on pot. Being drunk can mean violence, and toxicity leading to death. Maybe I should have just said \"hangovers\".",
"I belong to neither culture, but I have been drunk and I have been high. Every time I get drunk, the situation varies. Most times, say like 80% I get super happy, super outgoing, and become just a generally jolly guy. Say about 17% of the time, I get super emotional, crying, laughing, crying more, yadda yadda. Then say about 3% of the time I get angry and mean. This is rare, and generally it's based on some stimuli, like the time my ex picked a fight with me that led to her being my ex. Now, every time I've gotten high, the same thing has happened: I get super mellow, have a brief moment of panic, then I get mellow again, and I enter a chill mode. I've never gotten angry, I've never gotten sad, it's always basically been chill. I've hung out with people you could say are part of drinking culture. For some of them, the end goal is to get drunk. For most though, it's just to get buzzed. I've also known people who just like to drink a beer or some type of liquor for the taste. I don't know if this is what you were looking for but I hope it helps.",
"Getting drunk is the goal, just as getting high is. The only difference is that there's a level above drunk when you take it too far, which is getting wasted, which is not the goal (usually). With alcohol, people are searching for that perfect level where you lower your inhibitions, it's easier to socialize, everything seems very fun and you're still in control of yourself for the most part. When you take it too far, it becomes decidedly un-fun and downright dangerous, which isn't something that happens with weed. When you smoke too much weed you just kind of \"green out\" or \"get couched\" but it's really not dangerous to your body.",
"I feel like drinking culture encourages getting drunk, just like stoners get high. Then you have the regular drinkers and medical or occasional tokers who consume responsibly and would place that stigma on those who over-indulge. I'll assume that is what you actually meant. With getting drunk, the likelihood of a negative event is much greater (bodily harm, embarrassing or immoral acts, drunk tank, etc). That is why we placed more stigma around that than the dude who got too high and fell asleep on the couch.",
"As an alcoholic, I can tell you it's because alcohol can actually wreck your life. I know people who wake up and smoke weed every day, and basically spend every moment high, and are entirely functional, working, emotionally stable, and healthy adults. Those descriptors apply to literally no one who is drunk all the time. Same with bingers. People who get super duper baked but only on the weekends at worst are seen as lazy or goofy. People who get super duper drunk but only on the weekend wake up to find out they've cheated on their girlfriend (happened to a friend who's otherwise super functional) or, if you're like me and can still talk like a smart person while drunk, explained to your significant other how they're an emotionally broken piece of human garbage because they criticized your drinking, and barely remember it the next day. TLDR alcohol is dangerous, weed isnt.",
"Binge drinking is dangerous. You can die from binge drinking. It also can turn you into an adult toddler who needs to be cared for by your reluctant friends. Getting baked out of your mind won't kill you, but it could induce a panic attack or make you feel like you've melted into the couch.",
"idk what you are defining as \"drinking culture.\" Go to any American college and there are plenty of people who see getting high as an end goal and plenty of people who see getting drunk as an end goal, each part of their own respective subculture I suppose. From that perspective, the \"stigma\" comes from people outside the subculture",
"Let me put it this way, I've never pissed myself because I was too high, I've never wanted to start a fight because I was too high, I've never ruined anyone else's life because I've been too high. I've seen many people do all of these things because they got too drunk. Make that your end goal, and I kinda lose respect for you. I'm a very casual / light drinker, to intentionally avoid these things. I smoke almost every day to combat anxiety, depression, insomnia, and stress. Drinking has never helped with any of those problems.",
"I think everyone should take the time to watch [this]( URL_0 ) special on a recovering alcoholic. I'll just let you know now, he doesn't live. He dies from the severity of the damage done to his body and the extremity of the withdrawals. Alcohol addiction is, by far, the most dangerous form of addiction. Not my opinion, it's statistically the most dangerous drug on the planet. If \"it can kill you\" isn't enough of a reason to have a stigma, I don't know what is.",
"Because one drastically effects your ability to do simple things like forming a coherent sentence or walking a straight line without falling over. One can cause people to do things they would never think of doing sober while the other just gives you a relaxed, euphoric or energetic feeling.",
"Depends on exactly which drinking culture you're talking about. I would say that there's not one uniform drinking culture the way there is with marijuana culture. There's wine culture, craft beer culture, cocktail culture; all of which look down upon openly *admitting* that getting drunk is an end goal (though it obviously is, you don't see these people cavorting to indulge/comment on non-alcoholic versions of their drinks of choice). Then there's night club culture, dive bar culture, frat party culture; all of which openly embrace getting drunk as an end goal. So your question is really more dependent on which specific drinking culture you are referring to, as there is not one unified drinking culture. Some drinking cultures embrace *openly* having getting drunk as an end goal, while others look down upon it.",
"I see a whole lot of casual users answering, so here's my take as a former chronic weed smoker every day for 4+ years. Disclaimer: I am fairly critical of weed but I see its values though I wish it's real risks were more widely explored. Knowledge is the best safeguard. It's different for different people. I personally am uncomfortable with the exact \"smoke to get high\" mentality, and I tried to rationalize it by \"smoking to relax\" or \"smoking to have fun\" the same way a lot of drinkers do. The idea of putting a chemical in my brain to lie to me was kind of repulsive although I was absolutely hooked. I had friends the same, where we didn't sit around discussing the weed. We blazed up and played video games or did whatever. \"sorry bro I'm too high for this shit\" would of course happen and we didn't pretend we hadn't just smoked, but there wasn't a focus on let's all sit in a circle and tell each other when it tingles. That felt too basic, like why even socialize? Although some of us smoked because we were quite socially anxious otherwise and they tended to go together a lot. I have had friends the exact opposite. They love getting high, and getting other people high, and asking how the high is, and describing the weed like a fine wine. I always found this a little pretentious and maybe grasping to find others in the same boat of essentially drug addiction. But I am of course quite biased as I made poor choices and weed allowed me to ignore the consequences until I woke up in the morning feeling sick and needing to start again. So it's very much personal experience. Although you are going to have the high-lovers over representative because they're more vocal. You don't always know the other type or smoking because they talk about it less, it's not the focus of their activities although it's an intended result. It's the same with alcohol, though perhaps as has been said it may be skewed the other way for social historical reasons. Hard to give real numbers, it's all anecdotes. But I have definitely had enough \"you drunk bro? You drunk? Woooooah you're so drunk ahahaha\" to last me a lifetime. I find alcohol culture way more irritating, though that's probably because arguing with stoners I fun while arguing with drunks is.... Sometimes fun too. But less often. That's my incomplete 2 cents. Take it for what it is, but if you ever smoked up with me I wouldn't be asking you high yet? How high are you? Need to get higher? I wouldn't ask that with drinking either unless it was relevant (planning to drive home?)",
"Becauase weed makes you better at Brazilian JiuJitsu bro. Alcohol makes you think you are better, but in fact you are worse. Especially when you shit your pants mid-anaconda choke.",
"As a recovering alcoholic, I have to disagree on your assumption that getting drunk isn't the goal of drinking culture. Quite the contrary, IME.",
"I think it has to do with pot not makeing anyone as violent as drinking can do with some users. Reffer Madness was a huge lie like prohibition was.",
"My guess is that when you get drunk as hell, you tend to do really stupid and/or dangerous things. Alcohol can often make people violent or angry, or highly emotional in some other way. But when you smoke weed, you tend to just chill the fuck out and relax. So that's probably why getting high is more 'accepted', because there's nothing really wrong or bad about chilling out and relaxing.",
"Because stoner culture has been underground for so long due to marijuana prohibition. Prohibition, and the taboo associated with it, denies people the opportunity to be responsible, and even encourages them to be *ir*responsible. I mean, if you have to break the law / moral code / etc. to do it in the first place, might as well keep breaking \"rules\" and go all out. There's gotta be a psychological term for this, IANAP so IDK what it is.",
"Because drinking too much can be detrimental to your health. Not to mention while being drunk you act like a fool, slur your speech, throw up, and pass out where you lay. Most people can't smoke enough weed to make any of those things happen. Except maybe the falling asleep one, but that's not the same as if you where drunk bc you can still be woken up much easier, and you can still walk to where you'd like to sleep.",
"Marketing. Stoner Culture has a vested interest in being consistent and vocal about the low-impacy of casual use in comparison to the exaggerated claims made since the 70s and the whole DARE campaign etc. This has resulted in, as you can see from the comments here, very one sided dialogue being very pro-marijuana use *especially* contrasted against socially acceptable drug use such as alcohol and caffeine. I think it's going to be at least another 20-30 years before we see reasonable public discussion about the negative effects of marijuana use both casually and abusively as the currently few numbet objective studies tend to get shouted down or discredited by both sides eager to push their own agendas. Note the massive amount of anecdotal claims made by people posting in this thread. Not to mention the cherry-picking by both sides from specific sub-cultures and the use of marijuana within those sub-cultures. IMO I have nothing against marijuana use medically or recreationally but there should be a law against people who use it arguing for it, and against people who don't use it arguing against it unless either side is citing sourced studies.",
"Well, have you ever been high OP? Especially weed? If I had to rank them in terms of how much of a head change you feel, weed is just above caffeine and tea on the chart. Even some allergy medicines like DHM are more intense in feeling. Nicotine in high amounts can be extremely intense, too. So to compare the two is comparing different worlds... Alcohol has a threshold where consumption becomes immediately dangerous to the body and you can die within minutes if it's excessive enough... whereas with weed, there is only a threshold where consuming too much makes you either want to snack or take a nap. Edit: people are upset that I compared caffeine and weed... but I didn't really consider the mental factor. I was on a tanget of body-high when I ranked them by intensity. if you consume TOO much caffeine can get intense but you still have motor functions, same with weed in that respect, but I ranked it above caffeine because weed can make you very sedated or very thoughtful... ranked above that in intensity I put DHM because taking a lot of DHM is very intense and you lose motor function, but it's not quite as intense as consuming too much alcohol... in my experiences. edit: lol so quick to laugh at ranking weed and caffeine on a chart with weed and alcohol... if those laughing are so much more wordly than muh self-- what would you rank between weed and caffeine?"
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68aim1 | why can celebrities sue the paparazzi? isn't it their right to sue someone who's following them all the time and taking pictures of them? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Generally you can't sue, except in special cases. There's a thing called \"expectation of privacy\" which means you can have privacy from crazy stuff like this -- Bbut when you're a celebrity or public figure, your \"expectation of privacy\", courts have decided, is a lot less than Joe Schmo off the street, so some different rules apply, this is well known, settled and done. Paparazzi people know the laws of what they are and are not allowed to do very well and always do their best to keep within it, so they cannot be sued.",
"For the most part they cannot. However, if the paps trespass, or destroy property, or any number of other civil oversteps, they can sue.",
"In Germany, rights of privacy are reduced for you, if you're a person of public interest. This means that people like politicians, big CEOs, celebrities, and a few others aren't able to sue you for taking a pic of something that identifies them. I could imagine it's similar in other areas."
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68di7v | If a person had enough money to design and build a functional space ship, capable of traveling and landing and whatnot, would it be legal? Would the government be able to do anything? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Well there let's consider these two options. First let's consider that you are just a rich multi-billionaire and want to build a rocket and fly to the moon. Guess what, someone is already doing that. [SpaceX]( URL_1 ) is a private company that is building and launching rockets into space right now. They have flown to the International Space Station several times and will soon be carrying passengers. Now SpaceX works closely with NASA and the US government to license operations and flights. BUT if you had enough mony to build a rocket to reach the moon then hiring a few lawyers to jump trough the regulatory hoops would be chump change. [Blue Origin]( URL_0 ) is another private company preparing to fly into space. Bottom line: Rocket launches are regulated and licensed by the US government, BUT YES, it is legal for a private citizen to build a rocket and fly into space with the right paperwork. Now let's consider the second option. Let's say you are a insanely intelligent scientist and discover an entirely new way to fly. Say anti-gravity. So you decide to build an anti-gravity space ship and fly it to the moon. Guess what you can but there are still government issues you would be dealing with. Right now all laws and rules for getting into space are written with rockets in mind. So an anti-gravity powered spacecraft would be considered an aircraft under current us law. Hey it does fly through the air before entering space. So you would have to work with you local [FAA office]( URL_2 ) to get an amateur-built aircraft airworthiness certification. Once you built it and were ready to fly it you would have to be properly licensed. Now this is a kicker. There is no license for space craft but you could probably get by if you went and got your private pilots license. But wait you still got one or two more hurdles. If your anti-gravity craft weighed more than 12500 pounds you would need to get a type certificate for it. But guess what that doesn't exist for a anti-gravity craft so you would then have to work with your local field office to get certified to fly the craft you just built. But once all that is done you are ready to go... NOT! there is one more gotcha in US law. US law states that all flights between 18,000 and 60,000 feet in altitude MUST be conducted under IFR, Instrument Flight Rules. So you cant get into space without flying from 18,000 to 60,000 feet. So back to flight school you go to get your Instrument rating. Now you are ready to go. Call your local Flight Service Center and File a IFR flight plan at least 30 minutes before departure. Climb into your space ship and head for the moon. Be sure to contact departure control to activate your flight plan as soon as you are airborne.",
"If you had enough money to design and build a functional space ship, following all the safety regulations and permits and laws, the government (and many private companies) would probably contract you to deliver some of the satellites and supplies and science projects / scientists to space. That's what SpaceX and other private companies are doing."
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68djbv | What made Coca cola so much more popular than Pepsi? | They are both very similar drinks and where only made roughly 6 years apart. What made people like Coca Cola more than Pepsi? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"I'm going on a limb and just saying that it's the fact that Coke came first and Pepsi came later. Another example of this is the fact that Pepsi made Gatorade first and when Coca Cola tried to make a similar drink, Powerade, they also didn't do as well in popularity.",
"I am going to say that it is because Coke decided to give away their product in many places, installed their own hardware, controls the product. Pepsi kinda did this but lost Subway and others in the cola wars. The biggest winners are the companies that get free product and an end to end system in exchange for free marketing. \"Free\" might not be 100% but common $1 for a large...."
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68dmye | Why is Fentanyl being cut into heroin? | I understand that it's much much more potent than typical opiates, but from what I've heard from interviews, it sounds like it's just being cut physically into heroin instead of using any sort of actual dilution or volumetric dosing which is causing the overdoses when people get the actual Fentanyl in their dose. Coming from even just an economical standpoint, it makes no sense why dealers or suppliers would sell this stuff, considering the rising statistics for overdoses with Fentanyl. Even if someone didn't care that they were enabling someone to ruin their life on Heroin, Meth, or Cocaine, you'd think they'd understand that they're losing profit by selling something so dangerous and having their customers die. | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Fentanyl is usually acquired as a pure powder from \"legitimate\" chemical manufacturers in China. Its also extremely powerful, a high dose of it is in the microgram range. Finally, its very cheap because it can be made from generic chemical precursors - you don't need to refine it from opium like you do heroin. This makes it attractive to drug dealers who have shitty, impure heroin. You can add a tiny amount of Fentanyl to the heroin and your customer will never know the difference between your low quality product and \"the good stuff.\" What causes the overdoses is when drug dealers get a bit of it to add to their heroin but don't have enough experience with it to understand what they have. So they just take a best guess at how much fentanyl to add to their heroin, not realizing that a microscopic grain of the stuff can be the difference between a \"safe\" dose and enough to kill you almost instantly. There are labs that specialize in fentanyl and produce fentanyl pills that are \"safer\" than what some random drug dealer on the street is going to be producing. But even those are still dangerous due to the fact that fentanyl is so strong that even a small oversight on the part of the lab can produce a pill with way more fentanyl than was intended. And fentanyl is cheap enough that there isn't a huge incentive not to waste product, so you're at the mercy of the quality control guy working out of a basement drug lab somewhere. And even when its properly dosed, people can still overdose on it because the end drug user doesn't necessarily understand that while he can safely snort 4 oxycodones, his drug lab fentanyl pills are strong enough that doing the same thing will kill him.",
"My understanding is that fentanyl is much cheaper than heroin. So the cash saved cutting dope exceeds any lost in consumer death. And I'm not sure how precise a heroin dealer's \"cost/benefit\" math is going to be",
"when people die of fentanyl being cut into heroin, the consumers think that \"this guy died doing it, so the dealers heroin must be crazy.\" This way the dealer sells more and more money is made. Its an unethical and immoral technique but they donts cares."
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68f88n | Why are Shakespeare's works so revered? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"There are many reasons for this, but here's a few (in no particular order): * The poetic nature of the scripts. The lines follow [iambic pentameter]( URL_0 ) which almost sounds like a heartbeat in emphasis. You could make music out of the lyrics if you wanted to. Once you learn the lines, they neatly roll of the tongue like poetry. * The adaptability of the plays. The lines are simplistic in nature so that you can take a play and put it in practically any time / setting and it works. I once saw a Romeo and Juliet play set in a Matrix-style universe and it worked well. * The masterful capture of human relationships. Shakespeare was a master at understanding how humans interact and capturing that in his plays. In Romeo and Juliet, he eloquently captures the \"young love\" aspect of young people being crazy in love and doing stupid things for each other. In many of his tragedies he expertly captured the common Greek theme of a \"hero\" seeing a future he desperately wants to avoid and in his efforts to prevent it from occurring, ironically causes it to happen. This is a simple concept, but difficult to master (See Star Wars: Episode III as how to NOT do it). * The simplistic stage directions. Most modern day scripts will have paragraphs of directions on what the characters are doing, etc. It's almost like playwrights are trying to be director as well. Directors get frustrated by this as they want to take a play and make something different with this. Beyond \"enter\" and \"exit\", Shakespeare provides only lines giving the director a lot of freedom to go in a new artistic direction. This is why you can see the same Shakespeare play over and over again and still love it because it's done in a totally new and different way. There's a plethora of other reasons why as well, but there's a few big ones that come to mind. Hope that helps!",
"He was a talented, prolific & popular author in the era when the English language was changing into its modern form. People before him used a version of the language that's not widely recognizable today so he's kind of the first one to put things on paper that we still read."
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68fmny | What's the difference between a cult and a religion and why is one much more frowned upon than the other? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Although cults are religious groups typically, they have a lot of differences which are quite big. - Leadership: Whereas a religion may have a religious head and a hierarchical structure to it's system, a cult typically only has 1 or 2 leaders who make all the rules and who have absolute control. - Communities: Cult members often live in groups or communes which brings them further into the cult. - Isolation: Many of these communes are isolated from the rest of society and members may be forced into cutting off communication with the outside world. - Coercion: Many inductees are mistreated and abused in order to establish a form of psychological control over their lives. - Recitation: Cult members aren't told how to interpret their religion, they're told the phrases and motos to reinforce it. - Objective: Cult members are constantly told that if they remain loyal and do things for the cult that they will be elevated to the select few who can be enlightened/transcend/attain inner peace. However the goal posts are constantly moved back to keep the higher ups in absolute control. - Limited Information: Whereas anyone can pick up a bible and more or less understand most of Christianity, cults only reveal small tidbits of their beliefs at every new level that a member reaches. - Alienation: Cult members are constantly engrained with an \"us versus them\" mentality. - Seclusion: Most cults are self sufficient so that members don't ever have to leave, and most of the time they're not allowed to anyways. - Expensive: Yes church can be expensive, but cults routinely ask for it's members to dedicate their whole live to the cause and to pay their \"dues\" - Secretive: Cults never openly advertise about themselves, their beliefs, their leadership, or how they spend the money they receive from members. Edit: Guys I get it, many religions do this to some extent or another. But the main point is that the governing bodies of cults actively participate in this behavior. Just because there are congregations that practice these behaviors, doesn't make every church a cult. Cults are like pornography: you'll know it when you see it.",
"In popular use, \"cult\" connotes a religion that partakes of the same constellation of characteristics that typify abusive relationships : authoritarian leadership, isolation from external support, questions or dissent are discouraged with threats and punishment, etc.",
"There's a lot of conflation between cults and sects and there's plenty of reading online. But to give an answer to the *colloquial* understanding of cults... - One or two charismatic leaders - the cult usually dies with them. Religions do not rely on individuals such as this which is one of the reasons they last so much longer than cults, which almost always die within one or two generations - Isolation - limited exposure to alternative ideas is an important part of keeping people indoctrinated. Sometimes this literally means creating an isolated community (think Jim Jones). Most religions are accepting of new members. - High demands - while a religion usually demands very little, cults usually are quite demanding of their members, whether that demand is money, time, freedom, or whatever else. While some religions can also be very demanding, usually it is possible to follow it with a less demanding interpretation. Cults generally demand a lot of all members. - Vulnerable followers - it is simply not normal behaviour to join a cult and believe its teachings. Cults rely on the weak and vulnerable, and those easy to manipulate. Arguably you could say the same for religion, but a vulnerable person turning to religion is not the same as a cult preying on people. - Strict rules - cults usually have fairly strict regulations on behaviour in the outside world. Religions are generally compatible with the modern lifestyle - they're so big that they need to either adapt or survive. Again this is one of the reasons cults tend to be quite short lived, because they are often incompatible with daily life. - Secretive - again, to keep people indoctrinated it helps to convince them that they have exclusive access to some special truth. This helps to neutralise threats to the ideology because you can simply claim \"well they don't know what we do\". Religions on the other hand generally specifically aim to spread their message.",
"Interestingly enough, cult comes from Latin cultus which means, among other things, worship or religion. Only in the past few hundred years did the negative aspects of the word cult come about, before then \"the cult of Jesus\" would be basically synonyms with Christianity.",
"Religions are just successful cults. What would it look like today if 12 guys quit their jobs and started following around one guy saying he is the son of god, can heal the sick, raise the dead, and walk on water?",
"To me the difference can be found in what happens when you leave. If leaving the group causes you fear for the safety of yourself or your family, it's a cult. If not, it's a religion. But that's just me.",
"There are definable differences. Really though, it's about popularity and longevity. A little like the old adage - A 'language' is a dialect with an army and Navy My grandmother, a die-hard old-school Catholic, refers to the nice old Baptist Church in her town as \"that cult\".",
"There are several technical definitions for cult, but the one you are probably thinking of based on your title is \"a relatively small group of people having religious beliefs or practices regarded by others as strange or sinister\". Everyone may have a different view of what constitutes a cult, to an atheist or militant agnostic, all religions are cults. Most will agree that coercive and/or deceptive behaviors designed to manipulate the beliefs and behaviors of followers are the hallmarks of a cult. TL;DR: a cult is just a bad religion, and defining bad religions is up to you.",
"honestly, most of the comments seem like people are only going by what they see in movies when it comes to cults. yes, cults can be small with only one leader. cults can and are bigger too. Jehovah's Witnesses, Mormons, and Scientology are an example of being big and being cults too. they just were better at expanding than the smaller ones. the BITE model: URL_0",
"Here are the simple/ basic parameters for a cult that I learned in Religions of the World: - A group that loves something - A religion whose beliefs differ from the majority around them (Ex: Christians in the Roman Empire were considered cult members since they didn't worship Roman gods) - A religious group that is exclusive, secretive, authoritarian Expanding on the last three... - Exclusive: Might claim that they alone have the truth and that everyone else is wrong; if you leave the group your salvation will be in danger - Secretive: Certain teachings aren't available to outsiders or they're presented only to certain members of the group-- sometimes in confidentiality. - Authoritarian: A human leader expects total loyalty and unquestioned obedience These parameters probably answer the second part of your question as well, since cults endanger the lives/self-esteems of their members and, even if they don't, they're pretty hush-hush, leading to suspicion. Have you ever seen the People's Temple documentary? It's pretty good and shows how brainwashed and stuck people can get. Cults often prey on \"weaker\" people, like the elderly, those without relatives, vulnerable people... It's sad.",
"Is it safe to say every religion was a cult at some point?",
"The primary differences between a cult and a religion are the number of practitioners (a religion having more), and the fact that most cults have a living person that is the focal point or leader.",
"I think that more organizations can be considered \"cults\" than people realize. I don't think \"cult\" necessarily deserves the bad connotation people associate with it. It seems like most of the notorious ones people have heard of were doomsday cults, like branch davidians, people's Temple, heaven's gate, that Japanese one, etc. There show \"The Path\" really explores this. I like it a lot, but I really like Aaron Paul because of \"Breaking Bad\", so I like almost anything he's in.",
"The level of control in personal life and access to information."
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68fy4j | Why do people want knock-off designer purses? Do they think that people will think that they are rich enough to spend 3k on a purse even though they drive a 1988 minivan and live in a hovel? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"They definitely do it for the appearance, in my experience. A lot of people put a lot of weight on what people think about them. Having a designer purse, and being well-dressed lets them feel like they belong more in the upper class. Most people they meet won't know them well enough to know the real situation, so it's to give a good impression to all the people around. I've found this is a common thing to see for people who come from low-income backgrounds who actually know what it feels like to be followed around a store because you're poorly dressed (as they assume you'll shoplift), or who have been pushed aside in any number of ways for looking poor. It's the same reason someone in the lower or lower-middle class might spend way more than they should on a genuinely nice phone or purse, just to have a symbol that they belong (maybe spending 50% of their income, starving for a couple of days, or even go into debt for it). It looks kind of dumb, but from their perspective and experience, it's absolutely necessary and worth it. You do what you can to get respect by seeming wealthy.",
"Probably because they like the style but realize $600 for a purse is kinda stupid. I don't think they're trying to trick anyone into thinking they're rich."
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68gjyw | Governing during American Civil War | How did congress function during the civil war since roughly 1/2 the states seceded? Did they pass bills without any representatives from those states, were there congressman from those states who stayed with the union? Also, how did this affect the types of bills that were passed. | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Its super complicated. Some representatives of these states stayed as like a goverment in exile, some positions were left vacant, representaives who took direct part in seccesion were expelled. This gives a general overview of the beginning of the war. URL_0 There was definitly more pro union and north bills passed. West Virginia was also allow ro break off of virginia and was admitted. The southern states would had never allowed this to happen."
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68hac4 | The US Jury system,and why does the decision have to be unanimous rather than majority? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"When a person is accused of a crime they are presumed innocent. In order to prove guilt, a person must be found guilty BEYOND ANY reasonable doubt. If a juror has reasonable doubt as to a defendants guilt, they are innocent. Case closed. It's better to let a guilty person go free than it is to imprison an innocent civilian. That innocent civilian is all of us.",
"That actually differs by state. For instance, in Oregon, 10/12 is necessary for a conviction in a criminal case. (The threshold is considerably lower in civil cases.) As to why such large majorities are necessary, juries aren't deciding a matter of opinion. It is the prosecution's responsibility to *prove* to the jury that the defendant did what he is alleged to have done, which is to say it should be obvious enough that he actually did what he was accused of that the vast majority of the jury, if not all of them, can agree that it is more likely that he did than he didn't. If nearly half of the juror's disagree that the prosecution has successfully proven his case, that suggests that there is considerable room for doubt. And our system of justice prefers to err on the side of letting the guilty go rather than punishing the innocent."
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68hanc | Why do some restaurants charge a service fee for larger groups? | I see it often that restaurants charge an additional %age in addition to your bill if your group is above a certain size. Why is this? One would think it's easier for the restaurant to serve one table with 8 people than 4 tables with 2 people each!? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Generally because big groups are poor tippers, and are more work for the servers, bussers, and kitchen. It's easier to take and prepare 20 orders from 10 tables spread out over 15 minutes than it is to deal with 20 orders from the same table all at the same time.",
"Unless all four tables with two people show up at precisely the same time, there's a big difference. When a party of 8 hits the floor, that's 8 drink orders, 8 food orders, etc., that all need to happen roughly the same time. When it's four groups of two, with their arrival staggered out, the server can pay attention to one table while the others are busy, the bartender can make groups of smaller drink orders as they arrive, and so on. Meanwhile, back in the kitchen, the chefs now need to make four tables worth of food at once, and coordinate when each item is finished up so they can arrive at the table all appropriately warm/cold/fizzy/sizzling/whatever, instead of just having to coordinate groupings of two items; picture a table that ordered 3 steaks, 2 burgers, 2 pasta dishes and a personal pizza, and having to stage the cooking process so they all go out the kitchen door at the same time, as opposed to a table that ordered 2 burgers, a second table (that got seated minutes later) that ordered 2 steaks, another short time gap, one steak and pasta table, and then a pasta and pizza table. It's the same amount of food, but the individual orders have far fewer moving parts."
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68hg57 | Of the New York City boroughs.... | why is the Bronx, the only one that usually has THE before it's name? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"The Bronx is named after the Bronx river, and it was part of a prepositional phrase (originally \"Annexed District of the Bronx\", later \"Borough of the Bronx\"), so it kept the definite article because rivers are generally referred to with a definite article (you say \"I went boating on the Hudson River\" rather than \"I went boating on Hudson River\")."
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68hnba | Why do so many different religions require the covering of the head? (Judaism, Sikhism, Islam) Is there something about the top of the head that is particularly offensive from a theistic standpoint? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"No, it's an act of humility. Many religions attribute the top of the head as your connection with higher consciousness."
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68hoz5 | Why is it so looked down upon to wear a Fedora? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"text": [
"Hats used to be much more popular. Hats were worn outdoors. Hats were not worn indoors. Now people are wearing a hat indoors. These people are confused about why people wore hats."
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68id27 | What exactly did Fidel Castro do? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"text": [
"Functionally? He disposed of a dictator the USA liked and replaced him with himself. That about it. He was a less than kind leader post revolution but i tend to roll my eyes about the US hate of him considering the irony of Guantanamo bay being right there and the awful things we did as a result of it. In my historical studies of Castro though he always did come off a bit Dictator Lite. He was no monster of the calibre we have seen in historical texts. But he was no champion of civil and human rights. He didn't care much for democracy either."
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68iey9 | Wollstonecraft's Vindication of the Rights of Women and how education plays a critical role | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"text": [
"Didn't start your homework until Sunday night? Tsk tsk."
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68ixt2 | how do movie theaters pay for movies? Is it per person? How do tickets sales work? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Movie theater companies pay for the rights to show the film to audiences for a limited period of time. Ticket prices vary by location based on the customer demographic and the size of the theater. The real money is made at the concession booth, though.",
"Typically the distributors (Fox, Disney, Paramount, Universal, Warner Bros) make arrangements with the theatres (AMC, Regal, Cinemark) for a certain % of each ticket sale for their films, usually partly based on how popular the film is expected to be. For example, a film like Get Out may have the distributor earning 40% of profit of every ticket sold while a film like Guardians of the Galaxy 2 may have 60% of profit of every ticket sold going to the distributor. Then as the weeks go on, that agreement for the % of ticket price will sometimes decrease in what the distributor gets and slide more into the theatres' favor as the film becomes less popular and the theatre still keeps it. The theatre then retains a higher % of the ticket price. Some distributors will give rebates to theatre chains if they play a certain % of their films in 3D (thereby granting more revenue for the distributor since the ticket price is higher). This is why theatre chains usually have high concession prices, because a bulk of the admission revenue is going to the distributors. There are multiple other factors that go into the profit sharing between the theatre chain and the distributor but that is typically the basics."
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68j7rx | Why do Europeans dislike Gypsies so much? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Gypsies often roam around a lot, 1/3 of them are unemployed. Such a massive unemployment rate leads to crimes. Gypsies make up a lot of the small-time crime like pickpocketing and the like in Eastern Europe and sometimes Western. This leads local, settled populaces to hate and distrust them",
"Because they are typically unemployed, poor, and have higher crime rates. In Gypsy villages in Hungary, for example, non-gypsies are wary to own property on account of it getting stolen. Typically, the only rich Gypsies are the ones that are performers. My gf (European) put it this way: \"Not all rich musicians are Gypsies, but all rich Gypsies are musicians.\"",
"(Disclaimer personal opinion) It depends on what kind of gypsy your referring too, In the UK from my perspective gypsies are not the Romanian kind, their the inbred caravan illegally put on your local park type people. I hate those kind of gypsies because they ruin any area they come in contact with, start fights with individuals because they know they will win because they are always in groups and have no public decency. I have absolutely no problem with Romanians or gypsies that have respect for others and they have a very interesting culture."
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68ko6b | Why do most people become more aggressive on the internet? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Because you don't have to deal with any of the repercussions that you would talking like that to someone face to face. They can't physically assault you on the internet. Also alot of people use it as an outlet from their daily frustrations and inadequacies.",
"\"Most people\" do not become more aggressive. *Many* people do. And they do because the internet is * a mechanism that allows a wide group of people with massively different opinions to equally converse. If I post an anti-gun rant, people that are pro-guns will read it. I could be a Trump fan, but a lot of readers aren't going to agree. And this forms the basis of an argument against \"stupid people that you don't really know and don't really care about\" that can quickly escalate. * a place where people of all levels of maturity can interact. Some people get their kicks from trolling. * free. You can often post whatever you want until and unless you get banned from whatever venue you're in. and most of all: * anonymous when you want it to be. This is the huge one. There's no real penalty for posting really obnoxious or inflammatory content in most cases (there are exceptions like child porn or hate-speech that can vary depending on where you're located). Deliberately seeking arguments and being rude for shits and giggles here is \"fun\" for some people because nobody usually traces it back to you.",
"You'd have to factor in people's views too. I don't think that two random people meeting for the first time are going to express their heartfelt and possibly extreme views on subjects like politics or religion. When you meet random strangers IRL, It's generally neutral subject material that you discuss, right? Like the weather or the price of petrol. On the Internet you're straight into subjects like 'why I think Lenin should win the next election\" or \"why we need Hitler more than ever\". Subject material is important I think OP."
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68lgnv | Why is ISIS fighting the Taliban? Aren't they all fighting for the same cause? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"\"We want to rule the world under our interpretation of the Quran.\" \"Hey, we also want to rule the world the world under our interpretation of the Quran!\" \"Hmm, is your interpretation the same as ours?\" \"Ah, no, it is slightly different.\" \"Damn, so are you ok with us ruling you?\" \"Hell no, how about we rule you?\" \"Forget it! Hey everybody, kill these unbelievers!!!!\"",
"Sure, they're both Muslim extremist groups but that's the root of the problem. They *both* want to rule the world according to their interpretation of Islam. Having minor differences of the same belief system can lead to conflicts just as nasty as having completely different beliefs.",
"Why are there several hundred different type of Christianity? Aren't they all praying to the same god?",
"No. ISIS quite literally want to bring about the apocalypse. They want to set up an extremist global wahabbi Caliphate too, but the end goal is apocalypse. The Taliban is a more specifically Afghan thing where they want to set up an extremist and mostly Wahabi (although with a Deobandi and Pashtun twist) caliphate too, but just in Afghanistan. Or more to the point they don't really care what happens outside of Afghanistan. So imagine the ideology of the Taliban is that they want to bring a specifically New York take on Moneyball to the Yankees. The ideology of ISIS is they want to bring Moneyball to every baseball team in the world, and then blow up the world."
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68lt4f | What is the purpose of the window tax? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"I'm assuming you're referring to the window tax that used to exist within the UK? At the time income tax wasn't a thing and people in general were against it. The government wanted to tax people relative to their income so the idea was to tax people based on the number of windows they had in their property. The idea being the more money you had, the bigger the house you had therefor the more money they can get from you. Properties were charged in a banding scheme so 1-10 windows paid the least, 10-20 windows was in the middle and 20+ windows paid the most. It was very unpopular as it was seen as a tax on light. Some households went as far as bricking up windows to reduce the amount of tax they had to pay. It was later abolished and instead we now have council tax based on property value and income tax."
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68n9b0 | Why is Tupac in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame? | And any info on why Public Enemy and N.W.A. are in the HoF, too? Thanks | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"text": [
"From Wikipedia on the HoF inductee process: \"Criteria include the influence and significance of the artists' contributions to the development and perpetuation of rock and roll.\" Rap and hip hop are similar to rock, like sometimes being anti-establishment and crude, as well as stemming from the same music. If you look at \"Rock & Roll\" as a movement more than just a genre of music, those artists were undoubtedly influential and significant. Check out Hip Hop Evolution on Netflix, it goes into the history of hip hop."
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68nq38 | What's the difference between US and UK language settings? | I see these different English settings on devices and sites all the time but I never could tell what the difference was. Is it just some words spelled differently or is there something I'm missing? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"text": [
"Depends on where the language settings are used. It could influence any of the following: * Language selection (English vs US English) * Keyboard layout (UK QWERTY vs US QWERTY, different placement of special symbols mostly) * Date formatting (the UK uses sensible dates, the US uses garbage) * Default currency selection and formatting * Paper sizes for printers (really! A4 vs US Letter)",
"It'll change the input of the keyboard. Since US and UK keyboards have different physical layouts you can change the input setting to whichever you're using. So if you have a US keyboard but the UK setting you might press the @ key on the keyboard but a ` is typed in. Also these kinds of questions are more suited to /r/NoStupidQuestions"
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68nq43 | Why do most important forms require you to write in black ink rather than blue (or any other colour)? | I always see forms that specifically require you to write in 'block capitals with black ink'. It's my understanding that block capitals are required as they're less easy to mistake for other letters, but how comes it must be in black ink? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"text": [
"Dark inks show up better in photocopies and faxes and are less likely to fade over time. Also, in law, there is what is known as *customary practices*. While a contract written in crayon on a paper bag is technically binding, it is also highly irregular and that makes it easier to dispute. Part of the ritual of signing this and initiating that is to make it clear to everyone involved that yes, this is a bind legal contract we are all signing today. And part of those customary practices is the color of ink you use."
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68peu1 | Why was there no big Nazi insurgency/partisan activity after Geramy was occupied? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"There was *very* briefly, the regular German army helped defeat some rogue SS units in the weeks after the war ended. For the most part the population wasn't terribly interested in reviving the ideology that just got them bombed to rubble and killed off an entire generation.",
"I have this one (I just did a report on it) basically everyone is familiar with the Marshall plan but the de-nazification system pretty much became a massive propaganda (anything pro-nazi was illegal) movement by the allies (primarily in the west) depending on how 'nazi' you were you could be banned from some/all work plus the whole forced knowledge of concentration camps kind of made being a nazi super socially unacceptable",
"The sheer number of troops in the country, combined with the utter devastation from the bombings and fighting. If the Germans wanted to live, they needed supplies from the Allies. That, combined with disillusionment with the propaganda of the nazis. All their stories didn't work out.",
"Germany was so short on manpower towards the end of the war that minors in the Hitler Youth were being drafted as child soldiers to try and keep up the war effort. Most potential members of a Nazi insurgency were probably dead or captured by the time the war ended.",
"There were some plans to have werewolf units do an insurgency, but they weren't plans that had been worked out very well and in depth because the high command didn't like planning for things that involved their defeat. It didn't help that towards the end there were very few people left who were actually able to continue fighting and even fewer who had any inclination to do so. Most of the males who were of fighting age were prisoners or dead or in no shape to fight. There wasn't much in the way of equipment and the ones who had seen what fighting insurgencies was like often were disinclined to be on the other side of that sort of thing. In the west in the zones occupied by the US and the UK, there was the knowledge that things could be much worse like being occupied by the Russians or being ethnically cleansed out of their homes entirely as happened in the east. If the occupation forces had been much more draconian and offered fewer options for things to return to a new normal things may have been different."
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68r095 | Why do humans often feel uncomfortable/unsafe when their limbs hang over the bed? | Sometimes a hand hangs over, the bed, or a foot, but it bothers me, and I know other people as well. Is there a reason for this? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Best guess: Gravity. You can feel it tugging down without a barrier below, while the rest of your body does, making it feel like you're slowly about to fall. Or already are. Just my guess.",
"I think it has to do with fearing attack by snake or something. When we slept in trees a hanging limb is vulnerable to being bit.",
"It can also just feel uncomfortable. With it being lower then the rest of your body your blood kinda flows there. You also more likely for it to fall asleep that way."
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68ri7j | How did the credit system in the US work before FICO scores and the 3 major credit bureaus? | How did the credit system in the US work before FICO scores and the 3 major credit bureaus? How would a bank assess a borrowers creditworthiness? Could a person have just skipped town and started a new life in another state if they were burried in debt? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"It was much harder to get credit. You had to go to the bank in person and show them why you should be considered creditworthy. They would want to know your employment history, what you owned, what savings you had (preferably at their bank), what you planned to do with the loan, etc. An average college student, for example, absolutely could not buy a TV on credit. Credit was often limited to large durable things that could be repossessed if you didn't pay, like houses, cars, and furniture."
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68sa75 | why is prostitution illegal? is it wrong for a man who is not married or have a gf to pay for sex? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"I'm no expert but I imagine it's due to religious \"moral\" views guiding the law originally. Plus there is the perception, rightly or wrongly, that prostitution is a dangerous profession, which women are driven to due to desperation. I guess you could say the same about other jobs, though. In places where prostitution is legal, laws tend to be aimed at protecting the safety and welfare of the prostitutes. In the UK, it is not illegal to have sex in return for money. But other activities associated with the \"advertising\", or soliciting of such services is illegal.",
"Country/state? Its not illegal everywhere. [Legal in certain states of Australia] Edit: the laws regulating brothels here act to protect the interests of the prostitutes (make sure they get paid/protected from assault etc)",
"I'm German, so for me it is legal (I think that's also true for most other countries in the EU) Of course first we have the argument about religious reasons, but let me tell you about another side which might be more relevant and which is the argument of those opposing prostitution in Germany. I don't have statistics, but in our society's imagination many prostitutes come from poorer areas (e.g. eastern europe), don't speak the language well and need to do the job to earn a living. On top of that, it is said that women are forced to do it (e.g. by getting kidnapped in their home country and having no way to escape). So is the decision to get paid for having sex free? Do they really get paid? Some people in Germany can't imagine that anyone would do it without having to and don't want to see women forced into it. On the other hand, there are some organisations and I think also social workers looking into it and talking to various women in the industry stating that they freely choose to do so. That is the main reason why prostitution is legal in Germany.",
"For what it's worth, there's plenty of male prostitutes serving female clients. But to answer your question, it would look really bad for a politician to advocate for legalization of prostitution. Is he cheating on his wife? Doesn't he think of the women who might be hurt by this?",
"Historically, prostitution has led to the spread of STDs, just look at the mid 1800s. It's illegal not just for religious reasons, but also a dated law to prevent rampant STDs."
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68spy1 | Why are all the boxing title belts not unified? | It seems as if every other month there's some sort of "world title unification bout" in boxing. At this point, how is every weight class of title not unified by now? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"There are multiple organizations that list champions (and people care about those lists). They all have different rules, so it's possible that a champion is stripped of his belt by one organization, but not by another. Usually this happens because a competitor doesn't fight for a long period of time, or doesn't grant a rematch that was mandatory under the rules of one of the boxing organizations. Fighters also may vacate titles if they retire as a champion. Inevitably this can lead to different organizations recognizing different champions. It even sort of happens in UFC when a champion hasn't fought a title defense in their weight class for a while, and a provisional belt is won by another fighter."
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68t4yp | Why are there no B# (Cb) or E# (Fb) notes? | All other major note pairings have a sharp/flat between them, except B/C and E/F. | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"It's all about how harmonic different sounds are when combined. And this usually falls back to the ratio of their frequencies. Two sounds whose frequencies are certain ratios (2:1 or 3:2 are the main ones) sound \"better\" than combined sounds whose frequency ratios are different. The 3:2 ratio is known as the \"fifth\" and it produces the white keys on a keyboard. If you start a F, and multiply the frequency by 3/2, you get C (or very close to it). Continuing this pattern you get: F - > C - > G - > D - > A - > E - > B. In other words, you generate all of the seven different white keys of the piano. The 2:1 ratio is simply the octave. If you start with a given note and multiply it by 2 (or divide it in half) you get the same note in a different octave. By combining fifths and octaves, you can generate all of the white key notes on a piano, but end up with some mathematical oddities, like the \"distance\" between E and F (and B and C) being half the distance between any other part of notes. So when we started including half steps in music (the black keys, sharps and flats) there was no need to put one between B and C or E and F, because the distance between them was already a half step. EDIT: To see how this works in practice, let us construct our own musical scale. We don't have notes or labels or anything. All we know is that some sounds sound good together and some don't, and we eventually stumble upon this 3:2, 2:1 ratios that we like. So, we pick a note as our base, and we'll say it has a frequency of \"32\". I picked this number since it makes the rest of the numbers work out. Real life is more complicated. We will call it Note-1. And we will derive all of the \"fifths\" from that at ratios of 3:2: * Note-1 (32) * Note-5 (48) * Note-2 (72) * Note-6 (108) * Note-3 (162) * Note-7 (243) * Note-4 (364.5) Then we fill and back-fill based on our octaves (the 2:1) ratio. Now, we don't want to have to have an infinite number of labeled notes, so we use the octave as a neat grouping of 7 individually labeled notes. So we will add an octave designation to each note: **Octave 0** * Note-1-0 (32) * Note-2-0 (36) * Note-3-0 (40.5) * Note-4-0 (45.5625) * Note-5-0 (48) * Note-6-0 (54) * Note-7-0 (60.75) **Octave 1** * Note-1-1 (64) * Note-2-1 (72) * Note-3-1 (81) * Note-4-1 (91.125) * Note-5-1 (96) * Note-6-1 (108) * Note-7-1 (121.5) **Octave 2** * Note-1-2 (128) * Note-2-2 (144) * Note-3-2 (162) * Note-4-2 (182.25) * Note-5-2 (192) * Note-6-2 (216) * Note-7-2 (243) **Octave 3** * Note-1-3 (256) * Note-2-3 (288) * Note-3-3 (324) * Note-4-3 (364.5) Now, looking at a specific octave (we'll use Octave 0 here as an example) we can look at the ratio of the frequencies of individual notes: * Note 2 to Note 1 (1.125) * Note 3 to Note 2 (1.125) * Note 4 to Note 3 (1.125) * Note 5 to Note 4 (1.053498) * Note 6 to Note 5 (1.125) * Note 7 to Note 6 (1.125) We we can also compare the first note of an octave to the last note of the previous octave: * Note-1-1 to Note 7-0 (1.053498) So we see that, based on this relative simply generation of notes from nice, neat ratios, we have these two oddities. Every note increases by the same ratio except for those two, which are a bit \"closer\" to the previous note. Nevertheless, the overall thing works out. Now, in real life the frequencies aren't nice neat numbers and the ratios between notes on a given instrument do not precisely match the 3:2, 3:1 ratios, but get pretty close.",
"Technically, there are. They're still only a half-step away from each other, which is what the sharp and flat sign designate - raising or lowering a tone by a half-step. In music theory, enharmonics are two notes which are equivalent. G# and Ab are two enharmonic tones, as well as B# and C, but there's few cases where writing this is necessary. The key of C-flat major is a key with 7 flats: Bb, Eb, Ab, Db, Gb, Cb, Fb. The Cb in this case is essentially just be a B-natural, but rather than writing B-natural and B-flat the sheet music will show Cb.",
"So a 'step' or 'tone' between two notes corresponds to multiplying or dividing the frequency by a certain amount. The C major scale goes C - step - D - step - E - half step - F - step - G - step - A - step - B - half step - C, twice the frequency of the original C, which is an octave higher. This scale is pleasing to the ear. A scale using only whole steps, by contrast, sounds discordant, although some music has been written for it. That would be C - D - E - F# - G# - A# - C. C major scale: URL_0 Whole tone scale: URL_1"
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68tehn | why organised crime played such a large part in boxing, as opposed to other competitive sports? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Only need to pay one person in boxing to all but guaranteed a thrown match (i.e. purposefully losing). In other sports, you would need to pay more players, increasing your chances of getting caught, let alone increasing the costs of paying them off.",
"It's much easier to convince one guy to take a dive for a boatload of cash than it is to convince an entire team of players to do it."
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68ttwf | British political parties, who are the tories? What do the stand for? Are the the same as labour? What do the conservatives want?! | I've been on google for a few hours and have managed to do nothing other than confuse myself. | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"In the modern day the Tories are the Conservatives. The Conservative & Unionist Party is their full current name and they are the current Government in both the Lords and the Commons, the Government in the Lords isn't important. They are also the Second Party in Y Senedd (Welsh Parliament) and Scots Parlaiment. The Conservative Party was formed in 1834, following an awful election ressult for the Tories in 1832. The Tories were the right wing party from 1678-1832. Tory is a term used to describe a Conservative in the UK, it can be both used as an insult and a positive gesture. A specific insult with Tory is Red Tory, in the UK red is the Socialist colour and used by the Labour Party. Red Tory reffers to a Labour member who is to the right of the Labour Party, such as their former leader and Prime Minister Tony Blair, the only living Labour leader to win an election. The Conservatives are a large right wing party with many factions it is however right wing. The Tories believe in smaller government and lower taxes, however May (current leader) may try to increase several taxes, she has been iffy on the matter. I assume you are American so to relate it to America the Conservative & Unionist Party is similar to the Democrats (right wing of the party) and Republicans (left wing of the party). The Conservatives have since the 70s (Thatcher) have been pro-free trade gloabilists. They are also often viewed as the bussiness party, Id argure they aren't due to their current hard line on Brexit which could cost British Bussiness at least £20 Billion accoriding to most studies. The Conservatives also have liberal factions (similar to the Libertarian Party). **** Labour is the *Socialist* Party. Labour flirts with socialism and has till recently been more to the right however Corbyn won the Leadership contest in 2015, a big suprise and he nearly didn't get on the ballot. He defended the title following a coup in 2016. Labour currently lead the Most Loyal Opposition (biggest opposition party) in both the Lords and Commons. They control the Government in Y Senedd and 3rd in Soctland, till very recently Scotland was Labour heartland. Labour believe in high tax high spend policies, Labour have currently suggested borowing £500 Billion to invest in the UK. Labour are too far too the left for a comparison to the US for the most part, the right of the Labour Party is similar to the left of the Democrats. The Labour Party is currently in a fairly open civil war. A coup in 2016 showed that 40/229 MPs backed Corbyn. Corbyn has massively increased membership in Labour and has got the Hard Left in control of Labour for the first time in a long time. Often the hard left fringe parties try to take over labour. As a damning fact the Communist Party aren't standing in any seat for the first time and are backing Labour. Labour have an arangement with the Social Labour Democratic Party meaning Labour doesn't stand in Northern Ireland and the SDLP don't stand in Great Britian. Labour have an arangement with the Co-Op Party meaning a Labour member can stand as Labour or Labour & Co-Op. **** We have other parties too; The Liberal Democrats. The Liberal Democrats are the traditional third party in the UK, used to be the main party or second party till the Lloyd Ministry 1916-1922. The Liberal Democrats formed from The Liberal Party led by Steel and The SDP (a Labour split off) and the gang of four. The Lib Dems were hammered in 2010 for what was seen as a betrayal when in Coalition tuition fees trippled after they promised to end tuition fees, personally I think that was the better outcome at the time but many were angry. If you have any questions leave a follow up,",
"Labour are the main left-wing party(Democrats), the Conservatives who are nicknamed \"Tories\" are right-wing(Republican). Tories are the right-wing in Britain but compared to America the major party's are all liberal. They are pro sex education, gay marriage, science (there is no disagreement on climate change!) and largely tolerant of different cultures and faiths. The main difference in Policy is that Labour wants to tax the rich and increase welfare for the poor(socialist capitalism), Tories want to lower taxes and privatise to encourage economic growth(free-market capitalism). There are people in both parties that are pro and anti-brexit, both were anti-brexit before the referendum. Now they are both reluctantly going through with brexit as it is what the population voted for. The other lesser partys are: the SNP who want Scottish Independence so they can stay in the EU; the Liberal Democrats, who our the third largest party that are center-left, they want Britain(England, Wales, Scotland and Northen Ireland) to stay in the EU even after the referendum; UKIP is the party that wanted to leave the EU because they don't like immigrants(basically Trump but not as aggressive and less bigoted), but there Voters were too spread out so they only got 1 seat (out of 650) in parliament despite 13% of votes! To compete with UKIP in the last election, the Tories held a referendum on the EU. all the Major parties wanted to stay in the EU but there were lots of dissidents in each party who wanted to leave and campaigned to leave. When the major party Leavers campaigned they distance themselves from UKIP as most British people think them xenophobic. To the surprise of everyone, Britain voted leave and now the Torie government(who held power since 2010) are leaving the EU and the economy is going to shit and we are all gonna die.",
"'Tory' is a nickname for Conservative. So the Tories are the Conservative party. They are a Centre-Right to Right wing party. Possibly a little more right wing than their closest equivalents in Europe, and a little more left wing than their closest equivalents in the US. Theoretically at least, they stand for the free market. In practice, what they stand for is trying to remain in power, which they are remarkably good at."
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68wbh0 | Why is an unidentified individual (particularly in criminal cases) referred to as "John Doe" or "Jane Doe"? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"The name \"John Doe\", often spelled \"Richard Roe,\" along with \"John Roe\" or \"Doo\" were regularly invoked in English legal instruments to satisfy technical requirements governing standing and jurisdiction, beginning perhaps as early as the reign of England's King Edward III (1327–1377).",
"John Doe or Jane Doe are substitutes for other similar expressions like \"an unknown person\" or \"anonymous\". You can not put \"an unknown person\" in a form for example, or it'd be more awkward to call \"an unknown person\" using a loudspeaker instead of simply addressing John Doe."
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68wrxe | Classic music albums are constantly being remastered, but whats so wrong with the original mastering? | Did something change in the last decade or so regarding mastering? If it was like a director's cut, with new or changed content, I think I could understand better. But isn't mastering just the finishing touches on a mix? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"The mastering in, for example, the 70s is just about as clear and good as can be produced with modern technologies, so as another poster noted, it can simply be a case of the record company wanting to rerelease the product. However, the preferences for what a well-mastered record sounds like have changed significantly over time. In the 50s and early 60s, the \"Wall of Sound\" was popular, while records from the 70s are often relatively quiet and make it easier to distinguish instruments. There are hundreds of examples of this, but check out a 70s Steely Dan record or record by The Carpenters, and it is often remarkable how clear every sound is. In the 90s and beyond, preferences again shifted to louder records, partially because record companies wanted their records to be naturally louder so as to stand out more easily when played on the radio. This can lead to a somewhat more muddled sound, though this is not always necessarily worse. I imagine the most major reason that records are re-released is the first one I listed, but I have noticed that some remastered records that I've heard to certainly sound *different*, though it's hard to say whether they exactly sound better, so they may have been remastered to fit in line better with modern preferences for mixing.",
"In many cases the recording company just wants to resell you the same album again. Depending on the fidelity and condition of the original recordings you sometimes can get better versions that what was originally available in the 70s, but you're not going to pull a crystal-clear version of an old Led Zepplin album off a forty year old tape."
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68wti2 | Why is it common to see the flag of the Confederate States of America in states which were never members of the Confederacy? | As a lifelong resident of North Carolina, I realized long ago that living in a southern state comes with an inherent likelihood of encountering the flag of the Confederacy upon occasion. It's on bumper stickers, it's in people's yards, you can buy it on shot glasses and you can buy all sorts of less common merchandise if you're going to go looking for it. As an adult, the more I travel to other states in America - specifically the Northern east coast and New England - the more baffled I am by how common the Confederate flag seems to be in these non-confederate states. Why is it that in rural areas of many Northern states, I can find the Confederate flag almost as frequently as I can find it in rural areas of the South? EDIT: For clarity's sake, I do mean the Battle Flag of the Army of Northern Virginia, and not the first/original Flag of the Confederate States of America. | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"People from the south move to other states, and often want people to know they are still southerners and haven't gone Yankee. Also, it is sometimes used as a sign of rural vs. urban, no just north vs. south. Finally, white supremacist groups exists outside of the south, and often embrace the Confederacy and its symbolism.",
"Every state has Confederate apologists in it. It's the modern way to fly the Nazi flag without flying the Nazi flag. The Confederate flag, whatever it may have once represented, is now the flag of American White Supremacists, de facto Nazis, and other far right-wing extremists like the Bundy family, whose patron, Cliven \"Let me tell you another thing I know about the Negroes\" Bundy, doesn't \"recognize the Federal Government as even existin'.\" I don't think most people who fly Confederate flags would continue doing so if they were ever to realize what it tells the world about them. They'd certainly still do it in secret, though."
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68xcui | Why does coffee only taste bad at it's lukewarm state? But tastes amazing if it's at a more extreme temperature? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Good coffee tastes good hot, warm or cold. Shit coffee tastes ok when your taste buds don't work...ie extreme temperatures.",
"Actually just learned this in a nutrition course. Coffee and Tea get most of their flavor from a lot of different oils and compounds (grouped together we can just call them solubles). One of the most notable of these solubles are Tannins. Tannins give coffee, tea, and even wine their bitter and sharp flavor. When these solubles are exposed to air they begin to oxidize which in ELI5 terms means they begin to lose flavor. When hot water is added, it pulls these solubles from the bean or leaf and dissolves them in the water, sort of \"binding\" the flavor to the water. However like I said above, when these solubles are exposed to air they begin to oxidize, so if your coffee sits out for a long time the flavors begin to dissipate over time. The best comparison I can make would be similar to how a battery holds charge. If you charge a battery and then use it right after full charge you'll get the most from it, however, if you leave the battery untouched for a couple days or even weeks it may have lost a fair amount of its 'charge'. So in essence, its a mix between how the solubles that give coffee its flavor react with the elements in their environment around them (heat, water, air) over time. Hope this helps!",
"This is more preferential. People who normally drink hot coffee may shudder when taking a sip of something that is supposed to be hot. Some, like myself, can tolerate and drink it hot or lukewarm: some only like cold or iced coffee."
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68xn6f | What is Jury Nullification, and why do people refer to it as a "get out of jury duty" free card? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"There's no legal mechanism to overturn a not guilty verdict - no amount of proof will do it. So essentially, a jury that decides they don't want to punish a criminal can just refuse to do so, even if shown video of him doing the deed and narrating a confession. If you tell a prosecutor that you've heard of this power and plan to use it, you're not likely to be selected.",
"This is a little off topic, but part of the reason that jury nullification has a bad rap is because it was used during the civil rights era to get white supremacists out of jail. An all white jury would say that they weren't guilty of a crime (that they clearly *were* guilty of) so that they would walk.",
"Jury nullification is when, despite there being overwhelming evidence to the contrary, the jury renders a verdict in favor of the defense. Suppose there was a man on trial for murder, and every piece of evidence presented proved beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant was guilty. But, the jury decided to find in his favor. Because of the double jeopardy protections of the 5th Amendment, if the jury nullifies and finds the defendant guilty, the State can't bring those charges against the defendant again. This includes both a new trial or appeal.",
"It is kind of a loophole judges and prosecutors would rather jurors not exploit. Jurors cannot be held accountable for their decisions. This is necessary, otherwise, they might be afraid of the consequences and not vote their conscience. This also means that if a jury wants to, they can simply ignore the law. That is what the nullification is, they can side aside the law when they reach their verdicts, and not face any consequences. This isn't necessarily a good thing. In the past, jury nullification has been used to disregard unjust laws, but it has also been used to protect lynch mobs. But since there is no way to avoid it, so judges and prosecutor keep quiet, and defense attorneys are not allowed to bring it up. If you mention it during jury selection, you will likely be excused."
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68xphk | Why is there so much opposition to universal healthcare in the US from even people of modest income who would benefit substantially from such a policy? | When I look at graphs like this one: URL_0 The US does very poorly compared to the rest of the developed world that uses universal healthcare. It seems like Americans pay more for shorter life expectancy. Why not change? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Philosophy of individual liberty vs collectivism, in which here we prefer the first. The thought goes like this: I choose which health care plan is best for me. I decide what benefits I need and how much I'm willing to pay, etc. I've earned my paycheck so how I spend my money on my own healthcare should be decided by me, not the government. Plus, I make good decisions. I don't smoke, I don't drink a lot, I eat healthy, and I exercise. Why should I have to pay more money to pay for diabetes and lung cancer Bob down the street who makes bad health decisions and gets to freeload off my tax dollars? I shouldn't, Bob should have to pay for the healthcare he needs due to his own decision making. I know that private insurance involves paying for other people's healthcare, but the difference in that scenario is that I still choose which plan to enroll in if at all, as opposed to having the government confiscate my money to cover Bob. That's one side. The other side is the government is a consistently inefficient machine that often makes worse what it gets involved in. Maybe it's okay when I'm waiting in line to renew my driver's license, but the idea of going through something with that level of bureaucracy and inefficiency that is as essential to life and complicated as healthcare is frightening to many Americans. If you try to understand it by analyzing mortality rates or economic models you won't get it because it isn't about that, it's a more philosophical and moral argument at its core.",
"It would cost a lot of money. That money would have to come from taxpayers. Folks with modest income don't expect Government to start taxing the rich exclusively, given their political power. You can't tax poor people, they have no money. That means the tax would be on middle income people, and they don't want to pay more taxes than they pay already.",
"Primarily propaganda supported by an unbelievably lucrative business model based on having their customers rather literally 'by the throat'. If you look closely at the arguments against universal healthcare, you'll notice that they are oft-repeated talking points, most of which can be tracked to a small handful of think-tanks. Enough misinformation repeated with enough consistency from multiple angles makes it easy to convince the most vulnerable and least informed (see also the education cuts and anti-intellectual ideologies) to vote against their own interests time and time again. In other words; follow the money and you'll find your reasons, but be prepared for somewhat of a shock when you also come across declarations that the poor do not *deserve* to go unpunished for obtaining services that only belong to 'real people'."
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68xvj7 | What is the origin of the fake heart shape? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"We aren't entirely sure. Guesses range from depictions of a woman's rear end to a reference to a now-extinct [plant]( URL_1 ) that some theorize was used as a contraceptive. The Wikipedia entry on the [symbol]( URL_0 ) makes for decent reading, and I'd recommend it, as it's very accessible.",
"The stylized version doesn't really look that far off from a [real heart]( URL_0 )",
"Nobody knows for sure, but the earliest use of the shape we connote with a heart can be traced to the early 14th century. Some scholars have argued that the roots come from the writings of [Galen]( URL_1 ) and [Aristotle]( URL_0 ), who described the human heart as having three chambers with a small dent in the middle... and that the heart shape was artists and scientists of the Middle Ages attempting to draw representations of the ancient medical texts. However, this is just one theory of many, nobody really knows and it's unlikely we will ever know."
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68y7ze | What are "honorary degrees"? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"They are usually a degree given to a person of notable talent who has demonstrated knowledge and contributed to their field of work/study. The degree itself is just a honor, like a medal or ribbon. No one really recognizes an honorary doctorate as equal to a real doctorate. But it's still special to receive.",
"It is a degree given to someone who has made contributions to a field in ways other than academic. For example, a politician who championed space exploration might be given an honorary degree in Aerospace Engineering by a university, despite not having any technical knowledge of the field. Honorary degrees don't \"count\" as real degrees, Space-X isn't going to hire that politician to build rockets based on an honorary degree.",
"It's basically a way to honor someone who has made significant contributions to a particular field, but who has not necessarily gone through formal education. They don't need it as a qualification because they generally already have extensive experience. For example, Maya Angelou and Yoko Ono have honorary degrees, but they don't need them because they're already hugely famous and respected. It's more or less a way for the university to recognize someone, and to create connections with that person."
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68yf70 | Why do people look away from the point of focus to think? | Example: 1. Looking up at the ceiling during a test 2. Looking away from someone during a discussion to think | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"If you look away there's no stimuli trying to get your attention. You can look at a blank wall and not have anything stimulating you while you search your head for the answer."
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68ykwv | Why do some countries say it as 'zee' while others say 'zed'? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"'Zee' only exists to rhyme with the other letters, which only matters in the context of The Alphabet Song. Being an American song, this is only considered correct in the USA, although it is somewhat common in Canada as well. So just like ending words in er rather than re, dropping u's in our-words, and several other things, 'zee' is an Americanism."
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68zz59 | How did it become a societal norm for women to wear skirts/dresses, even though anatomically it would be much more logical for men? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"What on earth are these answers about? Urinating? Menstruation? The true answer is, it WAS completely acceptable for men to wear togas, robes, gowns, kilts, long tunics, etc. But then...**horseback riding!** In the ancient world, men of status would be riding around or even fighting on horseback. At which point getting caught up on a flowing garment, or not having any paddling in your crotch area, would have been a pain...so trousers became the norm for men. And of course people wanting to emulate their social betters did the same. The same pressures were not applied to women. They'd be raising children and not fighting as cavalrymen. Eventually leading to the skirt being associated only with women. It has absolutely nothing to do with anatomy.",
"Until modern sanitary products were invented, it was impractical for a menstruating woman to wear trousers. Skirts left room for absorbent materials and for ventilation.",
"It is anatomically much more logical for men to wear pants because they are out working in the field and riding horses. A dress simply leaves your privates too unprotected. In societies that women did that kind of work it was common for them to wear pants too, or to wear leggings under a skirt.",
"I would imagine that everyone started out wearing skirts because they are easier and simpler to make than pants. An interesting question would be who started wearing pants in the first place and why.",
"Also, skirts are easier to squat to pee in. Not that you can't squat in trousers but that takes a bit more skill."
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6906lg | If everyone hates Nickelback how did they sell 50 million albums worldwide? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"I'll trace this back to a quote from Wayne's World, \" Led Zeppelin didn't write tunes that every one liked. They left that to the Bee Gees.\" I think most people who really care about music, especially rock music, would put Zeppelin above the Bee Gees but who sold more records? Folks who are way into music don't like Nickleback (or Smashmouth) because they're boring, uninspired, and derivative. But that's a perfect recipe for writing a catchy three-minute pop rock tune the average Joe flipping through the radio stations will stop and listen to. They're the Miller Lite of music, safe and inoffensive to most people. I may have some specific craft brew I like and I'll look down my nose at some generic watery mass market beer. But guess what? Even the shitty mass market beer outsells my favorite micro-brew by orders of magnitude because it's inoffensive and good enough for people who don't care enough to dig any deeper.",
"Sometimes the simplest answer is the correct one. Everyone doesn't hate Nickelback. They've sold 50 million albums because people want to listen to their music.",
"Everyone doesn't hate them. People just like talking about hating them. It's cool to hate them so even people who don't mind them, or maybe even like them, pretend to hate them to fit in. The vast majority of people are indifferent (just like with any musician). Nickleback fans, due to the stigma that's developed around liking the band, are largely silent on their fandom which is why the perception becomes that no one likes them.",
"The \"hate\" really sorta stems from people raging on someone \"selling out\" in order to win big. The same reason that the Chainsmokers are now receiving a similar reception as of late. These artists, among others, essentially take the best selling aspects of their respective genres and beat it like a dead horse to sell records/mp3s/get radio play and make their millions. Be it a particular beat, a pandering cheesy lyric or refrain, subject matter, etc and so forth, rather than retaining any sort of artistic integrity, they simply make their songs into things they know will play with the masses. A lot of the time it likely starts with people who \"knew them before they got big\" and therefore hate it when they suddenly become everyone's new favorite and feel it cheapens the meaning of their songs / lyrics, and sometimes it may given the previous statement of them catering all their songs more in that direction because they know it'll sell, but, you get the idea.",
"Nickelback are not a bad band as such, but they have a style that sounds very much alike from song to song. But this also helps them as they are a rock band that is very easy to listen to as a casual listener. Basically Nickelback are the McDonalds of rock music. They make competent music that a lot of people kinda like, or at least don't mind, you always know what you get when you listen to one of their songs, and they sell big. But just like McDonalds the quality of the merchandise is being criticized by people with higher standards. Some of this is fair (just like pointing out McDonalds food is not very healthy), but over time it has become a rather tired joke to people that Nickelback is the worst band ever."
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6906z6 | Are you allowed to pull up into the intersection when waiting to turn left on unprotected green? | What is your state and what is the law about this? I looked at the Drivers Handbook in my state (TX) but I can't find anything about this. I do remember when I was in Chicago last year with bumper-to-bumper traffic, the intersections never had protected lefts, so it was essential for as many cars as possible to pull up into the intersection to wait on the left turn and go when it turned yellow. If you stayed behind the white line, you'd be waiting there all day and blocking people behind you. | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"URL_0 There may be a few odd places that don't allow it for some reason, but for the most part entering the intersection on a green light is just how it's always been done. In fact before the proliferation of green turn arrows that was pretty much the only way to do it. It should only be one vehicle at a time, though. Also, don't back up because the light turned red while you were waiting. You're not running the red light if you were already in the intersection when it was still green. Wait for oncoming traffic to stop and then complete your turn. I see so many people backing up into the turn lane (which is illegal) to avoid finishing their turn after the light has changed (which isn't illegal)."
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6907iz | Why do radio stations play talk radio in the mornings instead of music? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Radio stations, just like TV, have time slots. Certain times lots have certain audiences. In the late night/ early morning most listeners are traveling/truckers... People traveling/trucking tend to tune in to Talk Radio more often because it makes time go by quicker and keeps you awake. Basically, more people driving late night/early morning want to listen to talk radio. So radio stations program talk radio to get more listeners.",
"Working at a UK commercial radio station, we have more speech in our morning show for a couple of reasons: 1) The best presenter/presenters are on at that time and we want to showcase them. Breakfast is often the flagship show for most commercial radio stations (and the breakfast presenter is often the only presenter on a station listeners can consistently name). Equally, our clients will want their competition/feature on at that time. 2) Internal research shows people want more talk at breakfast. News, travel, weather. People want to know what has happened while they slept and what they've got to look forward to in the day. Contrast that with afternoon drive where people are done with the day and normally just want songs to destress from the day. Most of what stations do (even from the most mundane things such as what time the travel is broadcast) is backed up by lots and lots of listener research. Edit: formatting",
"Interesting. I thought it was because it allows for more opportunities to slot in advertising/promote a partnership. During peak times there are lots of people listening, so why would they play 5 minute long songs (where they cant advertise obviously) when they could realistically throw in many more adverts inside a talk segment or even base a promoted product on the talk subject? Radio is commercial. During peak times they would want to play the most amount of ads to maximise revenue. It is easier to weave in commercials or promote products/companies during talk segments than during music (you don't get ads mid-song).",
"The same reason news shows tend to play in the morning and late evening. A lot of people want to know the current events and latest stories and most of those people work during the day, so the only time available to them to watch tv and listen to the radio is in the morning and early evening. So, that's when the news and talk shows air."
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690q60 | Why do people often look for a consensus in order to determine the validity of something, specifically in science, when historically, there have been many instances of the general consensus being wrong. | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"When your first example doesn't hold up, it sorta weakens your argument. URL_0",
"The difference is in the science. Many people believing the same thing through faith alone doesn't actually make it more likely to be true. But if other reports and experiments are getting the same result, it's more likely to be true. That said, there is definitely dogma and inertia in science - it's not impervious.",
"In most cases of the scientific consensus being \"wrong\", what actually happens is that a reasonably-good model gets a refinement. If you look at small timescales, continents are immovable. Newton's laws of gravity work just fine for any velocity we encounter in everyday lives. There are certainly some cases where the consensus is actually completely overturned - but they're usually about more specific points in a specific area. And in most of those cases, it's because new evidence emerges, not because existing evidence gets reinterpreted. With that in mind, who are the \"people\" in the question? Because the answer is different for different contexts. When an *expert* proposes a change to the consensus, the value of the consensus is weaker. The expert may very well be providing new evidence that should alter the consensus. However, it is more likely that they are not. What you should think is not that the consensus guarantees truth, but that the consensus is correlated with truth. Therefore, an expert bringing an idea that goes against the consensus is generally expected to have a stronger argument, with greater evidence - because they're going up against all the evidence that has come before. There are certainly effects of institutional conservatism and inertia; and it can be hard for people to let go of cherished ideas. This leads to a psychological bias against the new ideas. At the same time, there is an opposite effect - overturning something established is satisfying; being part of the small, more-enlightened group is satisfying; being on the forefront of discovery is satisfying. This leads to a psychological bias *for* new ideas. Which bias is stronger depends on the circumstances. When a *layman* talks about consensus, the mechanisms involved are quite different. Modern human society is extremely specialized; in order to fully understand any particular field of endeavor, a human generally needs to spend several years of devoted study. This means that it's very unlikely that a layman's opinion has a high correlation with the truth. It also means that a layman is unlikely to be able to even *evaluate* an expert's argument. So when multiple experts say different things, it's unlikely that a layman will be able to just study the disagreement and accurately decide which one is correct. To throw out some example numbers, it may be that a layman's evaluation of the argument is correlated with correctness at 60% accuracy, but \"what does the scientific consensus say?\" is correlated with correctness at 80% accuracy. Given that, it makes sense to choose the consensus over the layman's evaluation.",
"Consensus is a very good thing for small social groups and as such it is ingrained into us. Imagine you are a small tribe of prehistoric people sitting around the fire and decide who of you is going to become chief or how you want to hunt the mammoth. It becomes even more important if you want to decide what social norms need to be adhered to (probably most importantly regarding food, sharing the burden of getting food and mating) and how infractions are going to get dealt with. Consensus is a large benefit to the group. Furthermore, most humans are social and simply like \"peace\" and \"quiet\". Consensus again is a pretty powerful thing to achieve. Consensus, i.e. being in a group, simply *feels* good. Now, add something that is vastly more complex than the very simple social roots we're coming from. Suddenly it feels good for everyone in a group, say professors, be against that newcomer who wants to ruin your physics-hero. As for the other examples, i.e. the geocentry universe, the situation is vastly more complex. Here you had a ruling class that literally claimed they'd be able to decide about the universe and everyone in it, they had the truth, and as such were allowed absolute rulership. Now a person comes along and states \"You actually were wrong about something fundamental\". What does that mean for the legimity of your rule and your ability to speak for god? Of course that guy must be shown he is wrong with his sun-earth-theory and that the ruling group still is right about the cosmic nature! And forget \"flat earth\" as example. People didn't believe in the flat earth for a long, long time. Everyone culture that has access to \"boats\" and a \"large enough body of water\" (a shore) can see the earth isn't flat if boats come and go. And Eratosthenes, around 2300 years ago, had already calculated the circumference of Earth pretty exactly (his error was just around 4%)..."
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690y9j | Is there any merit behind the idea that global warming could create more usable farmland in the northern regions of North America/Asia, like Canada/Russia? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Of course there is merit to that idea. But what it does is basically this: * Meager places where right now few people life become more fertile. * Fertile places where a lot of people live right now become less fertile. The first creates a possible benefit for few and the possibility for development in the middle or far future. The second creates massive disadvantages for a lot of people very soon. You can try to counter the second, but that costs a lot of ressources and effort and poor areas that right now can feed themselves, won't be able to afford that. Already rich areas can get their food from anywhere they want anyway.",
"It might, but it will also render existing farm land unusable and the kind of farmland that would be created is land we already have no shortage of... we may have some more land to grow wheat but we may lose access to all sorts of tropical produce. Additionally, while regions may warm, there is also evidence of wider swings in precipitation... so some years may get too much rain and flood (which could ruin crops) and some years there will be draught (which could ruin crops), so even with more land available there is still greater risk of crop loss.",
"There's similar merit in the notion that you should set your house on fire because the trash is piling up. Contrary to what poorly informed internet rabble will shout - The world does not currently have an overpopulation or food production issue. What we do have is a *density* problem what with human's natural inclination to pile up all in one place. There's plenty of food, just not the logistics to get it to everywhere it needs to be. Melting the ice caps and warming the planet might increase arable land in some areas at the cost of others and in the end I doubt that it will be a net positive."
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691h14 | Why are Dumas' Three Musketeers almost always depicted not carrying any musket? | I never understood that. Almost every single piece of art I see depicting them shows them as three fencers, not three musketeers. I've never gotten around to reading the novel, so I have no plot context if that explains it any. | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"THE French word mousquetaire originally referred to an infantryman with a musket. Over time, the word changed its meaning, lost the connection with the weapon, and referred to a much grander person. A mousquetaire was a gentleman in one of the two companies of the royal household cavalry in pre-revolutionary France. The companies were distinguished by the colour of the horses they rode - either grey or black. Thus there were mousquetaires gris and mousquetaires noirs. Cavalry have no use for clumsy muskets, which are difficult to reload at the best of times. The problem we have is an over-literal translation of the French which loses the context. -*Derek Roberts, Mitcham, Surrey.*",
"During the time the story is set, muskets were really only used as weapons against other people on the battlefield. They were heavy, took a long time to load, and wouldn't have been very practical to carry around in a non-war context. During most of the story, the Three Musketeers aren't fighting in a pitched battle as part of war. As a result, most of the time they would be armed with swords and maybe a pistol. When they do fight in a battle as part of a larger war at the siege of La Rochelle they do use muskets. Sword fights are also seen as more romantic and exciting, so that probably also plays into it.",
"They did, at least at first. Originally Musketeers were a lower rank of soldier, armed with muskets (hence the name). At some point, a new group of royal bodyguards was drafted and named \"Musketeers\" as not to conflict with the existing royal bodyguards at the time. As soldiers they would still be trained and equipped with a variety of weapons but, as body guards (rather than front-line soldiers) they would value their skill with a rapier: not as clumsy as a musket; an elegant weapon for a more civilized age."
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691n7e | How come the Native Americans never got to their own metal ages. (Bronze, brass, steel, etc)? | Title | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Jared Diamond wrote a very popular book that tackles your question called \"Guns, Germs and Steel\". Some of the arguments he makes regarding your question are: I) Eurasia runs on an east-west axis which lent itself for an easier transfer and sharing of knowledge about crops, animals and technology. In contrast the Americas run north-south and therefore across numerous climatic areas and geographic barriers which acted as an obstacle to the sharing of knowledge. II)Technological advancement occurs fastest once the transition from hunter gatherers to a settled society takes place due to farming and the domestication of animals. Once again Eurasia had an advantage here over the Americas because of larger pack animals that could be domesticated as well as more nutrient rich staples they could grow. The largest animal that could be domesticated in the Americas for example was the llama whereas in Europe and Asia they had the cow and horse. III)Because of I technology spread faster and because of II technology was developed faster. Eurasia therefore was able to have a larger food surplus which allowed more people to devote less time to farming and more to pursue and specialize in other activities such as metallurgy, weapons etc. IV)Native Americans took a lot longer to reach America and had a slow start to begin with and compounded with the above pretty much sums up the technological disparity once the Europeans arrived. I've oversimplified things here to the point that I'm not doing any justice to Jared Diamond so I'd suggest if you want some fascinating reading...give it a go.",
"Your premise here is incorrrect. Meso-america had metallurgy, including bronze, although they did not discover metal until about 600 AD, much later than other civilizations.",
"Short answer: they didn't have to, to survive. Their climate and other conditions were not taxing in the way to generate the necessity. This is true with most of the difference between evolution/progress in civilizations. Hardship breeds innovation.",
"Well... there's two things at work here. First, the Native Americans had a MUCH more advanced society that most people think of. It's just that the diseases that the Europeans brought killed off so many of them, that it effectively made them a post-apocalyptic society. The second is that they just didn't have the easy access to metal that Europe did. They instead innovated in different ways. The grand Aztec Empire's massive cities being a great example."
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692bjs | How did the idea of being "professional" in work environments come about? | Thinking about it, it seems rather odd that we put on a relatively different personality that alters how we generally carry ourselves - from how we speak, behave, and even dress up - even though our more natural casual personalities are completely harmless (generally speaking) and can be just as respectful and productive without being "inappropriate". | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"I think it's the opposite. There was a time when you conducted yourself a certain way, appropriate to your station in life, at all times. Over time, the idea that your personal time was your own business and had no bearing on your employment or professional field developed, so that two different standards of behavior came to apply. This coupled with the general decline in class structure led to the current idea of \"professionalism\".",
"The basic premise is that in a business, there are a lot of different people with wildly different opinions coming together to work on something, so in order to make sure the focus is on the work, and not the differences between people, the idea of acting 'professionally' came about. It also stems from customer perceptions. If two salesmen approach you, one is wearing a suit and speaking elegantly, the other is wearing trash bags and swears a lot, who would you buy from? They might have the exact same product at the exact same price, but people will buy from the suit. Professionalism can take many forms, what you say/talk about, how you dress, how you handle disagreements. Ultimately it is usually about focusing on the work, not the person, and building credibility with customers. That being said, some companies are finding that professionalism has been taken too far, and you can be flexible on certain things while still not offending anyone/distracting anyone. For instance, you don't have to wear suits to not offend people, you can wear t-shirts and be comfortable as long as the t-shirt isn't offensive. Customer facing people might still wear suits, but internal people can wear t-shirts and get the job done just fine. Some companies even encourage their customer facing people to wear t-shirts, so they don't seem like stuffy business people, but it will vary between companies."
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692w7z | How did Germany and Japan become allied as Axis powers? They are geographically far from each other, and have different languages and culture. | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"text": [
"List of reasons in no particular order: * They were both opposed to British and Soviet power. They both also shared common goals of expansionism at the expense of these rivals. * The Japanese were neither communist nor age-old rivals of the Germans like the Dutch, French, British, etc. * Each respected the other's preoccupation with racial purity. It's important to remember that Imperial Japan (and even to some extent modern Japan) emphasized their own supposed racial superiority. * Nazi racial theory allowed for- generally speaking- a positive attitude toward Asian cultures. There was also a certain level of respect within Nazism for the Chinese, albeit less so than for Japan. Edit: spelling",
"There are many ways you could look at the 'why' of the Tripartite Pact formed. To at least some extent, the Axis powers were meant to deal with the Soviet Union.The Japanese had a number of border clashes with the Soviets in the 1930s, and the Army had a distinct view of the Soviet Union as an existential threat to Japan, and were some of the big pushers for an alliance with Nazi Germany, since a Japanese-German alliance could threaten the Soviet Union from both sides. From the German perspective, an alliance with the Japanese also created a threat to their European rival's colonial possession in Asia, which might serve to weaken their forces, as the colonial powers would have to defend both their homelands from the Germans and their Asian colonies from the Japanese. Similarly, you could view Nazi Germany and Japan as both 'revisionist' powers unhappy with the way the world order at the time was structured, and who were both interested in restructuring that world order to better suit their interests. Since both would likely meet resistance from the same established powers, it would only be natural to cooperate against them."
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693kcy | Why does Kim Jung Un wear a western suit? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"They don't really see suits as \"innately western,\" they also use architecture designs from the west and even the Android operating system (though heavily modified). Because it works fine. There's also evidence he himself isn't anti-west, seeing as how he went to school in Switzerland, loves US basketball to the point of inviting Dennis Rodman. It's an act put on for his peeps, and the messages largely target the leadership & political ideas of the west anyway, not really their products or stuff."
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6964xo | Why do beer or soda cans I leave empty on my desk stick to the desk and leave a ring even though nothing was spilled? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"You got a little outside the can without realizing it. It's hard to drink from a can without a single drop getting out. There is also some selection bias. I bet there were plenty of cans that didn't cause this, your brain just ignored it because it didn't seem important when you were throwing away the can. Whereas every time there was a spill it pissed you off, so you remember those cases. Overall it makes you feel like it always happens, even if it's rather rare.",
"If the can is cold or chilled, that ring of liquid is the result of condensation. It probably sticks to the table due to air pressure. The cold temperature from the can causes the air in the gap beneath the can to compress and reduce in pressure. The unequal pressure between the air in the surroundings and the air within the gap creates a small vacuum suction that makes the can appear to stick. Otherwise, if the can *isn't* cold, it may just be a bit of spilt beer after all like the others have said.",
"I think you're pretty close to the real answer. Somewhere along the line it gets dirty but it dries up. Then, when you take it from the fridge it starts to build condensation, it gets wet, and the dirty stuff on the bottom of the can rubs off."
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69665t | Why do certain ethnicities seem to have a distinct smell? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"It will mostly be their diet; westerners will often detect the spices in Indian food, for example, while people from south-east Asia (where dairy products are eaten much less often) find that westerners give off the scent of old milk.",
"That and customs/traditions. For instance I knew of an Indian friend im basic training who was vegetarian and lived off of onion sandwiches. He didn't even understand the concept of deodorant. His bunk mate from Nepal sure as hell did and couldn't stand him. My bunkmate was an older black man who would always apply coco butter lotion every morning and night. He had a persistent/delicious smell of cocopuffs every time he was around. I'm sure it also has to do with things such as preferred brands of cleaners, detergents and what not as well.",
"As others have mentioned, food has a lot to do with it. I'm white, but I like to experiment with different foods and spices from time to time, and I've definitely noticed that when I spend a lot of time over the stove cooking something spicy, the smell will get into my hair and clothes. Also the use of incense, which is more common in some cultures than others, will leave a certain smell.",
"Probably diet and pheromones. I went to a nightclub whose patrons were mostly Indian. No joke, i left the club smelling like curry and spices.",
"Peoples odors are influenced by genetics, disease, hygiene, and diet. Diet and hygiene are the two largest factors, with diet being the bigger when comparing people who have relatively decent hygiene standards.",
"Why so many Haitians have that distinct... Haitian smell?"
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6974zq | why villains in tv shows often speak this very british english? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"You'll notice that it's not merely british english, it's posh british english (either \"proper\" [received pronunciation]( URL_1 ), or an attempt at it). It's unlikely that villain you're speaking of speaks with a cockney or Yorkshire accent. The UK (especially England) has a big thing with [your accent being strongly tied to your social class]( URL_0 ). Even though people outside the UK tend not to be aware of this, the \"upper class\" feeling still makes it through — in having the villain speak RP, the point is to make them sound sophisticated, snobbish, or both. There is actually a somewhat interesting story related to this. Because RP makes you sound so sophisticated and authoritative, it was also the default accent to use in radio broadcasting, hence it also being known as \"BBC English\". However, if you are European and of a certain age, and you were taught english as a foreign language, private tutors would teach you to speak with that accent. Notably, Nazi Germany officials would've been such people. The Nazis would broadcast propaganda by radio, pretending to be the BBC, and relaying fake negative news about the war, to demoralise the home front. This was made especially effective because the Nazi's accents matched the expected accent for BBC presenters. To fight that propaganda, the BBC started introducing [presenters with stronger regional accents]( URL_2 ) instead. The aim was that such broadcasts were very unlikely to be propaganda, as the nazis would be unable to accurately imitate those accents."
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697gna | How do New York streets work? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"The easiest way to explain this is to just [point you to a map]( URL_0 ) > Does everyone just memorise the street numbers and addresses The numbers are not aliases for street names. They *ARE* the street names. With a few exceptions (some of the big Avenues, especially, also have names, so that 4th Avenue is also known as Madison Avenue, and the system breaks down in places especially on the southern part of Manhattan), the east-west streets are called 1st St, 2nd St, 3rd St, etc, and the north-south streets are called 1st Ave, 2nd Ave, 3rd Ave, etc.",
"Basically, the avenues go the long way in Manhattan and the streets go perpendicular. Since there are only 11 avenues, you already know any number over 11 is a cross street, and anything within the 11x11 block area where it's ambiguous requires some contextual clues or to throw in an \"ave\" or a \"street\"",
"The streets and avenues go in order, so if you're on 42nd street and you need to get to 46th, you know you need to go north 4 blocks.",
"Most of mid-town is gridded. The avenues go north to south and the streets go east to west. As you go north and west the numbers go up. There's only 11 avenues (vertical) and traffic patterns are generally one way with the odd avenues going south and the even avenues going north. Once you know that you can basically find your way around. Just look at the nearest cross street and the traffic direction for the avenue and you'll be able to orient yourself more than 90% of the time. Also, since there's only 11 avenues any time there is a number in the cross street that goes above 11 you know that is the street and the other is the avenue. People who frequent NYC know this and when giving directions they'll often say something like 49th and 5th to someone and they'll know where they're going. For people who don't frequent NYC they generally give the Ave/St and if they don't they'll be asked unless the cross street is for a major touristy landmark the person knows about. Once you start going further downtown you start losing the grid, but most of mid-town Manhattan is a perfect grid so it's not too hard once you know the logic to the way they laid out the map."
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6989ir | Why do some people call muslims moslems? | I don't want any political discourse or arguments I'm just confused about the two. ^please^stay^civil | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"I think it's just a language thing. That first syllable in \"Muslim\" is a sound that you won't really find in the English language. Some say Moslem, some say Mooslim, when it's really right down the middle. Muslim. Source: Brown person who speaks brown person languages that contains sounds problematic for English-only speakers.",
"It's a variant spelling of the word \"muslim\" that is rarely used today, as it may be mistaken for a similar-sounding Arabic word that means something different (and is potentially offensive). My understanding is that it fell out of use because the English pronunciation of \"moslem\" typically substitues the 's' sound for a 'z' sound which makes it sound like an Arabic word pronounced \"mawzlem\" that means \"oppressor\". [[source]( URL_0 )]",
"Why it persists, I don't know, but it originated as a result of differing transliteration conventions: the same Arabic letters being rendered with different English ones."
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699fv2 | Today, the majority of American states have construed their statutes of forcible entry, both penal and civil, in such a manner as to abrogate (i.e. abolish) the common law privilege to use force in the recovery of possession of land. What does that mean? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"\"Modern governments interpret the law in a way that doesn't allow the owners of land to physically remove people occupying their land, based upon their right to enter and access their land.\""
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699rir | How the Church of Scientology avoids criminal investigations despite overwhelming evidence to support illicit crimes | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"I'm pretty sure it's because they bribe officials and have members in positions of power. If all else fails there is blackmail.",
"At least in France they ended up in court as a massive scam organization (and not as a cult as often said on reddit)",
"They have a long history of threatening and harassing anyone who gets in their way. It used to be that they were taxed like a corporation, but they harassed the management of the IRS so badly that the IRS agreed to recognize them as a church as long as the harassment stopped. It's really bad, they're awful."
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699tvn | How much can the senate alter a bill? | Title. | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"The Senate can amend the bill in whatever way they want. But if they make amendments, the bill goes back to the house for another vote. If the Senate passes the bill without amendments, it goes to the President to be signed into law. If they pass it with amendments, it goes back to the House for a new vote. If they reject it, the bill dies.",
"They can alter it all they want, but the modified bill will still have to pass through the House. The Constitution is clear that a bill must be passed by _both_ houses and signed by the President before it becomes law. (Or, if the President vetoes, Congress must override the veto with a 2/3 majority of each house.) There _is_ a sort of end-around the two-house approval process called Reconciliation. In very ELI5 terms, if the Senate and House pass bills which have different tax/spending provisions (but are otherwise the same), they can essentially hash out the differences and send the reconciled bill straight to the President without having to go through another vote. This is limited to tax/spending/budgetary provisions, so you can't make broader policy changes via Reconciliation."
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69a367 | AHCA Bill and why everyone is mad | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"If I were honestly explaining to a five year old: Right now, the government is forcing insurance companies to take care of sick people without charging them too much money, even though it's not good for those companies. People don't like that, because the companies are charging more money to healthier people to afford to care for the sick people. This new plan removes some of the protections for sick people. The companies still have to cover them, but they are now allowed to charge a lot more money for it, and since a lot of sick people can't work, they don't have enough money to afford the high prices that insurance companies want to charge them. So basically, sick people won't be able to afford health insurance. Since insurance companies won't be having to pay money to care for sick people, they don't need as much money, so they can charge healthy people less money, and get less help for the government, so prices go down for everyone else, but the people who need them most don't get what they need.",
"The bill is basically a bare-bones version of the current Affordable Care Act (“Obamacare”), which if signed into law will give big tax breaks to Americans who earn more than ~$200K per year, eliminate the taxes now in effect which are related to the ACA, and allow states to waive many essential health benefits from insurance policies, as well as allowing members of Congress and their staff to keep the best parts of the ACA while denying that to the vast majority of Americans. I don't know about you, but I'd be pretty pissed if that happened. [The bill]( URL_0 )"
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69a3qn | Why are so many things in English? | I hope this doesn't sound ignorant. But for example Reddit is used by people all over the world and I am always surprised to see so many people from countries that don't speak English commenting in English. Another example is that I was looking up the Dracula's castle in Romania and tours were offered in English. Also I was watching a clip of Asia's Got Talent and the hosts and judges were speaking English as well. How and why is this? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Thank the British Empire, which at one point had approximately a quarter of the world's people under it. Also thank the United States' cultural and economic dominance, as this contributes to people having an incentive to learn English. Though it's actually the third most spoken language behind Mandarin and Spanish, speakers of the former tend to be concentrated in China and speakers of the latter are concentrated in the Americas rather than Europe."
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69b11u | Before 9/11 or any infamous "Islamic extremist" terrorist attacks, was there any prejudice on Muslims? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Speaking only from personal experience I would say there absolutely was. I remember when I was a kid being told not to go to the \"Hadji Store\" on the corner. The family was from Pakistan. Don't know what a Hadji is, but I'm pretty sure they weren't it. The entire neighborhood didn't trust them, and they eventually closed down. It's kinda sad now that I'm looking back..",
"Sure. People have been prejudiced against different people since the beginning of recorded history. The exact difference doesn't really matter. 9/11 was really the beginning (at least in America) of bigots being *afraid* of Muslims rather than just disliking and distrusting them.",
"You should read about the history of Islam, it's pretty interesting. Islam has been highly influential to modern science and mathematics but have an incredibly troubled past. It's just something that happens with any type of religious group, every one has been persecuted at some point or another. Human nature I suppose.",
"The stereotype of Muslims being terrorists was around well before 9/11. There was a terrorist attack on the USS Cole 11 months prior, the US Embassy in 98, the World Trade Center in 93, The Lockerbie bombing in 88, the US Marine barracks bombing in Lebanon in 83. Even the assassination of Robert Kennedy in 1968 by Sirhan Sirhan could be loosely described as Islamic terrorism, although that was more of a political act relating to the Israel-Palestine situation and less the modern version of radical Islamic ideology. With all that being said, stereotypes of Muslims weren't really talked about all that much. The nightly news was so preoccupied with what the Soviet Union was up to on any given day, that coverage of the Middle East, and islamic terrorism was relegated to back page stories, unless the Israel-Palestine issue flared up. That began to change after the fall of the Soviet Union in 91, but even then the coverage was sporadic at best thought the 90's. 9/11 was the turning point where coverage of the Middle East and Islamic terrorism has been kicked into overdrive ever since, and prejudicial views have risen in response."
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69betm | What would earth be like if there were only 1 billion people instead of 7 billion? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"About the same as it is now but with less apartments and more houses. With less people we wouldn't have as much need to build condensed living space. Apartments would still exist mind you, just a little less of them would exist. Global warming would be less far along but still on the same path. The population of Earth really isn't an issue. The global food production right now is estimated to be enough to feed 11 billion people and if we put everyone on Earth standing shoulder to shoulder, they could fit inside LA."
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69cjmh | How do countries that are at war with each other interact in the UN? | Do they still attend the same meetings? Do they cut all ties? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"So actually declaring war and breaking off diplomatic relations are two separate processes. You can cut off diplomatic relations with someone without declaring war on them and you can declare war on someone without cutting off diplomatic relations. In actual fact usually you cut off diplomatic relations with someone in order to warn them, and avoid a war; once war is joined that strategy clearly hasn't worked and so you actually start to rebuild diplo relations, because you need them to negotiate peace etc.. Often you don't want to lose face by reestablishing relations in public with your enemy and so the first diplomatic contacts will be secret. So for example Kissinger's secret first talks with North Vietnam. The UN is different though. One of the great values of the UN is that even when countries aren't willing to have relations with each other, they both have relations with the UN. And so the UN becomes a mechanism for enemies to talk. Mostly indirectly, but occasionally ambassadors will chat in the corridors, or address each other in/through GA or committee meetings. Edit: you might hear people talk about \"track one\" and \"track two\" diplomacy. Track one diplomacy is official discussions between nations. When those nations are at war track one isn't really possible except by formal peace talks. Track two is informal discussions, or discussions by non-state actors (NGOs academics etc..) on the state's behalf. Most peace processes start as track two initiatives.",
"There is no set procedure. Sometimes they avoid each other, somethings they refuse to be in the same room to try to make people pick sides, sometimes they try to provoke each other. Occasionally, they even act like adults and engage in diplomacy.",
"They have to have their fellow representative buds with them constantly, so if they ever encounter the other warring country, they can make a big fuss pushing and shoving trying to get to the other guy while their buds pretend to do all in their power to hold them back. This way a fight never actually breaks out, no damage is done in the UN chambers, however everyone's bro cred remains in tact. It's all basically bro theater in the UN."
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69due8 | Could the internet ever break, either permanently or temporarily, or has it ever done so before? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"if the root nameserver went down all at the same time, it would be close to not getting online until new domain server would take their place. but even then clients would still be able to connect to the internet, it would just be a huge mess because noone would know where to find servers. the internet itself is defined by its protocols. as long as there are other computers in the same network using the same protocol, internet would work. compare it to a spoken language like english. as long as there are other people around that speak english you are able to exchange information with them. it stops working as soon as you are the only one left or are not in range to speak to another person(pc disconnected from network).",
"Everybody else is correct that DNS servers are the main point of failure. For normal consumers using normal software, you need the DNS to locate and access other websites. Thing is, there are 3rd party DNS servers. Many institutions maintain them as a way to block access to malicious or inappropriate websites for their employees or students. Google maintains some of them... for troubleshooting, security, or to bypass restrictions like I mentioned before, many people use Google's 3rd party servers already. This makes it incredibly unlikely that the entire world could lose access to the entire internet. But a power outage or natural disaster in exactly the right location could take out a large number of websites. We've seen this before, when Amazon web services went down and damn near everything slowed down or stopped working. Most small sites have a company like Amazon do the physical hosting of their websites. Most large sites distribute the hosting across multiple companies for redundancy. So if a giant company like AWS has a big outage, it will have at least a minor impact on a LOT of websites, and a major impact on some.",
"At the end of the day the internet is a physical presence. People talk about the internet like it's something that's just there. They act like it will always be there and nothing can take it away. In reality the internet is a large collection of fiber/copper cables and a lot of computers. If you cut power or cut the right cables, the entire thing will cease to function. That said cutting the right cables or cutting the right power to enough places is pretty hard to do. But it's not impossible to cut out parts of the internet so that they can't communicate with each other. Entire countries have severed their connection to the rest of the world. It's possible to completely separate north america from the rest of the planet by destroying a couple of cables. Then there's stuff that can be broken within the internet itself. The internet is a human creation, as a result it has flaws. If people mess with the right software or the right components they can impair its function. Attacks on the DNS server can impact security or the ability for the everyday user to easily use the internet. Some other clever strategies can overload the internet with traffic, causing traffic to be directed to certain locations or slowing it to a crawl.",
"I think the internet was developed to be pretty much resistant against what you're suggesting. IIRC the story is that it was initially a military thing and the setup being that it's a giant web of connections would mean the communication network couldn't be completely destroyed. Certain parts of it would be disrupted and inaccessible but overall it would still function and be able to relay information from one place to another (aside from the affected areas of course). So if a nuke hit Boston for example, well you aren't talking to Boston anymore but info sent from DC to California would still be able to be transmitted. . . it would just have to ping off any of the servers that were still alive instead of passing through Boston. So, I guess it COULD happen but it's very unlikely. It would take a cataclysmic event to completely take down the entire internet. . . and at that point it probably means the human race is going to end fairly soon. Pretty much every server on the planet would have to be either destroyed or cut off from anything else. TLDR: You could break parts of it but probably never the whole thing.",
"There have been several different problems affecting the entire Internet or just a part of it. Most of these are being solved one step at a time and some is not as easy. All the ISPs are constantly communicating with each other though automatic systems to determine how the traffic should be sent around the world. One of the earliest global outages were a technical problem with the protocol they used at the time which caused a packet to flood the entire network which meant that all the routers had to be restarted at once, however there were only a handful of routers worldwide at that point. But there is also lots of different outages related to this system. Some is down to mistakes by technical personnel and some are down to management decisions. For example if Hurricane Electric and Sprint is not willing to work together on an issue then they may cause half of the Internet to be disconnected from the other half. It is also possible to publish a path to addresses you do not own and therefore make a network unavailable. This have happened to Youtube at no fault of their own. This last part is seeing technical solutions being implemented currently but it is slow going when you need to replace a lot of big expensive hardware to make use of the new features.",
"In 1988, the [Morris worm]( URL_0 ) pretty much took down the Internet.",
"There's a probability that a strong Geomagnetic Storm can happen (a magnetic \"explosion\" coming from the Sun). And if it's enough strong it could \"break\" the internet and a lot of other stuff that work with electricity.",
"Absolutely. But what takes down the internet would also take out most of the electronic devices / systems. Of course I'm speaking of an EMP pulse. This would happen from detonating a nuclear device in the atmosphere or a solar storm from the sun.",
"A few years ago, I think three or four undersea cables were cut in the middle East. Turns out it was random occurrence of boat anchors - it wasn't a lead up to war. But if enough cables were cut, many would feel like the internet was off. It wouldn't turn off everyone's access.",
"No. The Internet is a massive, worldwide collection of computers, servers, cables, devices, etc. It is not centralized. Don't think of the Internet as one thing, it's more like a term that describes *everything* that connects to each other. Every Internet enabled device in the world would have to go down simultaneously for the Internet to go down entirely.",
"Pretty good explanations here. I know it sounds silly, but it really matters how you define the term internet. Like /u/TheRickiestMorty said, the internet is defined by its protocols. If you are referring it to the internet as the general public knows it, then yes DNS and name servers going down would cause problems all over. But at the end of the day, as long as you have two devices connected and using the right protocols, technically the internet would still be working.",
"Just some ideas beyond just \"root DNS\" that others have mentioned: * Censorship tools sometimes accidentally block everything (overloaded, or bad config file) in a whole country. * Imagine if Windows/Android pushed an OS update which broke the network stack. Internet would 'appear' to be down. * Failures at 3rd-party hosting sites such as Cloudflare and Amazon can cause many different websites to fail at once. * Undersea cables get cut all the time, including redundant routes all having problems. * Something like a leap-seconds or milenium leap-year bug could simultaneously break a large portion of computers worldwide * Computer viruses that can attack webservers (e.g. heartbleed) could cause large portions of the web to become unavailable."
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69ehab | Major League Baseball batting strategy. Are they simply trying to hit a home run every time? Is there more to it than that? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"The most exciting thing in a baseball game to me is not necessarily the outcome, but the process of watching a pitcher duel with a hitter. There's so much more going on at the plate that a casual fan may not be aware of. All of the three main players in an at bat - the pitcher, catcher, and batter - have all studied each other. This leads to an intricate mind game that enhances the pure physical battle of trying to make bat meet ball. The pitcher and catcher know the batter's tendencies in (1) what pitch counts he likes to swing, (2) where he favors the ball, (3) what types of pitches he tends to hit, and (4) his timing/swing/posture at the plate. Likewise, the batter has studied them in the same ways, knowing (1) what pitches the pitcher has at his command, (2) when he likes to throw certain types of pitches, (3) where he likes to locate those pitches, and (4) his rhythm/motion/pace of pitching. And - to add to the complexity - the guys know the other has studied them. So each has to be self-aware of their vulnerabilities and how they match up with the player they're facing. If the pitcher is a guy who likes to be a flame thrower and wants to get outs based on his fastball speed and location, but the hitter is superb at hitting fastballs, he needs to adjust. Conversely, if the hitter isn't a guy who is likely to catch up to a good heater, he needs to know when and where this pitcher might throw a secondary pitch, a change up or type of breaking ball, to have a chance to hit it. The batter's base line strategy is to not make an out. Depending on the game situation that can be modified in any number of ways, but the battle between pitcher and batter always remains. The pitcher is trying to maximize his strengths and pitch against the batter's vulnerabilities, while the batter is trying to capitalize on his knowledge of the pitcher to wait for a pitch he believes he can be successful at hitting safely. This leads to many batters going to the plate looking for \"their pitch.\" Like in the previous example, a batter who isn't adept at hitting A+ fastballs against a power pitcher will go to the plate knowing that in certain pitch counts - let's say with one strike - the pitcher likes to throw a low breaking ball. The batter will key in on that particular pitch and hope that its in a good spot for him as he'll be ready to pounce on it. The batter also knows he's weak at fastballs above the belt so he needs to either be ready to take his best swing at one during the at bat or be OK with letting it go and waiting for a different pitch. Of course with two strikes he's got to be mentally ready for it either way and needs to adjust physically - choking up on the bat, shortening his swinging motion - to have a chance. The battles between pitcher and hitter are different every time, and a lot of starting pitchers will save one of their pitches for the second or third time they are going through a line-up in a game so that they can keep the batters off-balance and not let them feel comfortable at the plate. The batters, knowing their own tendencies, will at times change their approach at the plate - ie, a guy who never swings at the first pitch will pounce on the first throw hoping to surprise the pitcher who might be throwing a \"get over\" pitch early in the count. So, history between two players is as important to them and relevant as the current at-bat, each trying to build upon what they've learned from previous encounters to gain the advantage. There are few things more intense in sports than watching a great hitter and a great pitcher square off in a high pressure moment in a game. There's so much more going on that simply \"I want to get a hit.\" Edit: obligated to say thanks for the gold! My first. Truly appreciate it. And I walked my dogs and thought more about this and wanted to add - all of this mentality aside - you have to then appreciate the fact these guys have to physically perform. The pitcher can know the perfect pitch to throw but he's got to execute it. The batter can be looking for their preferred pitch but has to make the good swing when they see it. And the batter has to be ready to capitalize on a mistake pitch in fractions of a second. If he's mentally prepared for a fastball inside but the pitcher hangs a curve on the outer third of the plate the batter needs to react and pound that meatball. There's preparation - and that's so important and can go a long way towards success - and then there's execution. God I love baseball. 2nd Edit: A few people have asked for video examples. I found a video from MLB Network where former players Mark DeRosa and Carlos Pena talk about how they would approach facing Cubs pitcher Jake Arrieta - who when this video was made had recently thrown two no-hitters and was the reigning National League Cy Young winner (aka the previous year's best pitcher). They preach going up against a guy like Arrieta as a hitter you have to have a game plan on what pitch you're looking for and where in the zone because if you don't - you're already out. URL_0 And another MLB Network video where Bill Ripken breaks down the different effect a simple fastball & change-up combination can have on a hitter. These are the two most \"basic\" pitches in baseball and pitchers can get people out simply combining them effectively. Now you see what hitters are up against... and this before you throw in curves, sliders, cutters, sinkers, etc, and vast combinations of them. URL_1",
"It depends very much on the situation. Usually they are just trying for square contact, to get the ball out of the infield. Some batters try to swing for the fences, as you say. If there is a runner on third and less than ~~one out~~ **two outs,** a batter may try to hit the ball up for a fly ball, so that the runner on third can tag up and score (sacrifice fly), even if the batter is out. If the defenders are in a shift, the batter might try to hit the ball to the other side, even bunting it that way at times. But usually, it's just hit the ball solidly, hard rather than soft.",
"Here are some different situations (not comprehensive): **Nobody on base, regular plate appearance**: Hitters have a great deal of variance when it comes to their individual hitting strategy. Some like to swing down on the ball (i.e. Xander Bogaerts) and some like to swing up on the ball (i.e Anthony Rizzo). The hitting strategy goes hand-in-hand with the type of player. A power hitter will often have a longer, upswing strategy going on, while a contact hitter is just trying to get the ball out of the infield by making solid contact or placing the ball. **Nobody on base against a very tough pitcher**: Just looking to make contact. Obviously, it would be great to hit the ball hard, but they won't do that on every pitch because good pitchers throw ones that induce weak contact. So hitters often look for a specific pitch in a location that they like and try to put that in play. Often times against good pitchers the batter will just try to foul it off. **Nobody on base in the late innings, cold night, or rainy night**: In low-scoring games often a run wins the game. So batters put a premium on getting on base. Some fast players will put down a bunt (usually on the third base side). Others will just try to make contact and try to place the ball where there isn't anybody (\"seeing-eye hit\"), which when there is a big shift. **Runner on first, close game**: This is where the strategy gets interesting. The big thing here is to get into scoring position. The fast players will often try to steal second base. Sacrifice bunts are also widely used. Another viable option, which is less often now, is the hit-and-run, where the batter gets the green light to hit while the man on first runs. It's risky because it could totally kill a potential rally if the batter strikes out and the runner is caught stealing. But with a base-hit, there can be a runner on first and third and the pressure is on... **Runners on first and third**: When there are less than two outs in an inning and a runner on third, good contact that puts the baseball in the air is prioritized to score at least one run in the inning. The last thing here that the team wants is a ground-ball leading to a double play. Another base-running strategy here is the double-steal, where the man on first runs and if the catcher throws to second, the runner on third can run home. **Runner on third**: Same thing, contact in the air. **Runner on second**: This can get interesting because it really depends on the game situation. In a close game, there is a lot more incentive to just put the ball out in the outfield to potentially score the run. But it is not guaranteed to score a run from second, especially with a slower runner, so often players will just hit for power. **Runners on second and third**: Often in this situation, in a tight game, the opposing team will intentionally walk a player to set up a potential double-play ball or just give themselves more freedom defensively because there is a force out at every single bag. When the hitter isn't walked, the strategy will often vary. Some hitters just want to get a base hit and score the two runs. Others will look for a big inning by trying to get a home run or extra-base hit. **Runners on first and second**: Sometimes players will just try to score one run on a base hit. But when there's a fast player on first, it is often advantageous to go for the gapper so that the run can score from first. **Bases-loaded**: Obviously every player would like to hit a grand-slam in the situation. But it is often advantageous to not be too aggressive because a couple of balls really puts pressure on the pitcher to throw a fastball strike, which the batter can do a lot of damage with. Also, some players just never hit home runs and it's better to play small ball than to hit an inning-ending fly ball. These strategies mostly apply in close games and against solid pitchers. When a team has a large lead or the pitcher is not as good, the batters have more freedom to hit as they would like. When a team is down or rallying, there is often the urge to hit a big home run. The best players can do that and really get the team and ballpark going, but it is often not strategically the best decision.",
"As a former professional baseball I player I saw this thread and assumed the responses would be mostly horrendous. There are a lot of shysters out there that think they know a lot more about the game than they really do. That said I'm pleasantly surprised. Most of the responses were solid. If this comment doesn't get buried, I recommend reading Pure Baseball by Keith Hernandez. It breaks down a couple real games pitch by pitch and gives some great insight from a veteran big leaguer.",
"No, most certainly not. What they're trying to do at the plate depends on the situation, and the overall strategy. The situation is dictated by the score, baserunning situation and the individual pitch thrown as well as many other factors. No outs, no one on base, the priority is to get on base. This can be done through getting a hit, or by drawing a walk. Sometimes you may just be looking to advance a runner. No outs, runner on first, a common strategy is to sacrifice bunt to move the runner to second where he's harder to pick-off and generally can score if another player hits a base-hit. If you have less than 2 outs and a runner on 3rd, bottom of the 9th game tied, a deep fly ball is a high percentage shot at winning the game. Most of the time they're trying to make solid contact and send the ball in a specific direction. But there's tons of factors starting with the ones I mentioned above down to the skill of the player batting after the current player, the speed of the player already on base and the setup of the defensive players.",
"Played college baseball. Your strategy changes each at bat and is influenced by everything you can imagine: who you are as a hitter, who's pitching, whether you or the pitcher are righties or lefties, the count, the game situation, runners on base (and their speed), defensive positioning, wind, etc. The general rule of thumb is that you're looking for a pitch that you can hit hard somewhere. This means that your approach will often not be set until mid pitch, when you recognize what pitch has been thrown and where it will be located, and then you have the tiniest of seconds to put a good swing on it and hit it hard somewhere. Now, my approach is probably dictated by me being more on the smaller end and more of a line drive/speed type player. Someone who has the power to hit home runs at ease might be looking more for a pitch they can hit hard *in the air.* But any time I hit a home run, it was never because I was actually trying to do so. It was because I tried to hit a ball hard, and got a pitch that I could hit REALLY hard. Hope that helps",
"Well, the *theory* is that they should be trying to get on base, since getting out is the only bad thing they can do. You can also look to wear down the pitcher: the more pitches they pitch, the better it is for your team. In the real world though, home runs are over-valued, so yea, they tend to swing for the fences.",
"Depending on the hitter and the situation, there will be different approaches. Mostly, players are just trying to make square contact.",
"Typically hitters play to their strengths. Strategies also depend on the count. 4 Balls = walk to first base for free. 3 Strikes = out, if you hit a foul ball that isn't caught with 2 strikes you stay alive. So, with 0-0 counts batters are usually looking for a specific pitch in a specific spot and if they don't get it - they let it go. With 1 strike that strategy doesn't really change. With 2 balls and 0 strikes, or 3 balls and 0 strikes depending on the batter some will just take the next pitch as the pitcher might be struggling to throw strikes - others will look for a fastball (easiest pitch to locate) and take a BIG swing. With 2 strikes, batters are shortening their swings and playing defensively, as they have to swing at anything near the zone or risk being called out on a strikeout. There are some situations explained in detail by others, such as runner on third less than 2 outs, or in some cases - a runner on second with 0 outs a batter might specifically try and hit the ball to the right side (this allows the runner on second to advance to third on a basic ground ball, something they couldn't do if the ground ball was hit to the left side). Some hitters have uppercut style swings with high fly ball % generated, players like Cody Bellinger and Joey Gallo come to mind - they're swinging for home runs and extra base hits, but as such will have a lower batting average as they hit a lot of fly balls that get caught. Some hitters have a slap the ball around and use their speed to beat out ground balls, Ichiro Suzuki was famous for this - and as such has a much higher batting average, but his hits are rarely home runs or extra base hits as they don't often leave the infield. Note that Ichiro's strategy only works if you have elite speed. Other hitters like Bryce Harper, Mike Trout, Josh Donaldson, Jose Altuve (the elite type players), have approaches that combine a little of both, they all have average or above average speed and can also hit for elite power - they'll typically have medium to high batting averages as they can hit the ball all over the ballpark but also hit it out of the park. These players also tend to take lots of walks as pitchers don't want to give these players good pitches to hit and as such are more careful with them (sometimes giving up a walk to an MVP type player is better than giving up a double or more).",
"I'm 85 and used to love watching baseball games - lots of hits, runs, slides, constant exciting activity resulting in scores in double digits. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I recall at some time they raised the pitching mound, giving the pitcher a huge advantage, per the sportscasters of the day. Resulting in more outs, lower scores and almost no infield activity. Everybody standing around chewing gum and looking bored. Watching a 9-inning shutout is extremely boring, to the extent that I lost interest in the sport. It used to be a fun game.",
"As someone who fully understands just about every tedious baseball rule, wow have I never realized how difficult it can be to explain it.",
"I think it was Yogi Bera that was quoted as saying \"You have a round ball and a round bat and you have to hit it just square.\"",
"I can say with complete certainty no, not every time. But definitely some players more often. Firstly I'd say it depends on who's hitting, players like Joey Gallo, Mark Trumbo, and Giancarlo Stanton, along with several others in the MLB, are not only notorious home run hitters, but rely on the home run to provide most of their damage throughout a season. These players are essentially all or nothing, swinging for the fences even with two strikes and generally not vying for a batting title. Still very valuable and productive players however. That's not to say every player with a ton of home runs necessarily swings 100% every time. Players like Kris Bryant, Bryce Harper, Nolan Arenado and the God that is Mike Trout, all produce massive OPS numbers (OPS is on base percentage + slugging percentage) essentially meaning they not only hit home runs at an elite level but also draw walks and hit for average at an elite level. Those four come to mind because of their ability to basically repeat the same swing, which isn't necessarily max effort as it is finesse and mechanics, and hit both home runs and base hits at a high rate. It feels wrong to leave out so many great names but this comment is already a full column. I'll leave with saying that there has never been a more competitive era in the history of baseball than right now, the talent level in baseball is skyrocketing and if there was anytime to get into the game it's now.",
"More advanced analytics, most importantly things like StatCast, have provided teams with a lot more information with actual measurable numbers behind them that teams are now able to evaluate when it comes to deciding how to train and develop players. What these tools have determined is that the holy grail of batting performance is exit velocity. Exit velocity is the speed of the ball after it hits the bat. This doesn't always mean home runs, though, since if you hit a ground ball at 116 Mph it is much more likely to make it through the defense than a ball hit at \"just\" 90 Mph. You can also figure out the optimal exit angle, and determine that batters hitting balls between 20 and 35 degrees into the air gives the best results. With it being clear that exit velocity is the key factor in whether a ball is a hit or an out, training and instruction is now based around generating the maximum exit velocity and optimum exit angles. When you calculate potential runs and scoring opportunites, most teams have come to the conlcusion that strikeouts are okay, as long as the player is achieving an exit velocity over 90 Mph and a launch angle over 20 degrees on as many at bats as possible. On base percentage still matters (if you've read Moneyball, if you haven't, do) but they have now expanded their vision to the three true outcomes: Walk, Homerun, Strikeouts. These together have the highest measurable impact on a team's ability to score runs. Edit - 3 True outcomes are Walk, Homerun, Strikeout. A homerun is a hit (like I originally had there), but with a normal hit pitchers can't control the outcome. What they can do is affect whether or not the ball leaves the park.",
"Baseball can get incredibly complex. A first glance, it may look very basic. People new to the sport may think the manager doesn't have to do much. And that most defensive players are just standing around. It's actually very challenging mentally. So many nuances and unique situations...more than any other sport in my opinion.",
"There are a lot of really smart answers here. You don't really _need_ one more, but there's a fundamental missing (assumed) in the discussion so far. There's a trade-off between power and control. The _harder_ you swing, the more likely you are to get a home run, but _also_ the more likely to miss entirely. So -- sometimes you want to gamble big, but sometimes you prefer to do what's safer.",
"Baseball is a very confusing sport at times. A casual fan would think the best strategy is to just swing for the fences every time right? Well, that fan couldn't be farther from the truth. The approach at the plate should always depend on the situation. How many outs? Anybody already on base? What inning and what is the score? Where is the infield playing (depth, shift, etc). Baseball is a mess to figure out if you haven't been around it for a while, and is such a slow game that many people don't watch long enough to really get a grasp on everything. TLDR: not trying to hit a home run every time, depends heavily on the situation. Baseball is a situational game.",
"Lead off batter: Get on base/hit the ball hard Runner on first: Batter can bunt the ball and give himself up (sac bunt) or get a base hit to the right side preferably as that allows the runner on base to get to third/just hit the ball hard Runner on second/ first and second: get a base hit to score the runner on second or you can bunt here too. This is not the common route though. Ball to the right side is considered best here as well. Also just hitting the ball hard Runner on third: base hit to score the runner or sac fly. Sac fly involves hitting the ball in the air to the outfield so the runner can stay on the base until the ball is caught (tagging up) and then run once the ball is caught. If the runner is off the base when it is caught and never returns, the ball can go to the base and the runner will be called out. Even if he touches home. Runner on first and third: get a base hit/hit the ball hard As an actual batter, you'll look for different pitches for different situations. A ball further away will be easier to take to \"opposite field\" or the side opposite of the batter's box you're in. A ball \"middle/in\", meaning over the plate or on the side closest to you will be easiest to hit to your pull side, which is the side of the field your box is on. This is most hitters' power side, meaning it's easier to hit then ball harder this way. A ball up in the zone, more towards height the chest is easier to hit in the air, while a low ball maybe easier to hit on the ground. This varies on the hitter's swing. A lefty like Bryce Harper will like a pitch more towards his knee and on the inside part of the plate. This is the case for most lefties. Right handed batters, as they are the most common, have the most variation in their swings. All hitters have different philosophies. The consistent factor is that they all want to hit the ball hard. Some like to hit for a base hit. Just one or two bases. Others are more power hitters, but often look for a fly ball, not a home run. When most hitters look for a home run, they'll swing as hard as they can and will miss Tl;dr: hit the ball hard Oh, also where you are in the line up can affect your approach. Game situation like outs can as well",
"Yeah a lot of whispers about the ball being different this year. Sort of reminds of 1987 in that regard.",
"Ahhh baseball, where they want you to hit a round ball with a round bat and they want you to hit it square.",
"The goal of baseball is to adjust your batting gloves correctly. The gloves take many readjustments before you can get them just right.",
"The thing I'd heard from AAA batters is that one pitch one, you're looking for a home run. Pitch two, should it be a strike, you want to put it in the outfield. And on the third one over the plate, you really just want to make contact and \"keep the at-bat alive.\"",
"Moneyball is a great movie and it shows a completely different side to the game. They proceeded to trade one of the best players at the time Jason Giambi for what looked like scabs. His approach was to focus on on-base percentage rather than slugging. They went on to win 20 consecutive game that season.",
"I'm a little late to the party but here's a good article about the battles between the greatest player today and one of the best pitchers of last decade, Mike Trout and Felix Hernandez. These two always have some great matchups at the plate and the author goes into detail about their approaches against each other. URL_0",
"As someone who find Baseball boring, you should check out the anime [*Ace of Diamond*]( URL_0 ). It captures the complexities in a baseball game I never knew existed. Like the mind game between batter and pitcher, and the tactics of a smart catcher. And it's all wrapped in an action style you'd expect from a young adult anime.",
"This thread reminds of one of the dumbest conversations I ever had. Talking to a guy about sports and strategies he says, \"Unlike football, which is like a chess match with so many strategies, baseball you just try to hit a ball as far as you can.\" The conversation was pretty much over from my side at that point.",
"This might be my favourite comment thread ever. I'll probably read the whole thing (I've been reading for like an hour and am only about halfway down, but I'm going to try for the rest). Basically like sitting with a collection of baseball fans and listening to them talk to people who want to know more. Thanks to all who commented.",
"Sometimes the strategy can even be just to tire out a pitcher. If a batter strikes out, but he fouls off 15+ pitches in the process, that's going to wear down even the best pitchers arm at least a bit. Plus after that many pitches even the best pitcher is most likely going to hang at least one out over the plate.",
"Ted Williams' *The Science of Hitting* is an excellent source of information about a professional's approach to hitting at the Major League level. I would highly recommend it if you're genuinely interested in the topic. Doesn't hurt that Teddy Ballgame might be the best person in the history of the sport to write a book about this topic - so you really can't get this information from a better source.",
"Rick Ankiel said \"I try to hit a homerun every time\". Jason Heyward said \"I never try to hit a homerun\". Now, I like to think they were saying the same thing! In my assumption, they are basically both saying that they try to hit the ball as hard as they can, nothing else. As many others have displayed, there is obviously more to it than that but I always thought those quotes being total opposites was funny.",
"It seems like for whatever reason home runs are pretty difficult these days. (Perhaps they always were?) If your hit comes just a bit short of the outfield wall, you've (almost certainly) got an out instead of a homer. So the better strategy, it seems, is to hit a grounder somewhere between two of the outfielders, then run like hell. (There's also bunting, which is kind of the same thing, except infield. Easier, but riskier.) That, and steal bases.",
"The main purpose as a batter is to either get on base or advance the runners on base. With no one on, the batter simply tries to hit line drives in between outfielders to get himself as far as possible. With a runner on first, his best case scenario (excluding homers for obvious reasons) is to hit a line drive to right-center or down the first base line to hopefully get the runner on first to third or home. With a runner on second, the batter simply tries to hit it out of the infield in hopes of scoring the runner. They also might try hitting it to the right side of the field in case they do pop out, they'll still be able to advance the runner on a tag up. With a runner at third, almost any contact with the ball is satisfactory. The batter needs to hit it anywhere except back to the pitcher for the run to score. Preferably up the middle because anything hit hard to first or third might be a chance to get the runner at home.",
"i'm not even a 1/5 of the way thru all these 1000+ comments but i want to thank all of you b/c my husband, who introduced me to baseball 17 years ago and who always teaches me more & more every season, is once again deployed so i'm on my own again this year. i certainly know more than enough by now to be able to watch and pretty much comprehend everything that's going on (and most guys i've ever 'talked baseball' to are amazed that a girl knows this much LOL) but one of the things i ALWAYS have problems with is being able to understand which pitch is coming & why it makes sense. husband can ALWAYS say 'pitch in the dirt' or 'fastball outside' and 99% of the time he's right and well...what can i say? it's just one aspect (a GLARING aspect to be sure) that after all these years i just can't seem to get. it's just not innate to me. anyway, even though i am STILL in the dark i want to thank all of you b/c this thread makes me feel like i have a little bit of him here with me explaining stuff. i plan to come back to this throughout the season. you can't possibly know how grateful i am. thanks guys.",
"It is entirely dependent on the situation. Granted, I am biased, but I think one of the best example of strategy was Game 4 Sox/Yankees in 2004. The Red Sox were down 3-0 in the series. A loss ended their season. With two outs in the 9th, and the Red Sox down by 1, Kevin Millar was at bat. The man was never a power hitter. He was a slighty better than average hitter in general. His job was to just get on base. He was also not fast, so he did what he needed to do, and worked a walk. As soon as Millar got on base, his job was done. He was replaced by Dave Roberts, who was a base stealing threat. Bill Meuller came to bat. He WAS a good hitter, but with runner on first, his job was to not make an out while Robert tried to get to second. Roberts was able to steal second even though EVERYONE knew he was going to try. Once Roberts was on second, Meuller's job was to advance him and NOT GET OUT. He was also not a major home run threat but could hit for average. He made the Yankees think he was going to bunt, which brought them in and he his a single right up the middle, bring in Roberts and extending the series. [Watch it here, in all it's glory.]( URL_0 )",
"I'll start off by saying there are some good answers here and some that are way off. Throw away from my regular account because I don't want to reveal myself, but I'll answer from actual experience at that level. Hitting strategy entirely depends on the situation, but that can be said for any sports strategy. Yeah, there's scouting reports, but at the end of the day, you're hitting to your strengths, especially when the count is in your favor. Of course, it can be completely broken down as to what launch angle you want in your swing, there are guys that go for backspin, etc. To answer the question directly. Yes, certain players are simply trying to hit a home run every time. Not many will admit it, but they exist. To answer the other question, is there more to it than that? Yep, there's a little bit more to it, but there's really no need to over complicate things. People want to make out scouting reports to be this huge ordeal when it's really not. We know the pitchers pretty well because we see them so much. They're not going to change their strategy for the most part. Hitting is about hitting mistakes. It's rare anyone wants to hit the ball on the ground. Line drives and fly balls are where it's at. The majority of the time it's a pitch that misses location that will allow that to happen. If you have a coach teaching you to hit ground balls, let him know you're not training to hit fungo. Home runs per game are actually matching later 90s era. An easy way to figure it out, look up the players who are fly ball hitters and avoid the ground at all costs. Turner from the Dodgers comes to mind as he had a big jump last year and avoids ground balls. There are other examples out there, but I'm sure you guys get the idea.",
"its important to know if you were to give a professional hitter an 80mph fastball down the middle, they could probably hit it wherever they want. left field, right field, line drive, grounder, homer, etc. In one home run derby for example (where you see straight fastballs), Josh Hamilton hit 28 home runs before making 10 outs (which in this competition, is simply a non home run). when you add major league pitching with 95+mph, curve balls, high/low/inside/outside pitches that becomes impossible. Using the home run derby example, Josh Hamilton hit 28 home runs on 38 swings. To put that in perspective, in a season a player might take 1000 swings (guess) and if they hit 40 home runs that is excellent. So in a real MLB game, they are just trying to swing hard, make good contact, and probably get some lift on it. Most of the time they don't make good contact, or they don't get enough lift (grounder) or get too much lift (pop up). a small percentage of the time they hit it just right and it goes out. sometimes big strong players try to hit a home run every time. they simply guess that every pitch will be a fastball, and try to hit it for a home run. if its a curveball, then they swing and miss. The result is usually a guy with a lot of home runs and a very low batting average and a lot of strikeouts. this can definitely be a useful hitter. Mark Mcgwire would be an example of this. sometimes you have players who are fast but can't hit it far, so they are probably never trying to hit a home run. they want to simply make contact with the ball, and hit it into the ground. this gives them a chance to beat the throw to first base, giving them a hit. Ichiro Suzuki would be an example of this. the best hitters can react to the pitch. there is still guessing, so if they guess a fastball is coming and it does come, they can crush it for a home run. if its a curveball they can react and still hit it hard. their main thought though is probably just to swing hard, make good contact, and try to get some lift on the ball."
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69ev77 | Why aren't US elections held on Saturdays? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Because, by law, they are held on Tuesdays. The original intent, back when the US was largely agrarian, was to avoid the market day of Wednesday, and also to not have it on the Sabbath.",
"It predates the invention of cars and trains. So those who could vote back then had time to travel to their closest polling station (in some cases a days travel) on the Monday as this is the day after the Sabbath. Thus why it's on a Tuesday.",
"Tuesday is more convenient anyway. People who work 9-5 can get time off easier than people who work on the weekends.",
"tradition! We picked Tuesdays because we wanted to make it as easy as possible for all the farmers to vote, which required them to travel in to town (other factors are also involved, but they all relate to farmers) Now we have the ability to travel quickly using cars and buses and trains, and most of our population now lives within a few miles of their poling place as well, but since we've been doing it this way for ages, no one wants to go to the trouble of changing the laws that define election day. (one could also argue that the voting day is being intentionally left as is in order to make it less convenient for certain segments of the population to vote, thus stifling their representation, you should never attribute to malice what can be chalked up to incompetence.)"
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69fr9a | Why does the USA celebrate Cinco De Mayo? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"A few reasons 1. We have a large population of Mexicans and people of Mexican ancestry 2. We love tacos and cinco is a great excuse to eat tacos 3. We love beer and cinco is a great excuse to drink beer For additional context we also celebrate Oktoberfest, st paddys day, Bastille day, and loads of other days though celebrations might be more or less extensive depending on the population who identify with that particular nationality",
"From wikipedia > According to a paper published by the UCLA Center for the Study of Latino Health and Culture about the origin of the observance of Cinco de Mayo in the United States, the modern American focus on that day first started in California in the 1860s in response to the resistance to French rule in Mexico.[30] \"Far up in the gold country town of Columbia (now Columbia State Park) Mexican miners were so overjoyed at the news that they spontaneously fired off rifle shots and fireworks, sang patriotic songs and made impromptu speeches.\" [31] > A 2007 UCLA Newsroom article notes that, \"the holiday, which has been celebrated in California continuously since 1863, is virtually ignored in Mexico.\"[30] TIME magazine reports that \"Cinco de Mayo started to come into vogue in 1940s America during the rise of the Chicano Movement.\"[21] The holiday crossed over from California into the rest of the United States in the 1950s and 1960s but did not gain popularity until the 1980s when marketers, especially beer companies, capitalized on the celebratory nature of the day and began to promote it.[32][33] It grew in popularity and evolved into a celebration of Mexican culture and heritage, first in areas with large Mexican-American populations, like Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston and San Jose.[34] It was a relatively small celebration that kind of started spontaneously in Californa, then it grew in popularity with the Chicano Movement (chicanos are American-born with mexican herritage, they celebrated it as a \"Mexican Herritage Day\"), and was brought into the mainstream through marketing by beer companies.",
"The USA culturally appropriates any holiday it can drink to celebrate... see also St. Patrick's Day, Mardi Gras. In large part, the growth in popularity of Cinco de Mayo is marketing pushed by the Mexican import beer companies."
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69gbnk | What happened between the time when professional athletes used to work day jobs to being paid multimillion dollar contracts today? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"National TV contracts, mainly. In the 1960s, there were actually NFL players who went up to Canada to play in the CFL because they got offered more money. But once the NFL and AFL merged, professional football became one big package that the league could shop around to networks, and then the NBA did the same thing about a decade later (merged with the ABA, sought national TV deals). And then from the 80s on, we all just started watching so much TV that each subsequent deal became that much more lucrative, and now sports are almost the only live TV anyone watches anymore, so networks pay an insane amount for broadcasting rights."
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69hcee | so many people hate waking up early, why do most office jobs require an early start time? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"It coincides with when the majority of people are awake, so it's more efficient that way from a productivity standpoint. In general jobs don't factor in your preferences. In fact, they give you compensation so that you will do the things you don't prefer. There are a lot of freelance jobs that allow you to make your own hours if they don't require you to interact with a lot of people and instead just finish a task by a specific date. There are also jobs out there which specifically require you to work later in the day or nights, which some find preferable, but others obviously do not."
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69hnd8 | What makes a piece of art "good"? how do we determine the masterpieces from all the others works of art when many of them are on the same level of detail? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Generally, the \"masters\" were leading a new format of art. Take impressionists at the turn of the 20th century. At the time, their form of painting was not mainstream realism, and in many cases they were ridiculed by critics at the time. Their paintings were not intended to be realistic depictions, rather fuzzy looking dots or strokes that come together to impress a feeling upon the viewers. We generally refer to the masters of impressionism as those who were at the forefront of the movement, such as Monet, Manet, Degas, and Van Gogh. Are there artists around today that could produce similar quality paintings? Yes, but the ability is not solely what makes them masters. It is their revolutionary new style and sheer originality that pushed the boundaries of art and forever changed the world of art that makes them masters. They were being original instead of simply copying others. We as people give value to originality. The same rules apply today as the \"masters\" are those who are changing the world or art with original and innovative techniques. Banksy is a great example. He was/is doing something totally original and it has grabbed world wide attention."
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69hyrb | Why do the animated characters on the PBS show Daniel Tiger pulse every few seconds? | It makes me seasick to watch that show with my kids because the characters are never still. | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"URL_0 I don't see any \"pulsing\". It is a stylistic choice to have the characters move a lot. Likely to catch and keep the attention of young children watching."
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69hzmx | How do other countries pay their service staff and make it work, while the USA relies on tips? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"The idea in most countries is you pay your staff enough to live off and tips are extra for good service. To be honest I don't really understand the argument for tips in the USA. But when I used to work in a bar I'd still get tips.",
"The statement \"costs will rise\" is literally talking about the price on the menu. And it will go up if they increase the wages of their staff because currently minimum wage for waitstaff is roughly 1/3 that of every other kind of worker. So to bring them up to minimum wage means that the employer has to triple their wages, which means they have to triple that portion of their overhead which will increase the price of food on the menu by roughly 15%-25% which is the same as what our tipping percentages are."
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69i63o | There has never before been this many people on Earth. Could we run out of food? | The Earth is already having a hard time sustaining 7 billion humans. They say we'll level off at around 10 or 11 billion, but how do we expect to keep feeding everyone for 10, 20, 50 years into that? Isn't there already a strain on farmers? Should we invent new foods? What's the solution? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Barring widespread natural disasters, it is very unlikely that the earth will run out of food, for multiple reasons. Economically speaking, as prices for food go up, agriculture becomes a more attractive industry, creating additional investment in that field. There is a massive amount of undeveloped land still in the world; the main thing preventing this land from being utilized for agriculture right now is that we don't need it, and there are more productive places to grow food. As demand for food increases, we should expect to see more of this land used, or more efficient ways of growing food in the land we're already planting in. We've already made great strides in both of these areas. As far as our current capacity to produce food, a [recent study]( URL_0 ) found that we currently throw away 1.3 billion tons of food annually, which is equivalent to 1/3 of the world's annual food production. If we could figure out the distribution problem, we already produce enough food to feed 11 billion people without any changes to production. All this to say that while there certainly are problems in many areas where food is scarce right now, these are all localized problems. They are very real problems, and I'm not trying to downplay that. What I am saying is that we already have everything we need to solve these problems. The solution is about more efficient use of our current resources.",
"The current global food output is estimated to be able to feed 11 billion people. That number can be stretched if more people become vegetarian or we stop wasting so much food but might higher than that number and we will need some serious changes to our food industry.",
"We already had that problem, we used science to eliminate it. We've genetically engineered animals to be much larger and produce much more meat than they ever would under natural conditions. The same holds true for plants/crops.",
"We would *already* be out of food if it weren't for technical innovations. But numerous technologies, such as chemical fertilizers, enables us to produce much more food than the amount needed to feed the global population. Any famines you hear about are because of distribution issues or wars, not lack of supply."
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69iabd | Why does the House vote on a bill, then it gets modified for a Senate vote? How can they pass a bill if they're all not voting on the same bill? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"It's not passed at that stage. If the two houses pass different versions then a conference committee with members of both houses will meet to come up with one version of the bill. Then that new joint version goes back to both houses for approval. Only if that new version is passed identically by both houses does it actually pass and move to the President's desk. Alternatively one house could drop it's version and pass the other's word for word.",
"They can't, they must eventually vote on the same bill. If different versions as pass, it goes to a reconciliation committee, which tries to come up with a compromise, which has to be voted on again."
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69ipmo | How do movie scenes in famous places (like Times Square or Grand Central Station) work? Do they have permission forms for everyone in the area? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"If you live near one of these locations, sometimes without warning you attempt your usual walk past the area and find that it's blocked off for filming. Sometimes there's a PA (production assistant) standing there with a clipboard. He/she will give you a lookover to check that you're a visual fit for the show, and then tell you that you have to detour around *unless* you sign a release and promise not to draw attention to yourself as you walk past. They only do that for people walking by in the midground, though. Anyone coming anywhere near the actors will be paid extras. (Really experienced New Yorkers know that things like sidewalks are always fair game [unless they've paid a fortune to block off the entire street for the shoot, in which case it will be police blocking the road, not crew] and can't be obstructed whether you refuse to sign a waiver or not. Look in the background of some Law & Order shows and you'll see a grizzled local plowing through on their way somewhere with a worried production person trailing behind.)",
"No you won't find people randomly entering a movie scene because it's in a public place, gawking at the action is too much of an issue. They get a permit from the city just like anyone would have to, like parades, construction, events and the like. Then usually if traffic is redirected they pay the police a good sum to do so. All the people in the movie are extras, usually found through casting agencies or from public postings, like Craigslist ads.",
"They typically film during low traffic periods, like very early in the morning, get permission to cordon off small portions at a time, then edit them together to make it look like they were all part of one scene."
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69js6a | Why do the French have a political media blackout two days before their presidential elections? Does this apply to ordinary citizens, as well? What about social media? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"It is supposed to apply to social media and ordinary citizens as well, although I doubt that a member of the public tweeting about Le Pen would get into trouble. The authorities will be more worried about the very powerful mass media. The idea is that voters should have time to think about who they're going to vote for without the distractions of political campaigning. They've heard all the arguments and speeches, and now they need time to digest all that and come to a rational decision, rather than be swayed by whatever headline they glanced at on the way to the polling booth. It also means that one candidate can't undermine the other by releasing some scandalous revelation on the day of the election, or even the day before. Other countries have similar measures to ensure a fair election. In the UK, for example, media outlets can't broadcast anything on the day of the election that might favour any particular party; also, from the moment Parliament is dissolved, the government enters into a state of \"purdah\" (a Persian word meaning \"curtain\") and is banned from announcing contentious or controversial legislation. For example, a government that thinks it might lose the election can't introduce a bill for some popular measure that the next government will have to scrap as unworkable, in order to discredit the next government -- that kind of thing.",
"u/rewboss nailed it but I want to emphasize his point about people having time to digest info before a vote. It really gives people time to critically think about last minute promises or capitalizing on a tragedy. In the US, Bloomberg's mayoral inauguration was delayed due to 9/11. That really helped Giuliani gain a lot of ground on his post-mayoral career. Of course, the city of New York had bigger things on its mind than who the mayor was but Le Pen and Macron could do tacky things if something happened.",
"Does France have early voting and absentee (by mail) voting like some US States do? I've often wondered if those options, while increasing voter participation, actually corrupt the results.",
"I don't know how it works in France, in Spain we have \"El día de reflexión\". Official campaign is over, there are not more electoral acts than Saturday before the Sunday election, but, obviously, the press talks about the election. One controversial measure that we have in Spain is that it is forbidden to publish polls the last week before the election. The press have criticized this a lot, however after following the US elections I find that somewhat healthy. Polls have a lot of \"cooking\" and they can affect the result of the election. The US campaign was 50% scandals, 45% horse race and 5% policy. The day off before election helps to \"clean\" a little bit about scandals (however, everyone have decided their vote by then) and the polls shutdown also cleans the news about the state of the race. I thought the Spanish elections were a shitshow, but this year living in the US have left me without words...",
"We call it \"devoir de réserve\", duty of confidentiality, but frankly it's completely useless"
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69jvma | How does sitting close to the TV affect my eyesight? It's not like I have to strain to see what I'm watching because I'm nice and close. | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"It doesn't. \"Contrary to the popular myth, sitting too close to a TV will not damage your eyes but it may cause eyestrain. Children can focus at close distance without eyestrain better than adults. Therefore children often develop the habit of holding reading materials close to their eyes or sitting right in front of the television. There is no evidence that this damages the eyes either in children or adults. With children, this habit usually diminishes as they grow older.\" URL_0 ]",
"It affects your eyesight the same as reading a book or staring at a wall at close range. Your eyes don't have to refocus for a long time, so they get lazy and decide they won't change their focus from the distance you're used to. Also, needing to sit close in order to see without straining is a sign that you should have glasses already.",
"I don't think it does. It affects the view of everyone else in the room when a kid sits in front of the tv. And parents use that as an excuse to make you move."
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69k341 | What makes somes piece of work (drawing, music, movie, poem, novel, etc) considered classic? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"The fact that people still talk about it after so many years, make them classic. The popularity of the work defines it. Consider this poem by Robert Frost, \"A TIME TO TALK\" Very few people know about it. But most of us surely know his \"miles to go before I sleep\"",
"Most expert opinions agree that as long as the content creator (no matter the medium) wore a powdered wig, it is in fact clasic."
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69msnc | Why is regional Australia (before you reach the outback) so fertile, yet so sparsely populated? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"1) What makes you think regional Australia is fertile? Even much of the Eastern Seaboard is not that fertile. Soil in Australia is well-known for having much less organic content than those in other continents. Only tiny parts of the country, like Hunter Valley and the area around Brisbane, have rich soil. Source: [1]( URL_0 ) [2]( URL_1 ) 2) Modern civilisation took hold in Australia very late. It pretty much means the country has still not had enough time to reach high population density. 3) In terms of land use, the land that can be developed has been developed for the primary industry already. 4) Even if you go only 100 km inland, the summer will be scorching hot and dry. There is also a feedback loop of people not wanting to live in a place where you need to travel hours to get to the nearest Coles, which in turn keeps the inland areas from developing."
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69ne0y | Why do Americans pronounce "herbs" without the "h"? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Who can say...why do Brit's pronounce Worcester \"Wooster\"?",
"You're asking the wrong question. The interesting question is \"why do the British pronounce the h in herbs\". Oddly enough, in some regards \"American English\" is closer to the original than \"British English\". Same with South American Spanish and \"actual\" Spanish.",
"While there is some truth in what /u/Odinheim says, in this case the American pronunciation is closer to the original. It was non-Americans that started pronouncing the \"h\" when it used to be silent, just like the \"h\" in \"hour\" and \"honour\". On the other hand, the American pronunciation creates a kind of inconsistency: in American English, \"herbicide\" and \"herbivore\" are pronounced *with* the \"h\" sound, as they are in British English. EDIT: It seems some Americans pronounce the \"h\" in \"herbicide\" and others don't. I've looked it up, and sure enough American dictionaries give both pronunciations. This suggests there are differences between dialects. Thanks to /u/galyxies, /u/IIIMurdoc, /u/five_hammers_hamming, /u/Aeternalis_, /u/carolinefelicity, /u/cdb03b, /u/Aarakocra, /u/kairikngdm, /u/fatal3rr0r84 and /u/KhunDavid for pointing this out.",
"It's a French word, and most French words drop the “h” sound from the beginning of words. Probably better to put this on r/askanamerican for broader answers. Cheers!",
"Because it is a cooking term and comes from French. Lots of words in English do not pronounce the \"h\". Such as \"hour\" and \"honor\". The British shifted sometime after the US gained independence and started to pronounce the \"h\".",
"I'm American and I pronounce herbs with the h but my parents don't. Maybe it's a southern thing? They're both from the south and I was raised in the north.",
"Why do Brits leave off the H in \"historical\" to the point that it's indefinite article is \"an\"?",
"In my part of Britain we don't pronounce the H either. Nobody did until relatively recently as we adopted the pronunciation from french. Hotel was 'otel just like our French cousins pronounce it."
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69ne5j | How did chicken become the universal meat that almost every single culture in the world eats? | Chicken is seen in chinese, indian, japanese, korean, french, italian, persian, english, african, south american, etc cuisines. How and When did chicken become so universal? Which culture first started eating, domesticating, farming chicken? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Chickens were originally domesticated in East and South Asia but pretty quickly spread across the rest of Afro-Eurasia. In the last few centuries they've become a much bigger part of people's diets because they're incredibly cheap to raise compared with pigs, cows, or other sources of meat.",
"Chickens grow fast and they're not hard to raise. For what it's worth, pork is actually the most-eaten meat in the world, and in the US, it's only around 2014 that it became more popular than beef. The only thing that makes chicken arguably more *universally* eaten is that it's a bird (religions simply tend to have more rules about eating mammals).",
"Because chickens are easy. They don't require much room, they don't eat much, they grow quickly, and they breed prodigiously. Add to that the fact that raising chickens means a steady supply of eggs, and you have the perfect domesticated animal.",
"Pork is the most consumed meat in the world so chicken is only the most widespread because of religious dietary reasons."
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69ohux | squads, fire teams, brigades, companies, soldier ranks | I keep hearing things about ranks of soldiers or Marines or what have you (brigadier general, lieutenant, petty officer, NCO, officer, general, Sargent, corporal, Colonel) As well as sizes of teams (fire team, brigade, army, company, fleet, squad, platoon) From military lovers, actual ex military, sci Fi and fantasy lovers, and all I really get is context clues or conflicting information. Googling has gives explanations that further uses words I don't know. I would love to understand what everyone is on about but I wish I had a basis. An ELI5, if you will. That way I at least can know what the hell I don't know. So what are the team sizes and organization, and general job, (maybe concentric circles on Ms paint?) And what is the order of rank, and general job? (Bullet points with sub bullet points?) | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Imagine you a 100,000 strong army. You are the general in command and need to take a town. If you told all of them to do it, it would be a cluster fuck. So you organize your army into corps of 20,000 to 50,000 each. You need someone to manage each one so you appoint some lieutenants and give them the rank to of a 3 star general because you have four. The corps are still large so you divide them into divisions of maybe 10,000 to 15,000 men each. Each one you assign a them a rank of 2 stars. That's still a ton of men so you further divide the divisions into regiments or brigades of 2,000-4,000 men which are commanded by a one star general or colonel. Several thousand is good for most tasks but sometimes you don't need all those guys for an objective so you need smaller units. You divide the brigade into battalions of several hundred to be commanded by a major. The battalion is divided into companies of 100-200 men commanded by a captain. A company is divided into platoons of tens of men commanded by a lieutenant. The company is divided into squads of 10-20 commanded by a sergeant. The squad is divided into 4-6 commanded by a corporal.",
"You are asking about something that not only varies between branches of the military, but also nations and organizations, and has been known to change over time and in individual theaters of war, said reorganization sometimes happening mid-conflict.",
"Veteran here: I can only answer for a basic US Army setup. Starting from smallest to biggest (noting that this is general rule of thumb and actual numbers vary): -Team: Three soldiers + team leader -Squad: Two teams + squad leader -Platoon: At least two squads + Platoon Leader and Platoon Sergeant -Company: At least two platoons + Company Commander, XO, and 1st Sergeant. -Battalion: At least two companies -Brigade -Division -Branch (Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines) When you hear \"Unit\", they're *usually* talking about their battalion. For example, the 2-22nd, or 1-19th or whatever. Teams are usually \"Alpha\" or \"Bravo\". A platoon is generally referenced as a number; 1st Platoon, 2nd Platoon, etc. Most companies also have a \"Headquarters Platoon\" for admin stuff. Companies usually use phonetic letters again- Alpha, Bravo, Charlie, Delta, etc. Most companies also have names. For example mine was \"Orphan\", Bravo was \"Black Dragon\". Battalions are usually designated like I mentioned above, and include a name. Brigades are again numbered. 1st Brigade, 2nd Brigade, etc. Divisions are also numbered, and are the the well-known ones, like \"Big Red One\" or the 82nd Airborne."
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69p09l | Why are 'do' and 'don't' pronounced differently? If 'do' is pronounced 'doo', shouldn't 'don't' (do not) be pronounced 'doont'? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"It's just one of those quirks of the English language. \"Won't\", for \"will not\", adds an 'o' before the 'n', which makes even less sense. Languages change over time, and clunky pronunciations like \"doon't\" or \"willn't\" get smoothed down to easy pronunciations.",
"There's a technical term for it, which I believe is known as euphony. This basically means that words have pleasing sounds and as such, hearing something pleasing is generally better to hear or easier to speak. In a sense, it's about laziness, which is how contractions became a thing in the first place. One of the basic goals of language is to quickly convey information with as little effort as possible. So changing words to be easier to speak and hear is the next step on evolving language.",
"Sounds develop differently depending on their surroundings. For instance, the s at the end of students is pronounced differently than the s at the end of lasers because they are colored by the sounds adjacent to them.",
"Just look at the word 'unionized'. Have a scientist pronounce it, then have a steel worker pronounce it. Un-ionized vs. Union-ized"
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69pijp | Why do Men and Women have different size numbers for the same size article of clothing? Why not let them be the same? | Doesn't it just make things more difficult? Shoe sizes are different numbers for 2 pairs of shoes just because one is marketed for men vs for women. Same with shirts, pants etc. What is the reason for this? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"text": [
"Probably to make women's feet sound smaller and daintier, but maybe because he adage about big feet means men feel better if their shoe size is in the double digits. Clothing wise... Psht. Women's clothing sizes are a mess! I can wear a 10 in one brand of jeans and need an 18 in another. We'd have to sort all that nonsense out before we could use the same sizing as men's."
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69rvg7 | What stops people in the patent office fron rejecting an idea and patenting it for themselves? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"If they patent it themselves, aside from the difficulties they would have in explaining it to others or higher ups at the office, the original claimant can present his receipt and dated file that shows exactly how and when he came up with the idea, the implementation, and the submission date/time. These two would be more than enough for the immediate firing of that clerk.",
"There is a law against it, in the US at least. > Officers and employees of the Patent and Trademark Office shall be incapable, during the period of their appointments and for one year thereafter, of applying for a patent and of acquiring, directly or indirectly, except by inheritance or bequest, any patent or any right or interest in any patent, issued or to be issued by the Office. In patents applied for thereafter they shall not be entitled to any priority date earlier than one year after the termination of their appointment. URL_0",
"When you register a patent, you are simply declaring when you developed the idea. The application that was rejected will still be recorded, and this will be enough proof that the actual registered patent came after the original. The same principal applies with prior-art. Proving that a thing was a thing prior to the patent will invalidate the patent. The big trick with patent trolls is that they make it expensive enough to fight the patent that simply paying is the cheaper option."
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69rx72 | Why have violent crime rates been falling over the last 20 years? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"text": [
"People don't really know. There are many theories though. Each attributes it to some other factor, but each of those factors is not sufficient for the drop. Some of the ideas are: Less poverty. More Wealth and higher standards of living, as well as high employment mean less people who turn to crime. Problem with this: In times of economic crises, like the Great Recession, crime didn't suddenly skyrocket. Harsher laws and minimum prison sentences: Seems easy. Harsher punishment means more deterrent and thus less crime. Problem: Most people grow out of violent behaviour and it is well documented that longer sentences don't deter. Rather, long prison times make violent criminals worse, make them join gangs, and make it harder to reintegreate into society. More police officers: If you hire more cops, they can patrol more often, have more resources to investigate crimes, etc. Seems simple. Problem: Across the nation, crime drops regardless of the police strength. When comparing districts, crime drops both in districts which increased their cop numbers and those who don't. However, they drop more where there are more cops, so hiring more cops most likely actually helps. Abortion: Making abortions more easily accessible means that there are less children born in unwelcome environments. Such children, most often in poor families with overwhelmed parents were often predisposed to crime. Less such children mean less crime. Problem: Before legalisation, many women had illegal abortions. The decline can't have been solely from that. Also, in other Western countries where abortion was available earlier, there is also a drop in crime. No clear causation. Lead: Sounds weird, but stay with me: Until the 1970s, gasoline had lead in it (then it was made illegal). Breathing in lead from exhausts cause serious health issues. For children this means stunts in brain development and thus intelligence and behaviour. Kids born after 1970 were in their 20s around 1990, so the decline wouldn't be noticed earlier. Also, states which abolished lead in gasoline slowly also had a slower decline in crime. It has also been observed in other countries. Problem: Not much data on this and some contradicting studies. So this has to be taken with a grain of salt. Probably it is a mixture of all the above, as well as some other factors. We just don't know for certain.",
"I've heard entertainment has played an unexpected factor. Like people who have hobbies that aren't shitty and boring are less willing to throw their lives away doing something stupid because they are finding fulfillment from their hobbies. I forget where I read that but I swear I'm not pulling this out of my ass."
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