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69s3w7 | Why do people who speak in sign language also move their mouth when speaking? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"For the same reason people who speak with words move their hands. It adds context and adds clarity to the communication. Many deaf people also learn to read lips (because only a minority of people know sign language). Many deaf people don't know sign language as well as you'd think! Especially those who lost their hearing later in life. The combination of gestures and lip movement helps them understand what is being transmitted.",
"The shape of the mouth (as well as all other parts of the face) conveys meaning and context in addition to the handshapes and directions."
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69sdl6 | Why are cops associated with liking donuts? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Here's a video explaining it in pretty good detail: URL_0 Basically because Cops have to work long hours, such as nightshifts, and need to be able to respond at a moment's notice. As such there's not a lot of options for a quick bite to eat in the middle of the night. They also provide a place to sit down and take a quick break (or fill out paperwork in a place that's not the front seat of your patrol car) and you can take the doughnuts with you. Funny story, when I was super young we went on a field trip to the local police station. As we were walking along the mezzanine above the staff break room I saw a box of doughnuts and a coffee machine on the table. Without thinking a blurted out \"IT'S TRUE! THEY DO LIKE DOUGHNUTS!\" causing the whole building to erupt in laughter and my mom (who was the chaperone) to go completely red.",
"Because for cops working the late night shifts they didn't have many options to go get a coffee and a snack as most places were closed at the hours they worked. Meanwhile doughnut shops were open so they became a frequent stop for cops to get some food and a cup of Joe. Since more places are open at later hours now they have more options but the association with doughnuts stuck. Also doughnuts are quick so they could grab something and get back to work relatively quickly compared to late diners.",
"Historically, before 24 hour convenience stores and the like, donut shops were the first places to open, since they had to get to work before everyone else, so people could get coffee and donuts before work. When officers were working the night shift, from 10pm till ~4am, nothing was open. At 4am, officers would meet up at the first place open, which was the donut shops for food and drink.",
"* Found along with coffee * Easy to eat on the go * Call be left in car for hours and still be tasty * Available many times of day",
"A lot of cash businesses like conviencance stores, donut shops, and fast food chains offer free products to cops to entice them into coming often. It's cheaper than a security guard.",
"When I worked in a convenience store in the 1980s, we were the only place that was open 24 hours in our town, so all the cops would hang out there at night. Our company liked having law enforcement hang out there at night, because it kept trouble away. So, we offered four things to uniformed police officers: pop, popcorn, coffee, and donuts. Rather than eating a big bag of popcorn all night, the cops would take us up on the free coffee and donuts. So, if you came through my town in the middle of the night and saw a cop not in their car, they were probably in our store drinking coffee and eating donuts.",
"Police work all hours of day and night and will want to take a break and a snack from time to time, but even on break they still need to be able to respond to a call if needed. In the past pretty much the only snack places open in the middle of the night were donut shops. Source: URL_0",
"[Today I Found Out]( URL_0 ) explains it perfectly.",
"I'm a cop and I like donuts, but no more than anyone else I would say. I think the comment by /u/CrazyKiahl is closest to being right, it does have a lot to do with the shift work and unhealthy choices for food over night. I also believe it is in correlation with coffee, cops like to stop at Tim Horton's or in the U.S. I guess Dunkin Donuts for a cup of java and the main food item they sell at these establishments is donuts. The public also loves to thank us cops by bringing in donuts. One time this little girl and her family brought us vegetable and fruit tray it was amazing and thoughtful the guys were totally happy for once we weren't tempted by those little delicious jelly demons.",
"Besides the hours doughnut shops are open, they are a meeting place to talk to coworkers instead of sitting alone in their cars. Also bathrooms",
"I'm a cop. Come from a family line of cops. I've had it explained to me that it is historically accurate. Back in the day, think post ww2 era, the only things that tended to be open 24/7 were truck route diners and pastry shops. Specifically, dunkin donuts. Night shift cops would congregate at dunkin donuts and drink coffee / eat pastry.",
"Police officers often have to work graveyard shifts where they go out on patrols late at night and early in the morning. This would usually mean that near the end of their patrol they would be looking to eat breakfast. Twenty to thirty years ago the only restaurants that served food at that time were doughnut shops so people saw police officers always eating doughnuts because that was the only kind of food cops could find. Nowadays they have plenty of other options with 24 hour fast food places and the like, but before these cropped up, cops could only really get doughnuts.",
"A few decades ago, let's say around the 1950's until the 90's (when we started to see Starbucks, McCafe), not many places stayed open late where cops could get a cup of coffee and a bite to eat. Donut shops and diners stayed open. Therefore, not unusual to see cops at a donut shop late at night getting coffee and donuts to go. edit: [Little article with some fun facts.]( URL_0 )",
"Funny story. I was a fed ex driver delivering a package to a councilmans office at the county courthouse. The box had a stack of blank cds in it. As it went through the x ray one of the cops on duty said \"looks like donuts\" to which i responded \"well, i imagine everything looks like donuts to y'all. One cop laughed his ass off but the other looked like he was gonna taze me.",
"The story I heard was that in the 70s-80s Dunkin' Donuts locations were having trouble being robbed repeatedly. So then DD decided to implement a policy that police officers ate free to increase police presence at their locations. The robberies went down by a significant percentage. Other donut places followed suit. So then people got the idea cops were just at donut joints because they liked donuts. ...now you know the rest of the sorry. Good day!"
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69sg9q | Why isn't every person entitled to food, water, and shelter? | Shouldn't this be the role of government? To ensure that each person has basic rights that enable him to live without suffering? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"What level would they be entitled to? How much food? Just enough to survive? Why should the government provide this instead of citizens providing this for themselves whenever possible?",
"Libertarian ideology. [Multiple people say the government big enough to give you everything you want, is also big enough to take everything you have.]( URL_1 :) [Here is a cartoon about it on Youtube.]( URL_0 )",
"Bc if the government provides all of this at no cost, what is the incentive to do anything to better your life? Why work when the government provides food, shelter etc for you? What you're looking for is socialism and it's worked well in the past...."
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69ss21 | Are new cities and towns still being incorporated in the USA? I never seem to hear of any. | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"yup. most are tiny towns of few hundred people. but some are big ones that several neighborhoods decided to reorganize and make a new town. URL_0",
"About ten years ago, the mayor of Levelland, Texas wanted to open a liquor store. The county and the city were dry, meaning no liquor stores were allowed unless the city wanted to be wet. Rather than try to change the law, he started a new town about 3 miles outside the city limits, between Levelland and Lubbock. That town is called Opdyke West. The people that joined him voted for the town to be wet and he started his business. Since then, Levelland became wet and he shut down his store in Opdyke in favor for a store in Levelland, leaving Opdyke a wasteland with a bar and several trailer parks. Source: Live in Levelland, travel to Lubbock every day.",
"States set up rules for incorporation. Many common rules include population size and not being part of another town. The rules vary from state to state so nothing general can be said. Houston expanded totally around an area but elected to not include it in the city. The cost of providing city services would be great. This struck me as weird. In my state legislation was passed by general vote that governments can go into debt to loan money to companies. I am waiting for this to backfire as an area goes into debt to help a company which goes bankrupt. The taxpayers may be paying off bonds for years."
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69svv1 | What exactly are you insinuating when you call someone a "commie"? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"I'm a Brit, and it was never really a slur here, so I may not be best placed to offer an explanation, but from what I understand: I think it may also tie in with communism presenting the opposite of what was seen as \"The American Dream\", where one person - anyone, can go from any background, and by working hard can rise to the top, make it rich etc. A side-effect in theory of communism is that such individualistic ambitions are suppressed in order for everyone in the working classes staying equal. So \"commie\" may have been used to insinuate that someone was against American values - a traitor, of sorts - against the idea of the American dream. Back in the 50's this tied in with more widespread fears about communism spreading and being a threat to American Democracy.",
"It comes from the cold war era, where anything communist was bad. Communism, in contrast to capitalism, tended to be more socialist and egaitarian. Obviously, in practice, it usually didn't end up that way, but the ideas behind communism were that everyone benefitted. At the time, America at least, was dominated by a \"pull yourself up by your bootstraps\" and \"every man for himself\" sort of mentality. And since the communists were the enemy, the opposite became bad. So \"commie\" came to mean \"socialist,\" or at least that's my interpretation. Someone who is communist, for instance, might support single payer health care."
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69v43i | Facebook scams. What do the accomplish by getting you to share a post? | ELI5: Caveat: I only started using Facebook on a regular basis about a year ago, and I use it primarily to steal memes. I've seen a few varieties of these posts: "comment where you're from so I can see how far this has made it." "Please rate 1-10." And the ubiquitous "like, share, comment 'amen.'" Is it just a vanity thing seeing notifications, or is there something more nefarious going on? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"They are often designed to build up likes and followers then the owners of the page (usually located in a developing country not always though) will sell the page to scammers who can reach a giant audience (iPhone giveaways porn spam snake-oil weight loss solutions etc)"
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69v9mp | Why is everyone obsessed with Nikola Tesla? | I don't want to make this a flame war, I just don't understand what everyone sees in him. Sure, he put an induction coil on a stick that sends sparks through the air, and got Westinghouse interested in polyphase AC motors, but I don't know what he *did* that makes everyone take off their pants when they hear "Tesla". As far as I can tell, he had no qualifications to work in science and was just messing around with toys in a lab to see what happened. He seems to almost be more of a lifestyle like Steampunk than a historical figure, and I just don't know why. | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Just my opinion, it's a mixture of not learning about him in school, and having Edison forced down our throat. Then people grow up and simultaneously learn about Tesla, and what a scumbag Edison was. Its a perfect storm to create a circle jerk.",
"Tesla is interesting for internet fans because he had such crazy ideas interspersed with legitimate concepts that became reality. It lends him enough credibility to be taken seriously, but also includes enough completely off-the-wall concepts to make people believe fantastical things are possible.",
"Tesla had some wild ideas that kind of worked (like broadcasting power) that are like science fiction. Add in his conflicts with Edison and the pathetic way his life ended and you've got a movie-quality story. Which is kind of sad. His invention of the ~~AC motor~~ polyphase AC motor was truly inspired. It's almost as if he could visualize magnetic fields in his head. He was a true genius. He should be lionized for his great accomplishments and not the more unrealistic concepts he had. EDIT: Left out a word.",
"> He seems to almost be more of a lifestyle like Steampunk than a historical figure, and I just don't know why. Maybe it's becasue you don't seem to know much about him. Start with [reading his wiki page]( URL_1 ) and also reading what URL_2 [says about him and his importance as well]( URL_0 ). Just a very few of the things he is directly responsible for: - Modern AC Power (Westinghouse used Tesla's motors, it wasn't that Tesla got him \"interested\" in them, Westinghouse directly used them) - Radio (yes, this was credited to him, not Marconi after a lawsuit settled the matter) - Wireless power - Remote Control He was instrumental in other things like x-ray imaging, and fluorescent lighting and many more. In recent years there definitely has been a resurgence of interest in him, but it's by no means undeserved. He wasn't some \"unqualified\" jerkoff \"messing around with toys in a lab to see what happened\". He has definitely been turned into some sort of romantic science hero and the rivalry with Edison angle ramped quite a bit, but if you actually look at the things he did, built, and accomplished you'll find that he was far more than you give him credit for."
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69w72r | How is India able to function as a democracy when almost 30% of the population is illiterate? | It seems like this would make it difficult to use ballots and access translations, which seems particularly important given India's huge language diversity. How can I find a candidate to support if I have no idea what they're saying? How can I vote if I can't read his or her name? Thanks! | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Hi, I’m a Westerner living in India. The answer is: India doesn’t really have a functioning democracy. Elections are bought. There is corruption on all levels. A simple example: a few months a go, there were elections in my state of Punjab. All the political parties distributed money to their candidates so that they would have village leaders organize parties in their name. India is very tribal, so village people all just vote for the candidate they receive most attention from. No-one reads the programs. All the candidates make lofty promises that everyone should know they can’t keep.",
"Candidates [have little symbols next to their names]( URL_0 ). Also there are ways of finding what the candidates think besides reading: Public rallies, radio and tv.",
"Post independence from British Election Commission was created that serve as checks and balance over the elections. It is a constitutional body with vast powers over electoral process. They have been more or less successful. Not to say that they have made all the elections trouble free. But most elections are . > How can I find a candidate to support if I have no idea what they're saying? Candidates campaign in public rallies , even door to door. > How can I vote if I can't read his or her name? Each candidate is assigned a symbol ( picture of a flower, farm equipment , etc. ) . National parties can get a single symbol for the whole country (current ruling party has the Lotus flower as symbol ) . Regional parties can get a symbol in the state they are active in. To get recognised as a regional or national party , a registered political part has to get some prescribed percentage of votes . The guidelines are set by Election commission.",
"> It seems like this would make it difficult to use ballots and access translations, which seems particularly important given India's huge language diversity. > How can I vote if I can't read his or her name? We have symbols and candidate name is in local language. > How can I find a candidate to support if I have no idea what they're saying? Candidates are local and speak local languages. Plus in North India most people understand Hindi even if they can't speak it.",
"The logistical question can be answered by the fact that we give our parties and candidates [symbols]( URL_0 ), that people can recognize. As for the question of languages, we have local parties and local politicians. Almost every state has 2 parties that are exclusive to that state, and national parties have local leaders that operate with a certain degree of autonomy when it comes to party affairs within the state. So Party 1 might have politician 1 as the national president, but within a particular state there will be another politician who manages all party affairs within the state."
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69w879 | The concept of 'plausible deniability'? | Hi, I don't understand plausible deniability? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Plausible deniability is basically the idea that an organization needs to do bad things in such a way as to make sure that leadership can credibly claim not to have been involved. So, imagine you have a company that has fallen on hard times. They need some new invention in order to revitalize the business. Some executive vice president realizes that a competitor has just such an invention, and realizes that they can steal it and get it to market before the competitor. But, if they do that, not only could the people involved go to jail, but the company itself could get sued. So, the VP goes to the CEO and asks if they should do \"anything it takes\" to save the company. The CEO says, \"of course,\" and doesn't ask any more questions. The VP doesn't tell the CEO anything else about the plan and steals the invention. Now, the CEO has \"plausible deniability\" with regard to the theft. If someone finds out that the invention was stolen and asks the CEO about it, the CEO can say honestly that they had no idea that the invention even existed, and never heard anything about a plan to steal it.",
"Plausible deniability is essentially a mechanism for senior, important members of an organisation to officially \"Not Know\" about the illegal or improper actions of their subordinates. It's particularly common in large, hierarchical organisations where instructions are passed down the chain of command, and involve a lot of people. The ones at the 'bottom' actually doing the dirty work have no direct proof that the orders came from the very top. One example might be in politics, where a candidate organises for slanderous accusations to be made against their opponent. If caught out, the candidate can claim it was a lowly staffer doing it on their own initiative. Often, the loyal staffer will willingly take the blame on their own shoulders to protect the candidate, and be rewarded in some way at a later date. Another example is organised crime. The Mafia is deliberately set up so that the lowly associates and wannabes (who are most likely to get caught) have contact and receive orders from their immediate superiors, and not from the bosses. This means that they have no direct information to implicate the senior members of the crime family even if they wanted to.",
"All of the answers are correct; however, it is not strictly a business concept. There are everyday situations where people use plausible deniability. Here are two examples: 1) A guy wants to sleep with a girl. Instead of asking her outright, he asks if she wants to \"hang at my place\" or \"come up for a drink.\" If she says \"no\", he can then plausibly deny that he was proposing sex. \"I just asked if you wanted a drink, nothing more.\" 2) Someone gets pulled over for speeding. Rather than outright bribing the cop to let him off, he says \"maybe we can take care of this right now.\" If the cop is crooked, he'll take the bribe. If the cop is honest, the guy can plausibly deny that he was offering a bride because he didn't actually say so. Essentially it boils down to the ability to credibly deny your knowledge or intentions. It's useful if you want to do something that is wrong, taboo, or disreputable but do not want to be held accountable for it."
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69wa22 | Lots of people have an issue with the word "moist" and find it gross. Why do people "jump on the bandwagon" and form such a strong opinion on something as arbitrary as a word? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Word bias, the same goes for names. You might've met someone called 'Jim' hypothetically, and he was a complete jerk. Then you'd meet another person named 'Jim' but he's completely different. Yet you still have that small part of you not liking him because of your first impression of people with the name 'Jim'. Moist has a connotation with a woman's arousal, hence the 'grossness' some may find. I take advantage of these types of words and make people feel uncomfortable. It's my guilty *pleasure*."
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69wrow | Why do schools adopt a zero-tolerance policy and what do these policies generally dictate? | U.S. schools mainly, mostly interested after seeing a thread about the guy who got suspended for liking an Instagram post. Are these policies actually helpful? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Zero tolerance policies are there for the convenience of dishing out discipline & avoiding complaints about unequal punishment being dealt out. For example, a zero tolerance policy about fighting means that when you break up a fight, both people are automatically guilty and punished. The teacher doesn't have to figure out what's really going on & can get back to teaching. The school can't get accused to going easy on a popular kid or somebody whose parents are important in the community and having double standards. At least that's the idea behind them. Whether they actually work & improve the learning environment is up to debate. Just remember that you only ever hear about them when something goes horribly wrong & it becomes newsworthy."
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69x0vd | How does the British program QI work? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"It's pointless, nobody cares and as far as I'm aware there's no set metric. You get points for answering correctly or bringing up interesting facts. You lose points for saying obvious answers. The point system only exists to give the show some form of structure but ultimately it's meaningless.",
"The points system serves only one purpose: to underline the principle that the \"obvious\" answer isn't always the correct one. It really doesn't matter who wins -- there aren't any prizes, and all the panellists are celebrities. In one episode -- I think it was \"Justice\", or at least a similar theme -- the winner was declared before the game started. The idea of the game is that the questions are so difficult, the panellists can't be expected to answer them correctly; panellists usually score points by saying anything that is interesting (if correct) or funny. They lose points by saying something that's incorrect. How many points they win or lose is rarely, if ever, revealed. The running gag is that the system is so insanely complex, nobody actually knows how it works. If a panellist gives an answer that is not only incorrect, but was predicted by the question setters (the \"QI elves\"), this sets off a klaxon and incurs an automatic 10-point penalty. These will either be the \"obvious\" answer most people think they know but is actually wrong, or an obvious one-liner (in one episode, Jo Brand, known for her self-deprecating gags about her marriage, set off the klaxon by answering \"Ask my husband\" to the question \"What was the Great Disappointment?\"). In one infamous incident, [Dara Ó Briain was asked to repeat an interesting fact he'd given in a previous season]( URL_0 ), only to set off the klaxon. He was told that the official answer had changed since his school days, and that several viewers had written in to the BBC to point this out -- so they deducted the points he'd scored for that fact.",
"> I don't have a clue how the point system works. [Nobody knows.]( URL_0 ) QI takes the format of a competition but is more about getting the contestants talking and steering the conversation than it is about finding a winner."
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69xcq1 | Why do we as a collective say en masse more than in mass? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"It's a [borrowed term]( URL_0 ) from French. It translates literally to \"in a mass\", as in \"a single collective group of...\""
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69xk7h | Many conservatives, when arguing against Islam, cite surveys that claim that a significant number of Muslims support suicide bombing, stoning, jihad, and all other sorts of scary-sounding things. How valid are these claims? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"While I'm not really in a position to judge these claims myself, their source is [this]( URL_0 ) collection of surveys done by the Pew Research Center, which, judging from a quick look at their [methodology]( URL_2 ), seems largely reliable and unbiased. Some more in-depth opinions of a few Redditors that are more educated than me replying to [a similar question that was asked elsewhere]( URL_1 ) confirm this.",
"Along with the surveys and research, why do mainstream muslims consider reform movement upstarts \"uncle toms\". There is a serious problem with Islam and it is incompatible with the west. Reform is needed",
"It's not just conservatives... it's anyone who values facts over feelings, and that includes a large number of (true) liberals like Sam Harris, Bill Maher, and Dave Rubin. Pew is a reputable polling organization. I'm not sure who did the follow-up study in the UK, but their results were similar.",
"They are surveys done within Islamic countries using the same methodologies as domestic surveys. They're generally pretty accurate as far as surveys and polls go. Some thing to note is that supporting a behavior doesn't necessarily mean that the individual acts in that manner. Support for different views changes by country, region and sect. But in some places such views we would consider radical and unethical are quite common.",
"It's worth pointing out that what is most important is to critically ponder over said claims, regardless of the political orientation of the person making them. For example, in the [Pew]( URL_0 ) study (note: this is not intended to be a jab aimed at Crepitor), 71% of muslims in Jordan support Sharia law...but then 94% view ISIS unfavorably. Since ISIS supports a severe, radicalized implementation of Sharia Law, including stoning and beheading, does this mean that the Muslims in Jordan don't support stoning? The answer is we don't know based on this information, *and* we don't know if all Muslims in Jordan view stoning the same way-thinking they do is a [logical fallacy]( URL_1 ). Perhaps Jordanians are horrified by the brutality and view Sharia law differently, or perhaps some of their citizens have been similarly brutalized and they have disavowed ISIS. This has not stopped individuals on either side of similar arguments from taking similar facts and running with them, and ultimately everyone loses.",
"All surveys have bias. The way one asks a question csn influence the answer. E.g. Do you think women are vad at science? This reinforces a particular viewpoint (women are bad at science when they arent). In the Qur'an is specifies that \"killing one person is like killing all of man kind\". I.e. the sin of killing 1 person is the same as if you killed every person you ever exist. Which is astronomically massive. Many political commentators are highly ignorant about Islam and what is stands for. Jihad: Jihad is only justified in exceptional circumstances like the crusades or in wars e.g Pakistani-Indian war. The soldiers who died on the Pakistani side did a jihad as they were protecting their religion and country. They were fighting to protect people not killing needlessly like terrorists. The terrorists that we hear about all the time are also ignorant about Islam (just as much as conservative commentators). They subscribe to a sect of Islam called Wahabbi Islam which is hypocrtical and is not classified as true Islam by many scholars. SUPRISE Saudi Arabia is the one who exports this cr*p. They are literally brainwashing their population with this disgusting form of Islam. The rest of Islam (Sunni and Shia) is peaceful. (Many Wahabbi's pose as Sunnis which causes confusion across the world and in the media) Stoning: Stoning is a part of Islam I will not deny that, but the circumstances in which they are permissible are so strict that it never happened before the rise of Saudi royal family and the consquencal rise of Wahabbism. 700AD to ~1950s Suicide Bombing: The only Muslims that support the share Wahabbi' s But Many Muslims view Hamas bombings against Israel to be justified as they are an apartheid state. They view it as a reaction to oppression and a lack of basic human rights like water and shelter. But this is an exceptional case. Millions of mosques condemn terror attacks and have programs to help educate Muslims about what Islam truly is (A religion of peace) Sharia Law: Only applies to Muslims even in an Islamic country. That is the Islamic law - SUPRISE they accept it Not exactly radical is it? They always ignore the fine print and context of the situation. Translations also remove loads of meanings which complicates things further. The poverty rate in the Arabian peninsula during the Ummayadd empire was 0%. Thatvwas true Sharia. Many errors can occur in surveys. Be it clerical, language barriers or the people answering not understanding and just saying \"yes\" without understanding. Or even questions e.g. can jihad ever be justified? All of this can be manipulated. TL;DR - not fully valid as biases exist. Conservatives are ignorant about Islam and know literally nothing about the history and are selecting information that suits their agenda. NOT the truth."
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69xkx9 | How did the USA get so populated? | It's kind of bizarre that people came across the ocean and now in only a couple hundred years there are so many people living here. If someone could explain how that would be great. | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Did your parents have the Birds and Bees talk with you? Seriously, when you leave people alone in relatively fertile land with nobody around, people reproduce very quickly. It helped that most immigrants were rather healthy. After all, sickly people don't really have the constitution to move to another continent and build a farm out of nothing. Also, people moved to the USA constantly. Compared to the rather repressive monarchies in Europe, the USA were a haven of civil and religious liberties. Whole groups who feared religious persecution in Europe migrated to the US where they were completely left in peace. The same goes for free thinkers or entrepreneurs who were held back in Europe by set hierarchies and regulations.",
"Well we did have a fairly open immigration policy for a while and when times got hard people took the chance. Take Ireland for example. When the potato famine hit people could go to America or starve. Not 100% sure on this but pretty sure there are more people of irish decent in the US than there are people in Ireland"
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69xxly | Why is there such a large concentration of men on meeting boards/dating sites? | I'm just wondering why it always turns out that there are many more men on things like dating sites and on tinder and similar platforms than women. I can understand to an extent why there aren't as many women on hookup platforms since men are (correct me if I'm wrong) genetically predisposed to be more forwardly sexual than women are, but I'm still confused as to why there is such a surplus of men on nearly all dating sites and such. Is it genetic as well or is it just some sort of cultural thing that has developed at this point? I've floated this as cultural simply because it's probably what makes the most sense to me as of rn. | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"My guess is because men have to run a marathon to get laid and women just have to smile. So all the guys who can only run a block are on dating sites and very few women can't smile.",
"Supply and demand. Traditionally, women have less problems finding a mate than men do. Therefore, there is less of a likelyhood that a woman will be single \"enough\" to go to an online dating site. Similarly, women are more likely to be contacted by men than men are to be contacted by women, so even if they were signing up at the same rates, it's a reasonable assumption that the men would be on for longer before finding a partner. These are all statistical trends, so that doesn't mean there aren't women on the sites, that some women don't contact men, etc etc etc. But that's why there is the tendency to see more men than women. /edit: For the record, I'm not trying to malign online daters. I met my wife through a dating site 6+ years ago, and she was the one who contacted me. So outliers certainly happen, I was just trying to explain the statistical trends.",
"You're getting a lot of reasons about why men would be more likely to go on one than women but I'm not sure more men go on dating sites than women. On the other hand more women leave online dating sites then men and the reason is that some small percentage of men make life overwhelmingly unenjoyable for women on these sites. Talk to any women you know about the sorts of messages they get on these sites and it becomes obvious. Some percentage of guys don't know how to respect women and treat them in ways that scare them off of such sites easily. The reason this affects dating sites is that the relative anonymity and safety of being online gives these guys the confidence to behave in ways they wouldn't otherwise. Now, it only takes a few guys messaging every woman they can to make the whole experience horrible. It's like cat calling, if only one in 100 guys engage in that activity it's almost guaranteed that women would experience it every day. You may not know anyone who does it but women may still experience it constantly."
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69ykv1 | Why is being first so important in journalism? | It seems to be almost an obsession. However, is this paradigm relevant? How did it start? Why? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Journalists always cite sources that publish the story before they do. So printing a story first, a scoop, means that other journalists will say \"As reported in the {your paper} ...\". This is like free advertising."
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69z8si | Why do we use fresh water for toilets opposed to other types of water, like salt water? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Simply because in most instances you would need to have an entirely separate supply in place purely to use a different form of water. Worth noting that an increasing amount of toilet-systems make use of grey-water and/or rainfall water to feed their supplies - that is either collecting rainwater from roofs and using that or hooking up a system so that the waste water from washing your hands/sinks is stored and used to feed toilets. Where I worked the company used rainwater and a reed filtration system to supply the water in toilets - it could result in the water in the toilets looking 'dirty' (at least not clear like we're used to) and so had signs up to reassure visitors that there's nothing wrong with the system, that's just how it works.",
"We do not have the infrastructure to deliver multiple water supply lines to each household, and the vast majority of residences do not have pipes installed for anything more than cold and hot potable water supply. The cost of installing pipes for greywater supply to households (or even just urban buildings) would be immense. Despite this, quite a few newer projects are built with the ability to collect and hold rainwater and other usable greywater for use in toilet flushing.",
"Because it makes no financial sense to run pipes all the way from the ocean to Kansas. Trucking it in would be even more expensive. Plus there is all the cost of running extra pipes through the entire city for that water.",
"Everyone has already mentioned the needing two separate water supply lines, but what about the machinery that we have in place right now? Surely the things that process all the wastewater are not suited for handling saltwater either and they most likely wouldn't hold up for long against that either."
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69zmh8 | How do the French Republics work? What's the difference between the Fourth Republic and the Fifth Republic, etc.? | What is the difference between the First Republic, the Second Republic, the Third Republic, the Fourth Republic, and the Fifth Republic? I know that a traumatic event caused each one to end and another to begin, but why differentiate between the republics in the first place? Is there any difference in how the Republic functions between the Third Republic and the Fifth Republic, for example? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Each \"Republic\" corresponds to a period of a Republican government. The Republic ends when the government was overthrown, either for a monarch to come back, or in a military coup which resulted in rewriting the constitution and instituting a new Republic. For example, the Third Republic ended during WWII when the Germans took over. Then, after the war, they wrote a new constitution which became the Fourth Republic."
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6a059s | why is there such a disproportionate number of British Youtubers/streamers? | Is it just their accent making their channels more popular/visible? If I woke up from a coma and were going strictly by internet gaming videos, I would assume the world had been taken over by white twentysomething British males, and all other groups had been exterminated. | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Americans like the British accent generally, a massive part of YouTubes audience. The population is pretty wealthy and can afford good recording equipment, as well as a lot of disposable time. (College and uni don't have to be extremely stressful.) And if I had to guess, jobs for young British boys have gone down the shitter recently so it's a good way of getting items for your CV and earning money with no qualifications.",
"Perhaps its just in your recommended? I personally haven't come across very many. Youtube in general is just populated by English speaking vloggers because its an English site."
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6a05iv | If Christians follow Christianity and Catholics follow Catholicism why is the name "Islam" different than it's followers, "Muslims?" | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"In Semitic languages such as Arabic and Hebrew, words are derived from a three of four letter [root]( URL_0 ). Muslim and Islam are Arabic words which are both derived from the same root s-l-m. Specifically, \"Muslim\" means \"one who submits\" while \"Islam\" means \"submission\". URL_1",
"This has to do with the Arabic language. There's a 'root' (S-L-M) that's used for lots of words that mean wholeness/submission/safety/peace. 'Islam' (meaning 'surrender/submission') stems from that root's noun form, and 'Muslim' (meaning 'one who submits/surrenders) stems from the same root's verb form. So basically just recognize that the S-L-M root is the link between the two words Muslims/Islam the same way you see the relationship between Christians/Christianity & Catholics/Catholicism. [Cite]( URL_0 )",
"Because Cristianity and Catholicism are both Latin words but Islam and Muslims are Arabic words. Since the words have become the name of the religion and the people following it the direct translations are not used but we use the words as they appear in the original language. The exception is Allah which is more and more commonly translated into the English word God as they are both the name of the same thing but in different languages."
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6a0yui | How many couples would you need to build a human colony free from inbreeding? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Define \"free from inbreeding\". If you mean the modern standard of no second cousins or closer, then you'd need no more than 8 unrelated couples to start out with, and they would need to have at least 3 children per couple to grow the population. At its most inelegant form, the children of couples A and B each marry, making 3 children each (AB1-AB9). Those children marry the children of C and D, with EF and GH marrying each other. This creates two groups of second cousins, ABCD and EFGH, who marry each other as well. That third generation would have 54 children, and with some family planning, you can ensure that no child marries a second cousin or closer. Allowing second cousins, but not first, cuts the minimum down to 4 couples. And allowing cousins, but not siblings, cuts it down to 2 starting couples. If you find yourself in a nightmare scenario of having to repopulate the world from two people, it is still possible to minimize inbreeding using family planning. Initially, you will have to make a lot of babies to ensure enough males and females. Then your children would have to mate with each other. The second and third generations, you disallow sibling marriage, then starting from the fourth generation, you disallow first cousins. This will ensure the widest available spectrum of genes gets passed on."
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6a14xr | How the hell is the U.S. still allied with Saudi Arabia? And selling them F-35 Joint Strike Fighters regularly? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Go look up Saudi Arabia's #1 export. Relatedly, the alliance is also based on the Saudi influence over political affairs in the region, so that their friendship is valuable. Further, they are a stabilizing factor, at least short term, so the collapse of the regime could be dangerous.",
"History of the United States' foreign relations has shown that as a country we really don't care about about human rights, and its onlh brought up in context of rival nations. We don't talk about the human rights violations of friendly nations or for the lack of a better word, unimportant nations. Saudi Arabia is both friendly to the US and a powerful regional power, making them important. For example, the conflict in Yemen. Saudi forces are fighting rebels who are supported by Iran. Iran is a rival nation. So we support Saudi Arabia and have looked away during the violence. In my unexpert opinion, if we ranked nations by human rights, we should be friends with Iran, not Saudi Arabia.",
"Not really the point but the U.S. doesn't sell any F-35s. SA buys them from the same American company that sells F-35s to the U.S. government. There aren't any international embargoes against SA, so companies can do business as they please.",
"First of all, the US is not selling the F-35 JSF regularly to them. Not even a little bit. The list of nations that are approved for the F-35/nations that are partnered on the F-35 are: * United Kingdom * Italy * Norway * Denmark * Netherlands * Australia * South Korea * Japan * Turkey * Israel Second of all, despite what people will say about oil, the US isn't Saudi Arabia's #1 oil importer - increasingly, Asian nations (particularly China) are dominating Saudi Arabia's oil purchases. There ARE benefits from this - cheap oil increases economic productivity which benefits the US, which is such a major part of the world economy. The other points are geostrategic in nature: * Saudi Arabia is at the center of the Arabian Peninsula and borders both the Red Sea (and thus control of one side of the Suez Canal) and the Persian Gulf (and oil from Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Iraq, Iran, UAE, Qatar, Bahrain, etc.). Being friends with the country that can easily help you reach/control such areas is important * Saudi Arabia also contains Mecca and Medina, the two holiest cities in Islam, with the two holiest sites in Islam. As a result, Saudi Arabia has a lot of power and sway in the Muslim world and its billion followers. Being friends with the monarchs that have a lot of power over so many people, even if their beliefs are often at odds with ours, is quite beneficial * Saudi Arabia also leads the Gulf nations - UAE, Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait, etc. - and is increasingly at the center of Arab world affairs. So long as Saudi Arabia and its friends listen to the US, the Arab world as a whole loses a large chunk of the economic power if they go against Saudi and thus American wishes. This was particularly true when the Arab-Israeli Wars were going on, and especially so after Egypt flipped to being aligned with the US (now the manpower and military power was gone)."
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6a1822 | Smart poor kids are less likely to graduate college than rich dumb kids because of advantages that are available to them. Besides the obvious money -- what are these advantages (in work, school, life)? | I was reading this article on economic inequality and the title of this question was a quote from a Harvard professor. Since merit isn't enough, what else can "the rest of us" do to try to bridge the gap? What kinds of programs, support or services do "rich dumb people" use to push ahead? URL_0 | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"I grew up in an environment where it was expected that one went to college (unless some other equally prestigious opportunity like minor league baseball or professional ballet company, etc.) and much of our educational system was set up to maximize our potential. Most parents -- this was an area of lawyers, doctors, business owners, accountants, etc -- had virtually unlimited means to pay for things that would benefit their kids' growth and education. So here are some things we had access to that poor kids wouldn't: - Guidance counselors who actively guided us on understanding the process toward getting into college from early in our freshman year. Understanding class selection, importance of extracurriculars, summer opportunities, etc. so we could lay out a 4 year plan to get where we wanted. - Classes and curriculum tailored to learning the skills for SAT, ACT. In addition to English lit classes, we also had a class called Reading Enrichment, which taught skills like reading comprehension, built vocabulary by teaching roots of words, etc. teaching skills to infer meaning, not just rote memorization. - Extensive array of non-core curriculum like art, drama, music classes, as well as extensive list of extracurricular programs -- and parents who would pay for sports equipment, musical instruments, trips to DC... the number of kids I went to school with who have had huge success in creative professions like fashion design, music, TV production, acting, journalism is staggering for a school that wasn't any sorts of art school. Many of those got their start in these in school and parlayed those talents into college admission, scholarships and internships. - Not needing to have jobs, so we could devote after school hours and weekends to activities that would look good to colleges. - Drivers' Ed - nearly everybody took private drivers' ed, meaning the 2 periods a day for a semester could be used for academic courses and build out our transcript. - Guidance counselors were well connected in college admissions circles due to school's reputation, level of kids going to top colleges. They knew what each school considered important and helped guide personal plans to get into out first choice schools. For example, I went to a university that was often a safety school for those targeting Ivy League/Duke/Standford, so showing that it was one's first choice went a long way in terms of getting in. My counselor recommended I do a summer program there, to back up that it was my first choice and show I could handle the work (program took summer school w/ regular undergrads). It worked! For other kids, they might work with shoring up their grade point avg, while others they'd assist on the essays... depending on what target school wanted. - Access to summer experiences, from sleep away camp, summer vacations, travel programs, volunteering in 3rd world countries (now a cliche) that looked good on resumes and gave life experiences for essays. - A strong education to survive college. Even the \"dumb kids\" I went to school with still went to pretty decent colleges and graduated in 4-5 years because we had the tools to succeed. Many are now entrepreneurs, lawyers, journalists, otherwise successful despite being goof offs when younger.",
"The advantages of being wealthy come down to more time and less stress. The biggest advantage is that you don't need to have a job while you're in school. That's an additional 20+ hours/week where you can be reading, studying, relaxing, and/or sleeping, and you're NOT getting additional stress from your boss, coworkers, and/or customers. Having extra money also means that you don't have to have a roommate, so less stress and distraction there. You don't have to worry about affording your food and having to buy the cheapest food possible, which is also likely the least nutritional. You don't have to find the cheapest room, which will likely be in an area with higher crime, so there's again less stress. You can afford to have a reliable car, and the cost of the parking permit, so you free up more time and stress by not having to rely on public transportation and/or walking/cycling. And on top of all of that, you don't have to worry about the cost of an extra year or two at school, so if you want to cruise along at 12 units/semester instead of trying to crank out 18 and get done a year early, you can do that.",
"There is a huge difference in the value systems and the resources available. Children of wealthy professional families are encouraged to learn, to plan ahead, to read, to pursue academic or artistic pursuits, and to manage a heavy schedule. They get mentally stimulated at a young age, they receive a lot of quality interaction with mentors, they learn to communicate effectively and professionally. They're surrounded by various role models. They're encouraged to pursue opportunities. So, effectively, they are taught at an early age very important skills for success. Poor children, in general, do not benefit from such a nurturing environment. The parents just don't or can't provide it. Academic skills aren't encouraged, so, even if you want to pursue that you have no models, little encouragements, and you may even get ridiculed (for acting 'above your station'). The children's schedule is also left much more unstructured and unsupervised, with few to no curriculars. The here and now takes over long term planing (ex. a low paid job now is better than education that will lead to a better job later). What is deemed 'normal' in this community may also very much go against professional success (ex dropping out of HS, teenage pregnancies etc). There can be a lot of family dysfunction, which disrupts learning. Finally, the poorer children often have a lot of undue family responsibility (ex. raising younger siblings replacing the parents, taking care of the household, taking care of grand parents etc)... it's just expected that you'll do that. What can be done to level out the playing field? One thing is to seek out mentors that can guide you to college and to a career of your choice. These mentors can be school teachers, retired professionals, the parents of well to do kids etc.",
"The article addresses gender, but I don't see where it addresses race at all. That's a bit surprising, considering the ongoing effective segregation in the US education system.",
"A lot of it is just prior educational experience, expectations and then not having to worry about money. Graduation from college really doesn't take that much in the way of smarts unless you choose a tough course on purpose. Rich kids get into the best schools and get a much better preparation for college generally speaking. When you grow up just assuming that you will go to college and graduate, it is mentally easier for you than if you think it is this massive goal that you will be lucky to achieve. The first person just has to avoid screwing up. The second person really has to do something special in their mind. That comes with a lot more personal pressure. And obviously not worrying about money makes college much easier as it is not cheap. If you are fighting to pay for books every semester or worrying about having a place to live, you have a lot more stress in your life which distracts and detracts from what you ought to be focused on.",
"Remember that time in fourth grade when your parents were going through the divorce and you were sad and angry all the time and couldn't concentrate? That's often the entire childhood of people living in poverty. Are we going to be evicted? Mom's screaming at me and I don't understand why. (Answer: it's because she herself is mad at being talked down to all day.) I'm hungry because I haven't eaten since lunch yesterday. We moved in with some guy named Greg who's giving us a place to stay, but now he's molesting me. I can't sleep all night because there are people shouting outside....",
"Rich kids don't have to worry about eating, where they're sleeping, gas money, working. Poor kids do."
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6a1fvi | Haikus | I googled it, but I just don't get it, maybe because I'm not a native English speaker? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"It's originally Japanese. Three lines of prose, and counted by phonetic syllable. The first line is 5 syllables long, the second line is 7 syllables long, and the last line is 5 syllables long. Example: Haikus are easy, But sometimes they don't make sense: Refrigerator.",
"English poetry is largely based on tropes borrowed from Romance languages, which has an emphasis on rhyme. In Romance languages, the similarities of the endings through conjugation and cases make it *really* easy to rhyme words at the ends of lines and stanzas, which is more difficult in English but still fairly easy once you get the hang of it. And because of how language is encoded in Romance languages you can rearrange the words a lot and it still makes sense. Meter is even more important in English as a Germanic language, where words are shoved together to make bigger words. That is to say, your meter is important but by and large as a Germanic language you will end up with a copious amount of syllables in your lines. Also, because of the great number of other languages English has borrowed from, we have a *lot* of homonyms and homophones and a lot of ambiguity in our language. Those things are not true of Japanese. The way the sentences are formed involves combining a lot of *bound morphemes*. Short version: a morpheme is the smallest unit of language that has meaning. A word in English is a free morpheme, which means it doesn't have to be attached to another word to make sense. Endings like like -ing or -ed are bound morphemes - they mean something, but it has to be attached to the end of a verb to have meaning, you can't just say \"ing\" or \"ed\". Germanic languages have mostly free morphemes that you stick together like Legos to make sentences. Japanese is what's called a *synthetic language*, which means most of the morphemes are bound morphemes, even what in English would be individual words. Back to poetry: because of how Japanese works, it's *very* hard to rearrange words and *very* hard to create rhymes while still preserving the meaning of the sentence. Poetry the way we write in English is difficult, if not impossible in Japanese, the language just isn't flexible that way. The end result is that when you build poetry in Japanese you need other ways to manipulate the language to make it artistic. One thing Japanese is very good at is controlling the syllables in the sentences. The haiku form takes advantage of that with the traditional 5-7-5 form. That is: the first line must have exactly 5 syllables, the second 7, and the last 5. Some other important parts of [traditional] haiku: the \"seasonal\" word. That is, a haiku takes place in a particular time, and there will be a word signalling when that is. So for instance, the haiku might include a note about cherry blossoms, signalling that the haiku takes place in Spring. Also, the haiku should be about nature. A traditional haiku should be vague. Metaphors are usually extended and difficult to understand, to the degree that traditional haiku poetry was criticized for being so personal that only the writer could understand what the poem meant. Of course, your mileage may vary. Edit, a note on poetry in general: poetry is artistic language that creates art through limitations. When you are forced to express yourself with tight restrictions, you create layers of meaning because you're trying to fit more ideas into less \"space\" - whether that means physically less space on the page, or fewer syllables, fewer word options because they have to rhyme, etc. When you choose a form you already give the poem one layer of meaning because the form you choose comes with its own baggage. For example, a when you choose to write a sonnet, you're choosing to write in a form traditionally associated with love poetry about a woman. Haiku format is just another way of imposing limitations to define your creative space, the same way that an artist might choose what kind of canvas or whether to use acrylic paint or water color or pencil... Haiku works best in Japanese and...well enough in English for the reasons I listed above."
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6a1tq9 | Why aren't college degrees universally accepted? | I keep reading stories about immigrants having advanced education in their home countries but coming to the states and having to work in the trades. I know post WW2 the US imported german scientists to work on their rocket program. | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"There are several reasons. Most of them are due to the tertiary education being less bound by the government's enforcing system. First, tertiary education system varies between countries, and this makes recognition a bit difficult. For example, NZ and Australian universities usually offer three-year Bachelor's degrees, and then an extra year of research for the Honours degrees (now classified as a postgraduate degree). At many English institutions, however, Honours is just a distinction for high-performing Bachelor's degrees. Worse, both awarding systems are found in the US. The systems for postgraduate diplomas are even more jumbled, ranging anywhere from three-month short courses to two years of full time studies even within one university. Second, the degrees are accredited by the institutions, not the government. There are huge benefits of this, but it also has the downside of the degree heavily depending on the reputation of the accrediting institution. And overseas degrees are much harder to verify/appraise than domestic ones. Third, this is not a problem limited to college/university degrees. Many companies will not recognise overseas work experience for various reasons as well. > I keep reading stories about immigrants having advanced education in their home countries but coming to the states and having to work in the trades. This is a completely different problem. It is caused more by other factors such as language and cultural barriers, different skill set required, lack of connections, not understanding the country's system, needing to find a work quickly due to their immigrant status, immigrants opting for changes in profession, etc."
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6a1yvz | California Proposition 65 Warnings | I don't get the warnings you find on some labels that say something like "this product has chemicals known to the state of California to cause cancer, birth defects, etc.." So is it harmful for us or not? If it gave cancer to some guy in Cali, it sure as hell is going to affect me too so why is Cali so exclusive? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"> So is it harmful for us or not? Depends. California's standard for what needs that warning is incredibly broad. Like, ridiculously broad. To the point where it's on things that you'd probably have to drink a gallon of every day for the rest of your life to noticeably increase your risk of cancer. So the same warning goes on both the \"this will definitely give you fuckin' super-cancer\" chemicals and the \"maybe this could possibly increase your risk 0.01%\" chemicals. Which makes it pointless.",
"> So is it harmful for us or not? Probably not. The language is to cover liability for small, usually insignificant amounts of chemicals that are in certain ingredients. For example, alcohol causes birth defects. So everything containing alcohol has to have the warning. The warning are everywhere, that it's really not an effective law, unless you are an attorney, then it is an excuse to use it in your case to attempt to make money."
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6a3wvf | What role do former Presidents/Prime Ministers play in society? | This goes for any applicable countries not just the US and Europe. | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"In Australia they sit at the back of the chamber leaking party secrets to the press and generally undermining the elected PM. They become a rallying point for those of the same party who don't think the new PM can win. There is no formal role for an ex-PM in Australia. They spend their time writing their memoirs and plotting to become secretary-general of the UN. Fun times in Australian politics.",
"Actually it's different in every country. In Italy, for instance, the president of the republic is an institutional figure, and when the mandate ends, becomes a member of the senate for life. For prime ministers is different, they can always recandidate themself for the next election.",
"In the UK, many former Prime Ministers were appointed to the House of Lords after leaving office/the House of Commons. This is the second chamber of Parliament made up of unelected members such as former politicians and people who've made a major contribution to their field which is supposed to act as a check on bills passed by the elected Commons. They review and amend laws, but can't block them indefinitely. The role of former Prime Ministers is the same as any other member in this context - to add expertise to the chamber (but also to help out the political party which they represent). It also acts as an honour of sorts. Currently though, no living former British PM is a member of the Lords. John Major has a knighthood, but no such honour has been bestowed (yet) on Tony Blair, Gordon Brown or David Cameron. They do often take on other roles (Blair was, ironically, UN Middle East envoy) and often pop up during election campaigns to help out their party (or in Blair's case to criticise the leadership) or to have their say on the issues of the day.",
"In the US the presidency is almost always the end of a career in government. One president did serve on the Supreme Court after leaving the White House. Now retired US presidents get a comfortable pension and usually spend the early years of their retirement organizing their presidential library. Most find some kind of community service to get involved with. All of them make extra cash delivering speeches to private groups who are eager to pay for the prestige of having a former president at their event."
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6a4ct1 | What caused the hyperinflation in post-WW1 Germany, and how did they recover from it? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"A lot of factors contributed, but mainly it was how Germany tried to pay for WW1. Believing that they would win the war, Germany simply borrowed money to pay for it, having taken the reichsmark off the \"gold standard\" -- the gold standard was a way of valuing currencies with reference to the value of gold. This caused the mark to devalue quite a bit, but it was still manageable. Unfortunately for Germany, they lost the war and were forced to pay massive reparations. This wouldn't in itself have been a huge problem, because most of the fighting had been in other countries, and Germany's factories were still operational. But ~~Britain~~ the Allies demanded massive repayments very quickly -- not only that, but they demanded the payments be made either in gold or in a foreign currency. This meant that Germany had to buy gold and foreign currencies with a mark that was going down in value, so they resorted to simply printing more marks. This made the inflation worse, meaning the mark become worth even less; so they had to print even more money, and so they created a vicious circle: the more they printed, the more they had to print. Eventually, the mark became worth so little that Germany literally couldn't afford to buy any more gold. France and Belgium sent troops to the coalfields in the Ruhr area to force Germany to pay in coal and other material goods. This prompted a general strike by workers, and the German government printed even more money to support them by way of protesting against this \"invasion\". By November 1923, one US dollar cost over four *trillion* marks. Stopping the hyperinflation was also very complicated, but the most important thing was to first stabilize the currency. A new currency, the \"rentenmark\", was created, and its value was linked to the actual value of real estate. The price of something in rentenmarks was calculated by taking the value in reichsmark by dividing by a trillion, and people used this new rentenmark for a few months until the reichsmark could be brought under control. Eventually, the reichsmark was devalued -- one new reichsmark was worth one rentenmark, one trillionth of an old reichsmark -- and this new reichsmark was reintroduced. There was still a lot of work to be done, especially since a lot of debts had to be paid, and in the process many companies went bust -- it was a painful process. But at least now the currency was stable again. EDIT: Factual corrections.",
"After the first world war Germany had to pay reperations to the other nations. To cover these the national Bank simply printed more money without any coverage. This led to the hyperinflation. Recovery came with a new currency and a loan from the united Nations. With this money massive rebuilding and building projects were launched to help a recovery.",
"Thank you all for your answers! Very helpful.",
"They had a massive debt to pay back after losing WW1 because of two things. One, they borrowed all they needed for the war and two, they had to pay reparations to the winners. (They were actually planning on winning the war, so their initial approach wasn't so silly). So, massive debt. The infrastructure was sort of ok, so they could have got back on their feet pretty quickly. However, the key here is that reparations were meant to be paid in gold (or in foreign currency) and they were unprecedented extremely high. The mark was devaluating (to be expected, since they had just lost the war). So, the government started printing more bills to buy foreign currency at *any* price. The more bills you print, the less worth your currency is, and so on, and so on. Creditors realised that this was going on, so they demanded the reparations in goods, which didn't help Germany at all with their internal economy. Inflation went on, people stopped saving, because money was constantly losing value at a rapid rate. Germany stopped being able to buy stable foreign currency to protect itself from inflation. They just couldn't afford it anymore. Then, economists introduced a new currency associated to the countries own goods and economy subject to strict control to stablise the market, which they managed at some point. When this was achieved, it replaced the country's currency, cutting like 12 zeros from the old worthless prices. The quality of life of the middle class deteriorated a lot during this short period allowing the rise of nazism."
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6a4tto | Why do artists wear an earpiece when performing a concert? | What comes through the earpiece and what purpose does it serve? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"These are in ear monitors. If they do not have them they usually have speakers on stage directed at them. The problem with performing a music piece is that you do not hear how the music sounds when you are in the middle of it. The normal speakers are pointed towards the public and sound moves quite slow though the air. So you might perform a guitar solo on one side of the stage and hit every beat as you hear the bass guitar on the other side of the stage and it sounds perfect to you. However to the public it sounds like you are too slow and quiet because the sounds takes some time to go from the bass guitar across the stage to you. So to make sure you hear the beat and the music as the public hear it you need to monitor the sound coming though the sound system. Before sound systems small bands used to stand much closer together on the stage and look at each other rather then out to the public. Bigger orchestra would have a director in front or even among the public who could direct them using movement.",
"It's a monitor. They hear themselves through it. It's easier to sing in key if you can hear your own voice above all the other noise on stage and in the crowd.",
"Other replies are spot on. A little addition... Many times an unheard backing track is running that will give certain parts a 1..2..3..4.. count in to start playing. Often the drummer will hear a 'click track' to make sure they keep the correct tempo. All of this is essential when a band is performing to a background video in order to keep the two in sync."
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6a6w7h | What is/are "alternative news/facts" and why have i just started hearing the phrases in the last year or so? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"A Trump press representative, I thought it was Conway, complained that the press were focused on the facts that portrayed President Trump in a negative light. They said that \"alternative facts\" would show him in a better light, and argued for a more balanced treatment. I think they meant \"don't focus on how the Russians are working with Flint unless you also mention that the Russians aren't working with Pence\". It was an odd turn of phrase, but not actually wrong. Then the next day Sean Spicer was called called out for a false statement, and said he was promoting some \"alternative facts\" that the press wasn't covering. But, since the \"alternative fact\" in question turned out to be false, it's become a meme for \"lie\". I don't think that was the plan. Spicer was supposed to use the line on a fact that the press was ignoring, but he messed up.",
"Trumps inauguration didn't have a great attendance in comparison to Obama's (one of the busiest ever), Sean Spicer then went out to say Trumps inauguration had the biggest crowd of all time. When media pointed out this was obviously false (aided by the now famous picture of the lacking crowd) and asked why Spicer had lied, Conway said that Spicer had not lied but \"Supplied alternative facts\" Since the sentence is just all kinds of preposterous, the internet, media, and social networking communities ran with it.",
"In a press Conference the U.S. Press Secretary Sean Spicer said something that wasn't true. When he was later ridiculed because of it by reporters, he said he wasn't lying, he was giving out \"Alternative Facts\" That's where it started and is why you have only heard it recently."
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6a6wxp | Why does the US not have a standardized id for all citizens on nationwide level? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Many in the US (on both sides of the aisle) are opposed to a national ID for a myriad of reasons including privacy concerns and feature creep. Social Security cards were originally intended to only distribute SS benefits. However, over time this card has become essential to most functions of identity, opening bank accounts, employment verifications, etc. A national ID card system would require creation of a database of all Americans. A major fear is that this database would include private information or be used to harass or violate rights of americans. Many Republicans would object to a national firearms database. What happens when an ID card is stolen? What proof is used to decide who gets a card? A national ID would require a governmental database of every person in the U.S. containing continually updated identifying information. It would likely contain many errors, any one of which could render someone unemployable and possibly much worse until they get their \"\"file\"\" straightened out. Law enforcement and other government agencies would soon ask to link into it, while employers, landlords, credit agencies, mortgage brokers, direct mailers, landlords, private investigators, civil litigants, and a long list of other parties would begin seeking access, further eroding the privacy that Americans have always expected in their personal lives. Democrats (outside of voting reasons) believe a national identity card would foster new forms of discrimination and harassment of anyone perceived as looking or sounding \"foreign.\" That is what happened after Congress passed the Employer Sanctions provision of the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1985: widespread discrimination against foreign-looking American workers, especially Asians and Hispanics. A national ID card would have the same effect on a massive scale, as Latinos, Asians, Caribbeans and other minorities became subject to ceaseless status and identity checks from police, banks, merchants and others. Failure to carry a national I.D. card would likely come to be viewed as a reason for search, detention or arrest of minorities. The stigma and humiliation of constantly having to prove that they are Americans or legal immigrants would weigh heavily on such groups.",
"Short answer: We do. Most states have adopted new IDs that prescribe to the national ID act congress passed a few years ago. There's about 4 states who have not. Long answer: The constitution doesn't really give the federal government that power -- It belongs to the states.",
"Because of the 10th Amendment of the US Constitution. \"The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.\" The US Constitution never had anything in there about a national ID and the US Supreme Court has never ruled that something else in the Constitution covers national ID so the power to issue IDs resides with the states. Since the Full Faith and Credit clause of the Constitution means a legal document/record/etc from one state counts in another other state or territory, there was no reason to have a national driver's license in the US \"Full Faith and Credit shall be given in each State to the public Acts, Records, and judicial Proceedings of every other State. And the Congress may by general Laws prescribe the Manner in which such Acts, Records and Proceedings shall be proved, and the Effect thereof.\"",
"It's because of the structure of the United States. The vast majority of governance occurs on the state level - it's pretty much advertised in the name of the country. The federal government exists in theory to stop states from going *completely* insane, but the degree of leeway is huge. A good analogy would be that Sweden and Greece are both in the EU, but nobody would mistake the governance of one for the other. Although US states have less autonomy than EU members, they have far more autonomy than the sub-units of typical countries. As a result, some states go out of their way to encourage voting; others go out of their way to discourage it; and some are in between.",
"Fees for ID are an important source of government revenue. Doing all this work, and there is significant work in validating identity, and not getting money for it would require that there be a larger tax on something else to pay for it. In CA, the state spends $266M/year in salaries for the drivers license/ID department of the DMV."
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6a7r3a | How can people passionately hate entire races? | I find it so puzzling, and the answer has to be much more complex than simply ignorance, right? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Humans at their deepest psychological roots are tribal animals. For hundreds of thousands of years we have been evolving within some of the harshest environments and competing for resources against (you guessed it) other tribes. Now going past a simple and often misguided sense of race as something strictly biological; there is more symbolism and culture to it then meets the eye. ANY group that differs from another group (be it skin color, clothes, background, culture, religion) will automatically and subconsciously create an in-group/out-group situation. \"They aren't like us at all, so they must be a threat to us and our resources\" - That's what your subconscious, namely your amygdala is screaming to your prefrontal cortex. This is why even sports teams and military branches get so competitive and antagonistic towards each other (pseudo-tribalism). So how does \"racism\" happen: through nature and nurture. There is already a latent psychological predisposition towards hating strangers and others, now, get born into a family, society, religion or culture where \"authorities\" practice prejudice and discrimination = full blown hatred of other races. Trump and his advisors and strategists played on this to get elected (and it worked). And naturally if you feel unworthy or insecure you will scapegoat and hate almost anybody with different markings.",
"The 10'000 metres is simply mind numbingly dull, its not ignorance, its just bloody boring.",
"Most of the people down here in the south, who are racist, are racist because that is how they were raised. Despite desegregation, much of south is still very segregated (and it may be that way in other parts, I'm not sure). I grew up in a town less than 10 minutes away from a predominately African American town and yet I never grew up or went to school with one African American kid K-12. In fact, the school I attended, and now work at, has only had 7 African Americans graduate since the early 20th century, and 2 of them are graduating this year. It's easier to be racist when you're taught to be and then never actually meet anyone from another race, I guess.",
"It boils down to ignorance, but a lot of people are taught that there's something wrong with other races. They're told that black people are violent, angry, and lazy. They're told that Mexicans are violent, lazy, and also somehow taking all the jobs. They're told that people who follow other religions are wrong, hateful, and violent. I grew up around a bunch of racists, and none of their opinions had anything to do with experiences with those races. I could probably be accused of having micro-aggression towards other races even though I thought I was just being inquisitive. After moving to Atlanta and going to an almost all black college, I learned quite a bit and am now what the Alt-Reich calls a globalist beta-male cuck scum because I don't think my blood is superior.",
"First it's important to know that racism is a learned trait. Second, it is in a lot of powerful people's best interest to have strife among their populations. One of the easiest ways to cause strife is by pitting different groups against each other. Easiest way to do that, his to focus on how we're perceived on the outside rather than inside. If someone LOOKS different from you, they ARE different from you! Due to this, we pass down our views and prejudices from generation to generation. If you're a small child who grows up in a home that has parents constantly saying things like \"Blacks are lazy\", what are you most likely to believe until you learn otherwise?",
"When you are taught by your parents that people are inferior, evil, etc, you take that as knowledge. you carry this with you your whole life. You're told, people are lazy, people are uneducated, people are criminals. This then gets confirmed at school, with teachers, and most often with isolation from people who are different. You grow accustom to culture and life and assume, \"this is the right way to live.\" Anecdotally, I grew up in Michigan where everyone says pop instead of soda. When I moved to another state, people were adamant that it's not pop, it's soda. very vehemently. People don't like difference. You just default to \"my way is the right way\" Then you have media constantly confirming these thoughts through showing arrests, having certain descriptions like thugs. When people don't see how crack cocaine was very harshly criminalized, but regular powder cocaine wasn't to the same extent. White people more often used powder, black people regularly used crack. The arrests happen, shows like cops reinforces all of this. also, Cultural values are different. I went to college in school in an urban area and people said \"I wasn't racist until I lived in this urban area. The black people serving food are slow and always socializing instead of working, etc. etc.\" Except what I saw was that black people were socializing at work with customers, having fun. enjoying their day. So white people assign value to this type of work as \"impolite, lazy, or whatever\" when it's just a different type of customer experience. At the parks and beaches near town, you could see how different people were. white people were in very distinct family units. with the groups of black families, the lines were blurred and little kids played with each other across the beach. To white people, it's disrespectful of space and the children aren't well behaved... but its a community of families and everyone is social with everyone. So white people often see different cultural values as inherently negative, because they aren't the values they teach their kids and expect from people. White people will go into a space like a public beach and feel that their world view should be enforced in this space. Because white people so often exist in spaces that were built for/by white people and its what they have grown to expect as normal. They just don't understand how this public space doesn't support their values, and it gets put onto all black people as a negative quality. This isn't to say that this is what all white families or all black families are like, these are entirely anecdotal. tl;dr People grow up with certain value placed on certain qualities and certain beliefs on inferiority, they rarely interact with people of a different race, but when they do, the difference in social interaction and cultural values just confirms the negative things they learned from their parents.",
"Probably from bad experiences unfortunately. Instead of blaming the situation or admitting guilt they look at how that person is different from themselves, which gives them comfort that it's not possible they are doing something immoral and that they are the right kind of person. Either that or your upbringing."
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6a80k6 | Why do the Oscars tend to favour more critically successful 'artistic' movies, whilst the Grammy's favour more commercially successful 'mainstream' music? | They are both the biggest award ceremonies of their respective mediums- if they were reversed then The Avengers would have cleaned out the oscars, and a relatively unknown band would have done the same at the Grammy's. Wondering why this is. | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"I can only try and explain from the Grammy point of view as a voting member there. Basically voting for the Grammys becomes more of a political manner in the industry than simply voting for the \"best\" record in each category. The way the voting process works for the Grammys is that there are these sub-committees for each and every category. I have no idea how someone gets onto one of these sub-committees but the people on them don't seem to change much. Every year these committees convene and decide which albums out of the hundreds in each category get nominated. Then around fall of each year the rest of the voting members get sent a packet and we're allowed to cast our vote for the nominees in 5 (I think?) categories - to seemingly keep everyone from voting on every category that they couldn't have an opinion in. (Like I probably shouldn't vote for best \"world music\" album since I have no idea who any of the artists are there) As a side note everyone gets a free vote for some popular categories like artist of the year, album of the year, etc. Because of these subcommittees whittling down the voting pool, by the time the vast majority of the academy gets to vote on the winners - the most \"popular\" artists seem to be the only choices. I think it's due to the fact that the sub-committees don't change very often and so the members on them try and pick the nominees not based on what's best but who they know who worked on the albums. It's definitely an odd way to vote and I'm not sure if the oscars are any different.",
"One reason is that there are far fewer movies made than albums. There are around 100,000 albums released per year, while Hollywood makes something on the order of 700 movies per year. (Given, there are more movies than just Hollywood, but that's the bulk, at least of what would be considered for Oscar nomination.) It's reasonably easy to narrow down 700 to the few that are truly excellent, especially when you're ignoring stuff that was never intended to be excellent in the way that an Oscar category is looking for. It's even vaguely possible, if unlikely, to watch every single one of those movies. And it's reasonably easy to come to a consensus about those movies. If you have 100,000 albums, that's way more music than can be listened to over the course of a year. (Assuming an average of 45 minutes per album, that would be over eight years of constant music.) At that level, you have to find things that are already being promoted external to the voting system to come to any sort of consensus. This is not intended to contradict /u/Carbonm8's answer. It's just another aspect.",
"Oscars take themselves more seriously. Grammys exist to make money off of the TV viewership. Oscars actually matter to the people receiving and the \"academy\" of people voting. Most musical artists truly don't give a shit about the Grammys, Hell, Views by drake was nominated and it is said to be he worst drake album in history. But drake brings viewers to the Grammys and gives them that sweet commercial money. \"Moonlight\" didn't get a lot of people in theatres but movie people care about the quality because making a movie is a lot more of a struggle than singing what your writers wrote down.",
"My take is that Oscars have a lot more prestige as an award whereas most musical artists have more prestige than the Grammies themselves. As such the Oscars will get ratings regardless of who wins, but the Grammies rely on the popularity of the awardees to get ratings. Like, an Oscar winning director has pretty much automatically 'made it' and is going to have a certain level of respect for the rest of their career. Christopher Cross won five grammies for his debut album, and is now so obscure his new albums don't even get their own wikipedia page. Can you imagine a director getting five oscars for their debut movie ever releasing anything that didn't have a wikipedia page? As a sidenote Cross also won one Oscar for writing the theme song to Arthur, and most people probably know the tune (or at the very least are aware of the movie).",
"This is my contrarian view: very often they do not favor artistic movies. This year's win is a pretty big deviation from the norm. Traditionally, bigger budget films with mass appeal are the ones to be nominated and to win. Going farther back, think of \"It Happened One Night.\" From the 1990s: Forrest Gump, Braveheart, Titanic, Shakespeare in Love, Gladiator. Starting in the 2000s, the Academy broadened its voting membership to include a lot of people less directly tied to the major studios, and so now the films are more diverse. Typically there is a 50/50 mix of more independent fare and well-received mainstream film. Even films like Argo and 12 Years a Slave had decent budgets. I'm not saying these are bad films -- not at all. But they wouldn't be considered particularly outside of the mainstream by serious film buffs.",
"I think part of it is that, in terms of the public, there are more clear and widely accepted intuitions about what constitutes a good artistic standard in movies than in music. There are plenty of people who will say that Twenty-One Pilots or Ed Sheeran are the best, but very few people who will say that Adam Sandler is the best. They'll say they like him, but they don't claim he's the best, and that's because a certain set of aesthetic criteria is more universally shared in cinema.",
"I think that's an unusual misconception that the Oscars favour critically successful, artistic films. Every year the finest, most progressive and inventive films get ignored by the Oscars. The films that tend to get Oscar nominations are very conventional in their artistry and in their content. They aren't blockbusters but they're the big-name dramas that have a broad appeal. Of course there are exceptions, nearly every year there's a token small or niche film but they rarely take home the big prizes. I would say the Grammy's and the Oscars are on equal ground in terms of mass appeal.",
"I have this art conversation with friends all the time. People seem to be able to appreciate contemporary visual art (film too), more than contemporary music. Jackson Pollock rarely offends but its musical counterparts (whatever that means), still does. People are always more turned off by music that doesn't fit their preconceived notions than film or visual art that does.",
"My theory? The music industry is worth less than half the movie industry in total revenue worldwide despite the amount of content each produces and the number of people producing it. Therefore the music industry promotes and celebrates the cash cows while the movie industry can afford to recognize true artistic merit. Yeah I'm jealous, movie folks.",
"Years ago, my company moved to a new location, and I was tasked to order a snack and beverage machine. Due diligence, I sent out a companywide survey, asking what they wanted for sale in this machine. THe overwhelming answer included juices, healthy snacks, low fat/carbs, etc. I dutifully and proudly prepared a list of all the healthy items our smart employees had requested and presented it to the guy installing the machine. He smiled, gently. \"They're all like this, every poll I've ever seen, but the truth is they say they want the healthy items, but everyone's really buying the Coke and Cheetos...\" As the *vox populi* had spoken, I resolved to put this to empirical test, although the vendor's words had a definite ring of truth. A month later, the healthy snacks and beverages so popular in the survey were unsold, while the sodas and fatty snacks were all gone. The point, I guess: people say they \"love\" opera, when they just really love \"Con Te Partiro\" sung by Andrea Bocelli, or maybe Pavarotti's last *insane* performance of Nessum Dorma.",
"I worked in the music industry for awhile and learned quickly that things are entirely controlled by the labels. Awards shows and awards themselves are promotional tools. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and the Country Music Awards are good examples - even the Dove Awards for Christian music. I also spent time in commercial radio. Awards are heavily tied into sales and airplay. And the radio charts are dictated by the labels. In other words, they tell reporting stations what to play and how much to play it. It's a bummer when the curtain is pulled back.",
"Because the Grammy's are like a two hour long commercial and the Oscars are a group of actors getting together voting on their favorite movies. Mainstream movies usually have big budgets and lots of visual effects and a lot of actors (the people voting at the Oscars) don't really give credit to visuals, especially not when compared to other non-CGI, real actors.",
"I would caution against just attributing the oscars with artistic integrity. It's also a political game.",
"Here are the winners of Best Picture and Best Album since 2000 and their year end rankings in Box Office and Sales. 2016: Moonlight 92, Adele 1 2015: Spotlight 62, Taylor Swift 1 2014: Birdman 78, Beck Monring Phase 60 2013: 12 Years A Slave 62, Daft Punk 16 2012: Argo 22, Mumford And Sons 15 2011: The Artist 71, Adele 1 2010: The King's Speech 18, Arcade Fire 80 2009: The Hurt Locker 116, Taylor Swift 1 2008: Slumdog Millionaire 16, Robert Plant 39 2007: No Country For Old Men 36, Herbie Hancock (so low I couldn't find anything for it) 2006: The Departed 15, Dixie Chicks 9 2005: Crash 49, U2 4 2004: Million Dollar Baby 24, Ray Charles 23 2003: Lord of the Rings: Return of the King 1, Outkast 5 2002: Chicago 10, Norah Jones 2 2001: A Beautiful Mind 11, O Brother Where Art Thou (couldn't find so low) 2000: Gladiator 4, Steely Dan (couldn't find so low)",
"The reason is Daft Punk's album of the year Random Access Memories is the collective artistic creation of two French musical geniuses, whereas the Avengers is a carefully engineered money making machine perfected by everyone from producers, to accountants to marketing teams and focus groups. It's art only on the surface, but everything is strictly about the money. The academy tries to award artistic merit because they like to think that's still whats at the heart and soul of why people like directors truly make movies. However just as political as that Taylor Swift win instead of Kendrick Lamar's album, so is the movie industry rewards ceremonies, which is how you get The King's Speech and Christopher Nolan doesn't even get a best director nomination, or how you got Scorsese not winning a best picture for decades until The Departed. Often the academy is also just as clueless for this reason as the Grammys. Leo goes without his Oscar for years, and Jethro Tull wins a Grammy for best metal performance the first year the award is given out, despite Metallica being on the list of nominees for the same award. My point is, award shows don't make sense to you and I, because they don't award who me and you think should win, these are institutions who give out awards for what *they* think should win. It's sorta like the movie Semi-Pro where Will Ferrell *invents* a \"championship\" game for his team to play in in order to generate interest. That's what the Grammys and Oscars have done, only they've been around for long enough now that everyone just thinks they matter the most. They don't. Award shows are stupid.",
"IIRC, the Grammys spent a lot of the 90s being derided as irrelevant because too many Boomers and Greatest Generation voters were voting for a lot of catalog artists and sentimental favorites. They were also slow to recognize categories like metal, rap/hip-hop and dance music. Jethro Tull winning Best Hard Rock Performance in 1989 and Donna Summer winning Best Dance Performance in 1998 stick out as serious errors in judgement in new categories. Since then, they've tried to make the awards more relevent, ratings-wise. It means that it resembles I Heart Radio or Billboard far too much, but at least the kids will watch the show.",
"I think the shear amount of content has to do with it. The aren't that many movies made per year compared to music, and on top of that a film buff is probably very familiar with most of the movies you see at the Oscar's (whereas I'm not). There are relatively few Avengers \"type\" movies out there per year so it's easy to not consider them. Keep in mind big blockbusters are still nominated for awards, but usually in visual and sound areas vs the main awards. With music, you're looking at a medium that produces an untold amount of content per year. There could be 20,000 songs produced a year by reasonable known artists so how do you choose? They have to break it down to more successful tracks by genre, and the breadth of Avengers type tracks is *FAR* larger than with movies so there's a greater likelihood of them being nominated. Also ratings. No one will watch the Grammy's if obscure bands that no one knows are getting nominated. I would say the difference with the Oscar's is that most people don't know of that many movies compared to how much music they listen to. Most of the nominated movies will seem somewhat obscure to the average viewer.",
"Easy answer here: One is deciding by a group of distinguished professionals of the industry who know what they're doing after years and years of studying the art... while the other is decided a bunch of arbitrary groups who choose from what made it past the 8 seconds attention span of the mainstream culture. You can assume which one is which.",
"The Oscars actually do favour larger films that had a major marketing campaign. Moonlight would be the counterexample to that.",
"Basically the people who decide which albums get voted on in the Grammys have a huge conflict of interest and are very amenable to do what big record companies want.",
"Here's my hot take. The main difference is that in our culture/society/whatever there is general agreement on what a movie should try to do. Movie's should tell a story. Sure that involves a lot of dofferent things and van be approached in many ways but when we see a movie we expect it to tell a story with a beginning and an end. We don't expect a series of jokes like a standup routine or some lightshow or fireworks display. So when the oscars come around and they say X was the best movie of the year people can compare it to how they think a story should be told and they can agree or come up with some reasonable list of reasons why it deviated from the ideal and people kind of understand each other because there is a vague set of rules. Compare that to music, where some people certainly approach it as telling a story, but most don't. There is no majority opinion on what makes good music. Some people try to capture a moment or a feeling, bring back a memory or just make a catchy melody. The list could go on and on but the point is everybody is playing by a different set of rules. So when the grammys say X was album of the year a lot of people are completely baffled, any critique can be countered by saying that that isnt what the artist was going for, you just don't get it. There is no cultural standard for what music shpyld aim to be. So it falls to the lowest common denominator which is record sales",
"There seems to be way more subjectivity when it comes to music. Some people cannot stand certain types of music, but in general it is fairly obvious to a casual viewer which movies are well done.",
"Considering music: If you are looking for music that has more 'artistic' qualities, may I suggest looking at the Polaris Prize and Mercury Prize. Canadian and British, awards and nominees, given out to albums with relatively low regard to sales and popularity. Of course there will be some sort of bias, however, they tend to have a strong influence on pure artistic merit. Not sure if there is a US equivalent. If anyone has input?",
"The Oscars ~~only~~ *edit*are more likely* to nominate movies that are released during [Oscar Season]( URL_1 ) *because it is fresh in the voters minds. Oscar Season \"is the time period in which Hollywood studios release their more critically acclaimed films, hoping to win at the Academy Awards.\" IIRC, big blockblusters used to win more Oscars in past decades. [Gladiator from 2001 ]( URL_0 won oscars and was released in the month of May that year. Some may blame blockbuster sequels and lack of creativity on Hollywood's end, but I think it has to do more with the strict Oscar Season timeline and how big studios can use social issues to get awards for their productions. \"The Grammys' eligibility period – which runs from October 1 to September 30 each year\"[source]( URL_2 ) is almost an entire year, so artist and studios don't need to consider \"Grammy season\" because it doesn't exist. All the artist seem miserable attending the Grammy's BTW. Musicians don't want to be there, Actors want to go to the Oscars.",
"THe Oscars are entirely political and have no basis in reality. Proof: I work in the entertainment industry",
"They don't, no matter how good a minor no-name film is, it's not being nominated for an Oscar. The lowest budget film of all time to win an Oscar is $1.5 million. And if that isn't much, then I'll be taking a cheque for $1.5 mil thanks, you can do a lot for that money in a lifetime, let alone for solely on things for less than 2 hours of footage.",
"Part of it probably has to do with the fact that very people actually listen to music. Music is an accessory or a background to something else. People will sit still and watch a movie without doing anything else, but very few people will still and listen to an album all the way through. People don't want to be challenged by something that isn't getting their undivided attention.",
"A lot of good answers, but I have one more reason. A lot of arts have 3 groups, the Popular, the Academic, and the Independent/Fringe groups. Different arts have differing levels of overlap, and differing levels of active involvement in the creative process by academia. Movies have an integration of all three of these art forms. the Academic establishment is actively involved with making independent films, and popular directors often are taught by influential academics in the craft of film. So independent films can wield great academic clout even if not popular. In Music this isn't true, the hollowing out of (Western) Art Music and it's increasing inaccessibility to untrained ears in the 20th century (Compare Rossini to Wagner to Stravinsky to Glass.) has meant that the number of popular musicians actively incorporating academic techniques and compositions has decreased. It's hard to get tone rows radio time. Instead we have musicians using (Equally valid and equally artistically worthy) individualistic techniques, often developed from folk music methods. And we have large labels churning out accessible songs based on basic common practice period methods. And university composers working on post-minimalist 96-tone compositions in a modified Werckmeister III temperament. (I am being a bit unfair to the academics here.) So we get this separation between Popular music and Art music, both ignore the other, and independent popular artists don't have a formal academic base needed to overcome the major labels with critical acclaim. This is not to say many popular musicians don't use art music techniques (a surprising number of popular singers can hold forth on the seven types of baroque trill.), or that Art Music composers don't use popular techniques or seek to engage the general public (Video game composers are doing great work here.) But it is the general theme.",
"I don't know what you're talking about. The Oscar movies have usually been mainstream junk for a long time. I think the Academy Awards do a much better job with movies.",
"Oscars pander to just as broad an audience as the Grammys. There are hundreds of amazing movies out there that will never make it to the mainstream. The only serious category seems to be the Foreign Language Film, but that's a very political category and does not represent anywhere near a full scope of international cinema (you won't find Phoenix, Lilya 4-ever, or Pretty Village Pretty Flame there, for example). It's slightly more high brow than the Grammys, but only because popular music is so trashy that the bar is incredibly low.",
"It's about controlling the masses. Stupid people (the masses) can't be controlled as affectively with long movies vs short songs. So we get to keep the art of film in the open, whereas you have to search for the true art in music now. It's advantageous to award music thats mainstream in order to keep it mainstream, therefore we can be brainwashed to be complete idiots. For example, hip hop used to be about breaking the cycle and getting out of the struggle. Now it's about taking drugs and robbing and killing people.",
"Actually that's not true the oscars do not reward talent it is all rigged. [Adam ruins the Oscars] ( URL_0 )",
"Well Beck won best album, which he probably deserved, but because nobody watching knew who Beck was, everyone flipped out. So it could have to do with popularity.",
"Lmao @ there are people out there who think the films that win Oscars are 'artistic' Oscar winning movies are very mainstream, very middle-ground and very baity. Many of the great movies never even get nominated.",
"Because there is nothing like the Oscars for music. Grammys are aligned with the Oscars in style but that's it, the rest is the same advertising goals, demographic target, taste and prestige of the MTV movie awards. And this is definitely not about volume of work. Even a single guy with a blog can give a Record of the year prize with more artistic credibility than the Grammys."
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6a82tu | How did armies decide where to fight other armies? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"This **really** depends on the period and area we are talking about. The ancient Greeks for example didn't went often on sieges because their warfare was based on the hoplite phalanx; very heavy spear infantry that require plains to form a typical one-line formation on the center and light infantry, missile infantry, and cavalry on the flanks or/and behind. Back then (ca. 800BCE) things were rather simple: the armies would approach towards each other, while light cav usually would scout the front, and when both sides would reach a considerably short distance, they would always choose the highest ground and secure their flanks with natural obstacles, then send the light cavalry usually to shower some javelins and disturbe formations. As time (and technology) progressed, tactics start to get møre advanced. The defender always wants a walled settlement with resources, and the besieger wants to pillage as much as possible outside the walls, sabotage, abd wait until these resources finish and force consequently the defender to sail out. The \"game\" is that the defender has the advantage of choosing their ground in the sense that the defender is not the one attacking, therefore they can choose not to move. Therefore the attacker has to do the first move, meaning go to the defender's favourable position. As said before, the attacker wants to make the defending side to move, by usually burning, raiding, destroying, etc. facilities and resources around the the defender. There are of course countless exceptions to that. Each army, in time had different military units that played big role to this. Mounted archers for example were devastating for western armies, that went to battle in a more simple way of making formations. Some of these unique units, like balistas, full plate armour infantry and cavalry, gunpowder, muskets/rifles, changed the way of how the game would start, so it really depends what army and what era you have in mind.",
"Pitched battles were not as common as Hollywood would have us believe. In order for them to happen both sides would have to meet while on the march and decide that they had a better chance at winning then the other side. Sometimes the armies would form up for battle and wait for their commanders to decide what to do only to instead go take that high ground over there. And the other side wouldnt want to attack an entrenched enemy on high ground so theyd wait it out and try to force them to move somehow. Battles were much more commonly held at cities and strongholds."
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6a917q | How does Family feud choose its 100 People for the answers and contestens in general. | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"I believe they go out to shopping malls or other public places and stop people to see if they'll answer some questions.",
"On the British version of the show I believe it's usually audience members that are surveyed"
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6a92ad | What's up with the James Comey debacle? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"The memo that the deputy attorney general released stated that the reason for Trump's dismissal of Comey was that he should not have had that press conference last July where he talked about Clinton's emails. This is alarming to Democrats because this is clearly a cover up because Trump himself praised Comey for his actions shortly after. They say that the real reason Trump fired Comey was because of the Russia investigation. Trump has every right as president to fire and to hire a new FBI director, which is worrisome to Democrats because Trump is most likely going to appoint someone who is going to muck up the investigation on purpose to clear Trump of any wrongdoing. The appointee does need to be approved by Congress, however."
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6a95xy | Why does the USA seem so obsessed with race more then other countries? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Because of (1) yes slavery and (2) the USA has a more mixed population, with more immigrants from more countries and backgrounds, than nearly any other country.",
"Because, back in the 1600's, when North America began to have a large population of indentured servants (white) and slaves (black) these people noticed that neither group was being treated very well. They banded together in what's been Bacon's Rebellion (after their leader Nathaniel Bacon) If Nathaniel had not died of an intestinal disorder, they might have captured much of the eastern seaboard. After the rebellion was put down, the rich landholders had a meeting, and decided to set the indentured servants against the slaves. Over time, they made the lives of slaves harder, and made laws that prevented Blacks from rising in society. They also made an effort to elevate the White servants, by reminding them constantly that they were \"better\" than the Blacks, their former allies. So, now the lower classes of Whites put all their effort into putting down people of African heritage, rather than try to elevate themselves. (Look at statistics. The most racist states are also the poorest.) If you want to learn more, read the book White Cargo. Bacon's rebellion is near the end. It will turn your world around.",
"It's not as bad as you might think. The media is horrible and makes more of than what is really going on.",
"There are many reasons for this listed already, but allow me to add my two cents in. There are people who benefit from having high tensions between people of various races and groups. The media is one of them. They get viewers by covering every single potentially racially charged situation. A black man is shot by the police? Wall to wall coverage. Some blind girl accidentally leaves dog poop on the steps of a Black Cultural center in a college? Instant scandal and around the clock coverage. More people watching means more ad revenue for networks, and sensational race-related stories get people to tune in. Then there are individual activists who thrive on racial animosity. The likes of Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson have made themselves filthy rich by hyping up every real and perceived injustice faced by blacks in America. If blacks no longer saw themselves as victims of white oppression, they would have to actually get real jobs and earn their money. And then there are Democrat politicians who continue to enjoy 90% of the black vote and a majority of the Hispanic (and other minorities) vote. They have convinced blacks and other minorities that white people are all racist and that the only ones who are going to protect them from being put back in chains are the Democrats. \"Vote for us because we'll protect you from the racist Republicans\" is their mantra. Former VP Joe Biden even told a group of black voters, \"Republicans will put y'all back in chains.\" If a magic wand was waved and racial tensions went away in America tomorrow, there would be a significant portion of people in positions of power who would find themselves without a job or at least have a harder time making money. When people gain from promoting unrest between racial groups, they have every incentive to continue to stoke the fire of racial tension, and unfortunately this message is well received by groups who want to see their collective failures as caused by external evil instead of any self-destructive behaviors within their own community.",
"Many countries don't have multiracial populations nor did they have the kind of legalized discrimination that the US did. I see you slinking away, South Africa...."
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6a95zz | Why are crayons considered children's toys, but nearly every other medium (ink, pencil, paint, etc.) is used in serious art? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Crayons don't lend themselves to fine details. They also don't blend together very well. These two factors combine with the fact that they're generally cheap & don't age well to limit their usefulness in \"serious\" art, leaving you to mostly make \"simplistic\" and \"childlike\" drawings. Closely related to crayons, however, are [pastels]( URL_0 ). They're basically crayons without all the wax in them that are fairly widely used by \"serious\" artists. They're blendable & allow you to get finer details. You can get \"chalky\" ones and oil pastels - oil pastels are really close to using crayons. Of course, these days, if you've got your mind set on it, you can use pretty much any damned thing you want as an artistic medium. If you've got talent, you can get away with it.",
"Compared to nearly every other color medium, it's very hard to control, blend, or modify the color or brightness. URL_0"
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6a9734 | Can someone give me a brief summary of James Comey and the controversies surrounding him? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"James Comey was the Director of the FBI. He served from September 2013 when President Obama appointed him until today, when he was dismissed by President Trump. To keep things brief I'll focus on him during and since the 2016 Election, since that's where most of the controversy comes in. When the Clinton Email Controversy became huge the FBI started an investigation, and on July 5, 2016 Comey announced that they recommended no criminal charges should be filed, but did say Secretary Clinton's and her top aides' behavior was \"extremely careless\". This drew a mixed reaction from Democrats and Republicans, though most Democrats praised the decision and most Republicans hated it. As the election came closer things started heating up, and on October 28 (less than two weeks from the election) Comey unexpectedly announced to Congress that the FBI was looking into newly discovered emails pertinent to the Clinton case. While this obviously caused immediate controversy, the real problem was that Comey ignored the Justice Department's policy and procedures including not releasing info on a case just before an election. Comey justified his decision by saying [he thought the rules were more \"guidelines\"]( URL_1 ), and also he felt obligated due to the fact he had repeatedly told Congress the investigation was closed, and now it was reopened it would make him look suspicious once the election was over. Regardless, on November 6 2016 Comey announced the FBI had not changed its decision from July. After the election Clinton attributed her loss to Comey's announcements, saying that they stopped her campaign's momentum. Now Democrats despise Comey for supposedly costing them the election, and Republicans are now ambivalent towards him. Things stay that way until March 20, 2017 when Comey announced in a testimony to the House Intelligence Committee that the FBI has been investigating possible coordination between Trump's campaign and Russia. On May 3, 2017 Comey said in testimony for the Senate Judiciary Committee that Russia is the \"greatest threat of any nation on Earth ... One of the biggest lessons learned is that Russia will do this again. Because of 2016 election, they know it worked.\" Now Republicans and Trump despise Comey and Democrats are ambivalent towards him. Today, May 9, 2017, Comey was fired by President Trump who cited his performance in the Clinton email controversy and a few other reasons. [You can read exactly what he said here.]( URL_0 ) Now Democrats are outraged as Comey was investigating possible Russian collusion and see this as Trump trying to kill that investigation, and Republicans are ambivalent and see it as Trump replacing a poor FBI director. **TL;DR**: Trump uses previous controversies as reason to replace Comey, Democrats see this as proof Trump is trying to kill the Russia investigation, Republicans see this as Trump replacing a poor FBI director."
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6a9f60 | How do you become good friends with people you know and how do you find best friends? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Friendship warfare is a longterm strategy that involves wearing down your opponent and forcing them to accept your terms of friendship. First, read The Art of War. Study how to destabilize and dismantle an opposing regime. You will apply all of these concepts against your new friend. Second, observe your opponent. Learn their behaviors, feel their mind. Because they do not know they are at war, they will expose their weaknesses. When they are vulnerable, you strike! Third, constantly barrage them with pings. Say hello in passing. Approach them to ask a quick question. Think about something funny or interesting and ask them their opinion about it. One ping per day minimum, even if all you can think of is \"hello.\" This weakens their defenses over time while probing for weaknesses. Fourth, continually remind yourself that their resistance is weaker than your resolve. Because humans are social creatures, there is no such thing as failure in friendship warfare. All opponents succumb to your will eventually. Your friendship will spread to them like a plague and they will find themselves infected by you. Victory is guaranteed, you just have to wait until they realize it. Fifth is patience. If you treat every new relationship like an extended war campaign, you'll probably approach it more strategically and act with precision and tact. Just a silly notion I entertain myself with at work. I'm friends with everybody.",
"Well here's my recommendation. Make time for the people that are important to you. I am blessed with both quantity and quality of friends. But most importantly if your gonna invest in time for those people, pick ones that are good and healthy for you. The ones who aren't are not going to be good for your life. Unfortunately ive had to drop some friends. Pick people around you who want you to thrive. The people you can call at 3am when you have a problem. Those people are the ones you want in your life."
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6a9jzs | Why did the United States become a predominately bicameral system? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"text": [
"Bicameral doesn't mean two party. Bicameral means that our Congress has two chambers -- the House and the Senate. To answer your question, though, search this subreddit for the phrase \"third party.\""
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6a9m96 | What caused college degrees to become equivalent, or have the perception of being equivalent, to what high school diplomas used to be? | Title. What caused college degrees to become the equivalent of a high school diploma, and is there a way for this to be reversed? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
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"text": [
"Quite simply, [it has become much more common than it used to be.]( URL_0 ) It's about as common to have a bachelor's degree today, as to have a high school diploma several decades ago.",
"So you've worked your ass off and bought a Corvette, the only one in your neighborhood. You're top dog, everybody in your neighborhood knows your name and wants you babies. Half your neighborhood sees this and decides to work hard and buy Corvettes as well, a few years later half the neighborhood has Corvettes and they're really nothing special. These days, to even visit the employment neighborhood, you need a Corvette. Every kid on the block gets a Corvette straight out of highschool. If you want to stand out though, you better come with something a lot more flattering."
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6a9syp | Why are both main US political parties celebrating the firing of James Comey? How is this good and bad for each side respectively? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Comey has had a long career and so people have different opinions on him for many different reasons, but the two main parts of the narrative right now are: Many Democrats are angry with Comey because they believe that he mishandled the Hillary Clinton investigation during the lead up to the election, hurting her chances of winning. Some also believe he should have/should be doing more to investigate the administration, particularly its ties to Russia. Many Republicans are angry at Comey for not pursuing Clinton more aggressively, and for giving credence to some of the Russia claims made against the administration. Additionally, the president who removed him is a Republican, and so as Republicans they will likely support his decision."
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6aaqum | Why does the American election campaign process take so long? | I'm Canadian, and in general, in Canada, an election is called and a month or so later, there is a vote. The whole process -- campaign included takes about 2 months maybe... Actually, it's usually only one month. I'm also living in South Korea right now where they impeached one president, and elected a new one yesterday... and that took about 2 months total. But in the US, it goes on for 2 years. Why is it so long? From the outside, it seems so pointless. | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"From the inside it seems pointless too, to a large extent. But to answer your question, it's important to look at the schedule from the back to the front. 1) Election Day is the first Tuesday after November 1 (meaning between Nov 2-8) every four years, like clockwork. The US does not have snap elections for the Presidency, so all campaign tradition, media, consultants, and expectations are premised on a calendar that is predictable and intentionally slow. 2) To realistically be a candidate on Election Day, a person must be the nominee of either the Republican or Democratic parties. These nominees are officially chosen at that party's National Convention a few months prior to November. Since 1952 these have been held between early July and the first week of September. So, one can think of the *actual* Presidential Election as not officially starting until each Convention has selected their nominee. 3) However, to become the nominee for their party, a person must receive the majority of votes from the attending delegates during their party's Convention. These delegates are sent by the party's apparatus in each state. These delegates are bound to vote at the Convention as dictated by the state-level party apparatus. 4) However, for a person to get the state party apparatus on their side (meaning, to get the delegates to vote for them instead of another candidate at the Convention) they must first demonstrate that the state party *should* get on their side through a show of strength and legitimacy. This is done one of two ways - by a direct vote of the party members across the state (a \"Primary Election\") or by localized arguments / debates / cajoling all across the state simultaneously one night on a precinct-by-precinct basis (a \"Caucus\"). Winning the Primary/Caucus for a state translates into delegates at the Convention. 5) It didn't take long for some state apparatuses to realize that if they scheduled their primaries earlier than other states, they could receive disproportionate attention from candidates desperate to build momentum. States like Iowa and New Hampshire are notorious for going first so that every person who even thinks about running for President has to attend their state fairs and local barbecues, kiss the ass of every town mayor and PTA president, etc. This stereotypically results in promises to the Iowa farmer to protect their farm subsidy, etc., all because the candidates desperately want to show strength by winning or placing well in an early Primary. A poor showing in both Iowa and New Hampshire dooms many campaigns. Because of this disproportionate attention, other states started leapfrogging over Iowa and New Hampshire to make *their* Primaries more important. So Iowa and New Hampshire leapfrogged *them*, and this continued for some time until in recent years the National-level party organizations started imposing sanctions if states moved any earlier in the calendar. This became an issue in the 2008 Democratic Nomination race between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton because Michigan and Florida moved their primaries too early in violation of Democratic rules. Because of all this leapfrogging, the first votes cast for the Presidential cycle are the Iowa caucuses held in January of the election year (so the next ones will be January 2020). 6) Of course, those are the votes. Campaigning to win those early votes requires personnel, which requires money and expertise, both of which are in limited supply. So before the Primary campaigns even start there's also what's called the \"invisible Primary\", in which the candidates go around courting influential political figures, donors, etc building infrastructural and \"insider\" support to either get resources or send signals to rivals that entering the race will not be successful. Moving quickly to secure that support has advantages, even if it's done privately and not in media view. This can take a while, particularly for candidates who are not consensus strong candidates. As an example, Hillary Clinton's expected entry into the 2016 race absolutely stifled Democratic rivals in 2014 such that literally no registered Democrats with national standing ran against her in the entire race until Bernie Sanders, seeing no internal rival to Clinton, changed his party registration to run against her in an attempt to shape the party position. By contrast, the Republicans were completely fractious and factionalized through the entire Primary process because even though Donald Trump was repeatedly and consistently mauled by the opposition in early Primary after Primary, that opposition was split between a half-dozen legitimate contenders, none of whom could beat his 35/40% showing and they ate each other to death, each thinking they would be the last one standing to easily defeat him. By the time the rivals diminished, it was too late to overcome his delegate lead. Had the Republican Party been better managed and had better early candidates during the \"invisible primary\", the candidate pool would have been less fractious and Trump less likely to win.",
"In the US, elections are on a set schedule fixed by the constitution. It's not that the elections take longer, it's that candidates are trying to get an earlier and earlier start to raise more money and get more name recognition than their opponents. And news media love this because campaign coverage draws ratings.",
"The election itself is very short - only a day. It takes a few days to officially count the votes, but we go to the polls during the day and they normally announce the projected winner that night. The campaigns are what take so long. There are many reasons why. * The United States is a big ass country. It takes a long time for candidates to go everywhere they can to campaign, talk to people, hold rallies, build teams, etc. * The media eats the shit up. They treat it like a sports event (well they treat politics in general like sports but elections especially). It's like a really long, drawn out, epic season of football or something. People say they hate it, but really their actions tell a different story (we all secretly love the drama). It's really sad to say, but couldn't be more true. * The primaries make the process even longer. People don't just run for president, they first run to become the nominee of their party. Democrats and Republicans (and a myriad of largely irrelevant third parties) hold their own elections (called primary elections) to see who will represent their party in the actual presidential election. So instead of having a bunch of Democrats and Republicans running in the election, you whittle the field down to just one nominee from each party (our guy vs. your guy). Largely, the whole thing can be seen has two different races, and candidates treat them as such. First you appeal to your party (your base, the people who think like you). If you win, then you appeal to *everyone*. You can see how adding what is essentially a second election makes the whole thing a much longer process."
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6aayld | What's the history of all the "decorations" of American names? Jr. Sr., I II III, middle initials etc. | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"For actors (and other show business people) it's usually a union thing so movie credits are correctly attributed. For example the J in Michael J Fox means nothing and was added because there was already a Michael Fox in the screen actors guild. As for people like Franklin D Roosevelt and John F Kennedy. Both were from fairly prestigious families and their middle names are their mother's maiden names Delano and Fitzgerald both prestigious families of their own. So they used both because it showed their ties to both families.",
"Those are not decorative. The are descriptive. Someone who is a Sr. is the first person in the family with their name, and they have someone else with their name. The Roman Numerals: II, III, IV, V etc. are those who share the same exact name (First, middle, and last) as other members of the family and the number dictates which one they are to have had it. Jr. is the designation for a II whose father was the Sr. You have these so that the government, and other people can tell you apart from the others with your name in your family. Middle names and initials are also generally only used in formal occasions here in the US unless you choose to go by your middle name. Your example is erroneous because being a President means it is alway formal when you are talking about them. It is a male thing because women change their names when they marry so they stop having the exact same name. The moment you do not have the exact same name you stop being a Jr., etc."
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6abcwu | Why are urinals only a public fixture? Why do you never find them in private residences? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"My cousin has one. So they do exist. You don't normally see them because you will need to install a toilet anyway so why have both. Besides you have a sink, basically the same thing.",
"I mean, nothing's stopping you (except the expense, I guess) but you'd still have to have a toilet to shit in so it's not like you'd be saving space.",
"I know several people who have one in their homes. I wouldn't want one because I don't think they are that useful - sitting down for a pee doesn't really hurt my xy-chromosomes."
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6ac8eo | Why is the integral sign on violins? | What is the shared history that makes the integral sign appear on musical instruments and in mathematics? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"It's a [sound hole]( URL_0 ), specifically one shaped like the letter f. It's meant to help the instrument project its sound. The integral symbol comes from the [long S]( URL_1 ) which is similar to the letter f, but unrelated. The s here stands for \"sum\", since the integral is a form of summation.",
"Actually, no relationship. I'm sorry. The sound hole in the violin, called an [F-hole]( URL_0 ) is f shaped, but sometimes they don't carve the -. And the integral sign is the old form of a long s character, frequently used in the time of Leibniz (the guy that invented that notation, he chose s for integral because it's a sum).",
"The \"f\" hole isn't a cultural artifact. It's an amplifier. The sound we hear is air that is compressed. A vibrating violin string compresses the air around it in a pattern our ears interpret as a musical tone. But that string, by itself, doesn't vibrate a LOT of air. It's pretty skinny. And it doesn't give much ENERGY to the air it compresses, either. So the sound won't travel far. If you bowed a violin string alone (or plucked a bare guitar string), nobody in a packed theater would hear your performance. Add a wooden board just behind the string, however, and it will also vibrate with the sound. Depending on how big the board is, it will push more air harder, making a louder sound that carries farther. Make that wooden board an open box, and now there's a lot more volume of air that gets pushed. The sound is even easier to hear. A rectangular box isn't great, though. Some tones will sound fine, but higher and lower ones will be too thin or quiet. That's because the box is a simple shape that resonates (vibrates along with) a narrow band of frequencies. Give that box a more complex shape, so bits of it can resonate with the high notes as well as the low notes, and you've got a pretty good instrument. Centuries of trial and error led to the violin shape we all recognize as being fantastic for this. (And they found that different woods resonate better, different densities, different internal structures, etc.) Why an open box, though? Why not cover it up, and have even MORE resonance and amplification? Like shouting \"echo!\" in a tunnel. The problem is, the air INSIDE the box has to get out, to send the sound to the listener. Differently-shaped holes are better or worse at doing the job. If the hole is too big, you might as well get rid of the top of the box entirely. If it is too small, you're muffling your sound. If you start with a simple circular hole, like a guitar, that's not bad. But over the centuries people figured out that you can get an even better result if you close up the center of the circle. If you just cut out the perimeter of the circle, you preserve more of the echo energy, and still get that air pumping out to the audience. If you split the circle into two \"C\" shapes, you can put one on either side of the strings, so the input isn't interfering with the output. Remember how we reshaped the box to resonate better with different tones? How about we fiddle (ha) with that C. Instead of a constant curve, let's have part be tight and part be long, to maximize the wavelengths we can project. And that's how you get an \"f\" curve. And now even the people in the cheap seats far far away can hear the music of that tiny thin string vibrating next to a tiny wooden box. The fact that math came up with a similar-looking long \"S\" symbol for the integral \"sum\" is pure coincidence."
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6ad7gn | Why people, in Youtube comments, feel obliged to justify their presence ? | For the past year I have seen many comments like "Rick and Morty brought me here" or "I'm 11 yo and I listen Genesis. Kids my age listen Iggy Azalea and Harry Styles". I want to understand why they feel obliged to justify all these types of things. | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"They seek reverence and praise for being niche and liking (what is socially deemed) more tasteful/sophisticated. They feel a sense of inclusion and worth through cyber-camaraderie, in a world where emotional interaction is largely replaced by screen-related communication."
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6ad7wk | Regarding huge sculptures like Mount Rushmore, how can the artist keep track of what image they are trying to make over such a huge scale? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"text": [
"Small models. If you go to Mount Rushmore or the Crazy Horse memorial they have the scale model on display that the artists used for planning purposes. These models are perfect replicas of what's going to get built, but at a small scale that you can actually walk around. By taking measurements off these models and multiplying the numbers you can get the exact placement of features on the rock that you're going to blast. If you place the model right, you can also use it as an exact visual indicator. By standing in the right spot you can look at the model in the exact spot of where it will sit on the mountain (kind of like putting your thumb in front of the moon)."
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6adfwu | What is Third Way philosophy? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"text": [
"It's a mix of capitalism with big-government social programs, basically a version of Liberal Democracy. The idea is that while communism and pure socialism don't work, neither does pure \"every man for himself\" capitalism. Alongside free market we can have social services that provide people with job training, security, and other benefits."
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6adwlz | How come a person who goes to rehab for drug abuse doesn't face charges for admitting to illegal drug use. | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"text": [
"Admitting to drug use does not generally meet the burden of evidence required to convict someone. Also in many cases using drugs isn't illegal; possessing them and selling them is. Not to mention that prosecutors aren't robots looking to enforce every law to the letter; they have priorities and know their actions have consequences. Busting people in rehab will just drive people away from rehab, and that's not the goal.",
"Having done drugs is not illegal. Currently possessing drugs is illegal, and being publicly intoxicated (high, tripping, etc) is illegal.",
"Not really the same thing but Ontario just introduced The Good Samaritan Act. If you are with someone and they OD, if you call the ambulance to come. You and everyone else involved will not be charged for possession or anything else.",
"I short: Society is more interested in you being free of drugs than convicting someone who tries to be free of them.",
"Doing drugs is not illegal. That's right it's not. Being in possession of drugs is illegal. Being under the influence of drugs in public is illegal. By the act of actually using drugs is not. If the police do not have evidence of you physically having drugs, there is no crime they can arrest you for."
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6ae4cg | Why is there such a negative stigma against nuclear reactors? | Ive done extensive research into them and all the evidence proves they are the safest and most efficient form of energy. Why does the public fear (literally and culturally) these reactors so much? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"People tend to fear a small risk of a big catastrophe more than they fear a moderate risk of a small catastrophe. It's the same reason that people fear plane crashes but not car crashes. It's just a quirk of human nature.",
"Yes nuclear reactors are by far the safest form of energy, *but* when something goes wrong, something goes really wrong. Fukushima, 3 mile island, and Chernobyl all were huge disasters making while cities uninhabitable for years. Meanwhile, if a hydroelectric plant or a windmill goes wrong, what's going to happen? It's like how we're much more afraid of dying in a terrorist attack than slowly from all the sugar we eat. Clearly one is way more likely to kill us, but the other would be a huge, unforgettable event Tl;dr even though its way less likely, the big event of something bad happening has people skeptical E: okay 3 mile island didn't make a city uninhabitable, but it was still a huge nuclear disaster",
"Nuclear made a lot of promises at the start of the nuclear age, but ended up being rather expensive to build and operate. The public now has a greater fear of them because of issues with poorly stored nuclear waste from the early ages of the work (see: Hanford), and then the high profile disasters since (mainly Chernobyl, but now Fukishima). Entire towns and regions had to be evacuated and are now 'no go' zones for people (except for brief tourism). No coal or gas plant disaster has ever caused that. No windmill or solar plant has that. And thanks to media portrayals of nuclear disasters and of nuclear bombs, and people (wrongly) thinking that a plant disaster will be like a nuclear explosion, there is a strong NIMBY feeling around both the plants and around any storage of the nuclear waste.",
"People do not understand the difference between a nuclear reactor and a nuclear bomb. I've talked to people who have protested nuclear power plants and the main consensus I've found is that none of them understand how it works, and all assume it's EXACTLY like having a bomb go off and containing the explosion magically.",
"Because people hear \"nuclear\" and immediately think \"bomb\" or \"Chernobyl\". The negative uses of atomic energy, and the failures to use atomic energy safely get the headlines, the films, and the footnotes in the history books, while the countless kilowatt-hours nuke plants produce while humming along efficiently and quietly are easy to overlook. That, and plant failure is a lot like an airliner crash; they occur less than once in a blue moon, but they are highly dramatic when they happen, with a shit ton of dollar value in damage just to the plant alone and the potential for significant disruption of civilian life.",
"Because if someone goes wrong, like Fukushima, radiation poisoning can become an issue that effects people for generations.",
"> Why does the public fear (literally and culturally) these reactors so much? Nuclear bombs are scary. Invisible radiation which can kill you without you knowing and is basically impossible to stop from being dangerous is scary. Radiation has been used as the premise for turning things into monsters, corrupting the very building blocks of life. Take all that and put it in a big facility with a massive, scary tower or two and people who don't know any better think it is terrible."
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6af910 | How is it that rich people's "net worth" is public, but average people's information is private? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"The \"public\" numbers are estimates, not firm numbers. In the case of public companies' founders, CEO's, etc. there are public disclosures of share ownership and that typically accounts for the vast majority of their net worth so it's used as proxy. There are also public disclosures like stock sales, there might be records of other investments they've made, etc. and the pieces are cobbled together to get an estimate. For example, if billionaire X owns 50 million shares in the company he founded and it's trading at $100 then we know they are worth at least $5 billion. Maybe they've sold off 10 million shares over the years for living expenses and diversification clearing $600 million, and they've also bought 2 houses worth $20 million, a plane worth $50 million, invested $100 million in other companies and those holdings are now worth $400 million, etc. So they're worth an estimated $6 billion. Maybe it's off -- maybe they blew hundreds of millions gambling, or maybe they invested in Apple options and made a couple extra billion. So it's just an estimate.",
"It's not public. In some cases, wealthy people will self-report their net worth because they are proud of it. In other cases a lot of their net worth comes from owning publicly traded stocks, and if you own enough stock in a publicly traded company then that is public information. Sometimes the wealth is also tied up in charitable foundations (like with Bill Gates) and those organizations' finances are public if they're non-profits. For wealthy people who own privately held companies, reporters interview people and get access to what information they can (property owned by them, companies owned by them, etc) to make an educated guess. You can read more about how Forbes assembles its annual list here (scroll down to \"Methodology\"): URL_0",
"Generally, the ultra-rich invest their money into stocks, and are often major stock holders for the companies in which they own stock, or often, it's their own companies that they hold stock in. Stock ownership in companies for major stockholders (usually any more than 5% or 10% of the company's value) are of public record. It's pretty simple to add up the major stock holdings of these ultra-rich and estimate their net worth.",
"It isn't always easy. As many have pointed out, many wealthy individuals own shares of publicly traded stock. The value of that is pretty easy b/c if they own > 10% they must disclose it. However, that leaves out private holdings such as partnerships or stock that is not publicly traded. In such cases, not only do we not know a person's percentage of ownership but we have to estimate the value of the holding. It also leaves out any debt. Generally speaking that isn't required to be disclosed since it's a personal relationship with the creditor. Donald Trump is a good example of someone whose wealth has always been hard to estimate with any real confidence because he has always had plenty of both private holdings and debt. He probably doesn't know his own net worth with any precision to speak of.",
"It's estimated and badly. I have one wealthy friend. One of those websites had his net worth at $30M. I knew one deal where he made $30M. In his case it was way, way off.",
"This is only the case in some countries. In Norway, where I'm from, everyone's taxes and wealth are a matter of public record. Every taxpayer can see what everyone else pays in taxes. This used to be a lot easier, to the point where tabloid newspapers would make databses with the informatio., Now however you need to log in with your SSN (personnummer in Norwegian), and the people you check up on can see that you had a look.",
"If you look up \"bill gates net worth\" you will get an approximation of their current wealth based on public record or heresay. They add the value of the houses they own, maybe some sports cars, land and boats. You get an idea of their wealth but you don't know about their investments, stuff under other people's name or company names or perks from other people which aren't technically assets.",
"Your financial information is in no way shape or form \"private.\" Advertisers and political/legislative campaigns frequently purchase data on what you have and what you owe. I can easily find out all the basic credit reporting stuff and go further by figuring out if you've financed a Chevy or a Toyota etc... It would shock you to know what can be purchased legally that details your financial life. As for the \"net worth\" of rich people - simply comes down to the fact they are usually tied to publicly traded companies and stock filings are easy to add up. The cool fact is that there are billionaires that own completely private companies that you never hear about because they own - a private company. Or in some cases, many private companies with many different revenue streams. I know of a guy in my hometown that can buy and sell the local billionaire who always makes the Forbes list. This guy is never on any list, but you can damn sure bet other people with money know who he is. Looking up tail numbers at the airport have yielded some very interesting guests of his.",
"The information is made public for a lot of these people due to SEC rules. If the bulk of your net worth is tied to corporations/stocks, all of that information has to be published quarterly.",
"Home purchases and sales are a matter of public record. So you know when Mr. X buys and sells real estate. Professional sports players salaries are public. A CEO has stock, it is disclosed in SEC filings and has to be disclosed when it is sold too. The salary is also public for a publicly traded company too. So it is relatively simple to calculate for many high net worth individuals because the information is public. The information is public because there is a public interest to prevent insider trading in the stock market. If you work for the state many will also have publicly available records for teacher salaries listed by employee name. So if you know where to look, you can actually find out the information for average joe as well. If you know what job a person has at a certain employer, and you look at job sites that list average salaries for the position you can generally figure out what an average person makes too. If they own their home, you can figure out what they paid for it too.",
"Everyone is public in Norway. You just need to log in with your equivalent to social security number(BankID), if someone looks you up you can see who. (Whole name, not social security number)",
"Well, no one's financial info is private anymore. Any record of ANY person who buys a house, declares bankruptcy, has a judgement placed against them, has a court appearance or commits any crime has their information splattered all over the Web and any Google search will bring it up from now through eternity. And if that isn't bad enough, now your ISP can sell that info to ANYONE. Privacy is a good conversation about a lost and dead right. Doesn't exist anymore.",
"It's mostly because people care enough to try to find out. I'll gladly tell you what my net worth is, but nobody actually cares. In fact, I probably have said on this site multiple times before what it is, but it's still not really \"public knowledge\" because everyone forgot because it's irrelevant and it's not a remarkable number.",
"Staying off those lists even when you could be on it is something many billionaires pay handsomely for. Old money knows that it's best to avoid advertising your wealth to the plebs.",
"So the short answer seems to be that we don't know their net worth any better than we know the average persons, it's just the average persons entire worth falls into the margin of error.",
"I know a billionaire, I will not say his name for obvious reasons, but I have looked him up before and I could not find anything regarding his wealth. Some people are very secretive, and you can not find information about them.",
"It's not really private for average people. With a name and address you can buy household level net worth data from experian. URL_0 Like the model for rich people, it's not super accurate, but it's generally in the right ballpark when you buy it for a lot of people.",
"Networth is usually accurate to around a few million either way. The average person has a net worth of less than 1 million. So to answer your question, the average person net worth IS public, just no one gives a shit. When you get into your ford focus, and drive to yor 9-5 job, you are publicly publishing that your net worth is less than 1 million. lol",
"It's not really \"public.\" It's estimated. Others have pointed out obvious examples. E.g., if you own a lot of stock of a publicly traded company, that's in an annual report and one can calculate your net worth in that manner. Of course, estimates can and will be wrong. According to Google, entrepreneur Gary Vaynerchuk is worth $10 million. But he's on social media and public speaking a lot and he laughs at that figure. He said that his land alone (he owns a liquor store in Jersey) is worth $10 million and he's going to bring home $10 million just from his salary/speaking fees, etc., so the $10 million estimate is way off.",
"The net worth of a person rich or not is based on public records. Most of the reporting on Property value, and SEC reported holding public record. Most stock holders also get to know the salary, stock options, bonuses, etc of execs. Combine that with data gathered using the Freedom of Information Act you can get a good rough net worth number. As far as those not rich or in the spotlight. Well that information is not private and can be gathered via the same methods. The main issue is lack of interest. Most Americans have a negative net worth. Meaning most of their asserts are tied up in debt. The debt to asset ratio is screwed in favor of debt. In general you are not going to get click bait with a headline that says \"Mr Joe Blow has a net worth of $-10,000. So no one bothers to invest the resources. On that note: although it can have inaccuracies, you income and source of employment is in your credit report. If you apply for a card that info gets updated in your credit report too. If you look you may see an address that is misspelled or written in an odd way. You could trace that back to and advertisement/service you signed up for, or an application you filled out. You employer may also post your data to your credit report as part of your background check. As a matter of fact that is a good reason to watch your credit report. If you see an address you do not recognize it could be a potential person spoofing you or using your SS#. Other times it can just be a typo."
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6afup0 | Is there a limit to the amount of people that can be charged for a single crime? For example, if 100 people violently stoned someone to death. Could all 100 be charged with first degree murder? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Every place has different laws but In the United States there is no limit. Every person who participates is equally guilty provided they all did the same thing.",
"That isn't a single crime. That's 100 separate crimes. At a minimum that's 99 counts of attempted homicide and one count of homicide. A crime is an action (someone committing an unlawful act like trying to kill someone with a stone), it's not the result of an action (someone died)."
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6agbq9 | Why did the caste system develop ONLY in India and Hinduism, but not anywhere else in the world? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Europe also had a caste system. That is what the feudal system was. You had serfs (peasants) who worked in physical labor, Craftsmen (eventually merchants) who had a slightly higher standing, then guards/soldiers, then Knights, then Nobility, then Royalty, then the sitting monarch. For the most part you were born into the level you lived in for your life thought there was some movement up (and down) depending on special circumstances. China likewise had a caste system, and it was even in the US being based on race."
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6aj3qx | Why not instead of going after illegal immigrants the U.S doesn't go after businesses and people illegally hiring them? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"It 100% is a thing. It is crazy illegal to hire someone without proof of eligibility to work, but unless you show up at the business and vet every single employee, its hard to find out about it.",
"They do. All businesses are required to check documentation and file paperwork on new hires. However, if someone shows up with false paperwork, there really isn't much a business can do - and as long as they've followed the correct procedures for verifying legal employment, they're not committing a crime by hiring someone they believe to be legally eligible to work in this country.",
"Read up about Alabama... they did just that, passing laws against hiring them, renting to them, etc. and many fled the state. And Alabama lost about half the state's crops because there was nobody to pick the crops.",
"Because corporations and bussiness run america. Its techinally tax evasion if you hire workers off the books. Its lawless. For example If a citizen accidentally kills 1 person because of negligence its manslaughter if a corporation kills 100 because of negligence its a fine or lawsuits. Its messed up Imo.",
"The reason why it isnt a thing is because illegal immigrants who apply to jobs with false paper work will not come forward and admit it. If they apply with false paper work there is not much a company can do to prove if they are telling the truth. They will run the basic background check. Anything more will cost more money and they cant do it for every single employee. If they do it for anyone who may look \"illegal\" then thats profiling and racist. Now, are there employers who will look away on purpose? Of course but don't pretend this is a one way street.",
"Because fighting illegal immigration isn't about actually making a difference, it's about making a big show of \"doing something\" about a \"problem\" so certain specific voting blocs will continue to support their candidates of choice.",
"The US government does go after people that hire illegals. In fact that is one of the primary ways that they catch illegals. They throw the employer in jail and they deport the illegal when they find them.",
"If you ask me because there's less profit in that. Take Trump for example, as much as he hates illegals coming in and taking american jobs, when he's looking for labour he hires them because they're so much cheaper. But that's not to say nothing's being done about it, there are punishments in place for hiring them, they're just not terrifically well enforced."
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6ajm7z | films often play a distinctive 'clicketty' sound when someone just raises a gun, even if they aren't cocking it or drawing the hammer back. do guns actually make any noises like this in real life? if not, why is it added to films? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Foley is sound effects added to movies. Foley artists sometimes overdo a sound for more effect. Another sound that is overdone is tires squealing on pavement . A B-movie from Mystery Science Theater 3000 showed tires squealing on gravel . Foley is overdone a bunch, but most of the time it is barely noticeable.",
"Most guns are quiet when you pick them up. The sounds are added to add recognition and stimulus to the movie or show. Anytime you hear that sound you automatically think gun and you start speculating as to what will happen. This is just Hollywood doing things for effect, like racing movies with squeeling tires sounds effects on dirt roads.",
"The sound dates back to the [Colt Peacemaker AKA Single Action Army revolver]( URL_1 ). It was a durable, practical revolver that was widely used throughout the frontier era, so it was very popular in movies set in the Western US. The single action part of the name means that to be ready to fire, the hammer must be pulled back and locked with a click and this motion cannot be done with a trigger pull (which is common in modern revolvers that aren't replicas of this design). You can hear the hammer click [here]( URL_0 ) when the gun is unloaded. Unlike modern guns it doesn't have a safety, so the revolver was often carried with the hammer down over an empty chamber So it was common to draw the gun, and after drawing cock the hammer just prior to firing. In movies and television using that gun, the hammer cocking action and loud click provided an excellent indicator to the audience that the stakes had further increased. So even though almost no modern guns work in this manner, it was such a good indicator that the shooters intent level had risen, the click remains an important part of filmmaking with guns."
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6ak3ij | Why do christians follow the King James bible when it was written 1600 years after Jesus? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"While some Christians prefer the King James translation of the Bible, there are many, many translations of the Bible in many different languages, made at different times. Christianity is a world religion, and has become very aggressive about translating its holy texts into whatever languages its people speak. The original languages of the Bible are Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek. What we call \"Modern English\" didn't exist until shortly before the time of Shakespeare - and the King James Bible. There are earlier English translations, but they're even more difficult to read for people nowadays. The influence & staying power of the King James Version comes from a couple of things: the translation was made after the invention of the printing press, so it was widely available. The translation was authorized by the Church of England, which used it exclusively, so anywhere that the C of E had influence, the KJV did too: it wasn't too long after the KJV was published that the British Empire circled the globe, bringing British culture and religion with it. And the KJV was, for its time, the best English translation available. There are other translations of the Bible made about that time and later, but for centuries the KJV remained dominant for the reasons above. But languages change over time, and the meanings of words change. Eventually re-translation is necessary. The last century has produced a number of very good English translations now widely used by English-speaking Christians. (My favorite is the English Standard Version, first published in 2001.) But because the KJV was the dominant translation for so long, its language has become entrenched in English-speaking society. And people like tradition. It feels weird to change how a holy text reads or sounds. People stick with what they know or what they're used to. Therefore the KJV is still around and will still be around for many years.",
"Christian pastor, college prof, academic writer here. The vast majority of Christians do not prefer the KJV over the translations in their language or ones that are more modern. Some are vehemently opposed to anything but KJV, King James Only-ist, and they have been mentioned. This is rare but very energetic. I don't fight with them, I just tell them I pledge to obey and believe the KJV, too. They tend to be conspiracy theorists that think that other translations have been damaged. And 9/11 was an inside job. As others have mentioned the Bible wasn't \"written\" but translated from manuscripts that came from real historical figures and groups. These manuscripts number in the thousands, with many, many copies of each book spread all over the Ancient Near East, Egypt, Asia Minor. That's much better than having one \"original\" manuscript as far as increasing or improving certitude. One \"original\" can always be faked. But thousands of almost identical copies spread over the known world can't be faked. Copies buried in a cave can't be faked. So the KJV was translated from a group of manuscripts available during the 1600s that were pretty good, though not as good as the ones we have now, and that's enabled us to clear up some confusion about certain words--not teachings, not doctrines, just very fine adjustments in the precise word or semantic range of a word. So modern translations are generally better, although some have been influenced by modern gender-equity issues to make them neutralize pronouns and things like that--I'm not for it. If the Bible is a very male oriented book, then for truth's sake, make that clear in your translations. But even then, we are talking about whether we use it or he. Not a big issue (except in Galatians 3-4). And then not a big issue except for scholarly types.",
"National Geographic [published an article]( URL_0 ) a few years ago, which speaks to both the poetics and the influence of the KJV on the English language. It's worth a read. Curiously, there are some concepts that are holdovers from the KJV that are so ingrained in the Christian tradition that they've persisted into an era in which other English translations are preferred. For example, everyone knows that Moses parted the Red Sea, despite that this is evidently a mistranslation, and should be the \"Sea of Reeds\". The latter could perhaps describe wetlands and tidal flats that would make more geographical sense. Another holdover from KJV is that we largely still infer that Jesus was a carpenter, owing to the stated profession of his father. However, the word given for Joseph's profession is tekton, which is also used for stonemasons. The KJV translators were largely from Western and Northern Europe, and went with \"carpenter\". However, contextual clues would seem to suggest stonemason. Stories about Jesus routinely find him using analogies about building with stone. \"The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone,\" although here, \"cornerstone\" may actually read \"head of the arch,\" which would suggest not only a stone analogy, but also an understanding of the construction of a Roman arch. There are metaphors about safe places to build, adding rooms to houses, etc, all of which were stone structures. But, KJV established certain readings, and they outlive that particular translation.",
"I only glanced through and didn't see this comment and it's important to understand when talking about translations. There are two ways to translate a book. 1) Is to be word for word as accurate as possible. You don't look at the context, inference, anything like that. Tree = tree even if the description sounds what we would call in English a bush. 2) They try to figure out the idea they were trying to get across and use the best words in English to convey what was trying to be said, and that's what they translate it to. He towered above them might get translated to he was taller than the men around him (this is a terrible example but gets the idea across) Someone smarter than me can explain it better. There are other people who can describe it better and come up with some examples. Edit: Slide show showing different methods of translation: URL_0",
"A lot of answers are debating different versions of the Bible. The sense I get from your question is that you believe the bible wasn't written until 1600. (Forgive me if I'm wrong.) The Bible, whichever translation you use, is a collection of books and letters written thousands of years ago. The New Testament was written by Jesus' contemporaries. These original works were written in Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek. The King James Bible was the English translation commissioned by King James of England. Personally, I prefer the NKJV (New King James Version) because I think it's a more accurate translation. For example, the KJV says, \"Thou shalt not kill.\" whereas the NKJV says, \"You shall not murder.\" (Exodus 20:13) The NKJV recognizes that, just like English, Hebrew has several words to describe taking the life of another person. (Murder, kill, manslaughter, homicide, patricide, etc.) It's hard to argue that the Bible doesn't contradict itself if it says \"thou shalt not kill\" and then the Lord tells the Israelites to kill the Canaanites. However, if you understand that killing someone in a field of battle in defense of your nation is not the same as cold-blooded, premeditated murder, then the NKJV correctly translates this and avoids the appearance of contradiction.",
"\"Christians\" is a pretty broad category, and it is very untrue that all Christians follow the King James. King James sounds like Christianity, it's been popularized so much that it has that old timey gospel feel in the language. The old language also sounds more formal and authoritative. But there are many many better translations, including ~~King James II~~ New King James, and the NIV. Those were translated more than 1900 years after Jesus, but they are based on older manuscripts, so they actually represent a better translation than the King James. **edit** Called the New King James, King James II, they are entirely different things",
"> Why do christians follow the King James bible when it was written 1600 years after Jesus? 1. It wasn't \"written\" 1600 years later, it is a particular translation that was translated 1600 years later. 2. Not all christians prefer it. 3. Most of the other popular translations are written even later than the KJV, for example, the New International Version (NIV). 4. As a former southern baptist I can say that the SBC tends to (or used to tend to) favor this translation the most. I always assumed that it was because it sounded more archaic/fancier than the modern translations. 5. I have also had people from a number of different evangelical persuasions who told me that the KJV was the original version, or the original true translation. In other words, they believe that god thinks and speaks in English, and that the previous translations were flawed until finally it was translated into god's \"native\" KJV English. Clearly that's a load of crap, but there are some people who believe it.",
"Because they don't know Hebrew, Greek or Aramaic.. The King James Version of the Bible isn't made up, it's simply a translation of the Bible from its original languages.",
"Just to add something that I don't think anyone else has mentioned, the King James bible is I think the only widely-available English translation that doesn't have a copyright. So Christians can duplicate it however they want. I know a few Christians for whom that's a significant detail.",
"I grew up in a church that was King James only. Like many have already said, it is far from \"all Christians\", i but you could call it a regional thing, probably mostly the southern US. As a young man I read the Bible quite a bit and as some of it sunk in, I started wondering why King James only. It does not help to spread the word at all. I could never get a good answer from the church leaders that wasn't essentially dogma. Tradition. Here's a theory though, and it holds for much of the history of the Bible. If you lead a group of people and authority comes from a book, the more those people depend on you to interpret that book, the more power you hold. If you can force the adoption of a text that most people cannot understand, then you can essentially tell the people whatever you want to.",
"(wall of text incoming, but it's relevant to the question.. bear with me!) In the early 16th century, the Dutch humanist Desiderius Erasmus tried to compile a 'New testament in Greek' as a comprehensive version didn't really exist and there were doubts about the quality and integrity of the few manuscripts that were available for study around that time. The New Testament texts had been written around 50-150 AD (as is commonly accepted) but around the 15th/16th century, most known Greek manuscripts were only a couple of hundreds of years old - anything older was either lost and forgotten in monasteries all over Europe, or worn out beyond use, or decomposed due to the age of the biological materials used to write on, for instance. So, Erasmus studied the few manuscripts he could find and, in 1516, published the first edition of his New Testament in Greek - which became popularly known as the 'Textus Receptus' (TR for short) There were several revised editions later, as more/earlier manuscripts were found in monasteries and such and textual variants were discussed, accepted or rejected. For a long time, the TR was the gold standard of Greek New Testament - and it had a large influence on the KJV; the translators that made the KJV made extensive use of it. You could even say that the KJV is largely based on the TR! Now - Erasmus lived in northwestern Europe. The manuscripts (parchments) he could study, came from the western church, via Byzantium (eastern Roman empire). In later centuries, howver, archeology and other research yielded many new texts for study, not parchments from the western (byzantine) tradition, but from sources in Egypt for instance: papyri, often much older than the parchments Erasmus had. Some of these papyri are dated to the second and third century AD, which brings ur much close to their time of writing, when compared to what Erasmus had to work with! These texts are sometimes called 'alexandrian' (from Alexandria in Egypt), to distinguish them from the western 'byzantine' texts. Slowly but surely, the influence of these alexandrian texts grew. And newer compilations of a Greek New Testaments (such as Nestle Aland) which replaced the Textus Receptus, made good use of the more ancient alexandrian sources, with their own unique textual variants. This leads to textual differences with the Textus Receptus of course! So how is this relevant to the usage of the KJV today? Well, most newer bible translations no longer use the Textus Receptus as source, but newer compilations such as the already metioned Nestle Aland. But, there is a specific subset of christians that do not accept the alexandrian textual variants as valid; they consider them corrupted by gnostic influences and/or other early heresies, or by theologians such as Origenes for example. These christians only want to use a bible translation that is based on the TR and that pretty much leaves you with the KJV only! In Dutch, we have the 'Statenvertaling' bible translation, which was based on the TR and made in the early 17th century, and here, too, we have people who only want to read that one translation for pretty much the same reasons. (edit - punctuation)",
"A lot of these top level comments don't seem to address a very important issue. Where the translations came from. I went to a Baptist school and this is what we were taught as to why they believed in that. There are two main categories of manuscripts that we have found. (haven't found any originals, but the most complete and oldest manuscript are considered the source as far as translations are concerned.) The two types are the Codex Sinaiticus and the Codex Vaticanus. - The Sinaiticus was found in a monastery on Mt. Saini, only had parts of the old testament, but most or all of the new testament. - Vaticanus was found in the Vatican library and had pretty much the entire New and Old testament. (IIRC the monks/priests in that area took delicate care to preserve the words when they originally hand copied it. So it is without mistakes from the original.) The King James Version was translated word for word from the Vaticsnus, with essentially no interpretation taken by the interpreter. So it is as close as possible to the original. Every other version was translated from the Sinaiticus, or a combination of the two. This is what leads to different phrases, wordings, and versions. Now this is a debated topic even among Christians. We have hundreds of denominations and many different interpretations of the Bible, so there's going to be a lot of dispute. One of the big difference between Conservative Christians (Baptists, Pentscostals) is that they believe that the word should be literally translated with no interpretation by the part of the translator. Contemporary Christians believe that so long as the interpretation doesn't change, the Doctrine doesn't change, and that the spirit of the translation is there, it doesn't matter.",
"There are several different versions and translations of the Bible. The King James Version is only one, and it was the first that was printed in English. Most Christian churches I've attended tend to use the New International Version (NIV) because it uses modern language. There was no agreement of what constituted \"The Bible\" for several hundred years after the supposed life of Christ. Even after there was some agreement, the Bible was only printed in Latin, because the Catholic Church at that time believed the common people were not capable of understanding it for themselves. It was not until the Protestant Reformation in the 1500's or so that there was any major effort to print the Bible in a language other than Latin. My understanding, and I'm sure I will be corrected if I'm wrong, is the goal of \"versions\" of the bible is to remain as true as possible to the original language of the canonical books, while translations \"interpret\" those books. **EDIT:** I don't think I've ever been more wrong in a comment.",
"The Catholic Church alone is 1+ billion Christians that don't go by the King James version as it was written by...well a heretic. You should look up the history of it. King James did some pretty sketchy things that discredit it on the minds of many non English speaking non Anglican derived churches.",
"Most don't. The King James bible was the first English language bible so a lot of English Speakers used it. But there are numerous modern translations: New International Version (NIV), New King James Version (NKJV), New Revised Standard (NRS), and others. These more modern translations go to as old of text as they can get, (Hebrew, Greek, and Aramaic) and translate them into the modern language. The reason that people read these is that most do not understand Hebrew, Greek, or Aramaic.",
"I see some important stuff missing from the answers here, although there is a mention of the quality of the language. First of all, the King James Bible is a revision to the Tyndale Bible, which was the very first translation of the bible into English. In addition to the Vulgate, Tyndale used numerous sources including manuscripts older and more authoritative than the Latin Vulgate, which was the only version of the bible authorized by the Roman Catholic Church. Second, this pissed off the Roman Catholic Church for two reasons—one, the scripture and mass were kept in Latin in order to maintain the \"catholic\" nature of the worldwide church (and for elitist reasons too). During the reformation, bibles in native tongues became popular as a way of democratizing Christianity. The establishment of the Church of England made English language bibles the norm. After a few years, many criticisms emerged of existing English versions, which is why mainstream Anglicans and Puritans alike were looking for a better edition. Therefore King James assembled a committee of scholars to undertake a new English translation. This pleased the Puritans because they wanted the word of God without an intermediary, and it pleased the Anglicans because James, as head of the Church of England would be providing them with an *authorized* text. The clergy of an organized church could debate and contemplate ecclesiastical issues and reach some level of consensus more easily. The committee relied on all the extant English versions (particularly Tyndale's) and numerous other texts in their original languages, but apparently few or no ancient manuscripts. Third, tradition. That's been mentioned. And, for the material they had available, as a translation it is Not That Bad. Fourth, the beauty and power of the language. I am agnostic with absolutely no leanings or sympathy towards the religions of Abraham. However, one has to know at least some of the bible in order to more fully appreciate literature and European culture. If I want a good translation, I will go to some newer scholarly edition such as the English Standard Version. If I want gorgeous poetic language, I will go to King James.",
"Well \"Christians\" don't necessarily, as the King James Bible is only accepted by Protestant branches. Anyways, it contains the works written around the time of Jesus, it was just translated into English during the time of King James 1 of England. The New Testament was largely originally written in Greek or Aramaic then translated in to Latin and stayed like that until the Protestant Reformation.",
"You may not realize this, but most of the New Testament was written 80+ *years* after Jesus died. Think about that for a moment. If something happened today and no one bothered to write any of it down until 2097 - there would probably be a few inaccuracies. That is what biblical scholars do, they try to look at the newly discovered information and fix them with new revisions. If this interests you and you're in college or have access to an affordable community college, I would encourage you to take a class that looks at the New Testament from a scholarly point of view. What was happening in the world at that time, why Christmas occurs when it does, and so forth, is all very fascinating.",
"Some say that other modern translations are \"better,\" but that's highly debatable. What the King James has going for it is that it's based off of the *majority* text, The Textus Receptus. The *majority* of existing manuscripts are in agreeance with the Textus Receptus and thus the King James. While other modern versions translate mostly from the Nestle-Aaland Greek text, which also favors the Westcott & Hort greek texts. And these texts are based off of the \"minority\" of manuscriptive evidence. They chose rather to translate from the suspected oldest manuscripts in existence (because dating these manuscripts isn't even an exact science). They believe that older = better. But that isn't necessarily true. The older manuscripts could have been manipulated. And the majority of manuscripts were likely not as old because they had been read and read, and copied and copied. It shows signs of great use. Which is a sign that they were much more highly valued. KJV vs. Modern translations is a highly debated topic. I would encourage anyone looking to read a Bible to read multiple versions, compare, and look into the histories of each translation.",
"There are many translations. King James is popular, which is why some Christians prefer it. However is of horrible quality and also have a very dated language, so dated that some words they use don't even mean the same thing today. A Christian should conduct his bible studies study using several translations in all the languages he understand, with cross references, dictionaries, concordance, etc. Even learning some rudimentary hebrew/Greek to read the original language texts is good. Speaking of which, there is no ancient manuscript that is so well verified as the Bible, with over 6000 different manuscripts and fragments found, so there's a whole lot to research in. Some quick checks you can do to check if the translation is good or not: 1. Does it translate the name of God? The book is about God after all, and his name is in there almost 7000 times. If it uses Yahweh, Jehovah, Yehowah, etc then it's better than if it says \"LORD\". King James gets it right 2 times out of 7000. No bueno. 2. Check Job 40:15. If it says \"Hippopotamus\" instead of \"Behemoth\" it means the translators put their own ideas into it, because no one really knows what a Behemoth is. 3. Check Matthew 24:28. If it says \"Vultures\" instead of \"Eagles\", the translators are also taking liberties. Ed: 27 > 28",
"Are you asking why they don't read the original Aramaic, Greek, and Hebrew versions?",
"There reportedly are 30,000 \"Christian\" sects or branches (defined as faith groups who identify with Jesus Christ). For Catholics, only bibles as defined by the Douay-Rheims conference from the mid-1500's are correct. Other branches have customized bibles, or variations of mainline protestant bibles.",
"I think that Christians like the \"King James Version\" (KJV) of the bible for three reasons. First, because it is very famous. People tend to like and trust famous and well-known things simply because they are famous and well-known. This is called 'celebrity.' Second, people like the KJV because it is very old, and people tend to like or trust things that people have trusted and liked for a long time. Old things that people do and have done for a long time are called \"traditions,\" and most people like traditions. Last, some Christians like the KJV because it is fancy. The KJV is a more 'flowery' or fancy version of the bible than many other translations, and it has lots of old, fancy-sounding words like 'thy' (means \"your\") or hath (means \"has\"). These old words make the KJV seem even older and more interesting to some people. I am a Christian, and while the KJV is not my favorite version of the bible, there are two things about it that I do like: First, when I read it, the fanciness of the words reminds me more than other bible versions of how old and special the bible is. I also think that some of the fancy parts of the KJV sound very nice and grand, even though I also think that it confusing and wrong in some other places. Second, the fact that I do not understand some of the words in the KJV (even though it is an \"English\" translation) reminds me that when I read ANY version of the bible I am not actually reading the bible as it was written, but I am actually reading a translation of the bible from very old languages into modern English. This helps me remember that if I really want to know what the bible is really trying to say in one part or another, I need to think about what the real words of the original language would have meant to the real people who originally wrote and read them.",
"Some do, most don't, Catholics, for example are the largest Christian sect (50.1%), and dont use the KJV.",
"I'll add that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS - Mormon) uses the KJV exclusively, with a belief it is the most correct translation. Those missionaries you see around - they are carrying the KJV and the Book of Mormon, both valued equally.",
"I am not exactly sure about the version of the Bible, but I was raised Catholic, studied in a very strict Catholic school run by sisters and they say that Bible versions with the Imprimatur and Nihil Obstat are the only ones recognized by the R.C. Church. So those are the only ones we have at home.",
"Your question is phrased poorly. People don't 'follow' the King James Bible any more than they necessarily 'follow' any other bible. It's just the case that some people prefer to read it over other translations, and it's particularly popular because it's one of the oldest English bibles and it's become ingrained into the way a lot of people, particularly in the Church of England, hear the bible (thou shalt not kill, for example may sound more familiar than you shall not murder, but it's the same thing).",
"Little note is that the king james version has extra verses in it as most modern bible translations actually use older copies than the king james did and those verses that werent in the older copies were taken out of the newer translations.",
"As a catholic I upvote this. 3% battery won't allow me to explain the subject more, but the main points are: Luther and his changes to the Bible. Bad translations of the Bible. And Christian's that won't recognize Old Testament books written by the Jews during diaspora.",
"Some churches use it. They do this because it's one of the oldest translations of the original text into English and fear a newer one may be altered in some way. Others use more modern translations, and some even use the original texts, the Vulgate (a famous latin translation, iirc for a long time basically the entire Bible was original Hebrew and greek- > greek- > the Vulgate- > english), or something else entirely.",
"In addition to the many great answers given here, there is a spiritual element as well. We believe that God would have made sure, in His infinite power, that His word was available to His children in an accurate way. Faith tells us that if God did not consider the KJV or NIV versions of the Bible to be correct, He would not have let them become what is considered \"the norm\" when referring to it.",
"Short answer, it's the dominant english translation of the work and english is the worlds dominant language.",
"ELI5: Why do people make blanket statements about \"Christians\" as though any one statement could possibly apply to all of them, when it's super-easy to say \"many Christians\" or \"some Christians\"?",
"Bible scrolls WRITTEN in the first century were all lost due to rot, mold, fires, floods, wars, famines, etc. But we know even from secular history that groups of Christians kept hand writing duplicate copies which soon made their way south to the the Alexandrians (Egypt), east to the Orthodox church (Turkey, Russia), and of course west throughout the Roman Empire. The 1611 King James version gathered the most reliable and earliest scrolls that were available at that time and paid the most experienced translators of Greek, Hebrew, Aramaic, etc. in London for several years. I own and read several 20th century translations so I am not telling anybody what to do. However, I appreciate the fact that the KJV predates most of the natural sciences and all of the social sciences. Therefore, if the KJV has errors, they aren't because someone literally tried to subtly force them into agreement with post-enlightenment ideas. The Dead Sea scrolls unearthed in 1946 include an even earlier version of Isaiah than the KJV translators had access to...which has further validated their attention to detail and accuracy.",
"While most of these answers are really good, I want to tack on something that I think many people have missed in reading OP's question. The King James Version of the Bible, or KJV, was not \"written\" 1600 years after Jesus death. It is an English translation of the Bible that was finished being written within 60-120 years of his death. Also, churches sticking so strictly to this translation are not as common as they once were. It's actually almost a meme for younger Christians to joke about how that the \"only good translation\" (it's not, but that's just because we have a better understanding of how to translate the original text. For what it was, it actually is pretty decent.) And we don't \"follow\" that specific translation either. We follow the Bible to the best of our understanding of what the authors' intents were. We typically rely on Theologians to follow good historical practice in trying to discern what that meaning was. And I don't mean to say there is some special or hidden meaning in the Bible left behind for us modern people. I mean much of that meaning has likely been forgotten due to changes in cultures and languages, and we're just trying to figure out what it meant back then. I hope this clears some things up for you OP."
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6akevf | Why isn't there any skin colored tattoo ink that can be used to cover up bad tattoos? | Recently saw a picture of a woman who got a tattoo covered up by just getting a big black square tattoo over it. Why couldn't they do the same thing, but instead of using black ink, they use ink that matches her skin color? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Tattoo artist here. Tattoo ink isn't actually \"ink\", it's pigment in a carrier (usually sterilized water and alcohol), which means that when it goes into the skin, it's staining the skin at a depth where the skin heals (anything above that dies and falls off during the scabbing process). Have you ever stained white fabric black? Now try staining that black with a lighter colour... doesn't really work. Mostly because the darker colour will still show up through the lighter colour. *Edit*scabbing, not scanning.",
"Tattoos aren't like paint where you can just put a coat of something new over the top. Instead you are injecting ink into a layer of skin which already contains ink; you can add more ink alongside the existing ink but if you put skin-colored ink there then it would just be beside the dark ink from before.",
"Think of a tattoo being similar to painting watercolors on paper. Your skin absorbs the ink, like the paper absorbs the watercolors. You may be able to put a darker color over a tattoo it to obscure what came before, but a lighter color would either do nothing or just deepen the dark color.",
"Just to be pragmatic, even if this was possible, your skin doesn't stay one color all the time. even if you color matched the skin tone perfectly at the time of the tattoo, even moderate sun exposure would likely result in changes to the overall skin color resulting in an area of discoloration. That's not really considered an attractive trait in skin. Basically you'd be giving yourself what would look like a big birth mark most of the time.",
"There are uses for skin colored ink, hiding stretch marks and scars and such. Cosmetic tattooing has taken on a lot of life in the past few years.",
"You ever try colouring over blue/black ink on paper with a lighter colour? It no work.",
"Why haven't tattoo artists invented pigment that disappears after like 5 years? That way people can choose either permanent or semi-temporary.",
"Ooh, something I can contribute to as the recipient of a \"skin colored\" tattoo. I got one to cover up a deep red/purple birthmark on my face. The tattoo artist used a very light pigment to offset or lighten the birthmark to a less noticeable hue. While not as successful as I hoped, the result is better than it was. As I understand it, the other posters are correct in that the best you can hope for is a slightly less than perfect match when tattooing to match skin tone."
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6akkjk | What are the repercussions of someone leaking classified information in a Senate Hearing, as well as the case of said classified information? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"If you leak something classified in a Senate hearing, you'll get in a lot of legal trouble. Particularly since you could have said that what you want to say is classified, and the committee could have held a classified session to hear it securely.",
"Any unauthorized disclosure of classified information by someone who has a security clearance is a clear violation of the contract signed when getting the clearance, and of the Espionage Act. There are stiff penalties. Two complications to this: * Some officials are in fact authorized to choose whether things are classified or not. So if you are the declassification authority (which can be the case with high-level officials), you can say, I've made the determination that this is not classified anymore. * If the person in question has never gotten a clearance, and they got the classified information from some other source, generally speaking it is much harder to prosecute them under the Espionage Act. Not impossible — the Espionage Act clearly has provisions for this. But it comes up hard against the First Amendment, and might be unconstitutional; the barrier to prosecute private speech is in principle a very high one. To my knowledge this has not been fully explored in courts before — usually if a \"leaker\" is prosecuted it is because they had a clearance. I am not aware of any cases where people without clearances (people who have \"unauthorized\" access to classified information) have been successfully criminally prosecuted without them actually being part of honest-to-god spy rings."
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6akknu | Why do some people hate Betsy DeVos? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"She is Secretary of Education, based on her advocacy against public schools. It seems odd, to some, to put someone in charge of public education support from the federal government who is against public schools.",
"She is not qualified for the position that she has been placed in. She should not be near the Education Department.",
"She's an advocate for school choice with things like voucher programs, which some people are against because they feel it will take money away from public schools. She also wasn't very articulate during her confirmation hearings, and came off as dumb to some people. That, combined with her wealth, made it seem to some that she had only gotten the job because Trump wanted to do a favor for a rich friend.",
"She is an individual who is not only unqualified for the position that she is in but she actively works against what works.",
"The fact that her qualifications for Secretary of Education are less than my mother's, my wife's, a few friends in completely non-education-related fields, and about 50% of the people in this country makes people wary about her ability to serve that position effectively or intelligently. Since you're dealing with the education of our nation's children, people get extra worked up over it."
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6akq7m | Why do the Men in the English Royal family have so many war medals even though they probably never went into battle? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"The duke of Edinburgh saw service during WW2 including the Battle of Crete. Charles trained in the RAF and the Royal Navy and worked on a minesweeper for a time. Andrew is a member of the RAF and the Royal Navy and saw action during the Falklands war(Parliament tried to get him moved to a desk job but the Queen stepped in and said no, he should be allowed to remain). Edward trained for a short time as a Royal Marine but dropped out(and apparently got a lot of shit for it). William joined the RAF and also trained with the Navy. He tried to pursue deployment in Afghanistan but it was denied, he works as part of the RN sea rescue. Harry trained in the Army and went on to train to be a pilot. He served in Afghanistan on one tour as an Apache pilot for 20 weeks in total. All members of the royal family go in as commissioned officers so gaining honours and medals is normally par for the course and medals don't mean you're necessarily in the front line of combat.",
"They routinely do. The king being present on the battlefield has a long tradition. 15 monarchs from England or Scotland have been killed in battle. Presently Prince Harry is a veteran of the Afghan War.",
"Yeah pretty much every male in the Royal Family has served to some extent. Medals can be earned for more than combat, too.",
"A lot of them are orders, not medals, strictly speaking, indicating membership in various orders of chivalry. The British have a lot of them, and members of the royal family are regularly and traditionally inducted into them and allowing them to wear the insignia. Taken further, the Commonwealth realms usually have orders of their own, and since the British royal family is their royal family as well, they also get membership. Further still, members of royal families have also traditionally been inducted into foreign orders of chivalry as a token of friendship and courtesy, allowing them to wear those orders, as well. This results in royals from all countries having lots of orders to choose from to wear. As has also been stated, the royals also serve in the military, and would receive various service medals when they earned them."
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6alabg | If you're called before a Congressional Committee for questioning, do you have to go? | Additionally, in the case of the CEO Shkreli(?) who upped the price of drugs-- he was rather arrogant with the committee--is there any repercussion for his actions to the Committee? Likewise, can the Committee take any legal action into decisions they make? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"If they just *invite* you, you don't have to go, but Congress also has a nearly-unchecked (by the judicial branch, due to separation of powers) power to compel testimony and production of documents, etc. though subpoenas. If you refuse, they *can* directly arrest you with their own sergeant-at-arms, but refusing to comply is also a separate crime of Contempt of Congress, so they'll generally refer it to the US Attorney and it'll be handled by the normal judicial (and federal prison) system from there."
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6albsu | What is happening to Planned Parenthood and why are the arguments for its defunding? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"The argument is largely about abortion, as Planned Parenthood (PP) is the nation's largest abortion provider, although its worth pointing out that the Federal funds that go to PP are largely already prohibited from funding abortions (with a few exceptions allowed under the Hyde Ammendment). Opponents argue that this money (like all money) is fungible, and dollars that go to covering some of PP's costs free up funds to go to abortions. Advocates argue that PP's federal funding actually reduces the number of abortions, by providing contraceptive services that reduce unintended pregnancies. The current GOP health care bill passed by the House blocks Medicaid reimbursements for abortion providers for one year. Since Planned Parenthood will presumably give up Medicaid funding rather than stop providing abortions, this would represent a significant hit to their revenue. Notably, this bill does not stop them from receiving Title X funding (mostly related to contraceptives and family planning services), which are done through grants rather than reimbursements. I'm fairly skeptical that the GOP can pass this provision in the Senate version of the bill, as they have a very narrow majority (52), at least 2 GOP Senators are pro-choice, and the few (1?) pro-life Democrat Senator(s) are unlikely to vote for the bill regardless."
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6alsdt | Why are so many old bands coming back and changing their style? | I began to notice this a year or two ago with blink 182 and a couple others. Their California album changed a bit from their previous ones. But this year alone bands like Paramore, Kasabian, Gorillaz and Fall Out Boy have completely changed their style. Maybe it's just me being crazy but I swear they're all changing. I'm not saying it's always bad but I used to love some of these bands and it's odd hearing their new songs. | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"The simple answer is that it's their job as musicians to make music. It's their livelihood, it's how they pay the bills. It's what they know how to do, and it's usually what they love to do. Looking a bit deeper, the main thing here is that these are all artists whose heyday has passed, but who still love to make music. There is precedence for this, and a lot of it. The following isn't always the case, but it's pretty typical: Imagine you are a successful singer in a band. The genre doesn't matter, only that at some point, probably in your early twenties, your music was on the radio and people liked it. You sold out shows, you made videos, you were on the cover of magazines, and you were living your dream. But time passed and after that first record, or maybe you were lucky enough to make a couple of successful records, things seemed to drop off. Your audience was getting smaller. Your singles weren't charting. You weren't being called for interviews. Life got complicated, and there's a good chance your band broke up. That's fine, you're really good at what you do and you know it. So you made a solo record, started a new band, whatever. But it didn't do any better than your last record with the original band, or maybe it even did worse. You went on tour, but instead of headlining arenas and festivals, you found yourself playing small clubs or opening for aging rock bands or, even worse, for artists younger than you. But after a few years, your old guitarist calls you up, out of the blue, and the two of you meet up for coffee and talk about the old times. He apologizes for the nasty shit he said to and about you, maybe he blames it on the drugs or the drinking or just the chaos of that lifestyle. You do the same, and the two of you become friends again. And the more you talk, the more you realize you both miss the old days. You want to go back to when things were simpler, when you and those other three people felt like a family. It was you against the world, and you thrived. And you miss the fame, the hit records, the sold-out shows, the crowds that knew every word to every song. You both agree that it's time to call the other guys. And so you put the band back together. Maybe it's the four original members or maybe it's just you and him and two newcomers, but you're a unit again, and you practice until you're a well-oiled machine. To your ears, you sound even better than you did ten years ago, and you start booking shows for your comeback tour. Sure, you'll be opening for someone more popular, or maybe you'll be part of some nostalgia tour dedicated to your genre, but either way, you'll be playing and your old fans will be happy. But they're the only ones. Some of the kids recognize your biggest two hits, but most of the crowd just looks bored when you do the song you poured your heart into, the song you just knew would become an anthem. And now it's time to make a record. Ten years have passed since the last time you did this, and during that time, your solo records were a different style than the band's was, because you didn't see a point in regurgitating the same old thing at the time. So now you're back in the studio with that same old band, what do you do? One option would be to try to recapture the old sound, and you may or may not find success with that. If you do it well, the old fans will praise you, but you're not likely to turn the kids on to your music. If you do it poorly, the purists will buy the record just to have a complete collection, but they won't listen to it a second time. Or you can change with the times. This is likely to alienate the purists who listened to you back in the day, but if you do it well, you have a good chance of bringing new fans to the table. Fuck it up and you'll pretty much lose everybody. Examples that fit into this story, whether loosely or closely, would be: Jefferson Airplane, who returned in the 1980's as Starship and sounded nothing like their old self. Aerosmith, who successfully revived their career in the 80's with less of the bluesy rock that had made them famous and more gimmicky pop-rock songs like \"Dude Looks Like A Lady\" and \"Love In An Elevator\" but lost a lot of respect from fans of their old sound. The Beastie Boys, who made one of the most impressive comebacks in rock history by adapting their style to more of an alt. rap/rock and less of a snotty frat-boy vibe The Monkees, who returned in the 80's with bad pop drivel A LOT of 1970's rock bands that reappeared in the 80's with too much synth Elvis Presley, whose career in the army left a musical void that the British invasion was happy to fill. He returned in the 60's absent his old rockabilly sound. I could go on all day... TL;DR: Musicians got to eat."
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6ampeb | What led to Prohibition being a thing, and was it overall positive or negative? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"1. The USA had a problem with some men getting drunk at bars, then taking bad care of their families (neglecting or even beating them). It wasn't most men of course, but enough that it seemed troubling. 2. The drinking was done more by people in urban areas, and newer immigrants from Catholic countries. The non-Catholic, non-urban voters didn't like it -- they didn't drink much, and basically were voting to make *other* people not drink either. 3. It was an era of political reform, and people were naive about the power of laws to improve behavior. 4. Many people who supported the Constitutional amendment for Prohibition expected the resulting law to be far milder than it actually was; the US Congress got carried away and passed a law that was stricter than expected (banning most beer and wine, not just hard liquor; and banning it almost everywhere, not just in saloons).",
"The Prohibition movement was pushed for by religious women who viewed drinking as immoral. Prohibition can largely be viewed as a failure. It really didnt cut down on the sale of alcohol, due to the existence of speakeasies and organized crime. At the end of the day all prohibition did was line the pockets of criminals who access to illegal alcohol.",
"I recommend 'How Booze Built America' which, I think, was originally on the Discovery channel. It's a pretty complex question and it's tough to ELI5 it.",
"Check out Ken Burns's documentary \"Prohibition\" on Amazon Prime. It's very well researched to show you the social problems that led to the political movement that brought forth prohibition, and then the reasoning for it's ultimate failure.",
"When Women got the vote in the US, the issue of \"men drink too much\" became their first hot button issue. The women's vote crystallized politicians behind prohibition. It didn't work very well, that's why it was repealed, and it had the unfortunate side effect of significantly funding organized crime."
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6ao119 | Why are all powdered donuts of the cake variety? | I see glazed cake donuts, yet I've never seen a powdered yeast donut. Why is this so? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"The cake doughnuts are sort of absorbent/moist, so when you put powdered sugar (which is about 90% finely ground sugar and about 10% corn starch to keep it from sticking) stick right to it. A little bit of the sugar/starch melts and sinks it, and forms a sort of glue to hold the rest of the powder on. Mind you, this only works when the doughnuts are a bit hot and fresh. Raised doughnuts are just too much like bread, and too smooth, so you end up with a thin layer of powder. Then, over a pretty short time the sugar in the powder draws in moisture and melts, leaving a kind of sugary corn starch paste on your doughnut. As a result the better option is what something like Krispy Kreme does, and glaze that style. Then, if you want, you can top it with coarser granulated sugar, or anything else, and the glaze acts like glue. Finally, there's a *lot* less actual doughnut in a raised doughnut, so covering it completely with sugar could be a little overwhelming. A light dusting is more common when can get them fresh, or if it's put on cold."
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6ao63j | Vikings | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Vikings are one of the names given to the Norse people. They where a fairly successful warrior race that thrived in sea exploration and survived in the harsh climates of northern Europe. They are fascinating in the same sense that the Huns or Spartans where interesting. They where a successful society that supported their culture with war and conquering."
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6ao6hb | Why do children like children's music? Or is more of a social construct? | I can see how sound effects and slow bpm to process each phrase would help them get into the story, but otherwise don't see where the whole "aesthetic" of it comes from? or is it* (correction for the title) | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Somewhere I heard children enjoy repetition more, so that explains why they'll listen to the things a billion times. They also like playing with words and sounds since it's new to them.",
"Children's music is often very simplistic in harmonic structure, often repeating the same few chords. Simple melodies and harmonies, and lyrics are easier for learning brains to process. I think it's likely as simple as that!",
"I know it doesn't really answer the question, but some of the answers remind me of Alice Cooper's response to what music he raised his kids on: Beach Boys, The Four Seasons, and the Beatles. Simple, poppy, well-constructed songs."
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6ap1ll | If it is now accepted that the witches of Salem, MA were falsely accused, why is Salem now a center for witchcraft? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"When I was a kid I'd watch \"hocus pocus\" every single fall. I fell in love with the idea of witches and the idea of living in Massachusetts awed me. Then I grew up and realized it wasn't really a witch trial, they were falsely accused and Massachusetts is cold. :\\",
"> It is now widely accepted that these trials were a sham Yes, but that \"wide acceptance\" is fairly recent, compared to how long the stories have been in folklore. > I wonder then why has Salem come to be a place that is associated with, and celebratory of, witchcraft? For the same reason Roswell, New Mexico is associated with UFO's: Pop culture and folklore are less about objective facts and truth and more about compelling narratives, stories that \"make sense\" or are entertaining.",
"Salem is famous for those witch trails so they celebrate them and as a result they're famous for witchcraft. It doesn't matter that the trails were a sham, they are still an interesting part of American history."
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6ap53w | How much time has to pass before discovering and studying an old civilization/settlement/etc is considered Archaeology? | For example, studying Egyptian pyramids and ruins is Archaeology, but studying a mid 20th century warzone is not. At what point can we consider the study of an event, Archaeology? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Archaeology is the study of history through artifacts. If people don't actually remember what happened there, requiring other ways of studying it, then I'd say we have archaeology. Paleo-archaeology would be the study of ancient (whatever that means) history.",
"Just as a side question: If someone studies an ancient civilization that coexisted with Mammoths, sabertooths, etc, then is that person doing archaeology or paleontology? At that point could the archaeologist also be a paleontologist? Am I going crazy?",
"Very quickly. Archaeology is studies materials while history studies documents. There are already archaeological investigations of the Yugoslavian civil war just as there are already historians writing about it.",
"Actually, it will still be an exercise in archaeology if you pick up mortar shells somewhere in Iraq and start reconstructing the chain of events from them.",
"Once all the people are dead and it's forgotten about maybe? WW1 could be close to that? Not to say we have forgotten about WW1 though ? We look at the civil war like that ?",
"I think the line between inference and direct knowledge is the deciding factor. We have to study the artifacts to infer the society, culture, beliefs etc. Once record keeping and preserving pertinant information became widespread the need for study of these regions lessened. Huge caveat here: i am nothing aproching an expert nor do I claim to be one. This sounded reasonable to me."
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6ap7yh | How does a country determine what animals should be protected under animal protection laws? | Almost all scientists agree that Cephalapods are among the most intelligent species on earth, yet in the US it is not illegal to grab an Octopus and rip its legs off. | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"> yet in the US it is not illegal to grab an Octopus and rip its legs off. It depends entirely on the state. The US has minimal animal cruelty laws at the federal level, instead deferring to individual states to set their own laws. So if you're in, say, California, it *is* illegal to rip an octopus' legs off. But it's not illegal in Alabama."
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6apa2i | Why is it considered okay to be racist to Romani, but the moment you're racist to a Jew, you're Satan incarnate? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"It's not OK to be racist towards anyone, and if you have practical experience in these matters I strongly suggest reconsidering your life choices.",
"I think because the elite need the working class to hate something more than them. And we just always fall for it."
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6apkpv | Why Australia Is Allowed To Participate In Eurovision? | I just honestly don't understand it, and I myself am Australian! I just don't understand how a non-European nation can participate in something that has Euro in the name. I get that initially it was because of us being the biggest broadcast thing outside the EU, and because it was the 60th anniversary, but from the research I've done, we would've only been allowed back if we won, which we didn't. Am I missing something here? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"They asked nicely. Since it's a TV show, more viewers means more money from ads. If Australia wants to participate, and thus have the show run in their country too, the creators profit. I'd also imagine that since us Americans are well.... our usual hyper-patriotic selves, Australia has a hard time hanging onto our coattails.",
"> On 10 February 2015, the EBU announced that in honour of the 60th anniversary of Eurovision, it had invited Australia to participate in the finals of the contest, represented by Special Broadcasting Service (SBS). SBS had been a long-time broadcaster of the event, which has had a large following in Australia A quick wikipedia search on EuroVision '15 gave me this. Basically it's a show that is watched a lot in Australia, a honor guest for the Anniversary.",
"Regardless of what it is being said I believe it is political. Australia is not the only non-European country in Eurovision, Israel is in Eurovision too but Greece and Turkey are no longer in it despite being part of Europe. And I think this year Russia is not compete"
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6aq5mi | why is english seen as the "universal" language? | I was just thinking about this, why is it that whenever there is a need to translate a language its always to english. A better way to put this would be to ask why is english the universal language even though its not the most widely spoken language? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"This has to do with two things: the British Empire, and subsequently the language of technology. Britain, Spain, Holland, France, and Portugal have been trying to conquer the entire planet, fighting wars for at least six centuries. Portugal wasn't as successful as the others, but still managed to get Brazil. Spain got the rest of South America (this is a simplified approach). Britain took over Ireland, parts of Africa, Oceania, North America and Southeast Asia. With lots of money coming in, thanks to trade deals, oppression, and efficiency, Britain had a more stable basis to fight wars, and in the meantime share its language and culture. This resulted in English being major languages on two continents: North America and Oceania. With money also came the freedom for scientific research (which was primarily funded to gain more wealth). British and American science were well funded AND delivered significant developments, resulting in the Industrial Revolution in the Western World. Thanks to WWII (and again, well funded science) the USA and Britain gained a major foothold on European and Asian development. Computers were developed, using programming languages that were based on English - simply because it was more likely that they were bought by English speakers. With this, English became a standard for computer science and business. Also, in science, English had become the 'trade language'. [Edited] [TL;DR] Thanks to smart conquest and warfare, Britain spread the English language and culture throughout the world and managed to keep it important by keeping English speakers well funded.",
"The \"universal language\" or \"Lingua Franca\" is the language used by the most powerful nation of a time period for politics and trade. During the pre-Roman era that was Greek, during the Roman era it was Latin (with some Greek holding on). Later French became the language of dominance in politics and then when the British Empire boomed English took over. The US traded places with the UK after WWII and since this was the era that communication boomed English was well established as being dominant for trade and politics.",
"More people know English as a first or second language than pretty much any language, and it's a more global language. While it's said that mandarin is the worlds most populous language, that doesn't communicate that it's spoken in mostly one really fucking populous country. However ,English, thanks to colonialism, is spoken, again as a first or second language, across most of Africa, India, and Europe, not to mention being vital in politics in the Americas due to the local english-speaking superpower. Indeed, for the past 200 years, the worlds leading powers, or at least the most effective projectors of global political and military power, have been Great Britain/the UK, and then later the USA, both English speaking countries. This has caused a lot of the dialogue, and certainly a lot of the actors, in global events speaking English. Tl;Dr Because it actually is the most widely spoken language, and because Murica.",
"Pretty much going to agree with people here, the British Empire was the largest, most populated and most influential empire in history. Almost a quarter of the land, and population of Earth being included in the empire at its height. Another factor is its plasticity. The English language adopts words and phrases that are used or fit well with their usage, borrowing heavily from other languages in some cases (entrepreneur jumps to mind, or even the description lingua franca). It has also become the technical language, with science, engineering and even software being based on it. Unless something drastic happens English is only going to become more and more prevalent."
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6aqav5 | Who or What is "The Holy Spirit" (The Bible O/N Testament). | I never got a proper explanation on this one. | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"It's really tough to explain this, because you're talking about an ill-defined concept which is part of a religious cult (\"cult\" in the technical sense of a set of beliefs, not the perjorative sense of a religion you disagree with), and even members of this religion can't agree on what it is. In the Old Testament, there are references to the \"Ruach\" of God, sometimes called the Holy \"Ruach\". \"Ruach\" is a Hebrew word that can mean \"breath\", \"wind\", \"life\" or \"spirit\". It's easy to see how people might have thought of a person's breath as being their life -- after all, if you stop breathing, you die. In the story of Adam and Eve, God brings Adam to life by giving him his \"ruach\" -- you're supposed to imagine God breathing into Adam, much as you might give somebody the \"kiss of life\". Breath and wind are basically the same thing; you can't see them, but you can definitely see (and feel) their *effects*. The same invisible force that can bring trees crashing down is also somehow *inside* you -- it's a life-force, if you like, and the only explanation they had for it was that it came from God. When the stories of Jesus came to be written down, the authors obviously wanted to highlight the idea of Jesus being inspired by this \"Ruach\" -- except that they were writing in Greek, not Hebrew, so used a Greek word which we translate as \"spirit\" or \"ghost\". Mary is told that her baby was \"conceived by the Holy Spirit\"; later, when Jesus is initiated into John's religious movement by being baptized, it's said that the Holy Spirit descended on Jesus \"like a dove\", which is why in religious images the Holy Spirit is often represented as a dove. After Jesus's death, his followers are granted the gift of the Holy Spirit: they hear a sound like a rushing wind (appropriate, considering it's a \"ruach\") and see what look like tongues of fire coming to rest on their heads. The same spirit that had inspired Jesus now inspired them. Probably, the original intention was that the Holy Spirit was simply the life-force of God, the thing that makes him \"alive\" and allows him to do things. It's basically how we experience God. This Holy Spirit then directed Jesus in his ministry; and after that, it directed his followers. Even the bit about Jesus being conceived by the Holy Spirit might not have been intended to be understood literally, since both Matthew and Luke trace Jesus's family tree through Joseph, not Mary. The early Christians chose to interpret all this differently, though. To them, it was important that Jesus wasn't just inspired by God, he literally *was* God (passages in the Bible of Jesus declaring himself to be basically God were either misunderstood or added later -- or, more likely, both). They also gave the Holy Spirit its own identity. And so now you have three supernatural beings, when other parts of the Bible appear to be very clear on the matter that there is only one god. So this was explained with the doctrine of the Holy Trinity. God consists of three persons: the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. They're all separate, but at the same time they're all \"God\", a classic case of having your cake and eating it.",
"God is The Father - The Creator. He is immeasureable. Outside the realm of human understanding. The Son is Jesus - He was sent to save man from sin. To teach and walk a path of righteousness by being sinless Himself and having had posession of The Spirit of God. He taught and trained His desciples in these ways and then God imparted a peice of The Spirit unto them through Christ. This is The Holy Spirit (see John 14:26 NLT below) Jesus ascended unto heaven, leaving earth and the natural world, going back to heaven where God dwells. When you become aware of His ways and believe in Him, you can recieve the Holy Spirit and it will guide you on your path anywhere you allow it to. It does not make you free of sin, you cannot become perfect or good by receiving it, it is merely a map, a guide. An inner voice so to speak, it gives you discernment. It is your direct line to Gods ear, to His voice and to His lap where you will find all that you need. It gives you a new level of wisdom and awareness and when you go wrong (which you will) it brings upon you sweet conviction... it then brings you to a place of repentance for these sins. Then when you ask God for forgiveness and He sees that your heart motive is true and pure, He forgives you...then through the Holy Spirit, you can learn not to sin in the same ways again.. basically its like Jesus teaching you inside your heart. But when the Father sends the Advocate as my representative—that is, the Holy Spirit—he will teach you everything and will remind you of everything I have told you John 14:26 NLT URL_0 God uses Holy Spirit to speak through His Word, directly to our hearts. When we expose ourselves (through sin) to things other than The Holy Spirit. Things that are not of Him, our spirit can become entangled with these and this can lead to further sin and death, pushing us away from Him. When we are baptized in The Holy Spirit and as we heal (guilt snd shame is errsticated) with the Spirit in us, we are cleansed of all of these things which have clung to our spirit. This leaves empty space for The Holy spirit to fill. Hope this helps. Theres soo much more to it!",
"The answer is different depending on the denomination of Christian. From my upbringing (Jehovah's Witness), the Holy Spirit is God's active force on the earth. Anything God does in relation to mankind is done through the Holy Spirit. It could be used to cause miracles, or to change an individual's thinking, or to impregnate people!"
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6aqwg8 | Why is received written with ei and retrieved with ie? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"\"Receive\" comes from Latin _recipere_, \"back-take.\" \"Retrieve\" comes from Old French _retroeve_, \"find again.\" In French, < ie > and < ei > are pronounced differently, which didn't carry over to spoken English. In fact, early English used both combinations interchangeably.",
"I before e, except after c , or when sounding like play as in neighbor or weigh. At least that's the way of learned it. That is my ELI5, I'm sure an expert will be along shortly to give an adult answer.",
"I before E except after C. (except for all the words that don't follow this rule but ignore those)"
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6aqx71 | the Streisand Effect | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"A photographer was making lots of photographs of the California coast. This just happened to contain a photo of Barbara Streisand's house. She sued him because she wanted the photo of her house taken off the internet. As a result, suddenly everyone knew exactly where Barbara Streisand lived. So \"streisand effect\" is the name for the phenomenon where attempting to keep something secret ironically gets everyone to spread the secret info around. After all, if somebody is trying to hide something, it must be juicy."
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6ar60f | Why do we say Mathematics, Chemistry and not Mathematology, Chemiology OR Psychology, Geology and not Psychics, Geologics? | Is there a semantic difference between those constructs or are they words that we accepted just because? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"In the case of mathematics, it's etymological origins lie in the ancient Greek words \"Manthanein\" for learn, and \"Techne\" for something akin to \"craft\" - I believe. Effectively, mathcraft - you're handling it, manipulating it. Chemistry, I'd hypothesise comes from the word for \"Chemist\", denoting a chemist's trade. It's a bit obscure though - there's a [wikipedia page]( URL_0 ) about it. Psychology and Geology, on the other hand, end in \"-logy\", from the old Greek -logia, denotes \"The study of something\". Hence, psychology and geology denote \"The study of the mind\" and \"The study of the earth\", rather than the word for maths which is more of an \"Ability\", a \"craft\"... if that makes any sense."
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6ar8n9 | Why does the West Coast have a much more laidback, easygoing culture than the East? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"I'm not sure you could actually explain this to a 5 year old. Starting with the type of people that settled there (Puritans on the east coast vs more adventurous explorers out west, etc), weather, economic differences, political, religious, social beliefs, lifestyles, it goes on. There's a great book called American Nations by Colin Woodward that theorizes \"North America can be broken neatly into 11 separate nation-states, where dominant cultures explain our attitudes toward everything from social issues to the role of government.\" It has some really interesting information if you're willing to dive into a long read!",
"I've lived both in California on the central coast as well as the DC metro area for the last two years. I can say for me the west coast is more about who you are and less about what you do. The first questions when meeting someone on the east coast is always what do you do for a living. Its healthier I think to not let work define you. And the other factor for sure is weather. I'm going stir crazy here in the DC area without the ability to leave my windows open year round. You don't realize how calming the sounds of the outside world are until you are locked in a sealed apartment with just the buzz of electronics and heater/AC.",
"My theory is how densely populated the areas are. West Coast is spread out and East Coast is stacked up. I don't think humans are meant to be stacked on top of each other like that.",
"I have an untested hypothesis that basically says that the longer a society has been established in a given place, the more social control it will exert over its populace. This is obviously a gross generalization, but it seems like the \"old world\" shows this pattern as well. The middle east has a society that is many millennia old, and the social controls there are quite strong. Western Europe likewise has stronger social expectations than he US, and is a place that has ancient roots. The euro-american society in North America is only a few hundred years old by comparison. The west coast did not have american cities established with significant population until the industrial age. Therefore the founding principles of these places are newer, and based more on innovation and ingenuity than on religious conformity or political fealty. Likewise, as a geographically remote part of the continent, it required a certain adventure seeking mentality to get out here for a very long time. And even in the 20th century, it was often a risky economic proposition to relocate to California when the east coast and upper mid-west were still economically strong. Therefore California has been populated by folks seeking a new life far from the restrictions of their more conservative eastern hometowns. I think, given enough time however, California will begin to show more of an East-coast style unfriendliness and work-ethic. But it'll probably be another few generations. Like I said however, this stuff is pretty much speculation and observation, I'm no PhD.",
"I would gather it has more to do with the cultural differences than anything. Weather, though some may argue that it isn't cultural, leads to a more laid back environment due to less strain on the body to adapt to varying temperatures and weather patterns. People spend more time away from their immediate stressors (e.g. Bills, broken pipes, etc.) by going out into the fair weather. They aren't restricted to their homes, which may cause them to go \"stir crazy\". Another may be a \"perceived\" laid back environment do to mass media. A lot of the movies made make California more fun, while making New York more stressful. In my experience, there are two immediately noticeable factors in the east that aren't as prevalent in the west. One, the weather is unpredictable and quite miserable sometimes. The winters are generally very cold, and the summers are extremely humid and hot. This causes people to stay at home, away from external stimulation, which causes increasing stress. The second cause could be a heavy presence of religion in the east (especially the southeast). Religion requires people to constantly restrain themselves from some of the joys in life. I am not speaking of immoral things (like sexual deviance), but more like enjoying a beer with a friend, or going to a rock concert, or even enjoying an occasional \"R\" rated movie. I am sure there are other factors I am missing, but from my perspective, those seem to be some of the glaring differences.",
"Because the moral values and strict piety of early Puritan society are deeply entrenched in the culture of the East Coast, particularly in New England. Although there is no longer a theocracy, the North East is heavily influenced today by Puritan sobriety, religion, and work ethic.",
"Well, some of it is stereotype, and some of it is based on what you see in other comments. East coast - finance, big biz, Wall Street, people dress more formally for work, people talk faster West coast - software, entertainment industry, work dress is more casual, people speak more slowly Weather -- beach culture, plays into the surf/fun perception. History -- SF summer of love, LA being seen as a chill place (though people are hustling just as much in entertainment and software as they do in finance jobs, working long hours, etc.) But of course the East has hippies too...Woodstock! Vacation spots like the Hamptons and Jersey shore communities and Martha's Vineyard, etc. So some is stereotype and some of it is people who buy in to the stereotype living up to it, and some is marketing.",
"They might be more laid-back on the west coast, but they're also far more insular. I say this as someone who grew up just north of NYC, then moved to Los Angeles. Neighbors in LA hardly know each other, there are imposing walls between houses. Sure, you can skinny-dip in your own pool, but you'll also never see the people who live 50 feet away from you. Back east everyone BBQ'd in their backyards, if there was a fence it was there to keep the dog/young child in, not to keep your neighbors out of your life. You might not lay around sunning in the nude, but you knew who your neighbors were, what jobs they had, how old their kids were, etc. My personal feeling is that this image of being laid-back is a defensive mechanism, it allows you to avoid going into details about your life, you get by on generalities about the weather and traffic, yet never allow your insides to show.",
"Not when it comes to drinking. Source- am from Boston. Was probably born drunk, but was blacked out and can't remember.",
"I don't really think it does. My family in and from New England seems way more laidback than most people I know from the Southwest. The most laidback people I know are from Montana and Idaho or reservations. Living in AZ and NV, the stereotype is that Californians are stuck up, rude, and drive terribly.",
"There are many factors: population mobility, education focus, computer jobs, but I'll go with \"pot is cheaper\". No one factor will every explain these broad cultural differences.",
"Honestly I think it's more of a myth than anything. Both are pretty much the same. Go to an Oakland Raiders or USC Football game, they sure as hell aren't laid back. People work just as hard on the west coast as they do on the east coast. People relax just as much on the east coast as they do on the west coast.",
"At one point this may have been true, but that time has long past. The west coast is just as crowded, expensive and teeming with sociopaths as any place out east. The rat race is in full effect. Edit: Furthermore, how the fuck are you going to compare entire coasts? Central California north is vastly different from SoCal, and the North east is nothing like the south east.",
"I've lived in beach cities in Southern California, and I've lived near Washington DC on the east coast. The climate makes people in Southern CA seem more relaxed, as far as the media portrays it. People still have to go to work every day, just like the rushed, harried people on the east coast do, but Southern CA San Bernardino Valley has also become the porn capital of the world, so define work as you will. Also with nicer year-round summer/spring temperatures, Californians like to wear shorts & bathing suits much of the year, and in order to look & feel good in such light apparel, people become health & food conscious. Healthier people tend to be happier. Living near DC, people are rather unhealthy & stressed-out. Always sitting in traffic or in their offices. People in DC who are fit & healthy are rare, but they do exist, and they are fit & healthy because it's their personal obsession, but they're rare gems here & there, going against the grain of everyone else in the rat race.",
"Here's what I think... Ever seen a sunset? Over water? Over land? You try not being relaxed when you see a sunset over the pacific. Even the name pacific implies a peaceful body of water.",
"I think this contrast only works for west coast vs. north east. People are pretty laid back in the south east... especially the closer you get to the coast. Basically anywhere with a beach is laid back. So all of West Coast and all of East Coast is laid back. So it's weather related. People that can be outside more are happier. Long cold winters anger people.",
"It is because the settlement of the US started in the east. Whenever people said they needed to get away from the rat-race and find some place to chill, west was the only available direction. North was too cold, south was too hot and east was too wet. So they moved west until the next area became a rat-race. They kept repeating the same action saying the same thing as they moved farther west until there was nowhere further to go.",
"Population density. The eastern seaboard is absolutely crammed full of major metropolitan areas. New York City has 27,000 people per square mile. Boston is around 14,000. Philly and DC both have around 11,000 people per square mile. Compare to the West Coast: San Diego and Seattle are around 4,000. Portland is up around 4500. LA reaches just over 8,000. The only \"east coast dense\" city out west is San Fransisco, tipping the scales at 18,000 people per square mile (and most of that is very new-wave tech startups, so their culture is one great big extenuating circumstance.) Population density fosters a competitive attitude and lifestyle. If you aren't willing to fight for your cab in New York, you'll never get one. If you wait 5 minutes to get some job done, someone else will do it instead, and take your job, btw your fired. That attitude isn't nearly as pervasive out west. If you want to wait 5 minutes, that's fine. It'll get done in 5 minutes. Or maybe it can wait for tomorrow.",
"I contest this in a certain way. West folk have this thing where they like to \" test your cool \" . Fucking goad a person, or just say straight out something \" damn you've got fat \" , without the lie that it would be a gibe, or \" just kidding \". The test is to see if YOU are \" laid back\".",
"I'm surprised not many people are talking about what I always assumed was the most obvious reason: population density. Eastern cities tend to be much more congested with western cities sprawling and spread out. When you're stacked on top of each other, behavior changes. Industries are different, too. East coast has a lot of business and finance and farming, west coast has a lot more \"new\" techie industry, fishing and entertainment.",
"Have you seen our weather? We honestly can't be bothered to really get upset or uptight about things. We have never had to worry about food, in fact California grows more than enough food to feed all the US. We have little in the way of natural disasters. We had a major drought recently, but our biggest proposal on that was to use some surplus money to just buy water from elsewhere. Other than that, we get earthquakes. Until you've actually been through earthquakes you don't realize how much they really don't matter. Those old folk songs about how the living is easy because it's summer, we have that summer feeling all the time. We didn't have a horse in the race of major historical issues. We came to the US well after slavery was decided, here people have just always been people. So the civil rights movement felt more like \"huh?\" Even when we see war, like Hawaii did in WWII with Pearl Harbor, it has been contained and didn't creep into the lives of most people. We were originally settled by people seeking to leave others alone. This echoes to this day, even with my closest friends, I leave their decisions to them. Our level of give-a-f*** is the stuff of legend. Long ago we had a crank write a letter to the editor of a newspaper saying he had heard the calls and accepted becoming our king. We threw parties in his honor, allowed him free transport on the rails and just generally had a grand time about it. All of these are related, and I think a major part of it really comes back to the weather, we just have that easy summer living feeling all the time."
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6arlio | Why some Europeans countries like France or Spain are these big united countries while eastern Europe is full of all these small separate countries. | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"In the past, language/culture wasn't of great important for an country because most common people had nothing to do with the government so they didn't care what language their leader was speaking. But in the 19-20th century this started to change drastically. More people were able to read and implicated in the political system of their country. At that point it become more important for people to have leaders that speak the same language as them. So the difference is that some of these country were able to unify the culture/language/religion before the rise of nationalism and others didn't and that could happen for different reason. In France for example, the monarchy was strong from early in their history. It was able to develop a big Domain (lang owned by the King) so it had enough money to keep control over the land for a long time. During that time, the seat of government was Paris and the language of Paris became French and spread as the official language throughout the country. France also had strong geographical defences with the Pyrenees in the South, the Alpes in the east and the Ocean on the West, the only big threat was the Germans in the North-East. So it was easier for the king to keep the country together. Compare that to the West Slavs. Today we talk about Polish, Czech and Slovak. But we could be speaking about one unified country today spreading from Denmark to Belarus, from the Baltic Sea to the Hungarian plains. They are all culturally similar, at least more Similar than the Bretons, French and Occitan were in the past. But the Czech were always isolated from the Northern plains with mountains ranges. It protected them from invaded, but it also made near impossible any unification of the Western Slavs. Poland did unified most others west Slavs in the region and it became a superpower in the middles ages. But if France and Bohemia (the czech republic in the past) had good geographical border, Poland never had. With Germans from the West and Russian from the East, Poland was never able to keep control over their territory and if you can't keep control over your territory, then other culture become dominant over yours.",
"France, Spain, Germany, and Italy all have a history of combining from smaller principalities. Much of Eastern Europe belonged to the Austro-Hungarian Empire or to Poland. Poland was nibble away by neighbors. When part of an empire regions are expected to be different, different languages, different religions, certainly different cultures. The empire was broken up. The pieces are still sorting themselves out. For a while there was Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia under the domination of the Soviet Union. Then it fell apart and they did too.",
"Just look at former Yugoslavia. Nationalities down there are mixed so much that it's impossible to form a unified state. There you'll have cities with 60% group A, 30% group B, and 10% group C. If A wants independence, B and C go to war. If B wants independence, A and C go to war. If C wants independence, A and C go to war. It's like that in many states. Macedonia for example is almost 50% Albanian and 50% Greek. There's Serbs in Croatia. There's even some \"ancient\" German settlements in Hungary and Romania. And so on.",
"The answer you are looking for is nationalism and its differences between east and west Europe. In these West nationalistic writers often called for unification and a sense of national identity in the existing country or system itself such as seen in France or Germany into unifying the lose system that had been called the Holy Roman Empire into a singular nation. In the East you had the Hapsburg dynasty and the Ottoman empire that effectively ruled over large areas as more or less foreign rulers for the majority of their existence. There where never large self organized systems to unite them together like there had been for Germans to unite all their varied groups. Thus each and every group down in the Balkans called for self rule as their own separate little group."
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6arrcv | What is the point of nationalism? | I understand what it is but i for me the whole thing doesnt make sense. | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Nationalism from a citizen's perspective is good because it fosters a sense of belonging in a group and being able to tell other groups that they're not as good as your group. From a government's perspective, its good because with a highly nationalistic population you can keep and stay in power for longer, and more citizens will support your causes.",
"It does make some limited sense. Only Zimbabwens can solve their country's problems even if we as US citizens have empathy for them. Conversely only the US can really solve its own problems even if Zimbabwens have empathy for our struggles. You might as well ask what's the point of having an individualist ego or sense of self when being a member of community and subsuming your ego is supposedly \"better\"."
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6asfpy | Why did the Occupy Wall Street movement fail? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"You'll hear a lot of different theories on this from different angles, most of them biased toward or against that movement, but I've always believed that their main problem was a lack of focus. There was no real singular goal like there was in the civil rights movement. There seemed to be no real defined leadership, making the whole thing feel more like a loose mob than anything else. People were angry, but there was no true consensus as to exactly what, specifically, they were angry about, only a vague idea of greed and corruption by the wealthy.",
"Lack of unity, lack of a clear message about what they wanted to change, lack of realism in many cases about what can change.",
"I'm confused as to why people think it failed? * We just had an election in the US where Bernie Sanders - who before would've been considered a fringe candidate - ran a huge Progressive, Democratic movement based around the 99%. * Both Republicans and Democrats recognize that there is a top 1% and bottom 99%. * To this day, we can still talk about Occupy Wall Street and know exactly what political topic we're discussing. A discussion is still ongoing about an issue that was **not** a daily talking point prior to the Occupy Wall Street moment. Isn't that what movements are supposed to do? Or because people still aren't occupying, is that the reason we all think it failed?",
"It was never designed to 'succeed' in the sense you're thinking. Most non-profit political organizations are not structured towards solving problems but rather self-perpetuation. Even when they originally had a problem to solve, solving the problem doesn't make the institution go away - it just shifts emphasis from the original goal to ensuring continued employment. OWS was the brainchild of these sorts of organizations. For them 'success' was not measured in policy objectives, but rather in increasing awareness and perpetuating the institution they were part of. In a very real sense, their business model is the same as a Taylor Swift concert - it doesn't matter if it changes the world as long as you get enough paying customers in the seats. From that standpoint, it was a success. Their organizations got a lot of donations of time and money. But the message they were selling was never intended to actually be functional policy - it was just intended to inspire people to give time/money.",
"It didn't fail. It was murdered. With no way to discern the legitimate members from the agents, and no actual spokespersons, it was not coherent enough to fight back against organized efforts to dispel or discredit it. So just anybody, prankster or cop or private security guy, could show up, lead someone into trouble, and then fade away. Jut remember, it didin't \"fizzle\" and \"fail\", it was a siege, abet a peaceful one, and it fell to coordinated counter-offensives because it lacked generals. Waves of cops and lawyers and agitators just tore it apart.",
"The Movement devolved into a disorganized mess that resulting in a shanty town in the middle of NYC. The people who were trying to make a difference got drowned out by a swarm of people trying to cash in or fulfill their own plans.",
"It was a movement based outdoors during the spring. It got a lot of attention during the summer. But once fall came and the weather got colder, a lot of people dropped out, so the cops could disband the groups with much less resistance.",
"Good question. Watching it unfold on tv, I felt like a lot of the people attracted to the movement were basically homeless or didn't fit in elsewhere. The main message of \"banks are hurting the common American\" got lost really quickly."
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6atjbo | Do judges really fall for BS arguments like they do on television? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"could you give a specific example? Some things on L & O are more reasonable than others, and there are parts of the legal process where \"BS\" arguments are more likely to survive/count than others."
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6auul2 | with the prevalence of illegal torrenting and streaming, why hasn't the TV and film industry completely collapsed? They actually seem more robust than ever | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Statistically the vast majority of people will pay for the media they consume if the price is at an affordable point and it is easy to access the media. Yes there is a lot of torrenting, and illegal streaming but there is more legal streaming and people buying cable.",
"As far as tv goes it has actually done very badly the last few years due to the younger generations using Netflix, Hulu, YouTube, etc. The only thing keeping it alive is the older generations. However many shows have been on Netflix and Hulu as well as tv while some are not on cable at all and only reside on streaming platforms.",
"A big reason is accessibility and trustworthiness of the sites that support torrenting and streaming. Many aren't comfortable with the often rediculous amount of pop ups and ads on those sites along with their lack of being user friendly for the uninitiated.",
"Because illegal torrenting and streaming isn't actually all that popular. You need a fairly high level of technical knowledge to know where to find the torrent and how to make it work. You need to actually know how to find the torrent, and have the software/hardware to plug it into your TV (or otherwise use the computer screen). of all the friends and family. The only one I know who does illegal streaming is the computer science major who uses Steam all the time. And he was so vague in describing it to that I can only assume that the contraption he has set up will make my head explode. TV and legal streaming is so much easier (not to mention reliable) because you don't need to teach yourself a whole new set of skills for one small part of your life. You can use the skills you use more regularly to make money and then pay for TV."
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6avbyu | Why we give death row inmates the courtesy of choosing their last meal when they're convicted to be "bad", while honest good people rarely get this opportunity? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"The idea that death row people automatically get some sort of magic wish to be eat anything they want is just fiction. Most prisons I guess will let them order what they want off the prison menu and some let outside people like their family bring them food so they can have mcdonalds or something but there isn't some magic grant a wish program that you need to be angry about prisoners having that you don't have. You can have your family bring you any food you want too if you want and they will do it.",
"What the fuck? Honest good people get to choose what they eat all the damn time! They also aren't about to be killed by the state very often. What's with this obsession about punishing \"bad\" people in every single aspect of their lives? Protip: it does not make anyone's life better in any way when a bad person suffers, and wanting them to only shows that you're not a good person yourself."
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6awqp8 | Why do Americans seem to constantly believe that it's illegal to record or take photos in public? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"There are times that it is illegal to video record or take pictures. When you have expectation of privacy (private meeting, bathrooms, changing rooms) or when you are on private property and not visible from public property are examples. But you are correct that if the person doing the recording is in a public space they can take pictures of you or record you. Anecdotally I see more non-Americans making these claims though, generally tourists to the US.",
"> Constantly there are videos on reddit with someone being recorded exclaiming that their act of recording is somehow breaking some law. > > Why is this so common? Why do people seem to think it's illegal to do so. Because the people typically being publicly recorded are being recorded for doing something stupid. And as they say"
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6awyov | What is Taqiya? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"I have to disagree with /u/nipsen , as the brush he paints is far, far too broad, especially since we're talking about a concept as simple as taqiyyah. It literally means a fear, or peudence, but it is used to connotate hiding your beliefs in fear of persecution and or in fear of bodily harm. In the Shiite sect, it's very commonly accepted, as they are a historically persecuted people, however there is much debate among Sunni scholars as to when taqiyyah is acceptable. Taking things back to nipsen, he makes two extremely broad claims: one, that all Muslims are servile, polite, submissive, and restrained; two that this is due to taqiyyah. I completely disagree. Certainly there is a strong tendency in Arab culture to have respect for authority figures, but this is Arab culture, not Islam. Turks, Pakistanis, Indonesians, and even Americans who practice Islam tend to not have those qualms. Yes, modesty and humility are considered virtues in Islam, however I have been to khutbahs (sermons) where the Imam (minister) preached that activism is a duty for all Muslims. Even if his first claim was true, arguing that they are due to taqiyyah is downright silly. It's referenced I think twice in the Qur'an? and (to most scholars does not apply unless one experiences genuine fear for their life due to their faith). For example, the companions of the prophet frequently practiced taqiyyah during the early days of the faith, as they were being actively hunted, tortured, and killed for practicing Islam. To most people, this is generally considered to be a reasonable thing to do, though lately the anti Islam brigade has picked up on it as proof that the muzzies are everywhere. To clarify, I made this post a top level comment and not a reply to nipsen because I believe that his answer is incorrect in almost every way, to the extent that a reply correcting him would not be worthwhile."
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6ax55e | Why does a Bachelor's degree programme last four years in some countries, and three years in others? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"I know that in Canada, the four year programme is to allow for one year of introduction courses and first year seminars AS WELL AS to allow students to 'catch up'. Students who study in Canada but took the IB or A-Levels (the home nations of these students usually have 3 year degrees) receive a year's worth of credits to compensate."
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6axv17 | Why do former British colonies (eg Hong Kong, India) celebrate the US Mother's Day, rather than "Mothering Sunday"? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"The biggest export of the United States is culture. American holidays are so commercialized and easily digested due to our massive presence in all forms of media."
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6axyhj | why is it that certain companies in the uk are called one thing, but elsewhere called something totally different? | For example: Uk- lynx.... Us- axe Where's wally.... Where's waldo Vauxhall...... Opal Walkers crisps.... Lays There is likely more, but please explaim this to me someone, it has been stuck in my mind since basically ever. Edit: i have no idea how to add a flair for post on the app | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"I'm pretty sure each country has its own laws regarding intellectual property and trademarks, there's no international collaboration. So if an American company that trades under the name \"super duper burgers\" wants to expand to the UK and finds that there is already another company trading under that name they are square out of luck and have to pick something else. So they will trade in the UK as \"burgers that are super\" while being identical to their US counterpart.",
"Axe were forced to choose a different name in some countries, including the UK, because there was already a company with that name in those countries. *Where's Wally?* was the original title of the book series, since it was originally British. When the books were exported to different markets, the name of the character was often changed, and in the US he became Waldo. This is most likely because the publishers wanted a name that would sell well in their markets, so there would be a cultural dimension to this. In a similar fashion, *Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone* was changed for US markets to *...and the Sorcerer's Stone*, as it was felt that American children might think philosophers were too boring (they had no idea at the time that the series would become a global smash hit). Vauxhall is a British car manufacturer that was bought by the German car manufacturer Opel, which itself was bought by General Motors. In the UK, some cars made by this company are badged as Vauxhalls, but not in other countries. Similarly, Walkers is a British company that was bought by Lay's. In the UK, they kept the name, but changed the logo to look like Lay's logo."
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6ayh8z | When a judge asks the Jury in a court of law to "Disregard" a previous comment made, what exactly does this do? They can't erase it from their memories, doesn't what is said stay in their minds and still affect their overall verdict? | A good example is [this clip]( URL_0 ) from The Wire. | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"They are supposed to do their best. It's like how they are supposed to do their best to not assume guilt when someone pleads the fifth. It can also give grounds for a retrial.",
"Lots of things that shouldn't effect the jury does. There is no actual good answer to stop that and informing the jury which things should and shouldn't change their verdict is the best anyone can do.",
"While it's certainly not perfect, and judges and lawyers are completely aware that it's not perfect and will take that into consideration when decided whether to offer an instruction to disregard as opposed to other remedies (e.g., mistrial), the instruction is probably nowhere near as useless as most people think it is. Jurors as a whole try to do their best to listen to the judge's instructions, and all it takes is one of the jurors going \"hey guys, we're not supposed to talk about that, probably because it's a lie or something\" and the instruction did its work.",
"In theory, stricken remarks won't enter the jury deliberations. At the very least, they won't be on the transcripts which the jury has available to them.",
"So, this isn't something a lot of people think about but jury's are supposed to base their decisions entirely on facts. That sounds obvious, but it doesn't really happen. They're essentially supposed to look at the pure, factual information that both sides presented, and use that to decide who provided the most FACTS for their case. You're supposed to look at objective, factual material. There is no personal feelings, no intuition, no opinions. So when the judge says to disregard, they're saying not to use that information to make their decision. Do they still do it? Sure. My mom was a paralegal and I actually asked her boss about this once and he explained that its not an uncommon tactic to shoot for something that has a high likelihood of being dismissed. Even if its dismissed, it may still work in your favor, and it may be a viable argument for a retrial."
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6ays6q | Why do men and women need different shoe size systems? | If a women's size 8 is the same as a men's size 6.5, why not just have everyone use the same scale? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Because a women's 8 should not actually be the exact same as a men's 6.5 unless you're dealing with BS \"unisex\" sizing like Converse, which is usually code for \"men's sizing only.\" The *length* may be the same, but the shape and width is normally tailored to each sex. Obviously everybody is different, so some men might fit women's sizes better and vice versa, but most people fall in standard shapes and there is a distinct difference between men and women. Source: Wife works for Nordstrom HQ; I got a big speech on it once.",
"Because you are using the American shoe size which I think makes zero sense, just like most other measurement systems in America. The European shoe sizes are the same for men and women because it's just the metric measurement. a 40 in European size is a American mens 7 or a woman's 8.5. Look at Brikenstock Arizona sandals, same exact shoe for men and women with same exact sizes. & nbsp; URL_1 URL_0",
"They don't **need** different sizing systems. For whatever historical reasons, we've arbitrarily *chosen* to use different scales for men & women's shoe sizes. Once something like this gets established, there's not a lot of incentive to change it.",
"I would say either A) women have smaller feet so the sizes are adjusted. Same thing with shirts and pants. I think they base it off what the \"average\" person wears. So \"most\" women will wear a women's medium shirt. If it were in men's sizes it would be an XS (roughly). But they want to make it so the majority wear the medium, so they adjust the size. B) the fashion industry rarely has a uniform sizing scale so this is probably partially that as well"
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"https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shoe_size",
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6az577 | What is the purpose of simple English? | I've seen it as a language that you can translate do on wikipedia but what's the point in it? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
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"text": [
"It's a version of English that only uses a subset of the vocabulary, about 2,000 words in total. The point is that you don't need to learn more than this to effectively communicate. English, on the other hand, has (depending on how you count) something like 100,000 - 250,000 words.",
"URL_0 > The Simple English Wikipedia is an English-language version of Wikipedia, an online encyclopedia, that is written in basic English.[1] It was built on November 17, 2003. All of the articles in the Simple English Wikipedia need to use shorter sentences and easier words and grammar than the regular English Wikipedia. > People with different needs use the Simple English Wikipedia. They include: > * Students > * Children > * Adults who might find it hard to learn or read > * People who are learning English as a second language > Other people use the Simple English Wikipedia because the basic language helps them understand hard ideas or topics they do not know about. > Many articles are shorter than the same articles in the English Wikipedia.[2] Technical subjects use some terms which are not simple. Editors try to explain these terms in a simple way. This makes Simple English articles a good way to understand difficult articles from the ordinary English Wikipedia. If someone cannot understand an idea in complex English, they can read the Simple English article.",
"The point is to take harder, more complex topics, and simplify them so the layman can get a good grasp of what the subject matter is."
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6azdo6 | Why do vegans/vegetarians try so hard to find supplements to meat that look and taste like the real thing? | I know the simple answer to this would be, "It's not that they don't like the taste of meat, they just don't like the cruelty". However, I look at it as if, for example, you were once a drug addict, stopped doing drugs, but then tried to find something that looked and felt exactly like the drug, but isn't the drug. I feel like that defeats the purpose of what you're trying to do. | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dhik4fy",
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"text": [
"> I feel like that defeats the purpose of what you're trying to do. but > \"It's not that they don't like the taste of meat, they just don't like the cruelty\" so, as you explain, for ethical vegetarians and vegans, getting rid of the taste of meat has nothing to do with the purpose of what they are trying to do, which is to eliminate suffering.",
"If you decide to become a vegetarian, one of the obstacles is that you may miss some foods you grew up with. This helps. Another obstacle is that you may be surrounded by people eating a meat dish (say, a Thanksgiving turkey) and it may seem awkward if you're the only one eating something completely different. This helps. By contrast, if you look at a deeply vegetarian society (southern India), these are not issues, and indeed their vegetarian food does not imitate meat.",
"I was raised in a household that leaned vegetarian (my mom had been vege for years but began eating meat again around the time she had us). I was given plenty of choice and ate meat until I was 11. I liked hamburgers and steak, probably because they were rare treats, but I remember enjoying them a lot. I made the choice to go vege at 11 while we were in traffic behind a chicken truck. I didn't eat meat for 13 years and really had no problem maintaining the diet. Now, while I was vege, my mom cooked with soy meat products as an in between for those who did and didn't eat meat, though I was perfectly happy to eat pasta every day, that wouldn't have been very healthy. I got in the habit of eating veggie burgers (grillers), meatless tacos, veggie dogs, etc. These were all things I liked before I made the switch, so it made sense. Here's the thing, though. When I started eating meat again the only thing I can really stomach was (and still is 5 years later) chicken and occasionally a hot dog. I absolutely hate red meat. I don't like the flavor or the texture. I don't know what changed. It's funny because I still crave it occasionally (usually a sign that I'm low on iron) but when I try to eat it it is just disgusting. I still love my veggie meat, though. When we grill out I either have chicken or put a veggie burger on. My SO has even come to enjoy meatless tacos. So really it's just about habits being formed. It's easier to make the switch if you maintain some semblance of your previous eating habits.",
"The majority of the world’s vegetarians live in South Asia (more than 400 million of them). There, meat substitutes are not at all popular. The local cuisine is vegetarian by default, so nothing needs to be substituted. In the West, most vegetarians live in countries that have cuisines created around meat and fish. If they want to eat the same local dishes, something has to give. Slow-cooked beef and mashed potatoes isn’t quite the same without the beef and meat gravy. Or just cook South Asian dishes and never look back. The food is much tastier anyways.",
"It's very simple. Meat aren't drugs. They don't have harmful effects nor they are addictive. Their production, however, involve killing animals, and that's what vegans are against."
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6azthz | What are the ethics that guide journalists when using anonymous quotes? | The Washington Post recently ran a story claiming that they had heard from 30 sources. How can we have confidence that that number is accurate? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dhio4m2"
],
"text": [
"Journalistic integrity. This is the fine line that separates Washington Post (and others) from The Sun (among others). Reputable sources have a lot of checks behind the scenes before they'll publish (which has failed at times). These editors and other writers at the paper will be privy to more information about the source before the journalist is able to publish. They will go to great lengths to verify stories before publishing. This is why you'll see stories in less-than-reputable sources first, as they have a lower threshold for publishing. Unfortunately, with diminishing subscriptions and reliance on internet ads, formerly reputable newspapers are being forced to slowly slide to sometimes publishing first, issuing corrections later. It's a race to have the breaking news to get the clicks"
],
"score": [
3
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6b00ki | Why do we "awww" at cute things? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dhiq8yd"
],
"text": [
"Because what we think is cute usually coincides with infant animals. Mamallian instincts use cute as a means to us actually giving a shit about babies, making it more likely they will survive to adulthood."
],
"score": [
5
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|
6b072k | What makes something pretentious? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dhiqu2p"
],
"text": [
"Certain activities or types of entertainment are perceived as 'high status'. When you engage in them because you simply like them, that's one thing - but a fair number of people engage in them solely for the status boost they think it affords. Essentially, it's a form of fakery. The people you want to impress like fine dining and good wine, so you pretend to like it as well - even though you'd be happier grabbing a burger and fries. You can also find this occurring in sub-cultures all the time. For example, women who are into traditionally male sub-cultures such as comic books and video games are often asked to 'prove' their bonafides by being quizzed about various aspects of the culture - otherwise they tend to be viewed as fakers who are just trying to impress their boyfriend."
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|
6b0nva | What do executives do? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dhiussd",
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"text": [
"Executives make high-level decisions. They execute. The CEO makes decisions that affect the future of the company, the CFO makes decisions that affect how the company handles money, the CTO makes decisions that affect how the company deals with technology, etc.",
"I assume you mean in corporations? Executives are the top bosses. In large corporations their main day-to-day work is to glue things together. You finalize big agreements, oversee various business areas to ensure they are working well, a lot of strategy work (where's the future of the company), deal with final decisions on business investments etc, do a lot of pep-talks in-house, do a lot of external presentations to build PR, deal with shareholders, governments and other external stakeholders."
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