q_id
stringlengths 6
6
| title
stringlengths 3
299
| selftext
stringlengths 0
4.44k
| category
stringclasses 12
values | subreddit
stringclasses 1
value | answers
dict | title_urls
sequencelengths 1
1
| selftext_urls
sequencelengths 1
1
|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
6cqwv4 | Is body language cultural, genetic, inherited and/or something else? | 1. The way we move as we communicate, as we laugh, as we socialize - where does it come from? 2. Additional question which was what inspired me to ask this - why do we look down when we laugh? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dhwuuoj",
"dhwtsxf"
],
"text": [
"Six or seven basic facial expressions are instinctive, universal, and easy to notice. URL_0",
"I would say 50/50. Laugh and clap seems to ve innate actions, while some gestures (Like the \"yes\" movement up and down with the head VS the \"no movement) are cultural. For example the military salute isn't something innate, it's social construct to express order, loyalty and discipline even in a sarcastic way. But I don't believe early humans do this, in fact its said the gesture come from Medieval times when a knight had to put off his eyes' protection to see his interlocutor with a similar movement. And then... well, we adopted it."
],
"score": [
3,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[
"https://www.kairos.com/blog/the-universally-recognized-facial-expressions-of-emotion"
],
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
6cr44u | Why does filming someone on the street when they've asked you to stop not constitute harassment? | I get that people are allowed to film whatever in public spaces, but when you see all these "filming to expose people" videos and the person is clearly saying they don't want to be filmed, how is it then that the person filming isn't doing anything wrong? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dhwqp28"
],
"text": [
"In public, there is no expectation of privacy. You can be filmed in public by anyone. Now, what the person filming you is doing with your images is possibly another matter, but the act of filming is legal if that is all they are doing."
],
"score": [
11
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
6csvnk | why do people say they will treat bombs as a terrorist attack until proven otherwise? Isn't a bombing in nature an act of terrorism regardless of who did it? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dhx7qmh",
"dhxiix6",
"dhx5p4b",
"dhx8rbx",
"dhx6aej",
"dhx5sjr",
"dhxibbc",
"dhxcpk9",
"dhxfe2w",
"dhxdkj1",
"dhxofz0",
"dhxjuhi",
"dhxfiag",
"dhx6xpb",
"dhxwwhh",
"dhxygl5",
"dhxkahj",
"dhxreay",
"dhxnd2m",
"dhxu10f",
"dhxvszd",
"dhxkg7j",
"dhxfjmt",
"dhxab8s"
],
"text": [
"Generally speaking, terrorism refers to violence with *ideological* motivations: political, religious, etc. Although bomb attacks usually are ideological in nature, they don't by definition have to be. Someone can commit a bombing for non-ideological reasons (maybe the bomb is an attempt to murder someone with whom the perpetrator has a personal dispute with.) Terrorism is not defined by tactics. If a man stabs ten people in a mall because he's a dickweed, that's not terrorism. If a man stabs ten people in a mall because he thinks it contribute to the overthrow of the government, then that is terrorism. It's also worth mentioning that the word *terrorism* doesn't really define what terrorists do. The term implies that creating fear is terrorists' primary motivation, but this is generally not the case. Terrorists' goals vary depending on their motivations, but causing widespread terror in the minds of populations is generally more of a desirable additional effect than the main goal. The generally accepted modern definition of terrorism is violence or the threat of violence by non-state actors driven by ideological motivations.",
"Since others in the thread have provided excellent responses on the nature of motivation versus method, as it pertains to your question, I just wanted to chip in an example I think will be relevant. Back in January 2011, a car exploded in close proximity to a number of defense department facilities (including the Pentagon). SWAT and bomb squads responded, and it was initially investigated as a possible attack. Turns out, it was a construction worker who had left an oxyacetylene torch in his trunk, which detonated (possibly due to temperature/pressure fluctuations caused by the cold). Within a couple hours, it was established what had occurred, and things backed down from \"terrorist attack\" to \"accident,\" but in those initial minutes of response, nobody had any way to know. [Here's a news article with updates and images]( URL_1 ). Other things can also cause explosions, such as natural gas pipelines. For example, three 5-story buildings [were destroyed in NYC in 2015]( URL_2 ) due to a gas pipeline problem, and another couple buildings there were [blown up in 2014]( URL_0 ). Big explosions, but not bombs, and it took time to establish that. Until there is certainty of the cause, they will treat things as potentially the worst, so that they don't miss signs or put the public in greater danger by treating something less seriously than they should.",
"> Isn't a bombing in nature an act of terrorism regardless of who did it? No. Terrorism is using fear as a tool to try to force some sort of political or social change. If the point of a bomb is to try to cause a group of people to comply with some sort of demand because they're terrified of being blown up if they don't, that's terrorism. But if someone is setting off a bomb just because they're crazy and want to kill people, that's not terrorism. In short, whether or not something is terrorism is a matter of intent (much like whether or not something is first degree murder is a matter of intent).",
"Because it is easy to step down an investigation, but much harder to ramp one up. Treating an explosion of undetermined, but suspicious, origin as a terrorist bombing means that any possible evidence recovered will be handled and logged in accordance with evidentiary procedure. Explosives experts will be among the first people combing through the debris, looking for any of the components of the explosive device. If it is treated like an accident or something other than a criminal act, then it is entirely possible that valuable evidence may be lost or overlooked. Evidence might be handled or recovered in ways that make it useless for testing or inadmissible in a trial. If you follow the most stringent investigative procedures, you know you're good. Worst case scenario is that you were too careful and exacting. These are the same reasons suspicious fires are investigated as possible arson, and deaths of unknown origin are treated as possible murder. Until your investigation shows that the worst case scenario isn't true, you want to be certain that you aren't underdoing it. EDIT TO ADD: The reason it is treated as a terrorist bombing specifically, rather than any other type of criminal bombing, is because that gets the intelligence community involved. That's the critical difference between the investigation of a possible terrorist act and a 'regular' criminal investigation.",
"1. In case it was not a deliberate bomb. Without knowing the full details yet, it could have been something else, like a pyrotechnics accident. 2. If it was a bomb, there are other possible reasons besides terrorism, including suicide, homicide targeting a deliberate person or people, or other reason for destruction. The Dortmund (fixed, thanks /u/taversham) bus bomb was supposed to look like terrorism, but turned out to be someone trying to commit financial fraud. It probably was a terrorist bomb, but the police want to be positive before officially calling it.",
"\"Bomb\" is a general term, in a breaking news situation, used to be a placeholder for \"That loud sound everyone heard\", even though authorities have yet to confirm exactly what caused the reported noise and or damage. The reason authorities treat it as a terrorist attack until proven otherwise is because if you don't know what's just happened, it's possible for it to happen again, and you want to be sure all of your helpers are on high alert. Also, in many governments, it allows for different agencies to be activated, some governments require a declaration of terrorism before some agencies can help. Look up: Buracracy, also: Vogons. But I'm drunk on Bailey's Irish Cream after imagining what the parents and kids in Manchester might have went through, and I'm probably wrong.",
"There had been a [bomb attack on the German football team Borussia Dortmund]( URL_0 ) where some people suspected a terrorism background (I recally some members of... a certain subbreddit... instantly blaming refugees) which turned out to be an act of \"ordinary\" greed. The suspect had bet that the stock of the team would fall in the stock exchange (which it would have if players had become seriously wounded and/or killed)...",
"Rational answer: What most people have already pointed out. Terrorism has a goal, usually political, and is much more about the fear it creates than the actual damage the attack inflicts. But also, if a white person does it, it's usually a \"crime by a mentally unstable lone wolf\". If a brown person does it, it's \"terrorism\".",
"People will also bomb places because of extortion - give us a million dollars or we'll blow the place up. This happened to a Las Vegas casino many years ago. Bombs have been blown up to get into bank vaults - a tool to commit a robbery, not terrorism. Bank robbers have put bombs on hostages to get their freedom when they are surrounded in the place they are robbing. Lots of examples. And sometimes you have explosions that are miscategorized as bombings. Natural gas explosions are the most common.",
"Terrorism is hard to define without being over or under inclusive, but we can give it aspects that help frame it and distinguish it from other acts of violence. Much of it comes down to the motivation and intended effect on target. Firstly, terrorism's kinetic target (that is the one physically damaged) might have little to no practical strategic value. Though irreplaceable people are sadly lost, these victims were not targeted because of their combat, political, or economic importance. The reasoning for this manner of kinetic target plays into the next framework. The true target for a terrorist act is not the human casualties, or the damaged locations. The target of most concern to a terrorist is the witnesses. A terrorist operative might try to maximize physical damage during his act of violence, but it's part of his malignant goal to frighten survivors, media watchers, and policy makers. Finally, terrorism can generally fall into one of two categories. Either it is an attempt to upend the status-quo, or enforce it. In this regard, it goes beyond personal motives and into general policy. Whether or not an act of violence fits in these frameworks may not be immediately relevant for law enforcement investigations (but will be crucial in expanded countermeasures). A violent act of magnitude generally involves what Jacob Shapiro would call a \"Covert Violent Organization\" or CVO. The rules for managing a CVO are generally the same whether you are a spy ring, a drug cartel, or a terrorist group. Therefore, law enforcement might start with the same tools and methods in dismantling such a network.",
"Bombing, in and of itself, is not a terrorist attack. The definition of terrorism is \"An attack on a civilian population for political or ideological goals\" To be terrorism, it generally has to meet at least two major criteria: 1. The targets are civilians / noncombatants 2. The attack has a goal beyond \"lets kill people!\" The point of terrorism is to use actual attacks or threats of attack against civilians to intimidate someone (usually a govt, but sometimes smaller entities like religious organizations or corporations) into doing something (release X high-value prisoner, remove troops from Y region, send money to Z organization). For real world examples: The Boston Marathon bombing qualifies as an act of terrorism, as the brothers who conducted it \"wanted to defend Islam from the U.S\" (targeted civilians, goal is to get US out of Afghanistan by making Americans fear an attack at home). On the flip side, Al-Qaeda bombing a military convoy in Afghanistan is NOT an act of terrorism, it is a standard practice of warfare against uniformed troops. For an example of a bombing that would NOT qualify as terrorism (I cannot easily find any, as searching for \"bombing\" produces hundreds of news articles about terror attacks) consider the following: * Disgruntled worker fired for poor performance * Decides if he's going down, he'll take the bosses with him * Plants an explosive in a conference room, kills the company executives This would NOT be an act of terrorism, but rather one of multiple-murder where the weapon is a bomb. While this is an attack against civilians, it does not aim to cause another party to take a desired action; The goal in this scenario is simply to get revenge by killing the people this hypothetical worker sees as responsible for his misery.",
"In answer to the second question - \"Isn't a bombing in nature an act of terrorism?\" At one point, car bombs were a \"popular\" means for organized crime to get rid of people they wanted to kill. Were these bombs an act of terrorism? Or - more to the point, WHY were these people killed, and why were they killed using car bombs? You could answer - these people were killed because they were doing something that organized crime was not happy about - they were informing, they were stealing from them, they were competing against them, etc. Is killing for this purpose an act of terrorism? And - why a car bomb? Obviously, the car bomb was used to send a message to other people - basically, that a certain organized crime entity did this, and let this be a warning to others. Would this make it an act of terror? Well - what about other means of killing that also \"send a message\"? What if the organized crime entity just had someone shot and then spray painted a message on nearby wall - this would get across the same point of the car bomb. Would this be terrorism? The answer is that it boils down to what the definition of terrorism is. The accepted definition is an act of violence to accomplish a political goal. Of course, the line between regular assault/murder/etc. and terrorism can get blurred. Is a bank robbery an act of terror? Probably not. But what if the bank robbery was done by a terrorist group as a means to finance their other operations? This is where things get somewhat grey.",
"The movie, Patriots Day, is a good example of what happens when something is deemed terrorism. A whole different set of wheels start to turn when a crime is deemed terrorism. Different agencies get involved and personal liberties can be legally \"stretched\" in the name of National Security.",
"Keyword is **terror**ism. If you set off a bomb to spread fear, want to gain politcal/religious/ideological goals in a violent way, then that is an act of terrorism. Otherwise, you set off a bomb because it is fun for you to see death, doing it for the *lulz*, doing it as a prank then it is not terrorism. *(And oh boy, you do have some problems)* It is more on the intention or objective of your actions.",
"Because a lot of white people don't think other white people can be terrorists. In this case \"proven otherwise\" means \"until we prove it isn't a Muslim\". It's small, angry people looking to justify their hate.",
"Violence is only ok if sanctioned by the State. For example, when the U.S. bombs a school full of children with a drone, it's ok. When a shooter is killed by an explosive device made to look like a cell phone, it's ok. Philosophically it's disgusting and repugnant, but that's the truth of it.",
"They need to find out if the person was brown first. If they were white they need to call it something else.",
"If a non white person did it, it's terrorism. If a white person did it, it's a kid who made a mistake.",
"No you got it wrong. People say they will treat EXPLOSIONS as terrorist attacks until proven otherwise. Explosions could happen because of a lot of different reasons.",
"If it WAS a bomb that exploded, then yea, that pretty much is always terrorism. What if it was just a gas leak that got sparked somehow though?",
"Terrorism uses the attack to cause fear, to work towards an ideological, religious, or political goal. You could bomb a bunch of people with no goal in mind.",
"We only call it terrorism these days when it's Muslims. This is for entirely non-valid reasons of political ideology. If anyone who isn't Muslim bombs somewhere then it's \"terrorist-like\" activity. Basically it's racist as fuck mate.",
"No, terrorism is violence with a political aim. That includes, for instance, Antifa, even though they don't kill anybody, but it doesn't include some whack job who sets off a bomb in a post office because his frozen dinner told him to.",
"Others have already explained the latter part, what's required to classify as terrorism. The reason it's treated as a terrorist attack until they know better is because that's the worst crime, the police always assumes the worst when investigating because it's better to give it too high priority and downgrade it afterwards than wise versa. Similarly if you put a house on fire they will file it as arson regardless if there were people in the house or not when the fire was lit. If it's later clear that there weren't they'll downgrade it. Then the news does the same because it makes for bigger head lines;)"
],
"score": [
5066,
3167,
781,
451,
186,
42,
20,
18,
18,
10,
9,
6,
5,
5,
4,
4,
3,
3,
3,
3,
3,
3,
3,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_East_Harlem_gas_explosion",
"https://www.arlnow.com/2011/01/11/breaking-news-car-explodes-in-penrose/",
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2015_East_Village_gas_explosion"
],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Borussia_Dortmund_team_bus_bombing"
],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
|
6ct3rf | Why do we use the middlefinger to make inappropriate signs? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dhx6z3b",
"dhx6yiz"
],
"text": [
"The ancient Greeks and Romans used it as a disparaging gesture because when all, save the middle finger, are clenched, it resembles an erect penis and testicles; it's quite literally saying 'fuck you'.",
"Because when you point your middle finger at someone, the gesture looks like a penis. The finger makes the shaft and the hand makes the testicles. The gesture means 'fuck you' or 'up yours'"
],
"score": [
7,
5
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
|
6ct495 | why is a signature the preferred method of confirmation? | when/why did writing your name become an acceptable form of confirming whatever you were signing too. why not a thumbprint or a picture or some other easily reproduced method? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dhx70t8",
"dhx8twl"
],
"text": [
"Because everybody has a distinct writing style, and so a signature is something you practice and perfect so that its the same everytime. It was easy to do in non-technological times and easy to spot fraud. \"Hey, this guy's signature is completely different than last time...something is wrong here!\"",
"It wasn't always a signature, signet rings had been in heavy use before as have seals, stamps, etc. However for most individuals, signatures are more convenient and do not require any technology or expansive materials. Thumbprints, picture scanning, etc. are all reliant on relatively new technology and may well supersede signatures in the future, however we aren't there yet. Also keep in mind that for many things a simple signature doesn't suffice, very often you need a government issued ID as well."
],
"score": [
3,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
6ct8f5 | Why does the US consistently ally itself with Sunni majority countries while ISIS & Taliban are extreme Sunni? | Sunni and Shiite Muslims are the two "major" forms of Islam (however Shiite represent less than 15% of Muslims). All of the ISIS derivatives (also known as ISIL, IS, Daesh) and the Taliban are extremist forms of Sunni Muslim. Since ISIS and Taliban are both Sunni based and enemies of the USA, why does the USA consistently ally itself strictly with majority Sunni Muslim nations and make enemies of majority Shiite Muslim nations? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dhx7z4x",
"dhx7x2y",
"dhx8a7b",
"dhxaqje"
],
"text": [
"It's simply a numbers game. Only about 10% of all Muslims are Shiites - 90% of Muslims are Sunni. If you refused to ally yourself with Sunni Muslims, you're cutting about *about 20% of the world population*. It would be like refusing to deal with all Catholics because the IRA was Catholic but *even more extreme* - only about 75% of Christians are Catholic. On top of that, **most Muslims are not terrorists**. When 90% of Muslims are Sunni, it stands to reason that the majority of terrorist groups will be Sunni as well.",
"This is not quite true. Both Quait and the new Iraqi government are Shiite. It makes much more sense to understand the US alliances if you look at the location of the major Oil fields.",
"ISIS are Sunni. 90% of Muslims are Sunni. ISIS wants to recruit Sunni Muslims. If the US makes enough friends with Sunni Muslims, ISIS won't recruit as much of them. That's why the US wants to ally itself with Sunni majority countries.",
"Iran is the main Shiite country. We used to be quite allied with them, if you know your history. The Then the whole revolution, overthrow of the shah, and the embassy thing (Argo ^ & *! yourself). There's something about holding embassy workers hostage that doesn't bode well for a future relationship. It was almost 40 years ago, but our leaders today would have watched that on TV as kids. I don't think the religious upbringing of majority Muslim nations has much bearing on who the U.S. deals with."
],
"score": [
22,
7,
3,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[],
[],
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
6cvmvp | Are certain people predisposed to thinking that the world will end or society will collapse? | The question might be better stated as "What environmental factors influence people thinking that the world will end or society will collapse?" | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dhxoyxi"
],
"text": [
"If you mean as far as being born that way, no. If you are talking about the environment they are raised in, then yes."
],
"score": [
6
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
6cw8fv | Why do abuse victims frequently become abusers themselves? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dhxu2zb",
"dhxu2ze"
],
"text": [
"> Why do abuse victims frequently become abusers themselves? They don't BUT many abusers were abused. It is an important distinction. Most abuse victims do not become abusers but many of those who are abusers were abused.",
"Because being a non-abuser requires learning a completely new way to deal with life. If a person is not strong enough or cognizant enough of the difficulties associated with it, they'll \"go with what they know\". The road from being abused to not being an abuser can be very difficult for some. Long term abuse can lead to complex ptsd and a very long road to recovery. There is a sub reddit of r/CPTSD that you might be interested in if you want to learn how difficult it can be."
],
"score": [
11,
5
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
|
6cwz5h | How can Russia interfere in or even change the outcome of the U.S. Election? | So everyday I hear something new like:"Russia brazenly interfered in the US Elections" and I am wondering if it is true then what are their means to do this? Do they bribe voters? Or hack computers that are counting votes(aren't those counted manually tho?) or how would and could they interfere in a peoples vote in another country? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dhy327x",
"dhy0c3c"
],
"text": [
"So there are a few ways to to help influence an election, particularly one as close leading up to election day as this past US election. 1) Fake news stories - A lot of people get their news from social media and online sites (such as facebook, twitter, reddit, etc). To help influence an election, a bunch of stories can be published that range from totally ridiculous (Hillary is a serial killer in her spare time) to seemly plausible (evidence of Hillary leaking classified information via email), while being totally unfounded or grounded in any factual reality. People who are undecided about who to vote for see these things, and it can influence them to vote against a candidate or not vote at all (which gives an advantage to the other candidate). This happened on both sides, but most data that I've seen implies that Hillary was more often the target of this type of story than Trump. 2) Leaking information - This one is different than the above because more major news outlets will typically report on this stuff. The hack and release of the Democratic National convention emails is an example. If you are so inclined, you will likely find some dirt on any candidate, and if someone is able to obtain something that could turn some voters against a candidate, and leak it at the right time, it can again cause people to either vote against a particular candidate, or not vote. 3) Voter turnout - The above 2 items, if done well, can cause people opposed to a candidate to be more likely to vote on election day. In a close race, a few thousand people across the country in the right place can be the difference in who wins the election. In an election that isn't all that close, this type of interference typically has little impact on the outcome, but when it's a close race and one candidate is preferable to someone (in this case Trump was preferable to Russia), it's possible that they can help sway things in their favor. As an aside, this is why the possible connection between Trump and his people with Russia is a big deal. Nothing is definitive yet, but that's what has people so concerned.",
"Propaganda for the most the part. The vast majority of voters pay attention to the campaigning periods leading up to the election itself to make their decision. By influencing those campaigns through information leaks, hacking, or any other method of affecting the general 'story' of the respective campaigns they can sway peoples opinions before they cast their vote. A big example is the timed leak of emails to hinder the Hillary campaign's credibility. (Should they prove to have been involved and pro trump) The timed release of information like that can bolster a particular political line (crooked Hillary) and aid an opposing party. It would count a foreign power interfering with government processes to get an outcome they desired."
],
"score": [
13,
9
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
6cx6iq | Why does Saudi Arabia hate Iran? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dhy25ku"
],
"text": [
"Iran is mostly Persian and Shia, while Saudi Arabia is mostly Arabs and Sunni. A bit like Protestant and Catholics hated each other for a long time (and still do in some places), they are competing view on their religion. Additional, both Saudi Arabia and Iran are some of the biggest regional power competing each other for dominance over the region. Each of them want more control over the region so they will spend money and resources to make sure that government that are friendly to them stay in power. That's one reason why Iran support the Alawite (shia) in Syria and that Saudi Arabia support the Sunni rebels. If the Alawite stay in power, they will stay an ally of Iran, if sunni rebels come into power, then Syria will most likely become an ally of Saudi Arabia. And finally, Saudi Arabia and Iran are also two of the biggest producer of oil, the biggest in the region. They both compete for trade routes to export their oil cheaper to take over a bigger market share and gaining more wealth. For example, a pipeline passing through Syria would be huge to export oil to europe and who will be ally with Syria after the war, will have some advantage. TL DR : Both Saudi Arabia and Iran are in competition in religion, political power and oil export."
],
"score": [
11
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
|
6cx7gl | How did two different civilizations communicate upon first contact/meeting? | For example, how did Christopher Columbus speak with the Native Americans upon first arriving to the Americas? How did Europeans (Romans?) communicate with Asians (Chinese?) during old times of, let's say, the Silk Road? My knowledge of history is bullshit, so I apologize if these are bad or just flat out inaccurate examples. | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dhy737h"
],
"text": [
"Its very rare in history for a culture to come upon a previously unknown culture as in the case of the discovery of the new world. In all other cases, people are not trading with the end parties. A roman from the middle ages was not trading with the chinese. They all traded with their neighbors who they were familiar with. The neighbors would trade with their neighbors so eventually you got goods going from italy to shanghai. Cortez captured a female native upon his arrival to mexico and she learned spanish when she was not being raped. Through her, he was able to communicate with the local tribes at the very beginning before more europeans came over or more locals learned spanish."
],
"score": [
9
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
6cxi0f | Can you denounce your citizenship and be technically and officially a citizen of no country? | URL_1 it possible to denounce your citizenship and be a citizen of no country? 2.If this were possible what would that look like on official documents and would it be impossible to get a passport? 3.Can you also renounce this citizen ship in later time? URL_0 it also possible to renounce and denounce your citizenship constantly? As in, there is no limit to how many times you can become an american and then subsequently denounce your american citizenship? 5.Finally is there a limit to how many citizenship you are allowed to have? 6.does renouncing or denouncing a citizenship have any effect on this? 7.If you were to have 2 citizenships and another country would not recognize you as a citizen unless you remove one would that mean your technically force to denounce a previous citizenship to become a citizen of that specific country? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dhy5lv8",
"dhy4ngv",
"dhy755j",
"dhy4sre",
"dhy62c6",
"dhynkzo",
"dhyhhi5",
"dhy7x04",
"dhyhhzh"
],
"text": [
"It's called statelessness, and it's possible. More often it happens at birth or involuntarily. Several UN conventions have aimed to reduce it. However, the U.S. hasn't signed them, and unlike many countries, will allow citizens to renounce their citizenship with nothing to replace it. This has happened at least a few times. Renouncing U.S. citizenship as an adult is irreversible. You don't want to be stateless. No country is obligated to give you a passport or legal documents, provide protection or services, nor even to take you in. You can be in limbo indefinitely. There's not an obvious limit on multiple citizenships, though it's hard to get more than a few. Some countries won't allow their citizenship to be held in combination with others.",
"In general, yes, it is possible to voluntarily give up all citizenship, at least in some scenarios: URL_0 . A stateless person is not eligible for a passport, and many things become difficult, for a person without citizenship in any state. The specifics of gaining and losing any particular citizenship vary by country.",
"Here's a subsequent question to this one- Let's say I'm an American citizen and I renounce my citizenship, where do they put me afterwards? I've only had citizenship in america all my life. Do they bring me to the nearest airport and leave me in the customs gate? I am genuinely curious.",
"As signatories of several international treaties, most states won't let you renounce your citizenship if it means you'll become stateless. The United States is among the minority of countries that lets its citizens do it.",
"To add a bit to #5: while there's no international set limit on how many citizenships you can hold at the same time, some countries do not allow dual citizenships (if you obtain a new one, you're considered to have automatically renounced your previous citizehship) and some countries do have a nominal limit of how many you can hold or which specific countries you may be a dual citizen of. Considering the requirements for obtaining citizenships, I think there was a discussion from a while back where it was shown that the maximum number you can feasibly obtain and hold at the same time, assuming you're wealthy and live a long life, is around 15-18.",
"Not a direct answer to your questions but I went through something similar so here's my story. I renounced my foreign citizenship for a job I got hired for in the USA that required a secret clearance. I was a dual national before this. I walked into the embassy in NYC, explained what I was trying to do and why, they checked to see if I could stay in the US if I did (I could), filled out some forms, they punched a huge hole in my passport, gave it back to me and wished me farewell! They said I would always be welcome back as long as it did not bring any shame to their country, lived in the country for minimum 5 years, promised not be a strain to society!",
"For the US, you can denounce your citizenship by going in front of officials and denouncing it, or by joining another country's military. If you're stateless, nothing much will happen to you until you need to prove your citizenship. That means that your social security number will probably become invalid, which then makes it hard to verify your identity. Therefore, you can't get much public or private services. You'll have a hard time getting a job, opening bank accounts, credit cards, buying a car. Basically, you'll have to be paid and use cash only. It'll be pretty hard to lead a normal life. Also, you won't be able to travel to any other countries because you have no origination country.",
"Yes... but unless you have money it's going to be a shitty experience. The man behind Tupperware did it... look for a Earl Tupper. Do you also have enough money to buy an island?",
"Some countries won't let you give up their citizenship, even if you want to. Other countries may recognize that you have given up your past citizenship, but the home country won't. Although, if you're no longer in the original country, it really doesn't matter what they think."
],
"score": [
88,
44,
23,
9,
9,
5,
4,
3,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statelessness#Renunciation"
],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
6cypu0 | Why is David Hasselhoff such a star in Germany? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dhyg1bh",
"dhyfqd8"
],
"text": [
"Rewboss, a Brit living in Germany quite perfectly explained it in [this video]( URL_0 ). Short version: He is only famous for one song \"Looking for freedom\" because that song coincided with the Fall of the Berlin Wall, and therefore the pursuit of freedom was a rather popular sentiment in Germany around 1990. Most younger Germans would recognise the song but would not recognise Hasselhoff on a photo.",
"When I lived in Germany 10 years ago the German friends that I made had no idea why we thought this. They said he had a top 40 album in the 90's but they acted like he wasn't that big of a deal."
],
"score": [
4,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[
"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=THLsZrkP3k4"
],
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
|
6cysk2 | Why are doctors'/nurses' scrubs v-necks? | I realize there are crew neck styles available now, but the v-neck is the "classic" style. Is there any sort of advantage to this (e.g. keeping body cooler due to increased surface area for sweat evaporation, etc)? Edit: is there any sort of historical significance to the v neck? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dhyf9fb"
],
"text": [
"Easier on and off. Off is a big plus when you have scrubs soiled from blood or puke or whatever else."
],
"score": [
5
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
6czvgz | Why are some cable TV networks (TNT, TBS, ESPN, etc.) subject to FCC censorship for indecency but others (HBO, Showtime, etc.) exempt from censorship? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dhyqrk2",
"dhyqmrs"
],
"text": [
"None of the stations you name are subject to FCC regulations. FCC regulations only apply to networks that are broadcast over airwaves and picked up via antenna. Those are FOX, ABC, NBC, PBS, UPN, CW, etc. If the channel can only be obtained via cable they are not subject to the FCC, though many still comply to their guidelines because of their target audiences and being viewed as \"family friendly\".",
"FCC Decency regulations only apply to broadcast network televisions that are public access stations. FOX, ABC, CBS, NBC, PBS, CW, UPN, METV, etc... These stations fall under federal jurisdicition as far as making sure they must meet certain inaliable guidelines. Cable services, or \"Pay-TV\" are exempt from this rule and can do more blatant or obscene things. Generally however, these networks will stick to loose interpriations of the FCCs decency guidelines because of Advertisers. They still want to sell advertising space and certain advertisers will not market to certain clientel. HBO/Showtime are what are known as \"Premium Services\". Premium services do not rely on Advertiser revenue in the same way the other two catagories do. They collect subscriber fees much higher, and provide content that is much more explicit/unfiltered because they are not worrying about pissing off the advertising agencies."
],
"score": [
4,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
|
6d123i | Why is height such a large factor for some people in regards to dating? | Someone's height is usually the last thing to cross my mind when I'm considering dating them, however I've seen a lot of instances of people taking a real hard-line stance on a person's height. I don't have problems with my own height but I really can't understand what would make people not even consider others solely because of height. | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dhz6pbb",
"dhyyf27",
"dhyzone",
"dhz9y4b"
],
"text": [
"As we noticed lately, people are growing taller and taller, and we are generally taller than the previous generations. We also eat way more of everything than 50 years ago. People are attracted to tall people because it projects health ; someone who suffered malnutrition when they were young tend to not grow as much as the same framed people who had plenty enough to eat. I think it's basically a reflex ; like preferring fit people as a n example.",
"Not sure what it is specifically, but it's my understanding that evolutionarily speaking, tall men were perceived as stronger and more masculine, and thus were seen as better mates.",
"For the tall girls I know, they want to date a tall guy because they want to feel petite; being tall is generally considered masculine (unless you look like a model) and sometimes women want to feel feminine.",
"It boils down to a deeply rooted desire to find someone fit for reproducing with. A long long time ago, our sole reason for living was to survive, and have children. This meant that we had to find the perfect man or women to have your children with. Height in a male was one of a few factors that indicted a male had good dna, and it would help ensure the survival of your children."
],
"score": [
6,
5,
5,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[],
[],
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
6d1i29 | Why are criminal and terrorist acts described as 'cowardly'? | On a throwaway account, because even though I want to be incredibly clear that I am NOT endorsing any of these things, nor am I defending them, I feel like some might accuse me of that. Crime is vicious, vile, cruel, wrong, and abhorrent. Murder and rape and terrorism are heinous, horrible things, but I've always been at least a little confused because newscasters always use the term 'cowardly' to describe such things. While we can all comprehend how and why crime is WRONG and BAD... I don't quite understand how 'cowardly' describes being a criminal. A coward is a person running away from their problems or trying to minimize risk to themselves. Crime literally increases the risk since obviously you can go to jail for it, so it just feels... inappropriate? So yeah, curious about your take on this. | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dhz1sxn",
"dhz32qo"
],
"text": [
"Beyond a desire to just generally demean people who do bad things, cowardly is often used when the crime involves some kind of soft target or sneaky tactic. To use a recent example, that suicide bomber could have taken a machine gun and attacked a military base head on, or gone to a battlefield somewhere to fight. Hell, they could have tried using politics and non violence to achieve whatever goal they had, braving humiliation and potential failure. Instead, they snuck into a civilian area and murdered a bunch of basically defenseless people. Like anything, there are times the word is more or less accurate, and it's always somewhat subjective.",
"Crimes that are considered \"cowardly\" usually involve acts of violence against individuals who are incapable of fighting back or defending themselves."
],
"score": [
10,
4
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
6d299e | Can someone explain why bailing someone out of jail is a thing? If someone is a threat to society, how does money make it ok for them to be walking around the streets, even if just temporarily. | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dhz6zc3",
"dhz77yy",
"dhz713e",
"dhz9hc8"
],
"text": [
"People have a right to be tried in court before they are imprisoned. Usually, it's not possible to get someone a court date immediately. Bail is a deposit that someone puts down to be free until their court date. If they run away, they lose the money. If they show up to their court date, they get the money back. Bail is not a way to buy your way out of jail time.",
"You don't go to jail because you're a threat, you go to jail because you are on trial (or will be on trial) and the court wants to guarantee that you actually show up. If the court deems you a serious threat to the public, or a serious flight risk, they will not grant you bail. But for more minor offenses bail is an alternate way to guarantee that you show up for your trial.",
"The idea is to ensure that a person returns to court when required for hearings or their trial. Despite common belief on Reddit, the courts do not want people to sit in jail *just because*, and many people facing charges have lives to get to - family to take care of, jobs to work, etc. But they also have to work with the fact that a lot of people are facing serious jail time and may not return if they're just let out until trial. So the bail system exists to give the courts some collateral since a bailed suspect only gets their money back if they return to court. And besides that, for the actually dangerous prisoners (such as murder suspects), bail is either not an option or is set to an extremely high dollar amount.",
"Judges will evaluate if someone is a danger before allowing them bail. So a violent murder wouldn't be allowed bail in the first place. However, a public urinator or someone simply caught with possession of small amount of drugs aren't necessarily threats to society, but would cost money to house them in a cell until trial."
],
"score": [
112,
15,
11,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[],
[],
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
|
6d2yb8 | Why do some cultures tend to speak more animatedly; eg: Italian? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dhzhuqx"
],
"text": [
"All societies communicate in a combination of verbal and non-verbal methods. The verbal (spoken word) is dominated by language. Your language dictates what thoughts sound nice together (such as rhymes). English has the concept of unstyled hair in the morning, \"bedhead\" likely because it sounds nice. English is also quite tolerant of invented words and loan words compared to many of its relatives. While it accepts compound words (again like \"bedhead\") it is reluctant to adopt them compared to many of its relative languages. Nonverbals (unspoken language) is dominated by gesture. English is very proximal, facial, and ocular. Space between speakers, facial expression, and eye contact do the majority of typical English nonverbal communication. In other cultures, gesture or touch are much more important and proximity or eye contact. The only thing that seems to be universal is appearance. Most cultures read nonverbals based on body presentation (dress). But why the difference in languages or in gestures? The ELI5 answer is in-group identification; We use accent, word stress, gesture, and posture based on the acts of the people around us. From our youth we identify those who do/speak as we do as \"us\" and those who do/speak differently as \"them.\" This kind of tribalism is a natural instinct in social animals, especially for humans where for a long time the greatest threat to our safety is other humans (violence or disease). These days we are safer from disease and violence than ever before, but we still carry these old cultural traditions to help us find \"our people.\" Vive le difference!"
],
"score": [
6
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
|
6d4817 | How were words decided as masculine or feminine during the creation of languages? | In spanish, you see words prefaced with el or la, based on whether the word is masculine or feminine. same goes for french, as well as other articles "un, une, uno, una, etc." - how was this decision made? what was the criteria? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dhzroic",
"dhzpr10"
],
"text": [
"Both languages you mention are Romance languages, and they got their genders from Vulgar Latin. Vulgar Latin was an Italic language, and so got its genders from Proto-Italic. Proto-Italic was an Indo-European language, and so got its genders from Proto-Indo-European (PIE). Well, sort of. PIE is thought to have had an animate-inanimate distinction (i.e. differentiate things by whether they're a live or not, so you use a different \"gender\" for a rock than you would for a snake). The animate gender probably split into separate masculine and feminine genders in some language branches. The inanimate might have been kept to form the three-way masculine-feminine-neuter distinction that you see in, for example, German. Or it might have been displaced by one of the new masculine/feminine genders, leaving only a two-way masculine-feminine distinction behind, such as we see in the Romance languages. There are various guesses as to why gender originated in the first place. We can't really know for sure; the real answer would be \"ask the Proto-Indo-Europeans\", except that we can't, because they're all dead now. Hypotheses range from how gender can be used to differentiate similar words (e.g. French's *le livre* \"the book\" v. *la livre* \"the pound\") to how it sort of glues references to antecedents (e.g. in *la femme rousse*, the shared gender of the adjective and the noun link them together). But your question was about how the gender of different words is decided. Again, we can't know for sure. But it was almost certainly tied up in the culture. Take, for example, the religion of the Proto-Indo-Europeans. We think we can piece together their mythology by examining the similarities between the mythologies of their descendants. We come up with such divine archetypes as the Earth Mother (e.g. *Gaia* in Greek Mythology), which may explain feminine stones (*la pierre*), the Sky Father (∗Dyḗus Pḥatḗr, e.g. *Zeu Pater*/*Zeus* in Greek Mythology or *Iu piter*/*Jupiter* in Roman Mythology), which may explain masculine skies (*le ciel*), and a Sun God (e.g. *Helios* in Greek Mythology), which may explain masculine suns (*le soleil*). Or we can imagine a sort of logical trail from their culture. Say in PIE culture, women tended the hearth fire. Women would, naturally, be of the feminine gender. By association, so would the fire. By association, dangerous things would be feminine, because fire is dangerous and also feminine. So what else is dangerous and therefore feminine? How about stones, which you could stub your toe on, or make an axe out of? This argument was put forth in *Women, fire and dangerous things* by George Lakoff. Now, the French don't still do this in modern times for new words. They rely, I'm pretty sure, mostly on pre-established patterns. For instance, all or pretty much all nouns in French ending in *-ion* are feminine. So say we made up a new verb - how about, I don't know, *gâchourer* - and nominalized it to produce the noun *gâchouration*. This would instinctively sound feminine, to fit the pattern set by other similar nouns as *action*, *observation*, *vexation*, etc. Similarly, every or almost every noun ending in *-ment* is masculine. We would predict that *gâchourement* would be masculine to fit into the pattern set by *habillement*, *changement*, *roulement*, etc.",
"This classification of words as masculine or feminine (or neuter) is at least 8000 years old. At first it was two genders, and eventually a third gender was ''developed''. I think none really knows the answer to this, but there are some theories. It's possible that these evolved out of genuine religious belief that the objects had gender, but it's also possible that it has always been more or less arbitrary. You can imagine how this happens. Two words rhyme, say the daughter and the water — so speakers \"erroneously\" assign them the same gender to water by analogy (more plausible if the word for \"the\" also changes based on gender). Some old folks complain — the kids' slang these days — it makes no sense! But then they die, and two generations later, no one knows that it was ever said differently (there's no writing, remember). Multiply this effect by thousands of years and you get a completely arbitrary gender system."
],
"score": [
4,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
6d4jsu | Why does Scientology have a seemingly disproportionate 'celebrity' following? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dhztplq",
"di00ebj",
"dhzxngc",
"di0cc3m",
"dhztjd6"
],
"text": [
"Hubbard created \"Project Celebrity\" in the 1950s, to deliberately target famous people. Since then, Scientology has continued to aim for celebrities and tempt them with special treatment, such as the Celebrity Centres.",
"Essentially, they actively seek them out. I also believe there is a psychological reason, as celebrities are likely more susceptible to it than others are. After all, a core concept in Scientology is that you can essentially become a God. Most people would find this idea ridiculous, but to someone who is famous, they might actually start to believe in their own greatness from how popular they are. Making them easy pickings for the church.",
"My first guess is that it's all about the ###M - O - N - E - Y Evidence suggests that it's all about the ###M - O - N - E - Y I conclude that is that it's all about the ###M - O - N - E - Y",
"Other commenters have missed an important practical reason: Tax evasion. Religions in the USA are tax-exempt. So if you're a rich celebrity: 1. You have a lot of money. 2. 'Charitably donate' all your money to the cult (and 'level up' in the cult). 3. In return, the cult handles your finances for you and pays for your things. Need a car? Call your handler. Need a new home? Call them up. Groceries? Delivered, you can avoid all the paparazzi.",
"It also takes a lot of money to work your way into notable positions in the church, so only celebrities can afford it."
],
"score": [
18,
13,
7,
6,
5
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[],
[],
[],
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
|
6d4s2y | Why is Ronald Reagan such a polarizing figure? | Why do conservatives love him and liberals hate him? Edit: I'm looking for an informative, minimally biased response | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dhzwm8q",
"di0asy8",
"dhzzm7l",
"di0gpwx"
],
"text": [
"Conservatives love him because he was incredibly successful at pursuing policies that conservatives like: He significantly cut taxes He was extremely aggressive on the world stage - which many conservatives credit for the fall of the Soviet Union and the Berlin Wall He busted unions by defeating the Air Traffic Controllers strike He was popular enough to flip the US Senate that the Dems had controlled since the 1950s. Liberals hate him because: He ignored the AIDS epidemic while thousands died Funded dictators like Saddam Hussein and rebels like Osama bin Laden that came back to bite us directly in the ass He's faced persistent allegations that he undermined then-President Carter's attempt to negotiate with Iran over the hostages, who were released the day he was inaugurated. And he was actually caught running illegal arms to the Iranians and using the money to illegally fund Nicaraguan rebels",
"He legitimized the trickle down theory of economics. The country has never been the same since. It virtually gave rich people the keys to the kingdom.",
"Some good answers here. I'd add that he was the first republican to really tie in with the religious nuts like the Moral Majority of Jerry Falwell. He was also a really terrible actor",
"What does \"trickle down\" imply? Time delayed economic development. As you stated, you're not as well informed on economics as I am. Most people who are deeply informed about economics have their viewpoints shift away from those you have. Why do you think that is the case? Is it a cult? Is training people to think about things quantitatively and to make mathematical models akin to brain washing? I'd argue all that it does is stop the \"emotional\" part of your brain from hijacking your thought process. Here are a ton of well made courses on economics. Many from Ivy league and \"public ivy\" type universities. URL_0"
],
"score": [
39,
3,
3,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[],
[],
[
"https://www.coursera.org/browse/social-sciences/economics?languages=en"
]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
6d56ba | What keeps journalists from honoring someone's request for "off the record"? | Hopefully some journalists can chime in too. | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dhzycai",
"dhzyco2"
],
"text": [
"Professional reputation. You could get away with it once, but then the journalist gains a reputation for being a blabbermouth. People won't want to talk to the journalist anymore and the journalist loses out on tips on good stories. So it's in the journalist's interests to honor their word.",
"Journalists, particularly ones who report on political events, thrive on off-the-record responses. Sure, the journalist could print their names anyway, but then the source would put the word out that the remark was made off the record. And then, there is nobody that will ever go off the record with that journalist ever again -- which is pretty much a death sentence for political reporters. He'd be reassigned to covering the garden show."
],
"score": [
5,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
6d6bzv | What is the reason for news headlines that say "N people died in the [traumatic event], including M women and children." Why not just say "N people died in the [traumatic event]?" | Are they implicitly saying that dead women and children are more noteworthy than other categories of dead people? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"di07qpz"
],
"text": [
"news agencies are businesses. they serve up stories in a way that customers want them. you have indicated in the past that you are more interested in reading stories if women and children have died - hence, they now get specifically mentioned when possible. (you = society, not just you specifically) Similar reason why white girl from your town goes missing and its a huge story, black male from your town is murdered, not a big story. (obviously this is oversimplification, but there was a jake gyllenhall movie about this, so its at least somewhat well known) If your preferences really were to change and those details didnt matter to you, then the news would change with you. But you haven't changed. (again, this is society, not you specifically)"
],
"score": [
4
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
6d71gu | The sharp divide in America between the Christian message (love and peace for all, blessed are the meek) and the Christian practice (hatred of immigrants, ultra-wealthy preachers)? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"di0e18m",
"di0f33n",
"di0hewh"
],
"text": [
"People are often hypocrites, no matter what they profess to believe in. Christians no more so than anyone else. FWIW, ultra-wealthy preachers are an exception, most clergy live modestly. Any many Christian organizations and believers actively work to support immigrants.",
"I grew up in the north. The military took me to the south and I've been here for about 8 years. I know exactly what you're asking. Someone once told me (in South Georgia) that if I had killed a child while overseas I was doing them a favor because I saved them from growing up into a sinner and thus going to hell. Shitty people are shitty people regardless and if they can use\"religion\" to back up their shittiness in anyway shape or form they will. TL;DR Generally speaking in the south religious people are less educated, less educated people tend to be more intolerant of others.",
"If Jesus is the savior, God's \"true\" son, if his word is the same as God's, why don't Christians only follow the New Testament and ignore the Old Testament? Jesus didn't talk about abortion, or homosexuality, but so many \"Christians\" go on and on about \"the word of God\" in the Old Testament. Seems to me that if you identify as a Christian, you would believe in your heart, and live as the example that Christ was; love your enemy, feed the hungry, house the poor, turn the other cheek, Sermon on The Mount stuff. If you are going to follow the Old Testament, how do you square up the inconsistency of choosing which laws of the Old Testament to follow? Eating shellfish, killing your child for talking back to you, stoning to death married people committing adultery; which of God's laws do you choose to follow, and how is it that you get to decide ? Christians should live and try to act like Christ, otherwise it would seem to be hypocrisy personified."
],
"score": [
8,
4,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[],
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
|
6d826w | Why is Paris, unlike perhaps any other city, so synonymous with romance? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"di0rh5k"
],
"text": [
"During the French Revolution of early 19th century the society heavily liberalized, with prostitution being legal , theatres promoting works of romanticism; Paris came to establish a standard for fashion , perfume, femininity, class and more. This created the courtesan(or Lorette), the ideal of an educated, classy, seductive and fashionable lady who is very high maintenance; an equivalent of an expensive escort of today. Those courtesans promoted romantic love. Through a combination of sexual, romantic and the artistic factors, these traditions survived till today to some extent, creating the image and being the tourist sales pitch."
],
"score": [
3
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
|
6d9jac | Given it's awful roots and horrific connotations, why is the N-word such a huge part of black culture? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"di0vlc6",
"di10zg4",
"di0vutt",
"di110bs"
],
"text": [
"It's used as a sort of \"togetherness\" word. Racists wanted to lump them all together into one derogatory word. They took that word and they use it to band together and embrace their culture and their people.",
"black people started using this word themselves to \"disarm\" it from its original negative connotation. because when they use it for themselves, it cant be too bad no more, right? i suppose it worked, but only halfway, because a white guy still cant use it without it being taken the negative way.",
"It doesn't really have \"awful roots\". The word itself is a pretty simple contraction of the name of the black race. Most of the awfulness was added in the 1800s and 1900s, by racists. Reclaiming the word from a bunch of racists and using it within black culture with another meaning, closer to \"our team\", doesn't seem like a bad idea.",
"Words depend on context to exert their meanings. For instance, \"Nigger is a derogatory racial slur against black people.\" vs. \"You are a stupid nigger.\" vs. \"Man, you my real nigger/nigga man, nobody would've done that for me except for you!\" The same word giving 3 totally different outcomes because it's used in 3 different contexts. It's all depending on who used it against whom in what context."
],
"score": [
17,
7,
4,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[],
[],
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
|
6d9lwa | Vermont Governor declined to legalize recreational marijuana because there is no way to test a driver for impairment. Why is there no stipulation with other prescription medications that can dramatically alter your ability to drive? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"di0wb5m",
"di10zw3",
"di0x8tr",
"di0yng6"
],
"text": [
"The problem with testing for cannabis is that you test positive for a week after you're no longer high. So there's no test that says you are unsafe to drive, just a test that says you smoked in the last week or three. Imagine if all they had for drunk driving was a test that proved you drank a beer in the last week, and you can maybe see the problem. With opioids, if you've got it in your blood in sufficient concentrations, you are dangerous right now.",
"The simple explanation is that this is just a lame excuse. Other states can do it, why can't Vermont?",
"Because it's not about the weed. It's usually never about the weed, but the issues surrounding it. Think of the other interests that the governor serves that conflict with legalizing weed. He has taken money from [pharmaceutical]( URL_0 ) companies, who are notorious for trying to block legalized marijuana. If something smells like shit, it probably leads to a pile of cash and bad, easily disprovable excuses and hypocrisy like you have noticed with this thread.",
"People have been arrested for being under the influence of prescription drugs, including [Phish frontman Trey Anastasio]( URL_0 ). They use the field sobriety test in order to determine intoxication, which theoretically can be used for marijuana enforcement as well. There is no threshold for how much opiates or other drugs you have in your system, if you make a critical driving error, fail the field sobriety test and you test positive for pharmaceuticals you can get a DUI. The demand for an actual THC level that can be measured to determine sobriety is a stall tactic, because no such threshold exists. Not only does THC stay in your system for weeks after ingestion, but a seasoned smoker may have such a tolerance that the level in their bloodstream cannot indicate how high they actually are. The state will likely propose the same statutes for determining DUI-drugs, and might opt to lower the legal BAC limit if you are found to have made a moving violation with alcohol and THC in your system."
],
"score": [
41,
10,
6,
4
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[],
[
"https://www.opensecrets.org/expends/vendor.php?year=2016&vendor=Phil+Scott+for+Vermont"
],
[
"http://www.foxnews.com/story/2006/12/15/ex-phish-frontman-trey-anastasio-accused-dui.html"
]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
|
6d9mpy | UK Educational System | I'm migrating to the UK from the Philippines, and I know nothing about the educational system there. I don't have the faintest idea what A grades are, revision, GSCE, or the equivalent of the PH's educational system to the UK's. | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"di0xdd7"
],
"text": [
"OK, let's start with the basics: School years. 4+/Reception is age 4-5, after that is year 1 through year 13 successively. (NB: You'll hear some people talking about \"forms\": either ignore them, or just note that 6th form = year 12 and year 13, and then they count down from there one year at a time). School age ranges: Ludicrously variable, but probably the most common will have Primary School (usually up to year 6) High School (again, very variable, but probably the most common option is year 7 - year 11 or year 7 - year 13), and College (usually year 12 and 13, but some times you get other ranges). Now, year 9 and under use some numerical system that's constant across the whole range (so bright kids in year 2 might get level 3 in each subject, whereas the top students in year 9 will get level 8s). GCSEs are the first set of qualifications taken, usually in years 10 and 11, though a lot of schools will start some students a little earlier than that. These are roughly equivalent to high school leaving certificates in other countries, but are subject specific. We are in the process of transitioning between two different marking systems: one that has letter grades from A to G, with A being the best of those, A* above A, and U, the only failing grade, below G. Anything C or better is considered a \"good\" GCSE, and is what employers (and A-level admittance boards) actually care about. The new system is numerical, going from 1-9, with 9 being the best, and U again being a failing grade below 1, with 4 or above being considered \"good\". (There are also equivalent alternative qualifications available in the form of BTEC First Diplomas and a few other options). In years 12 and 13, there are a wider variety of options. The traditional academic route is via A-levels, but there are also BTEC Extended Diplomas, the BTEC National Certificate, the International Baccalaureate (IB - specifically, the IB Diploma) and other options available. A-levels are marked on a scale like that for old GCSEs, but without grades F and G. IB uses a numerical system, from 1 to 7 in each category, and is usually considered to be roughly equivalent to A-levels. IB or A-levels are effectively university entrance exams, though a few universities will also set their own exams. \"Revision\" is just a word for preparing for exams."
],
"score": [
6
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
6dapqe | If Easter is more significant than Christmas, theologically speaking, then why do Americans and many others make a bigger deal of Christmas--for example, making Christmas a federal holiday but not giving any days off for the Easter weekend, as opposed to most European countries? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"di160um",
"di16pdn",
"di1cbvb",
"di17fs1"
],
"text": [
"Christmas was not such a big deal until the big department stores in NYC started pumping it up as a holiday. Until the late 1800s, Christmas was a minor holiday, and some Christian sects actively tried to prevent them from being anything other than that. After they invented the rotund Santa Claus, and made up stories like 'The Night Before Christmas' etc., the genie was out of the bottle and the rest is history. And when the saw what a good job they had done with Christmas, then they started with Valentine's Day, etc. TL/DR It got as big as it is because Macy's told us we had to buy things from them to make people happy.",
"A major component of the \"Federal Holliday\" topic is that Easter always falls on a Sunday. Christmas, however, can be on any day. So, Christmas needs to be a official holiday to ensure that everyone gets the day off, whereas Easter does not. Furthermore, the significance of the holiday from a religious standpoint has nothing to do with the importance of it to the larger American culture. The US is long past the point where the cultural significance of an event is determined by religions.",
"Part of the different treatment is that *because* Easter is theologically more important, it is somewhat less commercialised and it is still treated as a relatively serious holiday. It's easier to make a bigger deal out of a more upbeat holiday such as Christmas. And for another comparison: look at how the relatively minor Jewish Hanukkah is treated versus the far more serious Passover or Yom Kippur.",
"Because theology has nothing to do with it. The relative importance of each holiday is about shopping, and I would add that Christmas being so close to the end of the year, and often in miserable weather in some places, makes it a more natural choice for giving extra days off. Also, Canada gets a four-day weekend for Easter. Good Friday is off, and because Easter is on a Sunday, Monday is off too."
],
"score": [
12,
11,
5,
4
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[],
[],
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
|
6de844 | How and why are books like The Great Gatsby and Of Mice and Men chosen for reading in English classes? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"di216z3",
"di2d436",
"di26yvx",
"di2c9fw",
"di24gzl",
"di27y46",
"di2ehc8",
"di2v8nw",
"di29wmg",
"di2bb5y",
"di20jhd",
"di2adu4",
"di2eeyi",
"di2a530",
"di26r3l",
"di2gblq",
"di2cqg8",
"di2iz4p",
"di2dy1o",
"di33gbi",
"di2ujhs",
"di2kc1b",
"di2rs74",
"di29uc9",
"di2z3dl",
"di2plw2",
"di2gda7",
"di2fdb8",
"di2erkq",
"di2cbu4",
"di2uebk"
],
"text": [
"*Finally, my degree is useful for something!* So educators are usually really *bad* at explaining why you read the things you read for school. The core concept to grasp here is the *literary canon*: that is, the body of works that are the foundation of [Western] literature. They are the most historically and culturally significant pieces of literature being studied currently. But how do works get added to the canon? The surface layer is that they get into the canon because old stuffy [usually white, usually male] scholars *want* to study them, so they do, so it's expected that their students study them, so they do, so it's expected that to prepare for college you have to study them, so you do. It's not like a few Ivy League professors sat down in a dark, smokey room and discussed the future of the literary canon...but also it kind of is like that? Keep in mind, there are multiple \"sub-canons\". There is the American literature canon (featuring Anne Bradstreet, Thoreau, Emerson, Faulkner, Hemingway, Whitman, etc.); the British literature canon (Shakespeare, Geoffrey Chaucer, John Donne, Jane Austen, etc.), the poetry canon (Frost, Emerson, Whitman, Donne, Herbert, Shakespeare, etc.), the historical foundational canon (Homer, Virgil, *Beowulf*, *Gilgamesh*, etc.), the science fiction canon (Mary Shelley, Frank Herbert, Robert Heinlein, etc.). I know I'm throwing a lot of names at you; the point is that there is *the canon* and then there is \"I'm studying English poetry in the late 1800s, *these* are the people I should be reading\". Which then **raises** the question, why do those scholars want to study those works? We have the benefit of hindsight, so *today* we might read Hemingway and [rightly] think he's boring and dry. But at the time his writing style was revolutionary. Before Hemingway, prose was all very *eloquent* and had propensity for verbosity. Hemingway wrote in a short, clean, *different* style. You may not like it, but he made it ok to *not* write in the old, stuffy way that everyone had been writing before him. That's not to say Hemingway was the first, or the best, but he was *good* and he was famous and he showed everyone that you could write in a different fashion. Suddenly everyone was writing in this new minimalist style, which in turn led to other changes in literature that allowed for the kinds of books we read today for fun. Without Hemingway, our literature today would look *very* different. Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson did the same thing for poetry. Those are some very specific examples, but I hope they can demonstrate how authors can influence literature, and sometimes they're a part of the canon for those reasons. The very old part of the canon is in there for much the same reason, but more in the sense of *inventing literature at all*. Homer's Odyssey is the foundational work for *so much* of western literature. Literally everything you've ever read, **ever**, was influenced by the Odyssey. And Epic of Gilgamesh is the oldest great work of literature - the oldest version of That Movie That Everyone Saw. It's the first ever example of real literature, which is kind of a big deal. Studying them can help you understand how storytelling evolved, by showing you how it started. I won't go into too much detail here about what, exactly, you would learn (narrative structure, framing devices...) because I don't need to give you an English lesson, eh? Suffice it to say, there's a lot there to unpack. Some works are a part of the canon because they're just easy to digest. F. Scott Fitzgerald is fairly easy to analyze and understand on a more abstract level, mostly because all of his symbolism is the same (that is, everything represents the \"unobtainable American Dream\"). It wouldn't do any good to say, \"Here kids, learn how to analyze literature by *analyzing the most difficult literature possible*\". Of course, unfortunately that's often *exactly* what English classes do. It's akin to saying, \"Here kids, let's learn how to do math. Shall we start with calculus? No? Trigonometry then...\" Which is unfortunate, because literature is awesome and there's some really cool stuff to learn...once you learn the tools you need to do it. But I digress. But most of the canon boils down to be cultural icons of the time when they were published, or sometimes later when people rediscovered them. They can be both a window into the culture surrounding the person that wrote the works, why they wrote what they did, what symbolism they were using at the time, how they thought and viewed the world; and also a window into how that one piece of literature or author or movement changed the culture they were in, which trickled down to influence our own culture. They can also be ways to understand ourselves by analyzing our own reactions to what we're reading, and the literature in the canon often elicits strong reactions in its readers. None of that is to say that the canon is perfect; far from it! I studied English and I hate huge chunks of the canon ([don't even get me started on *Catcher in the Rye*]( URL_4 )). But that's the idea of it: important literature that had a powerful influence on people and the times they were from, which encourages others to study that literature, which is itself a strong reaction that encourages others to study why the first people studied it, etc., so that it continues to have influence and continues to be important literature worth studying. TL;DR: The literary canon is literature that is \"worth studying\". EDIT: Important thing I totally missed. The literary canon is also supposed to be an introduction to your own national identity. When you so much as watch cartoons you'll be getting [references to cultural icons]( URL_1 ). Seriously, as an adult go back and watch Animaniacs (it's on Netflix!) and see how many references you *didn't* get when you were a kid. When you read the American literary canon it's in part teaching you what it means to be an American. It helps build a unifying web of understanding, because when you make a joke about how painting a fence is \"fun\" and someone else laughs, you think *This guy also read Tom Sawyer* and you feel a connection with that person. Enough of those cultural connections help form the glue that is our national identity. It kind of sounds like indoctrination...and it kind of is. And that's not *bad* because it's teaching you about your country and how to be a citizen of that country, which is perfectly fine as long as it doesn't get out of control. EDIT: Hemingway has one m. I derped *so hard*. Thanks for the guys that caught it. EDIT: and Emerson, dammnit. I am a derp, sorry for the typos. Eventually I'll run out of names to misspell. EDIT: for the pedants: ~~begs~~ raises EDIT: Obligatory Thanks for the Gold, but [I think they misspelled Emmerson]( URL_0 ). ^^/s Because people have been asking: [This is my scifi reviews/essay blog]( URL_3 ). The responses have really been really encouraging, so I'm going to try to revitalize it and get to posting there again. If you're into aquariums, [I also have a blog about aquariums]( URL_2 ). I do most of my writing on Reddit, though - right here in ELI5! I have been convinced to reread *Catcher in the Rye* to see if age will give me a better perspective. I stand by my dislike of Hemingway, but if you enjoy him don't let me stop you. **TL;DR - Like the rest of this comment, the books you are assigned to read in class are probably worth reading for reasons that will be made clear if you read the rest of that book/this comment.**",
"Haha! Finally MY degree is useful here. I am a special education teacher and teach middle school high functioning autism. I also happen to teach for a cooperative, mrsningy (edit: most of my) students come from all around the area, covering multiple school districts each with their own set of expectations for student growth. I'm basically told each year \"figure something out\". Now this would be golden for most teachers who hate teaching from a required script but since I deal with students who hate school by the time they get to me, it can get tough. I'm also a veteran teacher so my admins just figure I know what I'm doing (sometimes I do sometimes I don't). I'm given a budget each year and expected to field an entire curriculum from that. About 4 year ago I decided that having them read science fiction and fantasy books is over. They prefer that type of story because it's more fun to read, but I hate Harry Potter and the hunger games by now, so I decided to find books that would challenge them. We now read classics iny classroom like \"Of Mice and Men\" and 'Huck Finn\", books that have far deeper meaning than anything they would ever read on their own, and books that even most middle school teachers avoid. So for my experience, we read those books because I want them to. Edit: We read Percy Jackson each year because I can tie in Greek history and they get a kick out of that. We do read plenty of books they enjoy but I HAVE to expose them to historical literature or \"classics\" such as The Outsiders which most may not consider a classic yet. Most of my students come to me because their home schools have given up on them and can't figure out how to teach them. I have a specialized classroom designed for their needs and while it is a relaxing place I force them to challenge themselves and at times the work is far tougher than in their home school because I do have that easier environment to learn in. But they all come out better people because of it. If I don't they won't be prepared for high school and I have yet to have a student not finish a book and love it after six years in this group. Yes it's hard and yes they fight at first but once we see in there I see the light in their eyes and I know I have them hooked.",
"They choose the books based of Historical/cultural significance and writing quality. Basically all the books you study should be chosen based on some important theme in them - of Mice and Men is about the depression, Gatsby is about the Roaring Twenties and To Kill a Mockingbird is about racism and the Great Depression. This can inform the students about important context (especially Mockingbird) and a 'real connection' often makes books more attractive to study. The other reason is that these books are easy to analyse. They are full of symbolism, foreshadowing and the historical context. Books like Frankenstein might be a dry read but it is a goldmine for analysis, and the deeper themes present (social commentary, (possible) homosexuality) means you can go to town on them. It is far easier to study that (and will benefit your skills more) than to go for something more enjoyable and (often) newer - which are often more readable but less deep (or restrictively long). Of Mice and Men is a really easy text to do analysis in, it's short and full of foreshadowing. Gatsby also has foreshadowing, but also themes of wealth, inequality etc. And some books can be 'read into' easily - that Nick is gay is not specific in the text but many student pick that up and believe it, it gives chances to develop skills simpler books don't have. These make then qualify for the studying 'cannon', books like Gatsby and Of Mice and Men are chosen a lot because of the wealth of secondary literature on them, making critical opinion easy to find.",
"There are two reasons we read these books: 1. The books are part of a group of well-respected books called \"the canon.\" These are books that over the years scholars have studied again and again until they became \"classic.\" 2. Out of all the books in the canon, some are easier to teach because they are more obvious in their use of literary devices (tools writers use to make their points). The Great Gatsby, for example, uses metaphors and symbolism all over the place. They're easy to point out and kids get a quick win when they recognize them. Most high school reading fulfills both of these criteria. Occasionally you'll see teachers pick books that aren't classic but have a literary device they want to teach, or you'll see books from the canon that are harder to teach but important to learn (some Shakespeare). But you'll seldom see some of the denser or more ambiguous books in the canon: I've yet to see a high school teacher try to teach Ulysses. Edit: TIL that plenty of high schools were way cooler than my kinda crappy backwater public school and taught Joyce's Ulysses. Color me jealous.",
"They are easy to teach. Of Mice and Men is packed full of figurative language and writing tools (metaphors, similes, foreshadowing, imagery, idioms and personification), which is necessary for teaching English and writing. It is relatively short so not unreasonable to expect students to be able to read it in full in a short period of time and not expensive to print, relatively speaking. There are lots of classic and canon books out there, but they can be too long, or the symbolism is absent or too obscure & complex for high-school teaching. Also I love John Steinbeck so don't mind adding that it is genuinely an enjoyable and unpretentious book to read as well. (I haven't read Gatsby so no idea on that one)",
"I have taught in South Central LA and I now teach in Urban Indonesia. I have yet to have one student not connect personally to Of Mice and Men. Whether they are in a gang or a billionaire (I've taught both) there is something in there for them. Part of literature and story-telling is that it unites us all. Good stories can transcend time and culture. The mythical Canon is usually made up of books that teachers believe do these things.",
"So my wife is an English teacher and she is going through the process to pick out her books for next school year right now. The teachers are limited by a number of factors. To start, they are limited by school funding and student fees. My wife's school won't let her spend more than $12 worth of books per student, she since teaches in a poor rural Ohio school district. Because of this limit, she can only spend $3-4 per book. That limits her to only the mass market books. In truth, she wants to branch out to do different, more modern works, but just buying one would blow her entire budget and leave her without enough materials to stretch out through the entire school year. Second, she has to choose books that fit into her student reading levels. They use lexile ranges, which are a way to measure reading levels. Lexile ranges don't necessarily correlate with grade level. She teaches 9th and 10th grades and she has students reading between 2nd and 12th grade reading levels. How does she choose novels that fit for all of them? She can't. Third, she has to deal with the administrators. Some of the administrators are very opinionated about what books are taught. \"To Kill A Mocking fits with what the 10th graders are learning in social studies, so I want to you teach that to your sophomores.\" The administrators are also much more difficult to convince the value of some of these more modern and innovative books she wants to teach. So between all of these factors, my wife only has a handful of books to choose from. So you know what she ends up having to order? The old standards. In some cases, she doesn't mind, but she is definitely annoyed by how little room choice she has in the selections.",
"Follow up question: How do we benefit from Shakespeare? The language within his work is a fantasy language based of a dialect of English that's been dead for more than 2 centuries. On top of that nothing in any of the stories I read taught me anything along the lines of morals or even proper story structure. They were just a giant mess of random problems and solutions that seemed extremely pointless. Not to mention characters lacked any depth whatsoever and their intent was usually apparent within their first scene.",
"They live in the sweet spot for the reading comprehension level in high school. Easy themes, short, secular, Plus they teach you valuable life lessons. Like wearing a glove full of vaseline to keep your hand soft for your fiance.",
"When I took an Access to University course I learned so much. We studied a variety of subjects; history, psychology, English literature were my main three; and I found that they all went hand in hand. We studied One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest by Ken Kesey, Trumpet by Jackie Kay, the poetry of Maya Angelou, , A Passageway to India and The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy. We did some Shakespeare and short stories by Roahl Dahl, The Vendetta by Guy de Maupassant, The Veldt by Ray Bradbury, Town and Country Lovers by Nadine Gordimer and poetry by the Brontë sisters. This literature is like a snapshot of the time in which it is written. Not only do you learn about the style of writing a great deal, you also pick up knowledge of important events and themes that made me feel more well rounded as an adult. I wasn't a feminist until I was introduced to the idea through history and literature. I learned about the Suffragettes in History, read literature that illustrated examples of prejudice in action in English Lit, and studied the psychology of discrimination and prejudice in Psychology. They expanded my knowledge of Apartheid, mental health before the 60s and how this tied in to women and the idea that both the mentally ill and women were discriminated against and locked away. I learned about Slavery and Racism, and how that tied in to feminism. And society and class, again showing the oppression of minorities and looking really at the different ways we identify ourselves and others, and how that can make us feel, both good and bad. As I learned I realised that not only was this studying helping prepare me to learn at a higher level, I was becoming more well rounded as a person. Knowledge was not the only thing imparted, it shaped me and the way I thought. I learned more about myself on that course than in the whole of my life before it, it showed me ideas that I had never considered before, taught me how to think critically and how to express myself. When I looked back at the literature I studied in high school, I had a much deeper understanding of why I was taught these things. Literature was a vehicle for so much more than words on a page. It helped me to see why I studied, who I was inside, what my values were, what direction I wanted my life to go in and broadened my horizons in life. I wanted to know more about everything. I've not done my degree yet and it's been a while since I studied so forgive me if I am not entirely clear or have gotten any authors or titles wrong.",
"Considered part of the canon of English literature (heavily read, written about, and esteemed) and are also both accessible, easy, and short compared to many classics.",
"Books such as Gatsby and OMAM are chosen because they are arguably the most accurate representations of the literary philosophies of their respective time periods. Perhaps the very reason that English classes study books at all is to gain an understanding of the author and his/her perspective, but these so-called classic books give insight to the opinions and values of the masses at the time. For example, Gatsby was written by one of the prime modernist writers, F. Scott Fitzgerald, who was able to really capture the essence of early 20th century America in the novel. Because of this, students can go back and study Gatsby to gain some kind of understanding of what life may have been like during that era and possibly garner some new perspective that can be applied to their own belief systems.",
"As an English Lit grad, high school teacher and college prof, I love this post and all the discussion, passion and debate. Harold Bloom offers us his version of a western canon of 26 works and explains why they should be part of the canon. URL_1 Although Bloom does not ELI5, it does offer us a succinct list. But it also points out that anyone can make their own canon. Although Bloom is not just anyone in scholarly circles. He also makes explicit that his is a \"Western\" canon. Other canons exist, either by geography or by theme, style, gender, period, language etc. The number of canons could be endless. An author that tops my canon is Milan Kundera, and my favourite is \"Immortality\". b p nichol is my favourite poet. So playful and free! Not sure if these make my canon, but I love reading Vonnegut, Hunter S Thompson, Chuck Palahniuk. I couldn't wait to share each new Harry Potter novel with my son and loved how so many of my students got turned on to reading by J K Rowling. Was about to submit, but can't without adding Arthur C Clarke, Robert Heinlein and even the Ender's Game series although I choke a little when I think about its author's religious and moral beliefs. Keep reading and enjoying literature! Who is in your canon or canons? edit: replaced book cover with blurry angel butt with alternative edition URL_0",
"Any combination of these: (a) They're considered classics because people still enjoy them (or find value in them) long after they were published; (b) They're considered edifying, in that typically they have a strong moral message; (c) They present a full smorgasbord of things that can be studied, such as strong narrative themes, characterisation, cultural properties, historical interest, and so on.",
"Most curriculum cover brit lit, or american lit, which explains certain titles of literature chosen from that time,but most always they choose from classics, specifically from what's called the \"western canon\", a selection thought to heavily shape western civilization. URL_0",
"I'm a high school teacher. I teach those books because I like them. Many people who are extremely uninformed about education standards will tell you that I have to follow some formula or series of worksheets, but in reality the English standards can be easily applied to any book as long as they aren't commercial fiction. I enjoyed those books, so I get to force students to read things I like. I'm definitely not about to spend 40 weeks a year trudging through books I hate. It's hard enough to get students to do and enjoy reading, not liking the book yourself just makes it harder.",
"Classics in American literature are chosen because the story or the hero reflects an important part of U.S. culture, ideals, or history.",
"When teachers see those books they think: - Oh, what a cute little book. Just what I always wanted. My own little book. I will name him George, and I will hug him and pet him and squeeze him and pat him and pet him and rub him and caress him and...",
"As an English teacher - they're the only books the school has copies of so we get to read them. Specially true with Shakespeare. O I love him but I don't love Romeo and Juliet or Midsummer's Night Dream. I'd love to read a winter's tale or richard III. Or even a play by a different author from the same time like The Roaring Girl which is about a girl who dresses like a man and had sword fights. But the schools can't afford new books.",
"One factor that I haven't seen mentioned (though hinted at): a book that is public domain usually costs ten times less than a book that is still under copyright. This means that there is also a substantial *practical* reason why many schools will restrict their classroom supplies to older works. (There is also perhaps an additional angle that it is presumably more difficult for a work to enter the canon when it is still under copyright because people are not so free to share it or reimagine it or rework it or recast it. Whenever its nature of being private-property conflicts with its nature of being culture, its nature as private-property often has legal priority.)",
"Easiest TLDR I can think of for this: You know how stories always reference other stories? Like when the Simpsons references Rocky 5 or something? \"The Canon\" in any kind of literature are the books that all the other books reference back to. So \"The Great Gatsby\" is important beacuse almost every other book about \"the american dream\" that was made afterwards contains some kind of allusion back to that book. Shakespeare matters because later plays all referenced back to Shakespeare. Frankenstein matters because every story afterwards about \"science gone mad\" references back to it. Every fantasy novel references back to \"Lord of the Rings\", which itself references back to \"Beowulf\" and similar legends. It's not universal or automatic, and there's always debate about which ones count, but usually books are chosen because of their importance on that level.",
"what I never understood is why we were forced to read Shakespeare. I had so many teachers who hated it. When you're 14 years old in ninth grade, even the spark notes version doesn't really make sense. What they should really do is strength your ability to write, so you don't end up like all the college kids in my classes who still didn't know how to use a semicolon they focused way way too much on expository writing. They should be teaching research based more, learning how to get the facts. Technical is good too, and creative writing is a really good way to expand your mind. our public education system in America is lacking, a great example is how it is heavily based too much in the past. The world changes and so should the way we teach. The fact that not a single class I ever took in public school history went beyond the Cold War means they really don't give a shit. How are we supposed to focus on changing the future if you don't teach your kids what happened in the past 30 years, but rather what happened 600 years ago. I had three classes on the French revolution but never once learned about the Vietnam war or first or second Gulf Wars Public education in the USA in 99% garbage. You want our kids to be successful, so you teach them nothing and then blame them for incompetence. Fuck the baby boomer generation",
"I'm probably too late for this shindig, but there's an important component I see many people missing, and this is, in my view, the most important reason we read books like Huck Finn, The Great Gatsby, and Pride and Prejudice. Yes, part of the answer here is the 'canon', i.e. there's a (possibly arbitrary) group of central texts chosen by old white dudes with Oedipus complexes. Look at other comments for answers about the canon. Now, I have a problem with the 'canon' answer because it's overly simplified, and is often used as a false comfort. 'The Canon' is the answer people want to hear if they don't understand why they're being made to read *The Great Gatsby*. That is, if you're just bored by *The Great Gatsby*, it's comforting to say, \"Well, some boring old white dudes arbitrarily decided I should read this when really it's just boring drivel that has no relevance to modern life and that's Fitzgerald's fault, not mine, let's move on to Harry Potter. Fuck the canon, it's racist.\" (The canon is, indeed, pretty racist, but let's move on) **Something I don't see people talking about, however, is literary tradition, which I see as the more significant reason to read writers like Fitzgerald and Steinbeck.** To explain: writers read each other. Whom writers read and whom writers like will impact their own work. Toni Morrison's *Beloved* is illuminated if, afterwards, you read Faulkner. Morrison wrote a Ph.D. on Faulkner for cryin' out loud. That doesn't mean you can't read *Beloved* without *As I Lay Dying*; it simply means Beloved will be a different, and more interesting book if you do. You can't fully appreciate J.G. Ballard unless you also understand Joseph Conrad. J.G. Ballard is basically using the exact same metaphors as Conrad, just updated and less racist. He's admitted as such. If you read Virginia Woolf before you read Ursula K. Le Guin, you'll be amazed by the connections you'll make. The texts dance with each other. It doesn't matter that Le Guin writes Science Fiction and Woolf writes in the mode of Modernism--Le Guin has been heavily influenced by Woolf, and reading the two together is very enlightening. And then come the two giants of them all: Shakespeare and The Bible. Look, you can read literature without having read any Shakespeare or any of the Bible, but that doesn't mean you'll be erasing the ginormous impact these works have had on literature. In the most fundamental ways, the language of The Bible has seeped into the entire umbrella of English literature. Even if you don't know it as a writer, you're either adopting the ways The Bible uses words, or rebelling against it. No matter what, you're always responding to it. It doesn't even need to be purposeful on your part. So, yes, there's an aspect of 'the canon', but the canon wasn't just chosen by stuffy old white men. It was also chosen by writers, and a writer worth their salt will have read from the canon, and will know what interests them, and what they think is missing. To track this progression can give us insight into the way dialogues in our culture develop. It isn't arbitrary that Toni Morrison is following in Faulkner's footsteps, and it certainly isn't because some old white dudes told her to and that was that. Part of the issue is that high school students don't necessarily have the perspective available to approach some of these texts, and it's often in high school where these texts are read. For example, what does an expedition down the misty Congo river have to offer to someone going into engineering, or politics, or environmental science? I think the reason a book like Conrad's *Heart of Darkness* evades us is because books like it are often taught in the wrong way. Here are some ways to rethink some of the writers you didn't appreciate in high school: **Jane Austen** is the Lena Dunham of Gentry Era fiction. She's a ruthlessly observational genius filled with radical ideas about women and romance. She's totally brutal, too. A good high school teacher will guide you to see how fucking hilarious Jane Austen is. She's a bitch, and she knows it, and she doesn't care. For example, There's a whole section in Pride and Prejudice where Mr. Bingley attempts to justify his bad handwriting by arguing that he's just really smart and thinks too quickly. Austen writes this dialogue so perfectly, so cunningly that, in the end, her character Elizabeth totally brings Mr. Bingley down to size. We've all met people like Mr. Bingley, is the thing. However, if you don't understand how Austen's humor works, it could come off as simply gentle banter. Furthermore, her legacy is still felt today. **Joseph Conrad** fathered (or at least perfected) a certain kind of thinking. His works combine intense societal critiques through the power of individual consciousness. Basically, he's one of the original \"the personal is the political\". Even if you don't like *Heart of Darkness*, you're never escaping its impact (which has been followed by many great socialist thinkers btw). **Mark Twain** basically created American literature. It was mostly very puritan before he came along to satirize the moralization and piety of American literature coming before him. There's no way in hell that some stuffy white men facilitated this. American writers like John Steinbeck, Faulkner, Don Delillo and I'd even argue Bret Easton Ellis have all learned lessons from Mark Twain. His lasting impression isn't because a couple of Harvard deans standing around in a room smoking cigars suddenly decided he's interesting. It's because he's a great writer, and writers after him have either copied him or tried to repurpose his techniques. **Shakespeare** literally somehow captured and predicted every single literary movement that has happened and probably will ever happen. If you feel a certain way, Shakespeare has written about it. If you don't like Shakespeare, it isn't because you're right. It's because you didn't have a good professor to guide you. I know that may make you feel insecure. How could one dude be so amazing? Well, he was, and you need to deal with it. Shakespeare is the only writer I can say this about with absolute confidence. With the proper introduction, he's one of the most fascinating writers (if not *the* most). But he absolutely needs a guide. This goes into the very purpose of literature, which is this: if we want political progress, scientific progress, mathematical progress, we need to know how to redefine our own personal vocabularies. All great writers have, in some way or another, reinvigorated or dismantled the old cliches of their times to document the cultural, intellectual, and psychic changes they observed. Writers give us language we can use to explore our experiences, and reading in terms of a tradition helps us see how languages and conversations develop. If you want to dismantle the cliches of conservative America, or SJW liberals, or Orthodox Christians, it helps tremendously to see how geniuses have done so in their own contexts.",
"First off, my credentials: B.A. in English from UC Santa Barbara, M.A. in Modern Literature from Queen Mary University of London. John Steinbeck and F. Scott Fitzgerald are canonical American authors. Period. Full stop. Why? They were best sellers. Why? Because they captured what is known as the \"zeitgeist\" or the 'spirit of the era,' to paraphrase. They also happened to be masters of the novel form. Don't believe me? Read \"East of Eden\" and \"Tender Is the Night.\" Disagree? Go ahead. Write something better. These men wrote what is known as \"the great American novel.\" Who will be next? You? Her? Me? Who knows? Bye.",
"Look up \"literary merit.\" Certain works of literature express literary merit usually because a number of scholars can identify profound significance (ie beyond being a good story). Whether it actually exists is another matter. Of course, this assumes a five year old can use Google.",
"As a professional writer, subjecting students to the classics before they have a baseline enjoyment of the act of reading fiction really chafes me. I think a LOT of young readers are permanently turned off of prose fiction because of stuffy, obtuse, irrelevant shit they were forced to read in high school.",
"I don't know, All I remember is that in secondary 5 (Quebec french school) I had to read \"Des souris et des hommes\" in french class and \"Les miserâb\" in english litterature at the same time... a whole semester hearing \"Jean Valjean\" in english when 100% of the students were native french speakers. Teachers do whatever they want I think.",
"The \"great books\" don't always cover deep topics but also are considered benchmarks in the use of language. My favorite example is Moby Dick. As a book it's frankly boring, but open it to any random page and read any random paragraph and it's just perfect. Somehow Melville wrote an 800+ page epic in which every piece of it reads like poetry. Ditto Shakespeare.",
"here is an alternate view of why Because some pretentious people in the past, that invented fictitious reasons why the books were awesome, told younger people that these books were awesome...and being young some of them believed the pretentious people knew wtf they were talking about. They in turn got into positions of authority and regurgitated the same crap to more future young people. Now we and our children and our children's children are stuck reading the same boring books because some a-hole 60+ years ago thought they manufactured some hidden meaning or lesson from something that was just a book. this is the same principle behind rich people pretending that caviar and pâté actually taste good....when in reality they both taste like crap",
"Because books like these contain many levels and layers of meaning to reflect upon. Some of those layers will be noticed by teenagers, perhaps some mostly by adults, and perhaps even some only to senior citizens. As a reader grows, evolves, and gains life experience there are new ways to look at them in addition to the teenage ways. This is why \"old, stuffy, white, or male\" readers might consider them worth rereading in the first place. If there was something about the books that continued to resonate with those readers, then that value will be available for the following generations of readers. In short, the books of the 1920's that did NOT resonate with teenage readers of subsequent generations aren't being taught in English classes. Likewise, books written in 2017 that do not resonate with subsequent generations will NOT be taught in English classes in the beginning of the 22nd century (regardless of the race or gender of the author.) It takes a long time to realize this.",
"I have a BA and MA in English Lit, and I am currently studying to be a high school English teacher. I have been asking myself the same question as I try to figure out what I will be able, or required, to teach. I think there are three aspects to your question. I will address each briefly, sharing what I have learned so far in my own research. 1. Why are books like Of Mice and Men and the Great Gatsby taught instead of other kinds of easier, more interesting books, like science fiction, fantasy, young adult fiction, or popular novels like mysteries or thrillers? This question is relatively easy to answer-literary merit and textual complexity. In ELI5 terms, the books are great but hard. Many posts have already addressed the issue of “greatness” (literary merit), and the issue of “difficulty” (textual complexity) has also been mentioned, and I don't really have anything to add. If you are interested in learning more about this aspect of your question, I recommend reading the [Common Core Standards for English Language Arts]( URL_1 ), which also provides a list of “sample” books for high school English classes. 2. Why are books like Of Mice and Men and The Great Gatsby commonly chosen, instead of other books that are just as great, and just as hard? This question is harder to answer, and, in my opinion, more interesting. It seems that there are a small number of books and writers commonly taught across the country-Steinbeck, Fitzgerald, Angelou, etc. Yet there are hundreds of other writers and thousands (tens of thousands) of other books that are just as great, and just as hard. California alone has identified [421 “recommended” books]( URL_0 .) that can be taught in CA high school English classes, many of which I have never heard of. I think a lot of this has to do with force of habit-one generation decides these books should be taught, so the next generation believes that these are the books that should be taught, which leads to them teaching these books to the third generation, and so on. The novelist Francine Prose makes this argument in her essay [I Know Why the Caged Bird Can’t Read]( URL_2 )(She also argues that many commonly-taught books, like Of Mice and Men and To Kill a Mockingbird, are not that great and should not be taught.). 3. The \"how\" part of your question-what is the process by which books like Of Mice and Men and The Great Gatsby are chosen for high school English classes? Many posts have talked about this already. I would only add that it seems many schools use “anthologies,” (textbooks that contain poems, short stories, plays, and novels, as well as questions and assignments), and that teachers have to teach the books in the anthologies. Of course, this raises the question of why publishers include certain books in the anthologies, and why schools choose certain anthologies. These are also interesting questions. Unfortunately, I have little to share here. I will, however, predict that high schools will more and more end up teaching the same small number of writers and books because of the Common Core educational standards. The Common Core standards identify a small number of “sample” books that meet the standards, and I predict publishers will end up including these books in their anthologies, with the result that these books will end up being taught in public schools everywhere. For all I know, this is happening already. (It is also possible publishers will try to be different by choosing different books. I hope this turns out to be the case.) Edited for formatting."
],
"score": [
12017,
2119,
1423,
810,
308,
134,
82,
68,
46,
34,
23,
15,
14,
12,
7,
7,
6,
6,
6,
6,
6,
5,
5,
4,
3,
3,
3,
3,
3,
3,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[
"http://i.imgur.com/gFLVgp4.png",
"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6jDcWAWRRHo",
"https://amateurproaquarist.wordpress.com/",
"https://rhynoreviews.wordpress.com/",
"https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6de844/eli5_how_and_why_are_books_like_the_great_gatsby/di26o3c/"
],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[
"http://i.imgur.com/DsEAw5y.jpg",
"https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Western_Canon:_The_Books_and_School_of_the_Ages"
],
[],
[
"https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_canon"
],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[
"http://www3.cde.ca.gov/reclitlist/search.aspx",
"http://www.corestandards.org/ELA-Literacy/",
"https://harpers.org/blog/2015/07/i-know-why-the-caged-bird-cannot-read/"
]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
|
6df9l0 | Why is that the Phillippines is spelled with a "Ph" but when when you refer to someone from there they are known as "Filipino". Why does the "Ph" change to an F? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"di281u8",
"di2angf"
],
"text": [
"A: The word “Filipino” is spelled with an “f” because it's derived from the Spanish name for the Philippine Islands: las Islas Filipinas. Originally, after Magellan's expedition in 1521, the Spanish called the islands San Lázaro, according to the Oxford English Dictionary.Apr 22, 2010",
"English vs Spanish. The Philippines is the English name for the Islands. Filipinas is the Spanish. The ethnic population spoke spanish when the US took over the Islands so their ethnic name stayed Filipino while the Islands themselves switched to the English spelling."
],
"score": [
15,
13
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
|
6dg3d3 | Why are written exams often based off writing speed, as opposed to knowledge/intellect? | I just had an exam, I could answer all the questions, but I didn't have time to answer them! This was clearly a problem for a few others in the exam hall, I wondered why this idea is favoured!? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"di2f36p",
"di2e1yb"
],
"text": [
"They aren't based on writing speed, they're based on how well you answer the questions in the time provided. If you know what you're talking about and can recall it well, you can answer it in the time period with no problem. If you don't know it well enough, then you won't be able to answer it all.",
"My guess is that how quickly you can process/analyze a question reflects on how well you understand it."
],
"score": [
7,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
6dgu0x | Why did everyone leave MySpace for Facebook? | MySpace was a way better site and to this day I don't see any appeal whatsoever in Facebook. Why move to a website that's basically a knockoff without most of the features? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"di2hyf4",
"di2iohz",
"di2j0pb"
],
"text": [
"The appeal of facebook used to be a lot greater. You used to not be able to even create an account if you didn't have a college email address. I first got a facebook in probably 2006-2007, somewhere along in there. But I didn't actively use it until other people in my highschool had it (we were close to a college town so everyone could bullshit their way into an account with all of our older friends), which was around 2008-2009. I still used MySpace during that time. I'm not going to lie, I still log in to MySpace every now and then just to see what it's like. I wouldn't be upset if MySpace made a come back. Those customizable profile layouts were the best.",
"Everyone here is giving some social explanation which are probably valid to a degree. However if I recall correctly, Myspace was ravaged by hackers, bots and spam which made the site border line unusable. This happened right around the time FB was starting up. I'm sure this helped put the nails in the coffin. I haven't really been keeping up, but I just google searched Myspace and it looks like it still gets hacked to this day.",
"This was a huge marketing strategy though I largely disagree with \"without most of the features\". A lot of the features of MySpace only appealed to people that were younger minded. Having a profile song, background, top friends, etc. might seem cool to some, but to people that only used it to be able to contact other people, largely useless. Moving on though: Facebook started with a marketing strategy of making it an exclusive club. First it was *only* Harvard. Then it was *only* Ivy League Then it was *only* Colleges. Then it was *only* Colleges and High School And from there it just continued to grow in popularity. Plus it trimmed all the other stuff that general MySpace users didn't want to deal with (backgrounds, html embed bios, profile songs, top friends). Personally I switched because Facebook was sleeker and had less \"crap\", plus more people used it because it had the appeal of \"exclusivity\". People want what they can't have. MySpace wasn't superior, it was just the first real social platform to take off in a large capacity. It makes sense that someone came along that made a better version and took it to market with a better strategy."
],
"score": [
7,
4,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[],
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
6dh4vr | Why is it that men often miss hints from someone who's interested in them, for as obvious as they might seem? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"di2nm4w",
"di2lusv",
"di2ls7n",
"di2otc9"
],
"text": [
"For every \"obvious\" hint that someone is interested someone else did exactly the same thing but was just doing it to be friendly. There was a girl I really liked in college. We kept in touch after graduating, and years later she drunkenly confessed that she had been into me but I never noticed the hints. The problem was the hints were things like sitting next to me in the lab or chatting with me online, which is something friends and classmates do. She did play with my hair once, which might seem like an obvious hint, but I had *really* long hair at the time so that wasn't uncommon. Everything she did to show interest someone else had without any romantic implication. Also, sometimes guys aren't oblivious, but just don't want to respond because *they* aren't interested. I've feigned obliviousness once or twice to dissuade someone I wasn't interested in.",
"Guy's not interested? Girl's really not as obvious as she thinks she is? Low self esteem? Guy just is *that* stupid? All of these things are possible. Also bear in mind fear of rejection is a big thing, and girls' ranges of flirting varies *so goddamn much* between different people. * Girl A: How did he not get my hint?! I put my hand near my hair while looking at him twice this week!!! * Girl B: How did he think I was flirting?! I grind on all people when one on one!!! Obviously slightly exaggerated, but you get the idea",
"My personal take on this, I'd say its conditioning. It's men who engage first and woo and it's women who are on the receiving end. The male sex gets better at engaging and wooing with practice, the latter gets better at getting the hints. As such, women start from the most subtle signals known to them; doubled down by social stigma of not appearing desperate. In turn, the man, never being used to be on the receiving end of the flirt, either doesn't notice the advances and hints(\"she's just friendly\") or goes overboard(\"oh my god she wants the D\").",
"I don't think it's a misconception. Guys miss hints all the time, both when someone is interested and when they're not. I dated a masseuse once who explained that, when people massage each other, men tend to be too hard and women tend to be too soft because everyone tends to give massages the way they want to be massaged. It's pretty true of flirting, too. Men run the risk of coming on too strong because they want others to telegraph their interest in them. Women, meanwhile, tend to be more subtle, because they want a guy who can pick up on subtleties, not some brute idiot. We're all led to believe that men do the work of initiating and women wait to get approached, but really women do the work of signalling their openness to being approached, and then it's up to men to pick up on that and take it from there."
],
"score": [
15,
8,
6,
5
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[],
[],
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
|
6dinq2 | Why are all watches (on advertisements and boxes) pictured with the same exact time? | URL_0 Just look at the first 5 and you'll clearly see that they all show the same time. I always figured that it was just there, but I'd like to know if there's a bigger reason. | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"di2xo8q"
],
"text": [
"While there's no secret International Brotherhood of Watch Manufacturers rule #17 or anything, but there are some reasons - and its called the 10:10 position. - does not obscure 12,3,6 or 9 positions which usually get extra detail or bling - frames 12 which usually has the maker's logo under it - has both hands visible and not overlapping - its symmetrical which is a big aesthetic bonus for visual advertising"
],
"score": [
10
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
6div7i | When someone shoots a gun in the air, can the bullet not deal damage? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"di2z6gz",
"di2z761",
"di2ze9e",
"di2zap7"
],
"text": [
"\"In Puerto Rico, about two people dieand about 25 more are injured each year from celebratory gunfire on New Year's Eve, the CDC says. Between the years 1985 and 1992, doctors at the King/Drew Medical Center in Los Angeles, California, treated some 118people for random falling-bulletinjuries.\"",
"Yes it can and has, however the chances of hitting someone are fairly remote due to the scattered nature of people. URL_0",
"If you ignore air resistance for a moment, then the laws of physics show that any object thrown up against gravity will decelerate until it reaches a peak, then turn around and accelerate by the same acceleration (1 \"g\") and will reach the same velocity at the ground that it left with. Now if you include air resistance, an object will reach its terminal velocity, which is different for different shapes and densities of objects, but for a bullet, it's 300 feet per second. This is still quite lethal. And yes, deaths do occur often URL_0",
"> I always see people shooting their guns randomly as a celebration or a ceremony This is incredibly dangerous and generally only occurs in areas such as the Middle East where safety and protection of life is a distant thought. A somewhat common event is that the person doing this will lose control of the weapon and spray the wedding party with gunfire, often killing several people. > and i just wonder if the bullet couldn't deal damage if it drops. It depends on the angle. A bullet shot straight up will reach the apex of an arc and then fall back down at terminal velocity, which for most bullets means hard enough to give someone a really nasty crack to the head or a painful welt on the body but is not lethal. However if they are firing at an angle the bullet can retain enough sideways momentum to still be lethal when it comes back down, occasionally killing people miles away as it hits them out of the blue by pure chance."
],
"score": [
5,
3,
3,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celebratory_gunfire"
],
[
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celebratory_gunfire#United_States"
],
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
|
6dj4fe | With Title IX existing, how come there's educational grants exclusively for women? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"di32znp",
"di32uhs"
],
"text": [
"Universities and colleges that receive federal funds are not allowed to give scholarships that are restricted to particular races (under Title VI) or gender (under Title IX). They can give scholarships with a preference for underrepresented groups or for the purpose of creating a diverse student body, but they can't say things like \"women only.\" The scholarships that are provided to specific genders and races are provided by private foundations. There's nothing illegal about a private foundation paying tuition only for people in certain groups if it feels like it.",
"The principal objective of Title IX is to avoid the use of federal money to support sex discrimination in education programs and to provide individual citizens effective protection against those practices. The use of federal money to support sex equality, or the use of private money, is not regulated by Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972."
],
"score": [
8,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
|
6djbsv | How did the U.S. get so germaphobic? | Our obsession with hand sanitizer, disinfectant, toilet seat covers... I recently saw an ad for antimicrobial wall paint that was being commercially marketed to parents of healthy, non-immunocompromised children. How did we get here? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"di34bmc",
"di351e6"
],
"text": [
"Marketing. If we think microbes are all bad, well clearly we need to disinfect everything to death! Look at \"gluten-free\" that is put on so many foods. Very VERY few people actually need to avoid gluten, but there is this sort of pervasive idea that gluten is like sugar in that if you overdo it, you'll become gluten intolerant, just like becoming diabetic (regardless of lack of evidence), so anything that says \"gluten-free\" can be sold at a premium. Gluten-free Salmon!",
"Marketing and advertisement. We find an area of possible profits, build a massive campaign around (often) people's fears and wants, then sell to them. In this case, advertising hammered into middle-aged housewives how terrible every germ on every surface is (and still do, to this day *Lysol* ) Making them believe that their world is a tainted infectious cesspool that nobody can survive in without a few squirts of hand sanitiser. *worth nothing that this same line of marketing is directly responsible for the rise of super-bugs that don't respond to antibiotics."
],
"score": [
11,
6
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
6dkcjr | why do we clap excessively at the end of a formal performance (play, ballet, etc)? Where did that originate? | I certainly understand why we applaud at the end of the performance. However, I was at the Royal Opera House in London for a ballet the other night, and when it finished, we clapped for ~5 full minutes. In addition to clapping for the whole group and main ballerinas individually, the curtain closed and re-opened for applause 3 more times. It got me thinking, where did this originate? How did it become standard to applaud for several full minutes? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"di3eo56"
],
"text": [
"It is really just kind of a ritualized release of energy built up during the performance - from the highs, lows, awe, dread, excitement and what not. People have stomped their feet, jumped up and down, flailed about excessively at various times in our cultural history to express this energy in different ways."
],
"score": [
15
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
6dki4p | If many states have no laws regarding age of tattoo with parental constant. How is it not considered child endangerment/neglect to allow your 6 year old to get a tattoo? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"di3cv17"
],
"text": [
"The same way it is not considered child endangerment/neglect to allow your 6 year old to see a rated R movie. Just because something has an age range does not make its particularly dangerous for people under that age..."
],
"score": [
5
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
|
6dkk40 | Why the American education system is designed to have children sit at a desk for 6-8 hours a day? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"di3d95i",
"di3dnxj"
],
"text": [
"Because it was designed of and for the industrial revolution. Specifically, it was designed to train large numbers of people to do jobs that mostly involved standing around doing something repetitive for numerous hours per day. Additionally, it borrows all of the principles of the industrial revolution: the whole concept of school years is, once you think about it, absurd, but makes sense from an industrial revolution perspective: that's batch processing, applied to education. Every part of the system is built around this: the basic education system is designed to produce factory workers, the advanced system to produce supervisors, and the university system to produce factory owners. The same is true of pretty much every other education system going.",
"It was designed to take an agrarian society and teach them how to be cogs in an industrial society during the industrial revolution. It was to teach them how to function in a factory. Now it has slowly expanded this function and has been teaching more than just the skill required for that. But the format is still based on that. For example young children have breaks for naps, recess time to play, and often will not have desks, and older children are taught concepts that are not useful to drone factory workers. As for the duration of school, that is set up such that the parents are able to go to work. There is an element of it being a State run daycare to it."
],
"score": [
3,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
|
6dkpo5 | Why is Thailand, which was never colonised by the West, not as developed as Japan? | Just curious | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"di3o8de",
"di51emq"
],
"text": [
"The exact reasons that Japan is a well developed nation date back to the Meiji Restoration, when the Emperor regained real political authority. Emperor Meiji and his court were of the mind to invest in industry. The government built railroads, improved roads, and instituted the land reforms necessary to create the labor force industrialization requires. They studied Western industry and brought back lessons learned. Investment was also put into education, sending Japanese students overseas to study western ways. Japan's government wanted to modernize, and went about doing so very deliberately. I'm not well versed in Thai history, but I suspect their industrialization was not so deliberate.",
"Imagine: As a ruler of Japan, you could make Japan an empire very easily. Not much bullying from the European powers since it's farthest from the West. It's not coincidence that Japan was the first country to be industrialized. Every neighbor of Japan was weak too. You had all access to the resources in the weak Korea and China. You could mobilize your army and expand your empire easily. But for Thailand, you could do nothing about it. There is a joke that Thailand was actually located in Europe during the colonial era. Why? Because all Thailand's neighbors were European countries. The east and the south of Thailand was Britain, the north and the west is France, the deeper northeast was Portugal, the deeper south was Netherlands, and the deeper south east were Spain and Germany. Even though Thailand was not colonized, it was suppressed a lot by its neighbors. The French declared wars now and then. The Brit forced Thailand to sign unfair treaties from time to time. It's not easy for Thailand to just, well, industrialize. The first priority was to survive. Actually, Thai ruler in that era did try to industrialize, with the help from Denmark and Russia (which did not have influence here, and wanted to keep the Brit and the French at bay). But that's all the Thai could make. It could not expand anything beyond their shrinking border. OP, I suggest you try to play some historical strategy simulation like EU4. You will know that playing as Japan is easy, but playing as Thailand is impossibly hard. Thailand will be disappeared long before WW2. It's miracle in real life that Thailand did survive, by diplomacy alone."
],
"score": [
7,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
6dm2aq | How do production teams and studios prevent leaks for highly anticipated movies and TV series? | For example for a show like Game of Thrones where there is so much interest, scrutiny, and so many people involved, how do they manage to maintain the secrecy, from scripting to release? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"di3pnhr",
"dkm458x",
"di3ulfx",
"di3pssc"
],
"text": [
"The big thing would be NDAs, or non-disclosure agreements. Basically agreeing to not reveal anything under threat of legal action, which is usually monetary damages. The other thing is job security. If you leak that John Doe will die in the next episode, and they find you, well guess what? You are fired AND nobody else will want to hire you in that field again, killing your career.",
"One thing I am not seeing is that they only release scripts to department heads, and they watermark your name on it so if there are leaks from the script, they can figure out who released it or was careless.",
"I work in VFX. In many cases such as big projects for the big six (Disney,warner bros, fox, universal,sony, paramount), production and post house often have to go through content security audits before you can even bid to work on the project. Much of the audit involves training the staff to not leak things, but another aspect is hardening the IT side. Many companies are requiring things like no internet access on computers that access production data, USB ports are disabled for everything but the specific keyboard, mice and wacom tablets that are provided, and deliverables are always sent encrypted (digitally or physically) with the \"key\" being sent separately. A few productions I've been on even required phones to be put away in lockers. Many of these have come in the wake of the Sony hack. Beyond that someone on the client side knows what we're working on and who sent it to us (because often many, many companies collaborate on high-budget show - for example basically 6 different VFX firms all across the world work on a typical game of thrones season), so if something does like the show producers can typically find out who and how pretty quickly. Companies are invested in adapting to these protocols even above and beyond the typical NDAs because it means that future work is at stake. A post house that can't get any work is a post house that no longer exists and will close. A post house that's not in the mix for \"high-brow\" work will see artists and workers leave because they desire to work on more notable projects.",
"I work in the production industry, I've had to keep quiet, sign NDA's all of that. Typically people who work on TV and films are freelancers. If you leak info and word gets out it was you, it could ruin your reputation and you won't get hired again. It's a relatively small industry and very competitive. And besides who doesn't love a good surprise? Ultimately there is less to gain from leaking info than there is to lose."
],
"score": [
9,
8,
5,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[],
[],
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
6dmigr | Why are all curse words not treated equally on TV? Which were decided to be worse and why? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"di3wuxk",
"di43j3q"
],
"text": [
"Loosely speaking its because of what those curse words mean. To damn someone is to literally curse them. Hence curse words. To damn someone is not as bad generally speaking as to fuck someone as sexuality has been one of the most taboo subjects period for many groups. Literally eviscerating someone and spreading their guts on the lawn was more socially acceptable. So you would be ok with say a 10-11-12 year old finding out about damning someone for not following the word of god than you would be them finding out that putting your squishy bits together is fun.",
"Not sure which country you live in, but in the UK the regulator Ofcom who's in charge of enforcing that stuff basically did a study, asking people what words they found the most offensive. Their offensiveness changes over time so they just did a new one recently. You can read the latest one [here]( URL_0 ), it's very in-depth."
],
"score": [
33,
17
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[
"https://www.ofcom.org.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0022/91624/OfcomOffensiveLanguage.pdf"
]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
|
6dnn1k | What is the "Burakumin problem" in Japan? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"di4f5js"
],
"text": [
"In the past, those Japanese whose work involved death (undertakers, knackers, etc.) were, for religious reasons, the \"burakumin\" a caste of \"untouchables\", despised and banned from many aspects of public life. And this discrimination continues even today against their descendants. It is said that one of the major sources of income for private investigators in Japan is discreetly checking for burakumin ancestry in potential employees or romantic partners."
],
"score": [
4
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
|
6doef0 | Why are movie soundtracks obligated to list every original song used in the credits, but TV shows aren't? | Bonus points if one can explain why studio musicians aren't credited, but the guy who got donuts at the wrap party is (/s). Don't tell me it's because music is added last after everything's finished and it's not possible to, because we know better. The only filmmaker (off the top of my head) I can think of that consistently lists musicians is Spike Lee. | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"di48cen",
"di4g55v",
"di4hp6r"
],
"text": [
"In general, it all boils down to whatever is contractually obligated. To answer your second question, the AFM (musicians union) doesn't have any specific language in their contract requiring that musicians be listed in credits of film, so it just doesn't happen. For films that are recorded non-union, most likely it's actually the players themselves that don't want to be listed, as a lot of films record on \"dark days\" meaning union players playing in a non-union recording session, which is against the AFM bylaws. (In other words, if an AFM player did a non-union indie dark, and then had their name in the credits, they'd find themselves in trouble fairly quickly and facing some serious fines) For songs in film versus TV being listed, if often does come down to the time constraints of music being one of the last things to be finalized. For TV, it's quite often that the end credits for a show have already been completed for a particular episode before final music choices have been made, so there isn't a way to include it. Additionally, there can be upwards of 20-30 songs (that you would see listed used in a film) in a single 30-minute TV program, and there just isn't time to list them (TV end credit beds are pre-determined length and rarely vary from episode to episode). Tldr; contracts require different things for different formats",
"As far as I know, the top answer is the correct one, But another contributing factor is this: TV shows want to save as much time as possible, because they have a small window of time to fill, and the tv stations want people to keep watching, so television shows try to have as short of credits as possible. They will usually do the minimum required, and have the credits go as fast as possible. Often leaving out things like VFX people and merely mentioning the VFX companies involved. Movies however are not concerned with how long the credits are, and longer credits actually make a movie seem like a bigger deal. So a lot of movies pad out the credits with as much information as possible, not only do they list every person who worked at each VFX company for example. They even have absurd new things they're doing like \"production babies\" which is just a list of all the children that were born to employees who worked on the movie during its production.",
"Sometimes a party is mentioned in the credits in lieu of payment. The classic example is the Arkansas knifesmith who made the Rambo knives: he supplied them at no charge, in return for a mention in the credits and the right to market copies as \"Rambo Knives\"."
],
"score": [
31,
10,
4
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[],
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
6donkj | Once stocks are sold for a public offering, how is the company affected by changes in the price of the stock that is transferred from one person to another? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"di4cc2f",
"di4f6xl"
],
"text": [
"Unless they are voting shares, \"the company\" is not really affected. On the other hand, it's common for the board of directors and upper management to hold significant amounts of stock, so their actions and attitudes are heavily impacted by stock movements and dividends. Edit: I guess stock price also matters from a mergers & acquisitions perspective. High valued stock means the company can issue more without worrying about diluting the price very much, and use that for collateral, takeovers, incentives, raising more capital, etc. Low valued stock might make the company a target for a hostile takeover and discourages further investment.",
"The Board of Directors is elected by the people who own stocks. The Board of Directors then hires, fires, and/or directs the CEO (and possibly other officers of the company). If the stock price goes down significantly, that makes the people who own those stocks unhappy, and they are likely to elect different people to the Board of Directors. In large public companies Directors are very well compensated and do not want to be replaced. So, it becomes very important to the Board of Directors that the stock price go up or at least not go down much. Since the Board of Directors hires, fires, and directs the CEO and other officers of the company, they are likely to be replaced if the stock price does not perform as the Directors would like. The CEO and other officers are very well compensated, so they do not want to be replaced. Thus, they work very hard to keep the stock price as high as possible so the Board of Directors will be pleased with them and not replace them. That's the simple story."
],
"score": [
6,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
|
6doq51 | Why does Afghanistan seem to be a hotbed for Islamic extremism while neighboring countries like Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan have remained relatively unaffected by similar unrest? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"di47n8g",
"di4i6bi",
"di4c81d",
"di4m192",
"di4dfc3",
"di4ralf",
"di4gdxw",
"di4k5x8",
"di4rnyx",
"di4d2oa",
"di4dzm1",
"di4gr0i",
"di4gzvt",
"di4ki2j",
"di4se41",
"di4r4fz",
"di4w232",
"di4k60g",
"di4fk3i",
"di4jv9g",
"di521kj",
"di4t97a",
"di4pewh",
"di4lyde",
"di4gpa5",
"di4ljra",
"di4y549",
"di4tdux",
"di4pffq",
"di4j0vn",
"di4noio",
"di58ua5",
"di4iuul"
],
"text": [
"Afghanistan was one of the stages the cold war was fought on. The US and the soviet union both toppled their government like 4 times in the last hundred years. Largely by alternating funding rebel groups. Having no stable government and a long history of well funded terrorism ended up not vanishing when the cold war ended (and we once again toppled and replaced their government which I bet in 5 years will end up getting toppled again by russia backed syrians or something just to keep up the tradition)",
"There really are a lot of factors, some of them mentioned already, I'll try to explain a few more. Culturally, there is something in Afghanistan called 'pastunwali' which is a set of rules that are followed by nearly all Afghans. It has many facets, one of them is to welcome and protect visitors. This will come into play later. To really understand the issue in Afghanistan, you have to know the historical connotations to what went on. So, in the mid 80's, the Russian's were pushed out of Afghanistan. Like many other countries (Britian, and eventually the US) they found that it would just cost too much money to stay. For around 8 years or so, there was somewhat of an ad hoc communist government, although it was limited to really the main cities (Kabul, Jalalbad, Herat, Konduz, Kandahar). The rest of Afghanistan (80-90%) was run by warlords. To make a long story short, there ended up being two factions. The pro government forces, and the Taliban, which emerged from one of the warlords (Mullah Mohammad Omar). To fight the government, the Taliban needed money and training, and it called upon al Qaeda to do so. Although they supplied funding and training, Afghanistan became the 'place to jihad', only because at the time, there other place was Chechnya fighting the Russians, and the Russians were using 'scorch earth' policies...which consisted of of carpet bombing whole villages and areas that were deemed enemy terrority. So, while there was money and training involved, these members of al Qaeda were coming in droves to Afghanistan, but really didn't care about the fight going on. Eventually, the fight became a stalemate, and areas were set up for both sides.... and al Qaeda never left, but after 9/11, there was the cultural practice to protect their 'visitors', which did happen. Pakistan While the Afghans do protect their visitors, they are very 'eye for an eye', so after about a month of refusing to turn over Bin Laden, the US just started a bombing campaign, and most Afghans were really ok with it. The majority of al Qaeda was holed up in the Tora Bora mountains, which is in eastern Afghanistan near Jalalabad. (If you're going to be a terrorist, that's a really beautiful place, as well as Nuristan where the rest remain today). The idea was to start bombing, push the al Qaeda forces east to the awaiting Pakistan border, where their army would either capture or kill the renaming forces. Essentially, the Pakistan army opened up, and allowed them safe haven in Pakistan, and the US was kinda stuck. There are a myriad of terrorist organizations that are allowed safe haven in Pakistan. The Haqqani (which sees its self as the Taliban, although the DIA has been trying to make them their own organization for years) is stationed in Miram Shah Pakistan. This was the organization that had Bergdahl. The Lashkar-e-Tabia is based in Pakistan, and they are fighting the dispute between Pakistan and India over the Kashmir Area. There's a whole bunch, and I'm on mobile, but many believe these various forces are the military action army of the Pakistan intelligence service (ISI). Uzbekistan Uzbekistan kinda of took a hard stance against Islam. Captured everyone that was coming and going to a mosque, put them in swimming pools and shot them all. This in turn formed the IMU (Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan) which operated out of Northern Afghanistan. In there end, there are a ton of factions that can operate freely in Afghanistan, and do so, as well as Pakistan. And although some has changed, the Afghan people still operate under Pashtunwali, and both host and protect these various organizations. To note, many of the other responses are also true, its really a hodgepodge of reasons for their situation.",
"those countries have had their problems with extremism, but they are led by authoritarian leaders who crack down on any and all dissent. Afghanistan is a considered a hotbed because the Taliban won the Afghan civil war and allowed Osama Bin Laden to set up camps there. Ever since the US invasion there has not been a strong central government that can control the rural areas where the Taliban have strong support due to ethnic ties, and support from elements in Pakistan.",
"Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan were constituent republics of the Soviet Union for some 70 years and, thus, heavily controlled. The Soviets had no patience for religious freedom and stamped it out whenever and wherever they felt it threatening to the absolute authority of the state. When the Soviet Union fell apart in 1991-92, those republics became independent and have largely remained controlled by dictatorial strongmen who feel about as kindly towards Islamist extremism as the Soviets did. Afghanistan, by contrast, has been a factional, semi-lawless psuedo-state off and on for many decades with well-funded** and organized Islamist militants vying for control against the various Afghan nationalist clans and, for a while, the Soviets. So for a long time it's been highly fertile ground for that hotbed of religious extremism to develop. ** By the U.S., mainly, until the Islamists started to bite the hand that was feeding them.",
"Afghanistan has had many wars and no time for stability. The Soviets invaded, civil war and then the American invasions. Also there's geopolitics involved like Pakistan using the Taliban as a proxy and aiding them. So think about being a kid in the 1970s and being in constant war. You will grow up with basically no education other than knowing how to fight wars. Then there's also a booming drug trade, where there's money involved with drugs. Also cultural stuff. So don't assume that because Afhghans are Muslim the violence is because of Islamic extremism and not Pashtun values. The majority of Taliban are Pashtuns. They practice badal which is basically a hardcore version for an eye for an eye.",
"There's a lot of comments talking about the invasions and toppling of governments by various world powers, but I think that's a symptom more than a root cause. IMHO, the root cause is more like that Afghanistan never really developed a firm, centralized power structure. I don't know as much about this as I'd like, and it doesn't seem to be super well documented, but the process of increasing amounts of power being held by central National governments at the expense of tribes, cities, and regions seems to have mostly happened in Europe through the course of the Renaissance times. It took a while, and had a lot of hiccups, conflicts, etc, but eventually, the National-level government got to the point of being able to reliably exercise authority over all of the more regional governments within its territory. This goes hand-in-hand with many facets of modernism, like unifying language and minimizing accents, establishing a national currency, standardizing on weights and measures, building roads and keeping them open, etc. This has happened at various levels over most of the planet, though at different times and in different ways in many places. For some reason, this never seems to have happened in Afghanistan at all. There's a central government, but it basically only exists in the big cities, and not necessarily even all of those. The majority of the country is only dimly aware of the existence of the supposed national government, and it as essentially no meaning to their lives. This goes the same for all of the trappings of having a strong national government of any ideology or structure. All of the stuff I mentioned in the previous paragraph, plus things like being aware of or participating in the global media cycle, being connected to the global economy, being exposed to the sort of cultural mish-mash that is the modern world. It's kind of a natural fit for many sects of radical Islamic ideology. The ancient culture and lack of connection to the global economy kinda fits in with a lot of what many of these extremist ideologies seem to think. The National government is barely aware of the existence of most of these tribes and villages, and has no real power to do much of anything in them. The people who live there only really care about their tribe and maybe the next few over, and talk of things like the Nation of Afghanistan, America, New York, jetliners and skyscrapers, it might as well be on Mars. For that matter, most modern Westerners have probably thought a lot more about Mars than these villagers would think of any of these things. A great place to hide out of you are wanted basically in the entire civilized world - the idea of you being found, or of someone reporting you, would be basically crazy. So all of this was already the case before any of the modern foreign invasions really got started. But they sure didn't help. It's hard enough to get villagers used to bowing to the power of a national government when it's a national government run by your people. It's a whole different matter when the national government is run by what to you seems like a dizzying array of alien cultures from the other side of the planet. Just when a few people start to think that maybe these foreigners have something going and participating in the global economy might not be so bad, they get tired of it and leave you right back where you were, validating the people who wanted to have nothing to do with them. It's easy to send a foreign army into one or a handful of villages, but controlling all of them all the time is impossible. So Afghanistan is basically ungovernable now, and there's not much incentive for that to change anytime in the near future. Meanwhile, most of the surrounding countries seem to have more or less successfully centralized power, so while they may have problems, they don't have the kind of problems that Afghanistan has. And the reason why that is, I don't know, and I'm not so sure anybody knows.",
"Those countries all had time to develop their authoritarian regimes such that extremism could be suppressed. Same reason Syria remained stable for so long -- the gov't would jail anyone and everyone they deemed even slightly a threat. That is, until they couldn't handle it anymore, which is why we have war. Afghanistan's regimes have been toppled by Soviets and Americans alike so many times that no entity could consolidate power. So you have a bunch of different groups and a joke of a gov't fighting for power. edit: i should also mention that, even though authoritarian regimes suck, they can provide more than illegitimate govts like in Afghanistan. less public grievance = less extremism, but idk if this could be considered a major factor cuz foreign powers are definitely to blame in the case of Afghanistan",
"I don't see this in any of the top comments and it may be a misconception, but from my understanding Afghanistan is very very unincorporated. The repeated thing I've read is when the government or U.S. troops show up to bring order and the people in the outlying territories are like \"what the heck is Afghanistan?\". Its pretty big on the map but a lot of its is ungoverned and not incorporated or linked to the rest of the country(the Taliban being the first/biggest governing body for a lot of territorial people). Definitely not the biggest factor if my knowledge is true, but definitely a factor.",
"The short of it, the US funded and armed a bunch of a'holes there to become makeshift rebels and help us out against the Russians back in the day. After the Cold War ended, we didn't bother cleaning that shit up so the same a'holes got bored and ... the devil will find work for idle hands. Also, being nomadic desert rats without access to education and information for the past several decades hasn't helped. It's not a \"Islamic\" (not a word) problem as much as it is a vacuum of authority in the region with perfect conditions problem. It's like if you left some deadly bacteria in a moist, warm, dark place for 30 years ...",
"Because those are former Soviet republics. The USSR was officially an atheist state, and cracked down on any form of religion. After the union dissolved, the strongmen remained/came to power, and continued this policy to a degree, as they didn't want Islamists to emerge and rouse the people with their ideology or challenge the government. IIRC, most of those leaders push for nationalism instead, there were civil wars fought over this in the 90s, but they were for the most part of secular nature.",
"Probably doesn't help that they produce almost all of the world's heroin. Having a significant portion of your entire economy based on supplying the entire world with illegal drugs tends to attract unsavory people.",
"Historical factors - it's a somewhat isolated area, but has been a heated battleground in recent history, particularly during he 1980s when the USSR invaded and drove many in the Mujahideen movement to radicalism. Osama bin Laden was an American informant/ally during the war before he formed al-Qaeda. Cultural factors - Afghanistan has never had a democratic government before US involvement, nor did they really want it. They would prefer one strong leader over a republic-style government system. The proxy Afghan government set up by the US was a failure - partially due to Hamid Karzai, but mainly because it never would've worked in the first place. Most Afghan people still see their own government as being controlled by Washington - fueling distrust, disloyalty, and anti-western sentiment among the people, making them easier to recruit than in most other Islamic countries. Geographical factors - it's a densely wooded and mountainous country, makes it ideal for insurgent/terrorism groups. It's landlocked, which is a major disadvantage to the United States and most other world powers, who tend to rely heavily on naval power to fuel wars and conflicts. Economic factors - heroin. The poppy fields of Afghanistan supply a massive quantity of heroin in the world. When the United States invaded, a number of commanders wanted to rip up the fields and plant cotton instead, which is about the only other thing that would grow in abundance there. The FDA, however, would never allow government funding to be put towards a project that would lead to competition with the American cotton industry, so the US left the fields alone. Stupid, I know. Anyways, the irony is that since America left the poppy fields, the heroin market has remained one of al-Qaeda's main sources of income, in addition to the Taliban and other radical groups. So instead of allowing a very small amount of competition in the cotton industry, the US would rather leave the primary source of funding for a global terror network intact.",
"Not sure about Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan, but Tajikistan is currently wrestling with it. They've got a rise in support for fundamentalist Islam that they're trying to keep in control and at the moment it looks like a fight they're slowly losing.",
"Rule of law. It is the defining characteristic of a successful society. That doesn't necessarily mean the government is cruel, but that justice is meted out appropriately. That is why western civilization has been so successful for so long. It isn't perfect, but it's pretty damn good.",
"Without going into more detail than I possess, I think a great deal of the answer to the second part of your question \"while neighboring...remained relatively unaffected by similar unrest.\" Can be attributed to greater cultural homogeneity in the countries you mentioned, which in turn makes it easier for strongmen to consolidate power within the (not really very arbitrary) borders of their countries. Afghanistan has really never been \"ruled\" by anyone, at least, not in the kind of top-down rule that we call \"ruling\" in the West. About the most any given ruler has been able to do is control some (varying number) of the major cities and important geographical regions, but within the fragmented regions being \"ruled\" under any given leader, tribal power has historically been the real governing power in Afghanistan. It is attributed to Alexander the Great that \"Afghanistan is easy to march into, but hard to march out of.\" You'd think Western governments from the British to the Russians to the USA would have paid attention to history, but, no, they largely have not.",
"It's a bit like Poland - it's the part of the world you have to stomp through to get to where you actually want to conquer. Check out for instance the history of the Khyber pass: > Well known invasions of the area have been predominantly through the Khyber Pass, such as the invasions by Darius I, Genghis Khan and later Mongols such as Duwa, Qutlugh Khwaja and Kebek. Prior to the Kushan era, the Khyber Pass was not a widely used trade route.[1] Among the Muslim invasions of ancient India, the famous invaders coming through the Khyber Pass are Mahmud Ghaznavi, and the Afghan Muhammad Ghori and the Turkic-Mongols. (Ancient Canaan also served a similar function with the Egyptian Empire on one side and various Empires such as the Mittani, Hittites, Assyrians and Sumerians on the other side) More recently the British Empire tried to go in and do their thing (which they were copying from the Romans) of \"let's you and him fight\" AKA divide and conquer - but the Afghans were already heavily divided along tribal lines to start with so that went nowhere. Then when the pesky Russians invaded in the 80s 'Murica was in its 'Communism must not win at all costs' phase, so they funnelled massive amounts of cash, guns and sent in CIA agents to train the locals up in how to be terrorists. Yep, at one stage the Taliban and Al Quaeda were 'the good guys, fighting the good fight'. Remember kiddies: it's not being a state sponsor of terror if it's us doing it. *cough* Eventually the Russians ran out of money and willpower to stick their willies into that meat grinder and withdrew. So the region started to recover. And by recover I mean they started growing a lot of poppies. And by poppies I don't mean tulips. Drugs. Lots and lots of drugs (opium). So then, having won the war on Communism, 'Murica decided that they would start a series of wars against other abstractions - hence the war on drugs. (NB: the following is sourced from an article in Time magazine from back when Senator Obama was teasing thinking about running for the big chair) So 'Murica went to Afghanistan and said to the farmers 'drugs is bad, m'kay'. And the farmers said 'okay, we see your point, but what's our alternative?'. So then 'Murica promised them that if they stopped growing poppies 'Murica would give them heaps of aid to transition over to much less valuable crops (peas and corn and beans and shit). And the Afghani farmers were like 'well, we'll make a lot less money but okay, we'll give it a go'. So they didn't plant poppies, and then 'Murica, having got what it wanted from the relationship, reneged on the deal to help the Afghani farmers transition to food crops. No food crops equals no food equals famine. So as you can imagine the 'Muricans were somewhat unpopular. (end bit sourced from Time magazine) Then some of the CIA trained ~~terrorists~~ ~~freedom fighters~~ terrorists got together with the Saudis and decided that a bunch of Saudis should hijack some planes and blow up some buildings in New York. In retaliation for the Saudis committing a terror attack on 'Murican soil the 'Muricans re-invaded Iraq, which had ostensibly been their ally in the region (but probably they weren't flavour of the month after Iraq asked permission to invade Kuwait and 'Murica said 'go ahead we DGAF' and then turned around and bombed Iraq back into the stone age) (NB see also Iran-Contra affair AKA 'selling guns to both sides' AKA 'lets you and him fight'). Then when everyone went 'Bwuh?' the 'Muricans said 'Oh yeah? Well we're going to invade Afghanistan and get those Al Quaeda mofos'. At which point everyone in Russia let out a hearty guffaw and said 'Yeah, good luck with that'. And the war in Iraq and Afghanistan sucked 2 Trillion dollars out of the 'Murican economy, which then went into a meltdown and there was a big housing crisis where the economy came up about 2 Trillion dollars short (funny that) and so the White House punished Wall Street by giving them a 30 billion dollar bailout ... and that year the Wall Street firms that had been bailed out paid out 30 billion dollars in bonuses to their top executives (funny that). TLDR: the short answer is famine, the long answer is that Afghanistan is a meat grinder, and every Empire on Earth has stepped up to jam their dick into it.",
"Okay I don't agree with top response. I am from the region. I know a good amount especially about Pakistan. Many, many neighboring countries of Afghanistan were under Soviet domination. Soviets were against all religions especially Islam because Islam makes the most trouble for governments: demanding sharia, ummah concept, etc. The Soviets deislamized the countries. Even today this influence is heavy. The sermons in mosques are tightly controlled, women don't hear hijabs, governments are secular, governments perceive Islamists as biggest threat, thus are brutal when dealing with them (Uzbeks boil terrorists according to USG secret cables -- wikileaks.) Because of an extremely unfriendly influence to promote \"real\" Islam (which even Anjem Choudary enjoys in UK), these Islamists who are just terrorists not yet ready to fight for whatever excuse, make \"hijra\". Many of them now joined ISIS, before they were joining Taliban in big numbers. Afghanistan was too under Soviet influence. Due to distance it was more difficult to project and control Afghans. (You can see women \"free mixing\" -- with males -- not covering hair, going to universities in pictures prior to Taliban takeover.) Along with lesser Soviet influence, Afghanistan has a very bad neighbor. Pakistan wants to control Afghanistan. Afghanistan doesn't recognize its border with Pakistan called the Durrand line (named after Britisher who negotiated with a weak Afghan king.) The British conquered all the lands and decided to use Afghans as puppets against Russians. British attacked and took Kabul but withdrew. The Durrand line separates the ethnic majority group of Afghanistan: Pashtuns who're 20% of Pakistan too. Historically Pashtun areas of Pakistan is Afghan (see Ahmad Shah Abdali Empire.) Pakistanis are scared of a movement to reunite Pashtuns. Because of this Pakistan always interferes with internal affairs of Afghanistan. When Americans approached them with beating back the Soviets, they gleefully accepted as their allies the Islamists of Afghanistan were under pressure. Taliban agreed to ally with Pakistan because they wrongly believe Pak military was \"real\" Muslim. Pakistanis convinced them they were brothers, however this has now changed big time. Now there exists TTP which is a wing of Taliban that attacks Pakistan. Afghanistan isn't like its neighbors because of lesser Russian influence, Pakistan's alliance with Islamists (Haqanni network -- a branch of Taliban -- formerly they allied with all of Taliban until Taliban turned against them for being not-true-Muslims.) A population that hasn't been secularized because of weaker and less stable governments.",
"Key word \"seem\". Afghanistan has problem with domestic islamic extremism, yes. However, the country can't compete with the great exporters of terrorism; Uzbekistan, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Iraq and Syria. When was any major act of terror against the western world done by an afghan? Never? Bin Laden and his bunch of washed up Mujaheedin friends were Saudis mainly, armed with training from USA and experience from fighting Soviet.",
"A less extreme example is how the US seems like a hotbed of gun violence when compared to Canada. We're neighbors and in a lot of ways the same yet we differ a lot on this issue. When a cop shoots a suspect in Canada it's all over the news and people wonder how such a thing can happen here. I think that's something that's not newsworthy in the US.",
"Because all the three former republics of the Soviet Union were much better off infrastructure-wise (thanks to the Soviet colonization) and had governments based on sovietized, centralised, \"enlightened\" islam since forever (1920ies), the promotion of which was the Soviet Union's way to quash various nationalisms worldwide, instead helping install internationalist socially liberal, economically authoritarian soviets or councils of the people, and especially destroy the Panturkism which was a long-hated enemy of the Russian empire and later its inheritor - the Soviet Union. That's one half of the modern problem with Islam, the other half is the Western powers funding Muslim religious fundamentalists who wanted to return to the pure Islam of raping stoning and cutting off parts of bodies, but also of the universal care for every Muslim (which is why it was so easy for all the disempowered to become communist and then Muslim, and for all those second-generation Middle Eastern immigrants disenchanted in the Western crony capitalist system to fall back in the familiar and quite attractive message of \"freedom and equality for all, under Allah\") , so between two internationalist or globalist Islams, if you will, there's no other choice for the poor guys from the Middle East to develop themselves in an organic, independent, profitable way.",
"Most of these answers are fairly bs. It can be largely explained by geography and recent history. Afghanistan is bordered by three great powers: Iran, Pakistan, and China, and at one point by the USSR as well. This makes it of great strategic importance geopolitically, which is why both the USSR and America have attempted nation building efforts there in the last 40 years in order to bring the country within their respective spheres of influence. In the 80's, the USSR invaded Afghanistan in order to help consolidate power for a new socialist government there. As part of a greater ramp up of the cold war during the 80s after a long period of detente, the CIA helped fund and arm the Mujahideen, rebel militias of both foreign fighters and rural Afghanis to combat the Soviets. The Soviets became mired in a decade long war in Afghanistan as basically their version of Vietnam. In much the same way that Vietnam caused political instability in the US, the Afghan war helped drive the instability that caused the Soviet Union to collapse completely, and they eventually pulled out. After the Soviets left, certain factions within the Mujahideen evolved into the Taliban, a hardline theocratic regime that swept in to fill the power vacuum in Afghanistan. Another Mujahideen fighter, Osama Bin Laden, formed the terrorist group Al Qaeda. Al Qaeda was not really a thing during the Soviet occupation like the top rated post says, it emerged after the occupation ended. Both Al Qaeda and the Taliban built their doctrines on the tenets of Wahhabism, an extremely conservative strain of Sunni Islam that serves as the state religion of Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia, a key US ally due entirely to their control of oil prices, has a policy of sending young radicals to other countries as foreign fighters, both to spread wahhabism and in order to keep them from turning on the Saudi royal family and causing trouble at home. The influence of this ideology proved especially prominent in Afghanistan due to the instability there and the fractured nature of its society, which is largely rural and tribal. Outside of a few large cities, many Afghanis have lived the same way in tight knit ethnic communities for hundreds of years. Fast forward to 2001, Osama Bin Laden and Al Qaeda carry out the 9/11 attacks and the US begins their own decade long quagmire, overthrowing the Taliban in an attempt to introduce Democracy and a free market to the country. The US did not need to overthrow the Taliban in order to capture Osama Bin Laden. In fact, they offered to turn him over. But, like the USSR twenty years earlier, elements within the American government saw an opportunity to take control of an important strategic region. The vast amounts of foreign money pouring in from both the USSR and the US over the course of several decades have largely ended up in the hands of extremist warlords who knew how to game the system and suck up to whoever was in power. All of this has contributed to an overwhelming climate of graft and corruption in the new democratically elected government, which is largely impotent compared to regional warlords and dependent on the US military for support and protection. This has made many Afghans miss the Taliban, which still exists as an insurgent military force that carries out attacks on the American occupiers and the Afghan government. It is rumored that many of these elements have varying degrees of backing from the Saudis, Pakistanis, and Iranians, again in order to give those nations a foothold in such an important strategic area. Add to all of this that Afghanistan is the world's foremost producer of Opium, providing yet another source of money for local extremists, and you end up with a country which has been screwed over by decades of geopolitical tug of war and failed attempts to modernize its society. It has such a problem with terrorism because so many powerful actors have a vested interest in funding terrorists there, starting with the US and the Mujahideen. This is a pretty vague overview, but if you want to know more about Afghanistan and how it ended up the way it is, I highly recommend the documentary \"The Bitter Lake\" by Adam Curtis. You can find it online for free.",
"Because of America. My understanding is there were no extremists in Iraq either during Saddam regime, until the US invasion.",
"Also, Afghanistan has many different ethnic groups (Pashto, Turkmen, Tajik, Uzbek and Hazara to name a few). It's not always just religion fuelling extremism in Afghanistan but also fighting between ethnic groups. The other countries you mentioned probably have a more homogenous ethnic make up.",
"Afghanistan and Pakistan have a really bad inbreeding problem. In these areas cousin marriages have been going on for generations. One of the symptoms of inbreeding is a predisposition towards violence.",
"If you look at pictures of Afghanistan pre-Soviet invasion, it definitely had set a pace to be similar in makeup to those countries. However, as stated, Cold War feuding led to Afghanistan becoming a recipient of collateral damage which has only intensified, instead of receded, like in Vietnam due to various elements including the re-emergence of Islamic radicalism",
"Afghanistan as a country really shouldn't exist, Afghans as a people is a kind of controversial idea. It's too diverse for an Islamic country, theologically, linguistically and ethnically. There is no loyalty to one another as they're the Tajiks and this other guy is the Pashtun or this or that, and the focus becomes instead on Tribal lines. Where as all those Stan countries are proper nation states for their respective peoples. The USA's most dependable allies have been Tajiks and Hazaras (Afghan Iranians), and a a lot of the Islamic terrorists have been Pashtuns, the main ethnic group of the Taliban and other radical Sunni Insurgent groups, and one of the main ethnic groups of Pakistan. It's a country where a lot of the problems can lie on the failures of multiculturalism.",
"Alexander the Great settled briefly in Afghanistan andhelped shape their culture. Afghanistan was a stable republic long before the United States was born. It reached all the way to India and the Indian Ocean. Under the British Raj, the mountainous area now referred to as West Pakistan was declared a neutal buffer state by paying an annual tribute to the ruler of Afghanistan. When the Brits left India, they created Pakistan in the neutral Afghan territory, as a revenge. Still, in the 1960s, Kabul was called the Paris of Central Asia. There are many poms, grapes and melon varietals that originated there, ...stolen by the West, of course. Then CIA overthrew Iran, and went head to head with the Soviets in Afghanistan. The Soviets invaded to push the CIA-backed coup leader out. That was 30 years of continuous machine warfare ago. Massive genocide. Historical buildings older than Britain's are pockmarked with tank shells and bullet holes. Their culture has been decimated by the deliberate assassination of their village elders. An American-style Executive Corporate was imposed on Afghans, complete with a fake flag, fake currency, a fake national anthem and new Federal Afghan National Army, which like the Afghan National Police, is wholly, brutally, corrupt. The Karzai mob was forced on the Afghans by Cheney, hoping to steal their strategic mineral wealth. Ironically, Karzai betrayed Cheney, and awarded all the mineral leases to India and China, enraging Cheney and launching The Surge, which Obama, to his great discredit, gave the final go-ahead to. Revenge mass murder for betrayed mineral lease promises (and extortion) is a new low in US foreign policy. Afghanistan is now an empty resource space. Read Peter Torbay's 'Diminution and Development' on Scribd, written with the assistance of Afghan business and political leaders.",
"Afghanistan is controlled by the US, who likes to control terrorists and fund terrorist acts to gain support for things like the Patriot Act. Almost every terrorist act on American interests has either been caused by the American government, or caused massive group orgasms when it happened.",
"Those 3 peaceful are under great influence of Russia, and Afghanistan is under influence of USA. Afghan government called Soviets to help them fight jihadists in the early 80s (west calls it invasion, but it was not), and USA financed jihadists to fight Soviets. Soviets went out, and we see what happened to Afghanistan afterwards... Secular government was replaced with extremists. The same thing is happening in Syria right now.",
"Cause Pakistan one of its neighbors, recognizes the Taliban. They support and fund extremists elements to wage war against Afghani national army, the NATO forces and us forces. The Taliban find safe Haven inside Pakistan after it bombs places inside Afghanistan.",
"Afghanistan was a strategic fighting ground between Russia and the USA. It was destabilized by CIA due to fostered radical Islamism. In this regard, it is similar to Chechnya. Although Ladin was Saudi, he fought in Afghanistan thanks to CIA. The swamp drew all kinds of mujahideen from all around the world. Just like Syria now. Afghanistan has border to Pakistan which was founded because of religious differences with India. They shared various aspects that fostered religious extremism. Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and ~~Tajikistan~~ Kyrgyzstan have different social, ethnic and religious backgrounds. They are considered relatively Turkish, although after centuries of Russian influence they are more Russian than Turkish. Being satellite states of the Soviets, they were deliberately hold back and closely monitored. There was no religious extremism to begin with and was not imported by foreign powers. China and Russia played vital roles for keeping Islam in check albeit for not good intentions. During Bosnian war, some Muslims tried to get there and fight Serbians. Yet there was no political backup for such thing. They didn't get a hold there. Or today, Myanmar is a place of religious feud and killings are significant but there is no active armed fundamentalism as far as I know. But when it comes to countries such as Libya, armed rebels emerge suddenly and doesn't go away easily. You see the pattern?",
"Was the US in these 3 countries? Was the US in afghanistan? Theres your answer. The US encouraged radical nationalist Islam during the 70's to resist soviet influence.",
"Watch or read Charlies War. In a nutshell. Russia invades. US supplys arms through a convoluted method because it's not really legal. Afghans win. US politicians that made money off arms sales refuse to fund rebuilding infrastructure. < End of Charlie's story > In the aftermath Afghan farmers have limited options so turn to poppy farming for opium trade. Becomes the country's biggest crop. Hard core Muslim community doesn't like how this signals a lack of community morals and take over declaring sharia law. Becomes magnet to disaffected Muslims that want to change the world order."
],
"score": [
9809,
5296,
208,
176,
106,
75,
68,
29,
29,
28,
19,
19,
16,
11,
10,
10,
9,
8,
8,
8,
8,
7,
7,
6,
6,
6,
6,
5,
5,
4,
4,
3,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
|
6dp19m | Why do public schools have teachers teach subjects they aren't proficient in? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"di4b1qz",
"di4a5zr",
"di4ca73"
],
"text": [
"Because someoene who is talented as a teacher can and does do a much better job of teaching than someone who is proficient, yet sucks at teaching. I remember two Spanish teachers. One was a native speaker that was studying for a Masters in Spanish literature, but totally failed as a teacher, because he was bad at teaching. The other wasn't terribly fluent in Spanish, but was very good at explaining things and doing the exercises from the textbook. This non-fluent teacher once was asked by the fluent one to explain some grammatical concepts to him that he grew up being able to speak perfectly well, but he didn't understand the concepts behind the grammar that the non-fluent teacher had learned from studying grammar books. So a non-proficient teacher that is good at teaching and can read and understand the textbook and associated books can do a much better job teaching the basics of a subject than someone who knows a great deal about it but is unskilled at teaching.",
"Sometimes there's no one else available to teach that subject. In my high school French class we didn't have a real teacher for most of the year. We had a couple who didn't speak French, and one who was the Spanish teacher.",
"In my state our district takes a hit on our MSIP report (our rating score) if we have teachers who aren't certified for their positions. To gain the certification, you need to take a test. I've taken three tests. I took a test certifying I can teach 5-9 grades (I understand middle school philosophy) plus I took two high school content tests, thus certifying me 5-12 in two content areas. I could teach any classes under those umbrellas and be considered highly qualified, even though I only went to school for one of the content areas. In most districts we strive to hire certified people. Math and science are the hardest to fill. The state can grant a temporary certificate, but then you have a certain amount of time to complete your certification or you will be uncertified. You can still teach, your district just loses points. In respects to schools moving people around, I've been moved up and down grade level to cover areas of need and because my cert is broader than others. Some teachers get switched to a different subject because their position may be eliminated and they have tenure and accept a spot with a promise to become certified. No school wants to do this. It just happens, especially in areas with shortages."
],
"score": [
84,
6,
6
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[],
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
|
6dq0qf | Why is Italy not mention as much in WWII while Germany and Japan got more attention as the members of the Axis? | As you know, WWII had 3 member of the axis: Germany, Italy, and Japan. I never hear Italy mentioned as much compared to the other two. Were they really that less aggressive to a point that people don't seem to talk much about them on the topic of WWII? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"di4ijzq",
"di4ljce"
],
"text": [
"They were sort of just *bad* at fighting, not from lack of individual instances of courage, but they were poorly led, poorly equipped, denigrated by their allies, and asked the ridiculous or impossible of. Between a very uneven economy and war industries, morale problems, and by the end unstable politics bailing on Mussolini, the history of Italy in WW2 is one of Germany having to bail them out time and again. They decided to take on Greece, and Germany had to end up sending a large force to help after the Greeks and British reinforcements embarrassed the Italians. Same story in Africa where their dreams of a new Roman Empire were foiled time and again by the British out of Egypt. Rommel and the Afrika Korps were initially sent to stiffen the Italian forces for another in a series of attacks towards Egypt. Eventually after Pearl Harbor, the US joining, and the Axis being kicked out of Africa the war came to Italy. In 1943 and 1944 the Allies landed first in Sicily then the mainland. Rome even fell the same week as the Normandy landings. It was hard fighting up the rugged peninsula and featured bloody clashes at places like Monte Casino and Anzio. However in summer of 1943 just as the Allies were winning in Sicily, Mussolini's rule collapsed and new rump government actually signed an armistice and even eventually provided units to fight with the Allies. But the Germans didnt really care, they just took further control of the remaining Axis loyal Italian forces, and even launched a special mission to liberate Mussolini from prison. So from 1943 on there were essentially two Italian governments, one on each side.",
"It's not just Italy that usually gets left out: Hungary, Bulgaria, Romania, and Thailand were all Axis powers, and Finland was a co-belligerent. It's just a very different scale: Germany fielded a total of 18 million soldiers, with 5 million dead by war's end; Japan put 8 million out with 2 million dying. Italy managed only 3 million, and 300,000 deaths. Italy was out of the war by 1943 (although much of it fought on a German puppet). Italy had many fewer engagements with the USA, UK, USSR, or even France, and those were mostly defensive. Italy invaded France, but only ever occupied a small region near the border, and only nominally participated in the Battle of Britain: attacks on the British and Soviet homelands were all Germany, who also did most of the fighting against France. The Italians managed to get 65 miles into British Egypt, but were expelled within a week. They fared slightly better in East Africa, but still not well. So, all told, there's much less to talk about: for people in the US/UK/France/USSR. That said, their role was still significant in other theaters. Slightly before WW2, although perhaps not entirely separable, Italy invaded and conquered Ethiopia. Hundreds of thousands of Ethiopians died in the war and the occupation–Germany didn't participate. Italy also conquered Albania, and invaded Greece and Yugoslavia, all relatively far away from the other allies, and less remembered historically, especially before larger conflicts with Germany enveloped those regions as Italy stalled."
],
"score": [
15,
6
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
6drct4 | Why does the US call football soccer? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"di4t8x0",
"di4sn46"
],
"text": [
"Association Football is the official full name of the sport. When the rules for it were first formally established in Britain the shortened name for it was Soccer. That was the name exported to the colonies and former colonies when the sport was exported. Britain did not switch to calling it football till after WWI. Before that football was used for virtually every sport played on foot with a ball. There were dozens of sports in this category.",
"Association Football is shortened to soccer. The US calls it soccer to distinguish it from their own form of football. Other countries where soccer is their predominant form of football call it football."
],
"score": [
4,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
|
6drgk0 | Why are the president's connections with Russia bad, but everyone's connections with every other country are good? | First, spare me any, political tongue lashing and down talking. I don't care if you're right or left or middle, or all three. I'm none of the three, I just want to know why I should care, and want to have a clue when my BF talks about it because it seems backwards to me. I'm just legitimately confused why I should care about the relations with Russia. Things seem somewhat friendly, shouldn't we want to be on good terms with them? Wouldn't they want to be on good terms with us? I don't get it. Admittedly, I don't pay alot of attention to this stuff, but it kinda seems like BS. Like they're trying to scare people by saying "ooooh its the Russians...." like it's 1955 or something. EDIT: 1. Thank you for all the responses, these make it much more clear to understand. So thank you :) 2. How the heck do you downvote an honest question? Really? Lol geez | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"di4tl85",
"di4u948",
"di4v9cg",
"di4uqa1",
"di4v7ps",
"di518s1",
"di5zcw1"
],
"text": [
"Being on good terms with foreign governments & working for the benefit of Americans is good. Conspiring with them in secret to manipulate the public opinion in exchange for favorable business deals is not. We've got a lot of very rich people with questionable ties to the Russians who have consistently lied about it. This is a strong indicator that there's some serious corruption going on somewhere in Trump's organization. This is what people are upset about - our leaders trying to benefit themselves and the Russians more than they're benefiting America.",
"The problem is the secrecy and the money issues. Foreign relations are done by all levels of government but usually they follow a pattern of disclosure thru the proper internal channels and the objectives are aligned with government goals and strategy. When members of government work to conceal foreign contacts, relationships and contracts a suspicion of illegal activities (bribery, espionage, treason) becomes high.",
"ELI5 - It's not the fact that he may have a relationship with Russia that's a problem, it's the potential *nature* of that relationship. Russia is in the middle of doing some pretty nasty stuff around the world, and also has well documented plans to upset the current structure of the world's governments in order to try to get back into power. Part of achieving those goals is allegedly interfering with democratic elections in powerful countries around the world. There are some money related issues with sanctions and enormous oil deals that are currently not going well for Russia, but can very easily be changed with some new friendly leaders in the UN and around the world, so if Russia *did* have a hand in getting Donald (and other right wing leaders) elected, and they are friendly to Russia, they can ease sanctions and support major oil deals with give enormous power and influence back to Russia, which is good for them, and not so good for pretty much everyone else. If Russia was behaving, and had nothing to do with influencing elections for their own benefit, then being friends with them would be just fine.",
"The US only has one President at a time, and that's important to keep a consistent foreign policy. So, making deals with the Russians then somebody else is President, saying \"When I'm President I'll do X if you help me get elected.\" is NOT OK. Even though it's not 1955, the Russians are generally willing to make the US look bad so that they don't look as bad in comparison. That's not in the best interest of the US.",
"Imagine your boyfriend has a lot of friends who are girls. Some are his best friends, some are good friends. You like some of them a lot, other ones you can barely stand, but he has reasons for being friends with all of them. There is one girl who he swears he isn't friends with at all and in fact he says he doesn't even know her. Then you find out they went out for dinner a few times. And he stayed over at her house a few times. And all of his friends are friends with her even though they keep telling you there's nothing for you to worry about. Then you catch them together when they think you're out of town. This is the political version of that. Maybe it's really important, maybe it isn't. A closer relationship with Russia might be fine if there are diplomatic reasons behind it. But the Trump administration's reaction to any mention of Russia is what makes it seem like there really might be something concerning in that relationship.",
"It's a circus. Trump's relationship with Russia is fairly good, and the globalist wing of our govt. don't want that. If something comes up that shows collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia to steal the election (which is what's being alleged), then it's a bad thing because it means Trump committed treason in order to perform a coup. So far, that hasn't been proven, and many higher ups in the DNC are backing off from those statements, so it's starting to look like the piss matress thing again.",
"It's purely political. There is no proof that Trump's connections to Russia were used for any nefarious purpose, politically or personally. Even the most left-leaning credible news sources agree on that. Most of the accusations flying around would not be illegal even if they were proven 100% true. An easy way to reality check things is to ask yourself \"collusion to do what?\" and \"is that illegal even if it's true?\"."
],
"score": [
31,
6,
6,
5,
5,
4,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
6drkdk | Why are eggs a staple in breakfast? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"di4ugbu"
],
"text": [
"Because they are quick to prepare and provide a lot of calories for the day. Eggs are actually ubiquitous in cooking. It is only the plain fried egg or scrambled egg that is relegated to being a breakfast food due to being *that* easy to make."
],
"score": [
8
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
|
6drplk | Why did the British support the Saudis to win WW1? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"di4wti4",
"di4viyt",
"di4vnyr"
],
"text": [
"Because the Ottomans were on the opposite side of that conflict and the Arabs were promised independence in exchange for their help. The enemy of my enemy and all that. It is important that this was the *Arabs* not the Saudis. At this point the Saudi Kingdom was already independent of the Ottomans, though much smaller than its current extent.",
"Because the British supported Arab resistance against the Ottoman Empire, at least according to *Battlefield 1*.",
"During WWI virtually all of the Middle East was a part of the Ottoman Empire and that empire allied itself with Germany. In all wars it is common to encourage rebellion in the countries you are fighting. Doing this saps power and support from the country and if you are lucky it will cause their government to crumble and force them out of the war. The Support the Saudi family got from Britain during WWI was one such agreement to help force the Ottoman Empire to pull out of the war."
],
"score": [
4,
3,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[],
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
|
6drx6w | If the Canadian Charter says we cant discriminate against age, why does student wage exist as opposed to minimum wage? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"di4ybjl"
],
"text": [
"You can't choose to *not hire* someone because of age alone, but you *can* pay them less than the minimum wage because the minimum wage for students (\"student wage\") in a certain age is different. The minimum wage law specifically has provisions for this. This was implemented because it encourages employers to actually employ youth. If there weren't specific provisions allowing lower pay for younger workers, the employers would simply require a year of experience (or something similar that would immediately disqualify any students wanting to enter the workforce) and pay the higher minimum wage, since it's not as worthwhile for an employer to hire someone with zero experience *and* pay them the higher minimum wage. So it's a compromise - employers are encouraged to hire youths so those young students can *get* work experience, but they're not required to do so at a tremendous loss to their company's revenue as a result of inexperienced workers getting paid as much as their experienced staff due to the type of work being very low-paying to begin with."
],
"score": [
3
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
|
6ds423 | Why do humans tend to zone out after staring at a certain area after awhile , reluctant to break their field of vision? | Until some idiot breaks it by Swinging their arms , obstructing the FOV | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"di54ijj"
],
"text": [
"daydream: “spontaneous, subjective experiences in a no-task, no stimulus, no-response situation…[and] includes unintended thoughts that intrude inadvertently into the execution of intended mental tasks… and undirected ideas in thought sampling during wakefulness” Staring at a certain area means lower novel visual stimulation, and that seems to be a pre-requisite for a daydream. When something demands your attention, the state is gone. AFAIK, not much is known about the daydream state."
],
"score": [
3
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
6dsvv3 | Why Do Musicians Leave the Stage before Encores if They are Immediately Coming Right Back? | I know that encores used to be unplanned, and musicians would come back on stage when the audience demanded it enough, but why does it still happen now? Especially since most encores now are already planned on the setlist. | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"di54kbs",
"di54zrk",
"di56s8s",
"di554sp"
],
"text": [
"Honestly the rules for this sub is a pain in the ass for questions like this. This can be answered easily, but the rules says I have to have a shit ton of words to comment. But the reason is simply, it's for the show. It's an act to entertain the audience",
"I think it often, nowadays, acts as a delineation between 'the set' and 'the bonus bit'. The encore section can be used to have fun, re-jig old material or whatever without it being judged as part of the show proper.",
"It helps us accept the ending is coming. The more musicians played an encore the more the crowd see it as part of the show - now it's a cultural thing to the extent that musicians who don't do encores have to explain they don't do them and that when they say it's their last song it really is.",
"I always picture them frantically chugging a bunch of water and wiping up the pools of sweat where it's starting to chafe. Then back for more!!"
],
"score": [
13,
6,
5,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[],
[],
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
6dsx99 | what is the story with the outrage among NHS staff and the new junior doctors' contract? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"di55knc"
],
"text": [
"Not an expert on this but I think I know enough to give a short summary: A junior doctor in the UK is anyone who holds a medical degree, has passed two foundation training years and is not a consultant grade doctor. This is the majority of doctors in the UK. Junior doctors are paid well compared to the rest of the population but are often working very unsociable shifts and double the amount of hours for a \"normal\" job. There are a lot of unspoken extra hours being worked and conditions have been worsening over a decade. The new contract takes a lot of positive things regarding pay and training from doctors but evens out some of the worse things. This means that doctors who do only their contracted hours will probably earn about the same or slightly more, but doctors who work far more will earn far less than usual. It also makes it harder to train across disciplines, as you will receive a pay cut for switching. This means there is no incentive to work more, and work across disciplines. This is happening at the same time as doctors are leaving the profession and the UK, and the workload is increasing exponentially due to the defunding of social care in the UK, which is worsening working conditions. The reason for the contract being introduced is allegedly that the number of deaths at weekends is too high as the number of doctors on shift is too low. The vast majority of doctors disagree that it is this simple, as they allege the deaths have been overestimated and that the solution needs an increase in support staff AND doctors as doctors alone will not cause a change. Support staff are currently being cut. TL;DR The contract solves the wrong problem in the wrong way at a time of great pressure."
],
"score": [
4
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
|
6dsyfe | How much of the relative success of developed western nations is down to exploiting poorer countries? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"di5589t",
"di552w2"
],
"text": [
"Very nearly all of it. The US is built on slavery, people taken from poorer countries. The British Empire was built on taking slaves and goods from poorer countries. Today we're more subtle about it, but poorer countries are still being exploited hugely to make western societies work, to prop up our economies and provide us with cheap labor and goods and oil and diamonds. In return, we prop up a few dictators and let them buy cheap weapons from us to keep their people in check. We've also created complex trade regulation which means that much of what poorer countries produce cannot be exported to us, but *we* can export as much as we like to them. And as part of these trade deals, they've granted our corporations the right to sue their country if they don't make it sufficiently easy for us to export to them.",
"All of it! You ever hear of those kids working in horribly-ran factories making a nickel to the hour? That's where big time corporations produce all the output to sell to us (Americans)!"
],
"score": [
7,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
|
6dsz8h | The seven deadly sins | What do they mean? Why are they deadly? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"di55jzu",
"di550pd",
"di635q3"
],
"text": [
"The Seven Deadly Sins is a list of sins which are thought to be particularly bad. In particular, they lead on to other sins: for example, the deadly sin of lust might lead you to commit adultery or rape. They're not in the Bible exactly, but various monks and clerics, including Pope Gregory I, drew up and refined this list over time. The Seven Deadly Sins are: 1. Lust: an intense desire for something. It can be a sexual desire (leading to, as I mentioned, other sexual sins), or desire for something abstract, like power (leading to things like tyranny). 2. Gluttony: consuming so much of something, that a lot of it goes to waste; especially if it means that other people go without (so from a Christian perspective, for example, the current situation where western societies have more food than they need while millions of people in other countries are starving would be a manifestation of the deadly sin of gluttony). 3. Greed: the overwhelming desire to have material things, like money, and more than you need. In Dickens's story *A Christmas Carol*, Ebenezer Scrooge was prone to this sin. It leads to other sins like trickery, theft, even more serious ones like murder. 4. Sloth: this is when you just want the easy life and don't want to accept responsibility for anything. It leads you to neglect your duties to God and the Church, but also to neglect your duties to other people -- so you might, for example, not bother to help people in need. If you live in a democracy and you don't bother to register to vote, you might be said to be guilty of sloth. 5. Wrath: absolute, total, all-consuming anger and hatred. Sometimes, anger is okay: for example, you might be angry at somebody murdering a child. But if your anger is directed against an innocent person, or if you call for what the American Constitution calls \"cruel and unusual punishment\", then it becomes a sin. 6. Envy: this is when you're so jealous of what somebody else has that you want it yourself. For example, when King David saw Bathsheba sunbathing in the nude, he immediately became envious of her husband. Not only did this lead him to commit adultery with her, but he deliberately arranged her husband's death. 7. Pride: this is the most important of the Seven Deadly Sins, because it gives rise to all the other six. It's more than just pride: it's when you put your own needs above those of everybody else's, an extreme form of selfishness. It also covers things like delusions of grandeur, or believing onself to be better than everyone else. So white supremecists, for example, are guilty of the sin of pride.",
"I believe what we're missing when we think of the seven deadly sins are the seven virtues to combat it. Humility against pride. Kindness against envy. Abstinence against gluttony. Chastity against lust. Patience against anger. Liberality against greed. Diligence against sloth. These were taught side by side, but as with all things involving human nature, the negatives were accentuated and the positives were left behind somewhere on the road to Rome. Consider this the quick and dirty way to tell the people about God and religion without having to print Bibles. A verbal pamphlet, if you will. Take on the seven virtues and your way to heaven is assures. Take on the seven deadly sins and hell awaits.",
"Hello, Catholic priest here . . . In popular culture these are called the seven \"deadly\" sins, but in more informed contexts, they are called the seven \"capital\" sins (or vices). They are called \"capital\" vices from the Latin word for \"head.\" They are heads in two different (but related) senses: 1. Contrary to popular belief, they are not the most serious sins. Rather, they are the fundamental dispositions from which other sins follow. The capital sins are the most basic disordered dispositions that people tend to have. So for instance, the capital sin of wrath is less serious than murder, but wrath disposes a person for murder. Again, the capital sin of lust is less serious than adultery, but lust disposes a person for adultery. The idea is that uprooting sin is largely the task of uprooting the capital vices by practicing the virtues which are contrary to them. 2. The capital vices provide a sort of classification system for a variety of other vices. The traditional list of \"capital vices\" was the product of a long process of evolution in the early Church. It reached its classical statement with Pope Gregory I (and was elaborated on throughout the middle ages). For each of the seven capital vices, Gregory included a list of \"daughter vices\" which develop in a person when the capital vice goes unchecked. A list of these is here: URL_0 [doc] So, the general idea is that disordered love of self is the root of all vice and sin. This disordered love of self produces (disordered) desire of the flesh, desire of the eyes, and pride of life. (cf. 1 Jn 2:16). Disordered desire of the flesh gives rise to disordered desires for food and sex (the capital vices of gluttony and lust). Disordered desire of the eyes gives rise to disordered desires for external goods (which is the capital vice of covetousness). With respect to oneself, the pride of life engenders an inordinate desire for honor (vainglory) and an inordinate sadness at the arduousness of spiritual things (sloth or \"acedia\"). With respect to others, the pride of life engenders an inordinate sadness at others' honors (envy) or an attempt to lash out at others on account of them (anger). Each capital vice engenders daughter vices when unchecked. So, for instance, unchecked envy begets hatred, tale-bearing, detraction, and morose delectation. Again, unchecked anger begets indignation, name-calling, etc."
],
"score": [
14,
8,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[],
[
"https://goo.gl/nxuXH2"
]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
6dt9vy | Why do tiny countries exist? | Andorra, Monaco, Vatican, Luxemburg, San Marino, Liechtenstein, and so on. Why do those even still exist? They're usually not even big enough to have even a remote chance at being self-sufficient. It also wouldn't have been any problem for countries like France, Spain, Germany or Italy to crush them within hours. | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"di56y7h",
"di573ap"
],
"text": [
"San Marino exists because the city gave refuge to the guy who was conquering the rest of Italy at a time he needed it so he agreed not to conquer it. I don't know it's origin, but Monaco serves as a hand tax haven (think Camen Islands offshore accounts) for the wealthy, so there is little encouragement to invade. The Vatican exists to keep the church independent of one nation's rule and there would be a lot of pissed of catholics if Italy invaded. So each has their own history, and reasons for wanting/getting independence. At this point taking over countries in western Europe is fairly verboten, and being self-sufficient isn't that big of a deal given strong trading relationships.",
"One's the heart of one of the largest and most powerful religions in the world while the rest are tax havens (mess with them and you mess with other people's money, and then they'll mess with you) or have their own unique historical reason why they were given a pass. Additionally, almost no nations in the world are self-sufficient. Germany doesn't have enough arable land to support itself so they too rely on imports, just like all the microstates you listed. We've also moved past the era of conquest and land grabs, so the potential benefits of annexing a microstate by force (tiny, tiny area with no arable land and no resources worth mentioning) don't come close to outweighing the downsides, which could involve international sanctions, getting in trouble with the UN, US, NATO or whoever guarantees their independence."
],
"score": [
9,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
6dun97 | Why aren't more uplifting, good news (the ones that put faith in humanity) shown in journalism? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"di5hai6"
],
"text": [
"Longtime communications person w/ a journalism degree and a lot of feeling about this topic. Speaking to American journalism specifically, the vast majority of outlets are for-profit (as opposed to non-profit), so they have to try and generate revenue through their reporting to stay afloat. Think NY Times, FOX News, etc. There's a saying in reporting: \"If it bleeds, it leads.\" This means that media outlets put all your negative/sensational stories at the front of the broadcast/on the front page because its what peaks people's interest and keeps their attention. In a consumer-driven market, the consumer's interest dictate what outlets report on. Conversely, if the entire country stood up and \"All I want are tella novellas and cooking shows on TV!\" and - here's the important part - ACTED ON IT by not consuming any other kind of media, we'd have nothing by tella novellas and cooking shows on TV by this time next week. So people can bitch and moan about the low quality of reporting, but if they don't act on it, there's no incentive for the outlet to change their reporting style. So its ultimately the consumer's fault. Meanwhile, you look at non-profit/public reporting outlets, you tend to see much more measured, thoughtful reporting about things that actually matter. TLDR: In for-profit journalism, the outlets are forced to pursue revenue, which in turn makes them publish stories that people respond to. People like sensational stories, so outlets publish them because there's no motive to publish stories people aren't going to read."
],
"score": [
6
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
|
6dv2ds | Why is Yoko Ono disliked by so many? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"di5l1s4"
],
"text": [
"To many, she destroyed the Beatles. There were a lot of egos and strong personalities in the band, especially after they got big. Manager Brian Epstein was there from early on and respected by all, and was able to resolve disputes and keep them on track. His untimely death was probably the biggest reason the band broke up. Without Brian, there was no one who would say no, and everyone, particularly John and Paul, did whatever they liked. John was completely enraptured by Yoko, and pretty much did whatever she said. When she wanted greater involvement in the band, since he didn't say no, no one could stop it. This lead to a *lot* of resentment. Previously, outsiders, particularly girlfriends, were not allowed in rehearsals, but now Yoko was there. She seemed to think her obscure avant-garde artist opinions had the same weight was those who built the most popular band in the world, and John would always take her side. Paul and George couldn't work that way, they were increasingly unable to produce new albums, and eventually the band broke up."
],
"score": [
49
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
|
6dv46r | Secret Agents, what did/do they do? How realistic was the James Bond style of operative? Is this still a practice? | I know this information may never have been released or is still confidential. | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"di5ofmk",
"di5mdgp",
"di62t4v"
],
"text": [
"It's not very realistic. Modern day \"spies\" involve a few things: - Case officers (COs) on an operation, which is kinda rare: These people know a language or two and are basically con men. As in, confidence men. As in, they bullshit their way into semi-denied places and get information, pictures, etc just on the virtue of the relationships they've cultivated over a period of time and based upon their own confidence in making others believe they \"belong there\". Undercover stuff would fall underneath this, but that's typically more of a law enforcement thing. - COs managing a source: This is most of what COs do. The person doing the actual spying is not the \"spy\", it's the source, which is a typically a local national who has some kind of placement or access in a place where the CO can't get to. The source is motivated by- in order of best to worst in the CO's opinion- ideology, money, or blackmail. The CO will plan things and make sure that the meeting with the source is secure. Then they'll conduct the debrief. - Sources: Already covered. If they're doing it because of ideology, that's great. Money? That's great as long as you're offering the most money. Blackmail? Dangerous, and not a long term asset. - Assassins: These are basically paramilitary operators that have training in tradecraft but aren't really considered \"spies\" inside intelligence communities. They're also basically never used, no matter what country or organization you're thinking of. - Analysts: These are regular people who do regular shit but go into an office and analyze top secret shit. At the NSA, they can also direct intel collection, but they're still just sitting at a desk. They don't really consider themselves \"spies\", although I guess to the general public they are. - Mid to Senior Administrators: The higher up of these people are often called \"spymasters\" in media and whatnot. They typically have experience with \\#2 and \\#4, probably some with \\#1. Certainly no experience with \\#3, that'd be treason. And almost certainly no experience with \\#4, although maybe. But they're not getting their hands dirty (doing any of the other stuff) anymore or even directly deciding on specific collection strategies or tactics (only signing off of them). They're mostly just doing what managers do, in any industry, but they obviously have a very strong working knowledge of the stuff they're managing. Bond is like a mix of \\#1 and \\#4, which you can see isn't really in line with modern day spies. It was probably a lot more normal during World War II, which I understand Ian Fleming was really influenced by, because he like...did that shit during the war. I believe mostly \\#1, which was a lot more typical during an actual war. EDIT: Added some stuff, fixed some stuff.",
"Will keep this general, but my SO (who was in Federal Law Enforcement) knew a guy who would work undercover in various other countries. Unlike James Bond, he was super generic looking. The generic looks and body type that get overlooked easily and don't seem dangerous. Kind of like George Costanza - overweight and balding. With very little effort he could look southern European, Arabic, Indian or Hispanic. He was gifted with languages, and he just wasn't a guy you'd look at twice.",
"Read John LeCarre. He created pretty much spy lingo in his books. Even real agencies borrows from his lingo. His character George Smiley is pretty much how real life espionage is operated even today. Technology has changed which in turn has changed the tradecraft aspects."
],
"score": [
43,
11,
5
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[],
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
6dv9lo | When and why did basketball hoops become such a staple for American driveways? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"di5mtco",
"di5n0xa"
],
"text": [
"Basketball is the second (or third depending on the poll) most popular sport in the US. It is easier to set up a hoop for simply play and practice than it is to get space to play football or soccer, and far less than practicing baseball (even with a batting or pitching cage). This means it is a common recreational activity for active/semi-active families. As for when it became popular. That would have been in the 50s-70s during the boom of suburbia. Cities would have public parks with full courts available, suburbia everyone had a driveway.",
"I can't give you a good answer on the \"*when*\" part, but the \"*why*\" is several reasons combined: - Most other sports take up a ***lot*** more room. - You don't have to take the kid(s) anywhere to play. - Much lower chance of a broken window than baseball."
],
"score": [
10,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
|
6dvo21 | Why is "by the skin of the teeth" a saying? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"di5ppz6"
],
"text": [
"> Meaning ‘narrowly’ or ‘barely’, and referring usually to a narrow escape from disaster, the phrase comes from the Book of Job, in which Job is subjected to horrible trials by Satan, to be relieved finally by God. The precise phrase Job uses is slightly different: > ‘My bone cleaveth to my skin and to my flesh, and I am escaped with the skin of my teeth’ (19:20). [Source]( URL_0 )"
],
"score": [
10
],
"text_urls": [
[
"http://blog.oxforddictionaries.com/2012/11/popular-idioms-explained/"
]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
|
6dw9lg | How would the EU effectively retaliate against anything, should they be against what the United States has implemented? If things took a turn for the worse on the Paris Agreement, what would a hard stance against the US look like? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"di5v7da"
],
"text": [
"The most effective tool the EU would have would be sanctions against US companies that they decided were not meeting environmental standards. They could drastically raise tariffs on those companies, or forbid them from doing business in the EU altogether. More generally, they could back out of trade agreements with the U.S. which could have the dual effect of making popular European items rare and expensive (think German cars, Swiss chocolate, etc) and making it very hard for US companies to sell goods in the EU. This is pretty unlikely though - at least for right now. The US-EU trade volume benefits both sides, and the hit to the EU would be as severe as the one to the US; both economies would suffer, although arguably the EU would recover first. A more likely approach is just that they might be less inclined to participate with us on a variety of things from diplomatic issues to military interventions to intelligence sharing. Sort of a \"if you don't want to play with us, we don't want to play with you\" situation. In any case, it's likely to only last as long as the Trump administration. The US will reverse course on this as soon as we get someone in the WH who isn't so stupid as to believe this is all a hoax that EVERYONE except him is falling for..."
],
"score": [
17
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
|
6dwil3 | Why are most western breakfasts full of sugar so basically desserts? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"di5zvfm",
"di5wjyj"
],
"text": [
"If you're talking about cold cereal (the stuff that comes in a box), it's sugary so kids will eat it. Most adults I know in the U.S. consider eggs and bacon to be a normal breakfast. Maybe add some grits or oatmean. If they feel super frisky, they might down some fruit, like an apple or banana.",
"What are you talking about exactly? Because \"Western\" covers a whole lot of culinary territory. Traditional American breakfasts for example are usually fairly light on sugar unless you really pile on the maple syrup."
],
"score": [
5,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
|
6dwjea | when people that speak sign language is it the same or similar when you go to another country? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"di5wv5m",
"di5y06c"
],
"text": [
"Nope. Even British and American sign languages are different despite the fact that hearing people in both countries speak English.",
"Totally different from country to country, although some signs maybe similar or the same. ASL comes from French Sign Language (this seems to be the root/base language for most sign languages), then it branches out - but there are other origins of sign, it just depends on the country. Also, there are colloquial/home/village signs that are not universally understood even if you understand the national sign language of the country. I know a little bit of ASL (American Sign Language) but when I met a woman in the Philippines, I couldn't understand her even though I recognised a lot of the signs she was using, they just didn't have the same meaning in Filipino Sign Language. It was trippy!"
],
"score": [
8,
4
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
|
6dwkdv | How did conservative talk radio become so successful and why does there seem to be no liberal equivalent? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"di5wyjs",
"di5x7ta"
],
"text": [
"Liberals don't like being yelled at or lied to. For reasons I don't understand conservative white people like both.",
"There's some good information about that in the documentary \"The Brainwashing of My Dad.\" by Jen Senko."
],
"score": [
7,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
|
6dx7qn | What prompted the trend of denoting US currency amounts backwards (400$ instead of $400 for example)? | I see this on Reddit and elsewhere on the internet. At first I assumed the writers must be international users, used to formatting currency amounts differently, but have noted enough Americans do it there must be a reason beyond ignorance of how American currency amounts should be written. | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"di62ryt",
"di6g12l"
],
"text": [
"It varies by country. The English speaking world generally puts the sign first, the French-speaking world (including French-Canadian) tends to put the sign after. 400$ matches how you say it (\"400 dollars\", not \"dollars 400\"). Writing it as $400.00 works better on a check because it prevents anyone from changing the amount",
"I'm curious, OP, you say you've seen Americans doing this. In what context, and how are you so sure they are Americans? I ask because I've definitely seen a lot of people do this, including people whose spelling was very American. Whenever I asked them, though, they were always people for whom English was a second language (and predominantly European) - it's just that they learned American English instead of British/Queen's English, so they often came across as being American, especially in media-centric contexts (where they were likely to pick up a lot of American colloquial language as well). Unless you're explicitly getting it confirmed that the users you are seeing are Americans, you might actually just be seeing Europeans/non-Americans who have a really, really good grasp of English (but still let a few things slip through)."
],
"score": [
9,
4
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
6dxrvb | Why are acids commonly portrayed as green in video games? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"di67li8",
"di6lglx",
"di6e7nu",
"di6mukg"
],
"text": [
"It's the leftover color when you're trying to balance a system that involves elemental types of damage. Red has a strong association with fire and heat, and likewise Blue has a strong association with cold, ice and water. Electricity tends to be another very common damage type and is generally tied to the color Yellow -- signs warning about electrical dangers even tend to be bright Yellow. If you're trying to deal with simple primary colors that leaves you with Green, and a common damage type that's left over once you've made your way through Fire, Ice and Electricity is either Poison or Acid, so those often get relegated to Green. In short, it's often Fire=Red, Water=Blue, Lightning/Air=Yellow, Poison/Acid/Radiation/Earth=Green. The concept of using sickly-green or greenish-yellow colors to represent acids and poisons goes back further than that, though. There's a TVTropes article about it: URL_0",
"Chlorine gas is *the* traditional chemical weapon. (WW1) since is easy and cheap to make. [And it's green]( URL_0 )",
"Acid=bile=bilious=green. People have been throwing up for a long time, and have understood that stomach bile -- which is green/yellow -- is acidic. edit: I should have put \"acidic\" in quotes. There's a bunch of literary references going wayyy back that refer to bile as both green and acidic, I'll see if I can dig them up. We're talking a link between poetry about jealousy/vengeance and modern video games, not medical accuracy. :)",
"It is a common trope in movies, long pre-dating video games or D & D as has been suggested here. I don't know how it started, but Disney movies used green to signify evil or danger as far back as Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in 1937."
],
"score": [
314,
49,
42,
6
],
"text_urls": [
[
"http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/HollywoodAcid"
],
[
"http://www.dugway.army.mil/PAO/Articles/2015/10/JackRabbit%20II%20October%20Version_files/image012.jpg"
],
[],
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
|
6dxy16 | Hazing. Why does it exist? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"di684po"
],
"text": [
"Shared experiences create a bond between people that make them feel closer as a group. The more vivid and memorable the experience, the closer and faster the bonds are formed. If you want to make a group of people feel closer - like a bunch of coworkers, or a church group, or a fraternity/sorority - one good way is to have everyone go on some sort of adventure where they face some danger, experience some fear and apprehension, but everything comes out fine. Examples include a ropes course, bungee jumping, skydiving, rafting, etc. Hazing is a perversion of this. The new recruits for an organization (often a fraternity, but sometimes a football team, dorm, club, etc.) are hurt, humiliated, and \"tortured\", which creates a strong bond between them via their vivid shared experience. It actually creates a bond between the hazed and the hazers if the end of the experience is positive and seen in good fun. What starts as a positive attempt to create a shared experience can turn into hazing as each year the more senior people in the group take it farther and farther with the new recruits, partly in retaliation for what happened to them. It can eventually get seriously dangerous, cruel, and sadistic, if nobody speaks up."
],
"score": [
7
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
|
6dy9fj | Why were Citizens Arrests usedfor/ created for in the first place? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"di6anjb",
"di6acl4"
],
"text": [
"Professional police forces are a recent development, and it's especially recent that they would exist outside of cities. In the early history of the United States, and in the colonies as well as the United Kingdom before that, there were courts along with sheriffs, marshals and bailiffs to carry out the court's orders (such as to serve arrest warrants). However, these would only be a few people in a city or county of many thousands--most of the \"leg work\" of law enforcement relied on people apprehending a criminal caught in the act and bringing him to the authorities. You can imagine that few crimes were \"solved\" if someone was not caught red-handed. It remains the case in most states that anyone can arrest a felon with probable cause, or upon witnessing a misdemeanor. However, because extensive police forces are so common nowadays, many people have to come to rely on them and are not willing to put themselves at risk to stop a crime. One exception is the use of security guards by stores and other commercial establishments--the guards rarely have any special authority to arrest criminals, they're just more willing to do so than the average person.",
"Citizen arrest was the default way of dealing with wrongdoing before formal laws, law enforcement, and courts were established. When someone did something wrong you grabbed them, told everyone else in the village, and came up with a punishment. Even with the introduction of a formal process and dedicated enforcement personnel the basic concept of apprehending those who do wrong never left."
],
"score": [
9,
7
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
|
6dyilk | Why do some religions restrict specific foods? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"di6dwj7",
"di6f34j"
],
"text": [
"There are proper scientific/historic reasonings as to why some religions restrict particular foods. Jainism restricts garlic and onion because those foods are said to 'heat up' your body It has been speculated that a reason to ban pig meat in Islam Is because pigs live in unhygienic environments which promote the growth of mosquitos and disease-causing germs",
"The parasite answer is one you might hear frequently offered, but not only is this pure speculation, it is very flawed, incredibly reductive and highly insufficient as an answer. **TLDR--they thought God told them too and we have no idea. But 'parasites' does't come close to explaining it.** For example, let's consider \"Kosher\" for a moment: I remember being told flat out in a microbiology lecture that Jews don't eat pork because someone got trichinosis thousands of years ago and they've been freaking about it ever since. But this is kind of nonsensical when you think about it. There is nothing special about \"pork\" in Judaism--\"kosher\" land animals require two things. They must have split hooves *and* chew their cud. Pigs have 1 but not the other but they aren't any less \"kosher\" than eating a dog. Or an elephant. Or a crocodile. Or a snake. Or a monkey. Fish on the other hand must have fins and scales (no sharks, catfish or shellfish). For birds there are certain species which are expressly prohibited. Then you have to keep in mind in order to be kosher, the animal has to be slaughtered in a certain way. The meat has to be prepared in a certain way. Even then, only specific parts of a kosher animal are kosher. Beyond that, you can't mix meat and milk. Plus beef is totally kosher and has all sorts of parasites. Chicken has plenty of associated bacteria, too. In addition, this take requires an assumption that primitive peoples made the connection between eating pork one day and having clinical signs of worm infestation weeks/months later instead of attributing it to ...believing you were receiving some sort of divine punishment for some completely different action. (And remember, lots of people would eat pork just fine without contracting a parasite). In either case, if dietary laws were as simple as, \"don't eat pork or devil worms might come out in your poop,\" then parasites would be a really good guess. However, considering that the parasite explanation doesn't plausibly explain much outside of pigs, which is just 1 example out of *many* it doesn't seem very credible. What seems far more likely to me is someone, who didn't know about the complexities of religious dietary laws, said \"Hey, Jews and Muslims don't eat pork. Pork sometimes has parasites. Maybe that's why.\" And that's the answer people have been going with ever since. If that's the case it doesn't make much sense to say 'parasites' as opposed to 'pigs take mudbaths and make ugly snorting noises.' Finally, religious customs evolve over time and while people often come up with reasons to justify why they do the things they do which aren't necessarily why those customs started in the first place. The answer is **because they thought God told them to**and that's likely to be as good as it's gonna get."
],
"score": [
6,
5
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
|
6dz2ig | Why are violent, illegal, and immoral topics socially acceptable when they're in song lyrics? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"di6fq60"
],
"text": [
"Music is art, one of the major functions of art is to challenge the one experiencing it; their morals, their taboos, their whole worldview."
],
"score": [
8
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
|
6dzmno | How much latitude do you have in the (US) military to disobey a direct order? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"di6ktna",
"di6iyes",
"di6jhvm",
"di6lqmg"
],
"text": [
"Almost none. People tend to think of a 'lawful order' in terms of nebulous moral terms. But it's actually quite a bit simpler than that for your average soldier. A 'lawful order' is one properly given you by your chain of command. It doesn't matter what the order is - if it is properly handled by the chain of command, it's treated as lawful. So when you're talking about disobeying a direct order, the steps you take are all related to either verifying that the order was lawfully transmitting through the chain of command or ensuring that the order was properly documented to protect you from the repercussions of obeying it. Disobeying an order based on your own moral conscience is almost never permissible. If you do decide to disobey a lawful order, you are effectively saying that you would prefer to go to prison than violate your moral conscience - a stance that is far more likely to lead to prison than it is approval for your actions. So \"I was just following orders\" is actually a legitimate defense - as long as you've managed to properly document the order so you can demonstrate it was lawful (i.e.: properly followed the chain of command). Moreover, *not* following a lawful order - even a morally outrageous one - is almost certain to lead to punishment. That being said, being on the losing side in a war means you'll probably lose many of the protections you'd expect for following lawful orders. When you look at events like the Nuremberg Trials or IMTFE, it's important to understand them in the context of \"victor's justice\". If the Axis had won the war, it's nearly certain that people like Churchill and FDR would have been put on trial for ordering the aerial bombardment of civilian targets (amongst many, many other potential 'war crimes').",
"It depends on the country of course, but for Germany the following is the case: You aren't only allowed, but obliged to disobey and morally or ethically questionable orders. It is your right to refuse to serve in the military.",
"Only when you can prove without a doubt that the act is unethical or unconstitutional... and even then you probably won't have a chance, since the machine runs on cronyism.",
"You have to follow a lawful order. \"Lawful\" is pretty nebulous. I have seen some examples. A senior NCO ordered junior ones to destroy evidence that the senior NCO was banging a E-1. They turned the evidence into a legal officer higher in the command. An mid level Officer ordered watchstanders to override a significant safety interlock. They made full log entries that they were being ordered to do it. They then told the officer he had to sign and acknowledge that they were being given an direct, written order. By then the XO/CO had found out and had him removed form the command before they could follow through. In many cases though there is not time. If it is a combat situation, usually you don't think, order comes and even if you question it, shit is moving so fast you just do it because shit is moving too fast. It is difficult to argue in the heat of battle/shit going down. Some things are just obvious, some aren't. Every case were this comes up and ends up being investigated and in a court spends thousand of hours Monday morning quarterback on what happened and what should have happened. It comes down to: If you decline to follow an order stand by and be ready to explain yourself. As a order issuer, if someone balks at performing an order and says they will not comply due to it being a non-lawful order, you better be able to defend that shit. To answer your question, how much latitude, not much. But the truly \"unlawful order\" is actually much rarer than movies make it out. And of the unlawful orders, many are not intentional, they are someone trying to cope with a situation they do not understand and fear plays a huge role in their decision process."
],
"score": [
14,
9,
4,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[],
[],
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
|
6e05yp | How is it that illiteracy still exists in the United States? | Given that school is required for kids how is it that not everyone has become literate by now in the United States? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"di6manv",
"di6m8tu",
"di6zay1"
],
"text": [
"Illiteracy still exists because: Some kids actively refuse to learn to read, and they manage to fake it well enough that they fall through the cracks of the schooling system. Others are severely dyslexic and so are really only partially illiterate, or they have severe mental handicaps preventing them learning to read. But statistically these people make such a small percentage of the population that we do have a fully literate society for all practical purposes.",
"They can make you be physically present in school until you're 18 and gain your full rights as a person. What they *can't* do is make you pay attention or remember anything, that part is up to you.",
"Academic Ken Robinson suggests that Western Education Systems should nurture, and not kill creativity, and that an inappropriate model may have undesirable consequences...including drop out rates, increased reports of ADHD etc [TED Talks]( URL_0 ) Such a view is consistent with Ivan illich's [deschooling theory]( URL_1 ) \" The pupil is “schooled” to confuse teaching with learning, grade advancement with education, a diploma with competence, and fluency with the ability to say something new. His imagination is “schooled” to accept service in place of value. Medical treatment is mistaken for health care, social work for the improvement of community life, police protection for safety, military poise for national security, the rat race for productive work. Health, learning, dignity, independence, and creative endeavour are defined as little more than the performance of the institutions which claim to serve these ends, and their improvement is made to depend on allocating more resources to the management of hospitals, schools, and other agencies in question. \""
],
"score": [
35,
21,
4
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[],
[
"https://www.ted.com/talks/ken_robinson_says_schools_kill_creativity",
"http://ektr.uni-eger.hu/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/deschooling-society-a-brief-summary.pdf"
]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
6e0mez | American classroom system? | I live in the Philippines and over here the students stay in their own respective classrooms and seats and the teachers themselves circulate throughout the day. From western media I see that this is not the case and that students have their own schedule to follow, but other than this I have no idea how the hell it works. Could someone just briefly explain it to me? Was always curious about this. | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"di6q3fe",
"di6pzyc",
"di6trpi",
"di6qk2d"
],
"text": [
"So usually from kindergarten to 5th or 6th grade (ages 5 to 11) students will stay in one class with a single teacher who covers all subjects. This is elementary school. Then in junior high and middle school (grades 6 through 8) students will usually be given a schedule of classes that they have to go to. By this time, the subject matter and workload has intensified enough that a single teacher can't cover all subjects. The kids go to math class for math, language arts for English and reading etc. Not all students have the same aptitude, so they're assigned classes that fall in line with their abilities. For example, when I was in middle school I was very good with language arts and music, but was average at math. So I was scheduled to go to an advanced language arts class and was in advanced band, but my math class was standard algebra. There were other kids who were better at math, so they were scheduled to take geometry or algebra 2. The same goes for highschool. Each teacher has their own classroom full of the materials that are specific to them. Chemistry class will have a bunch of work areas with Bunson burners, sinks, and assorted beakers. It would be awfully difficult for an instructor to carry all that around with them from class to class. So it just works out easier for the students to rotate as opposed to the teachers.",
"To add a little variety, my experience was very similar to u/Joekrdlsk, except I had more time between classes, 5 minutes in 6-8th grade and 10 in High School. OP, do you guys get a break during the day, or do you remain in the classroom for the entire day? I have always felt there is value in getting little breaks, especially at the school age.",
"Uh ok I'll try my best to explain. So in high school, you get a schedule. The schedule tells you which class you go to during what time. We don't stay in one room. So for first period I go to Algebra 2, and I stay there for 45 minutes then I go to Geometry for 45 minutes and we do this all day until lunch. There's 3 lunches. You are assigned one lunch period at the beginning of the year :)",
"I went to fairly small schools growing up. For K-6, each grade just had one teacher, except things like gym and art, where there there was just one teacher for the whole school and each grade had an assigned time. For 7-8, the classes shared 2 teachers, switching rooms after lunch. One taught science and math, the other taught English and history. In high school (9-12), it was more like what you see on TV. Each teacher has their own room and students move around after every class. This allows for the school to adjust the education for each student. One 9th grader may need remedial math, another pre-algebra, another algebra 1, and another in a more advanced class. The minimum graduation requirements may only require 2 years of science classes, but someone planning on studying science in university would probably need to take more."
],
"score": [
29,
6,
3,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[],
[],
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
6e0upx | Besides for his witty one liners, what is Andy Richter's role on the Conan O'Brien show that isn't plain and obvious to TV viewers? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"di6rvqk",
"di6u3v5"
],
"text": [
"That is his purpose, he is just a paid actor on the show. He is there to inject comedy and for Conan to play off of. It is essentially a comedy device. There are many jokes that one person cannot do, having a 2nd person to play off of gives more joke options. It really is that simple.",
"It follows the pattern that goes back to the Steve Allen and Jack Paar days of *The Tonight Show*, with a host, plus a band leader, and announcer who often participated in the comedy routines. During the Johnny Carson days, the role of the announcer was greatly expanded, and Ed McMahon became something of a sidekick/co-host. Andy Richter serves that same role, and to some degree acted as a sort of a parody of Ed McMahon. Richter also serves as a writer on the show."
],
"score": [
7,
6
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
|
6e1odv | Why do languages that don't use the Latin alphabet, use letters in a non-phonetic way when translated? | Like how 'Ching' in Chinese is spelled Xing | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"di6yje8",
"di6xnvw",
"di6ysww",
"di6zb9l"
],
"text": [
"Ching is not spelled Xing in Chinese. It's spelled qing. The reason they don't spell it ching is because it's not pronounced ching. In fact there isn't a \"ching\" in Mandarin Chinese. qing is very close to but not the same as ching sound.",
"When you develop a romanization system, often the language doesn't use the sound a letter usually makes, but has a sound that the alphabet doesn't have a single letter for by default, so you repurpose the letter. Similarly, many First Nations languages' writing systems indicate vowel length with a dot before or after the character, but use vowel doubling when writing in the Latin alphabet.",
"There are sounds in Chinese that don't have an exact equivalent in Roman letters or with an English pronunciation. There have been many ways to deal with it. The *Xing* sound in your example (pronounced more like \"Shing\") is a pretty easy one to start with. It's a Shhh sound, but with a different mouth shape from SH, which also exists in Chinese. How do you conveniently differentiate from the two sounds, when they'd both be \"SH\" in English (at least)? An earlier phoneticization (Wade-Giles) used \"Hs.\" Yale Romanization uses \"Sy.\" The official Pinyin Romanization is \"X.\" None are perfect, but you have to choose between imperfect systems.",
"Those languages often use sounds that simply don't match up to the phonetic sounds of the Latin alphabet. Nguyen and Xiang simple done have precise equivalents, so when transliterating we either try to get close, or we use letters in a novel way to represent those unmatched sounds."
],
"score": [
8,
8,
6,
5
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[],
[],
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
6e28u7 | British people, why is the vocabulary, slang, and accents so dissimilar between Sherlock and Luther - both BBC productions set in the same city? | I'm a big fan of both shows, and while they are completely different programs, they are both detective shows set in modern-day London. The way they speak (accents), talk (slang) and act are completely different. Both shows are even from the same production company (BBC). | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"di7a0l4",
"di7h5p9"
],
"text": [
"With particular regard to these two shows, class is an issue - Sherlock is posh, while Luther is not. Upper class people have 'received pronunciation' and tend to sound like they've had elocution lessons, whereas someone who is working class doesn't (this is a wild generalisation, but it'll do to illustrate the point). There's a HUGE variety of accents in the UK - listen to a Manchester accent compared to a Liverpool one, and see how different they are even though they're geographically close. Until relatively recently, communication between towns was reasonably limited and so regional dialects developed. Places clung onto their accents as a way of identifying where they're from. So, in the case of London, you'll find different accents in the East compared to the North or whatever, and add class into that, you'll get even more! Hope that helps.",
"In addition to what's been said about different regions, the shows just have very different styles. Sorry to lean on New York again, but consider the range of films set there. Woody Allen and Martin Scorsese both shoot there almost exclusively, but their work feels completely different. Some of it is location, but it's also the result of the creator's choices and interests. You're seeing the city through their eyes. The same applies to the showrunners of Luther and Sherlock."
],
"score": [
9,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
6e3feg | How come people could not draw (paint) as good as they do today in the past? And did they think their depictions actually resembled real life well? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"di7clpo",
"di7byd5",
"di7fl9e"
],
"text": [
"[This]( URL_0 ) post sums up my thoughts on the subject pretty well; I think artists of the past were just as capable of drawing/painting as well as artists today can. Edit: Also, art supplies were a lot more difficult to get ahold of in the past; artists often had to make their own paints, canvases, paintbrushes, and other supplies. That in itself presents a challenge for artists of the past that contemporary artists don't usually have to consider.",
"Artists today are just as capable as artists of the past. Beginning with the Impressionists, art movements tend to focus less on realism. The Impressionists wanted to capture fleeting moments, so their paintings feature quick, light brush strokes rather than exact details. Modern art movements ranging from Cubism to Abstract Expressionism and Surrealism also focused less on realism than new avant-garde ideals such as freedom of expression or translating dreams into art. The differences in modern/contemporary art and the art you're probably thinking of, like Da Vinci or Titian, account for the difference in \"quality\" that you reference. It's not actually a matter of technical skill. Most artists today/during the twentieth century were trained in and could've produced highly realistic works. They simply preferred creating art in newer styles. If you're interested in modern art, check out the book Why Your Five-Year-Old Could Not Have Done That: Modern Art Explained.",
"Its also probably important factor to note.....the paintings that were popular of the time were well preserved. And those still exist in museums and such for you to see. Simple pencil sketches with minute detail were likely very good in those days.....but they would never have lasted 500 years and still be around today because they were less popular and thus not taken care of and saved in a museum"
],
"score": [
6,
5,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[
"https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/39g9bv/eli5_why_are_artists_now_able_to_create_photo/cs36zt8/"
],
[],
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
|
6e3yqz | how and why was Islam so prone to being radicalized in such extreme forms and in such relatively large numbers? There are no comparisons I know of between other religions and the range of their extremism when compared with Islam. | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"di7fugo"
],
"text": [
"Sure there are! The Christians launched a half dozen Crusades bent on the conquest of the Holy Land and the mass slaughter of those who were already living there! They also enacted such family-friendly policies as the Reconquista, which included the forced conversion and occasional torture-murder of Muslims and Jews. The less said about the religious excesses of European colonialism and imperialism the better. It isn't only them, though. A Hindu extremist killed Gandhi for having the audacity to call for peace between Hindus and Muslims. Buddhists in Myanmar routinely mass-murder Muslims in their country. Japanese expansionism prior to and during WWII had some Shinto elements and justifications. Right now, Zionist elements of the Israeli government are committing [war crimes]( URL_0 ) against Palestinians. And don't get me started about current Christian extremists who hate women so much they shoot up Planned Parenthood. Every religion does utterly vile things. None of them are innocent. Most of the practitioners of most religions are basically good people, but evil people have been using religion to justify monstrous acts since the beginning of time."
],
"score": [
7
],
"text_urls": [
[
"https://www.amnesty.org/en/countries/middle-east-and-north-africa/israel-and-occupied-palestinian-territories/report-israel-and-occupied-palestinian-territories/"
]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
|
6e4d4i | Why do some names, like Mabel or Ebeneezer, seem old-fashioned while other names, like William or Mary, seem timeless? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"di7jhlg"
],
"text": [
"Names like Ebeneezer people have associated with specific times. Thus when you hear that name you think of the 1920s or something. They were also somewhat \"fad\" names that became popular and then died out. Names like Williams were never \"fad\" and have just been steadily used, thus you don't associate it with a specific time."
],
"score": [
4
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
|
6e549i | Why a being a convicted felon takes away a person's right to vote in the US | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"di7pz7c",
"di7weui",
"di7x0he",
"di7pu9y",
"di8e1ge"
],
"text": [
"To quote from [The Straight Dope:]( URL_0 ) \"The simple answer to your question is that felons can't vote is because voting is a civil right and you forfeit certain rights, temporarily anyway, when convicted of a serious crime.\" Furthermore, \"convicted felons have been denied various privileges granted to other citizens going all the way back to ancient Rome and Greece — this practice is laced throughout the common law that serves as the basis for U.S. law.\" Finally, the 14th Amendment gives permission to the states to deny the voting rights to felons. If you want a longer answer, read the linked article, it is an easy read and pretty thorough.",
"It's the same in the UK. In a nutshell: If you commit a crime, you choose to ignore your responsibility as a citizen to follow the law, so you forfeit your right as a citizen to vote.",
"Being unable to vote due to a felony is called Felony Disenfranchisement. In 48 states, this right is suspended while incarcerated. After release, about half of states reinstate this right, if the person applies, not automatically, after all conditions are completed, including parole and probation.",
"It's a matter of convincing people to abide by the law. We will take away your rights when you don't do what we say. Non violent offenders (white collar crimes and similar) do their time in prison then get out and still profit from their crimes. This is an incentive to not do the crime.",
"Because it's easier to tilt the election results. In any group, it's strange if there's no political majority (given a two-party system). Therefore, whichever party is not favored by convicts will seek to strip them of voting rights. This is particularly effective if a particular group has been targeted for aggressive policing and prosecution. In free democracies, voting rights cannot be curbed simply on the basis of being convicted, for just this reason. Interestingly, in the US, you can run for Congress, even if you cannot vote. Because that makes sense."
],
"score": [
23,
13,
6,
3,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[
"http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/1789/why-cant-felons-vote"
],
[],
[],
[],
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
|
6e6gs9 | What happens to the bodies/caskets/plots at the cemetery, when their lease is finished | We were talking at work today about this as a staff member received an overdue bill to pay for a number of plots that the lease had expired. As these people were long distant relatives, he is not interested in paying the bill. What would the cemetery do if this bill remains unpaid? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"di7y9q5",
"di8bth1",
"di7z0j2"
],
"text": [
"Remove the headstone, bury someone else in the plot. Depending on the local climate, soil and how long the stiff's been down there they might excavate to get rid of the bones. But that's basically it.",
"The headstone is removed, and remains are cremated or get put in an ossuary, essentially a chamber full of bones. In some parts of the world, this is commonplace, corpses only remain in the ground for a few decades until the decompose and are no longer a health threat.",
"Cemeteries were often owned by churches, and caring for the cemetery was part of the church's mission. So as long as the church stood, the cemetery was cared for. Some religions believe that having a body that has not been desecrated after death is important to getting into heaven. I was actually surprised to learn of leased cemeteries. Around me, they are bought and paid for. You buy a plot (lots of money) and part of that goes into an investment fund that is supposed to support care for the land forever. Forever. (Actually, I like the leased way. If no one cares any more, there's no use keeping the original inhabitants.)"
],
"score": [
5,
3,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[],
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
6e6x9y | How did Australia happen? like surely it wasn't just as simple as a bunch of convicts saying to each other "hey guys, lets work together and bceome one of the most prosperous countries on earth!" | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"di83w6b",
"di8svbh"
],
"text": [
"In short, the British didn't just dump everyone and run. There were people who worked in everything from botany to mapping and government who made the journey out - a new colony was being established - not just a prison. Once convicts had served their time, they were often given land or facilities to become a functioning part of society. Some of the country's most prolific farmers, settlers, brewers and public figures were reformed convicts.",
"Firstly, most of the convicts that were sent there weren't hardened criminals. They were either small time crooks, or simply poor people who needed to steal, etc to survive. Britain wasn't so much setting up a hardcore prison than deporting a bunch of 'undesirables'. Transportation to Australia was a punishment, but it was also an opportunity for these people to make a fresh start in a new country. Secondly, once the convicts' sentences were up, they either had to stay in the area for a specific number of years and/or make their own way home (which was basically unaffordable). So transportation to Australia was effectively a life sentence. So there was a strong mentality of \"well we're all stuck here in this place, might as well make the best of it\". Thirdly, eastern Australia had plenty of natural resources like timber, and in a new colony there is always plenty to be done. A convict who finished his sentence had the opportunity to set himself up by working as a logger, carpenter, explorer, etc and even get a nice piece of land for himself. Again, this idea of starting over and being able to make the best of the situation. Fourthly, word started getting back to Britain about this vast, beautiful, warm, sun-drenched country. Leave that cold, rainswept, crowded island and come out here, where you can have acres of land for yourself and set yourself up as a local gentleman! This led to an increase in free settlers, which further improved the skill and knowledge base of the colony. Once that happened, Australia was pretty much on the road to success."
],
"score": [
29,
6
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
|
6e7j6p | Ulster loyalism | What is the movement about? What do they do? What are their goals? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"di85kfa"
],
"text": [
"They are basically people of the protestant faith who want to remain part of the UK as opposed to those of the catholic faith who want to be part of a united Ireland."
],
"score": [
5
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
6e8tre | How did germophobes deal with germs pre-1800s? | How did they cope with dirt and grime? Tossing fecal matter in the streets? I know they had no solid concept of germs til the 1860s with Louis Pasteur, but how did they cope with the anxiety? I know that survival took precedence, but I wondered how I,( a germophobe) would cope with it in the hunter-gatherer days, medieval times, 1700s, etc? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"di8gnse",
"di8gxz5"
],
"text": [
"You can't be phobic of something you're not even aware of... in the same way that no one at that time had anxiety around flying in an airplane. There were \"neat freaks,\" but they wouldn't have thought in terms of germs or disease, just dirt and cleanliness.",
"The more medical term is mysophobia, the fear of uncleanliness. Before the discovery of germs, this condition no doubt existed and sufferers would have had a pathological fear of dirt and contamination, but it wasn't identified as a condition until 1879. The man who identified it was actually investigating cases of OCD that manifested itself as the compulsion to repeatedly wash hands, so mysophobes -- just as today -- would have wanted to avoid any dirt (real or imagined) and wash it off themselves."
],
"score": [
11,
4
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
6e9552 | Why fantasy realms share so many similar characteristics | Between outfits (boots, gloves, lace, leather), weapons (swords, bow and arrow), music (flute, harp), dragons, etc. It seems like fantasy would allow for such creativity, but a lot of worlds seem so identical. | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"di8j1lh",
"di8kkc5",
"di8j87w",
"di8r672"
],
"text": [
"Easily identifiable tropes/clichés allow readers to quickly understand points. If you give a character a flute or a harp, they understand they are a musician. If you give them a floogle, you need to explain a floogle. Things like swords and bows, there are only so many ways to kill people, and some are more iconic than others. While spears do get the spear of longinus for example, Excalibur has fantastic sword marketing (amongst other swords too). People often see swords as heroic, while Axes tend to get type cast as either evil (executioner style), berserker (two headed) or commoner (woodcutter). Basically they allow the author to shortcut things.",
"Most fantasy realms are based on a common set of Western cultural influences: Arthurian legend, Greek mythology, and real-world medieval England and France. When someone is introduced to your strange new fantasy realm, it's easier for them to understand and enjoy something with connections to these common fantasy tropes. It's less work to remember \"This setting has dragons, but with fur\" than \"This setting has hippogriffs, but with octopus tentacles\". If a setting is too strange or confusing, people won't connect with it as easily.",
"Frankly, it's because people are *much* less creative than they think they are. Most of what we create is actually a mash-up of things we have already seen. Consider: Star Trek is basically a World War II Pacific-theater naval adventure moved to outer space. Star Wars Episode IV is explicitly a remake of a Western cowboy adventure moved to outer space, converting at the end to a World War style aerial battle. Lots of fantasy realms are basically The Hobbit or Knights of the Round Table.",
"Epic fantasy literature as we know it today originated with JRR Tolkien, who was a scholar of medieval history. He established many ideas that have become cliché."
],
"score": [
13,
7,
4,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[],
[],
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
6e9pn3 | Why is there a border crossing between Hong Kong and China since the British relinquished to the People's Republic on China in 1997? | A friend of mine just got back from China and described having to cross a border check-point between Hong Kong and China. Why is this in place, considering the British relinquished control of Hong Kong to the People's Republic of China in 1997? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"di8o8jp",
"di8o0mp"
],
"text": [
"Hong Kong is considered a \"special economic zone\" by the Chinese government. Things which are illegal in China are often legal in Hong Kong. This legal barrier is somewhat of a propaganda problem for the Chinese government, as the special economic zones (Macau is also one) are in general more prosperous than most of the rest of the country. So, to prevent ordinary Chinese citizens from being...peeved...at government restrictions, China just doesn't allow mainland Chinese folks to live or work in either of the SEZs. They have customs officials, different passports, their own governments with surprisingly large amounts of autonomy considering China's history, and even their own diplomatic missions from foreign countries. The American Consulate in Hong Kong is actually larger than the official Embassy in Beijing. The end result? China benefits from the economic strength of the SEZs even though both of them function more like their own countries than like regions of the same country. It's a very bizarre situation, but it came about through political necessity.",
"Hong Kong is an autonomous territory, meaning that although it belongs to China, it pretty much runs its own affairs. It has its own government and its own economy (even its own currency), so is almost (but not quite) a separate country. All China really does is to take care of Hong Kong's military defence and foreign affairs. This is done according to a principle described as \"one country, two systems\"."
],
"score": [
6,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
6eaf5m | Why do Americans, usually youngsters, say "I lied." instead of saying "I was wrong."? | I have noticed my students (as a teaching assistant) and a few friends here in the USA exclaim "I lied!" when I would have otherwise just used "Oh, I was wrong!" in a similar context. Why is that so? edit: Just to add, I always feel admitting you were wrong should be a smaller confession than admitting you lied, especially when they in fact did not lie, and were mistaken, and thus believing they were saying the truth. | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"di8ty46",
"di8wxcr",
"di8tt19",
"di8uuc9",
"di8vhq1",
"di8tzo3"
],
"text": [
"It's just hyperbole/self-deprecation. In certain American dialects, there are contexts in which \"I lied\" is an informal, breezy way of saying \"I was mistaken.\" They aren't literally claiming to have lied. I don't think anybody can adequately tell you *why*. It's just a particular quirk of language. Not much different from saying \"I'm so hungry I could eat a horse.\"",
"Doctoral student in sociolinguistics here. There's actually quite a bit going on your question here, so I'll try to get at what I think you're asking. In language there is what is technically called \"variation.\" Basically, as people we come up with many different ways of saying \"the same thing.\" As an example, you can think of the fact that we can say: variation 1) \"I don't think that he went to the store.\" vs. variation 2) \"I don't think he went to the store.\" These two sentences say essentially the same thing, but they have a slightly different way of doing so. Whether or not people say one variation or another can depend on many factors, but in the question you are asking, it is probably most closely related to social factors (especially, since you note that it is young people who are saying \"I lied.\"). In a conversation \"I lied\" and \"I was wrong\" have the same function. But if you think of it, there are MANY ways that people express this idea, \"Oops,\" \"Wait\", \"I mean\", \"No\", \"I didn't want to say that.\" In communities like middle schools, the \"cool kids\" might say \"I lied\" to express this meaning and in order to emulate them, other kids may start saying the same thing \"I lied\" in the same context. This would be why this change doesn't spread up to adults (and in general adults are much slower to integrate these types of changes into their way of speaking, but it's not unheard of). This is just an example of course, as social factors can be very complicated: perhaps a famous person said it in a movie, perhaps it began in urban centers (which linguistic change tends to radiate from). Some interpretations here in the comments discuss self-deprecation, morality, etc. Those explanations aren't wrong per se, but they are generally after the fact. That is, these explanations come about after the change has taken place. These interpretations are often called \"folk etymologies\" because they represent the views of people making hypotheses from only the present data and not knowing the history of a particular phrase. For example, our belief that \"isle\" is an abbreviation of \"island\" is not historically accurate. These two words come from completely different words--one coming from Latin and the other from Old English. Interestingly, you'll find people apply stereotypes to this type of variation. So, for example, people will say that \"y'all\" (used mostly in the South) is a shortened form of \"you all\" because Southerners are lazy, and they're just being lazy with their speech. However, few claim that Northerners are lazy for saying \"gonna\" (well, I guess some English teachers might, but I'll bet you even these English teachers say \"gonna\" occasionally). What's happening is the \"lazy\" stereotype of Southerners is being applied to a phrase that associated with Southern speech. Positive stereotypes of Southerners like \"kind,\" \"generous,\" etc. are also often applied to folk etymologies of their speech. I'm not trashing previous explanations or anything; most of them are general, and there's nothing wrong with them. It's just that language change and variation is very firmly related to groups of people in society and what those groups of people think of each other. To conclude: people have been saying \"I lied\" to mean \"I was wrong\" for years and years. Just like we can say \"oops\", \"nope\", \"I didn't mean that\", etc. The specific phrase \"I lied\" became associated with a certain group of people (the popular kids perhaps) and other speakers started picking it up because they wanted to sound like that group of people. (This is worded in a way that it sounds intentional, but it is actually very subconscious--thanks to things like mirror neurons). Nowadays, young people often say \"I lied\" to mean \"I was wrong,\" and in a few decades their children might associate the phrase \"I lied\" to mean \"I was wrong\" with old people.",
"It's facetious and a gentle way of poking fun at one's self. It's been commonly used enough that it's kind of worked its way into common language and most people say it at least some.",
"It's a way of acknowledging a mistake as well as to acknowledge they should have known the correct response the first time. It's somewhat self deprecated as they, themselves are elevating the severity of their mistake to show their recognition of the mistake to convey they're not dismissing it as trivial.",
"I think the nuance of intent is often lost on children, or perhaps not emphasized in their early education. If you ask American kids what \"to lie\" means, they'll probably say something to the effect of: \"to say something that isn't true.\" But that's not exactly right. A lie would be better defined as \"to _deliberately or purposefully_ say something that isn't true.\" People say untrue things all the time that aren't lies, _e.g._, when they're mistaken or misinformed. But young children may not readily grasp that. Making that distinction requires a conceptual exercise that is difficult for a lot of children, given their limited academic and social experience. I'd be surprised that there aren't similar idiosyncrasies in other languages/countries.",
"it took me a second to pin down an example of this but i think i know what you mean. i don't think i could explain exactly how it started or why people have the tendency but in general it happens when people *say* the wrong thing, give a wrong answer, what have you as opposed to *doing* something wrong. i remember hearing kids say \"oh, just kidding!\" when they realized the right answer in school after they had guessed wrong. i think it's just because \"that was a lie\" or \"that was a joke\" are just figurative (maybe more \"playful?\") ways to communicate \"what i said wasn't fact.\" like i said, not sure why it started happening in the first place but the short answer for why it makes sense is that it's sort of a play on words."
],
"score": [
33,
30,
10,
6,
5,
5
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
6ec5py | Between the two former European colonies, why are people in Hong Kong more resistant to Chinese rule than Macau? | Reading the news and watching the movie Joshua: Teenager vs. Superpower, it seems like many people in Hong Kong are against Chinese rule. However, I don't hear much about Macau, a former Portuguese colony which was handed over to China more recently in 1999. | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"di984l5"
],
"text": [
"I mean, for one, Macau is much smaller. Only 650,000 people live there compared to 7 million on Hong Kong. Second, Macau is also much poorer and was much less democratic under Portugal compared to Hong Kong under the British (and Hong Kong's democratic tradition is the biggest point of tension between it and the mainland)."
],
"score": [
5
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
6eczr3 | Why do western teachers advise students not to use same words over and over again, and encourage use of synonym, while many east asian teachers encourage students to use only one word for one thing? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"di9e5so",
"di9f7kl"
],
"text": [
"I cannot say as to why the Asian teachers teach the way they do, but encouraging students to use synonyms does two things. 1) It allows for students to expand their vocabularies. 2) It allows for students to learn the subtle differences between synonyms and lets them choose the more accurate word for a given argument and be more articulate.",
"Are you talking about English classes, as taught by a native speaker vs. a local? And at what age or level? The only reason I could think an east Asian teacher would advise to \"only use one word for one thing\" is because it is on their curriculum, they're teaching for a test/assessment and it needs to fit into their marking scheme."
],
"score": [
19,
13
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
|
6eda6d | why is abstract art considered good? What is it about random splashes of paint and lines that makes it more appealing than a more realistic painting to some? How does the randomness actually represent anything? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"di9hjfd",
"di9gf2r",
"di9fyg9",
"di9h13d",
"di9kqup"
],
"text": [
"Yay an ELI5 I can help answer. You know how certain psychologist's will hold up black drawings and as you what you see or more likely ask you the first word that comes to mind when associated with that image? Well the idea is for your interpretation of that image to reveal something about you to the psychologist. Just like how your interpretation of a dream you had is way more important than the dream itself, how you see it is actually useful information. In the same way, abstract art does not put a limit on your imagination and thus enables you to interpret something in a way that could reveal something interesting about yourself or the world around you. Now if you choose not to engage your imagination in this process then abstract art would most likely not appear beautiful to you but if you do there is a possibility that some pieces of abstract art will speak to you while others will not. In that case you are able to segregate \"appealing\" abstract art from not appealing abstract art. There are two sides to this and abstract art upholds the idea that beauty is in the eye of the beholder while many argue that things are inherently beautiful.",
"They aren't \"random splashes\". Jackson Pollock's paintings evolved over time to have an underlying [fractal nature]( URL_0 ). Even people who don't like them can spot a [real Mondrian]( URL_1 ) from a fake.",
"I think it is the inventiveness that appeals. Artists coming up with new ways to express themselves. Personally I think 98% of Modern Art is shite.",
"I once read that Hemingway's brusque writing style--which today is commonplace--was a radical departure from the flowery tradition that came before him. And while Hemingway's work certainly has aesthetic appeal to many people, despite it's simplicity, the reason modern writers celebrate his work is for his role in broadening the field. I look upon modern art the same way. Whether or not I personally enjoy an abstract painting, the reason artists celebrate modern art is that it was such a free and expressive departure from the portraits and still lifes that dominated the Romantic era before. For better and worse, the inclusiveness of modern art has allowed a wider variety of styles which depart from traditional beauty.",
"[/u/windwolfone explains it as being due to the progression of art throughout history]( URL_5 ) History of Art in too many paragraphs, aka Why does this painting of nothing exist? A long time ago: People paint things on cave walls. Walls continue to get painted until someone decides to paint on smaller boxes. All this time it is usually pictures of people, places and things. When the subject is imaginary, it still is generally assembled from existing things (like an Minotaur, half bull, half human). Most art is generally deeply related to the political and religious cultures of its era. In wealthier societies, the subjects are more diverse: rich people like paintings of themselves. And paintings of other people, preferably naked: URL_7 When you go to museum and see art from 5000 years - 150 years ago, it almost always is going to be of a person, place or thing. Unsurprisingly, lots of naked people. Follow the Renaissance and the rise of capitalism and science to around 1800-1900, and that entire time period's subsequent huge changes. Art is now taught in schools and the best artists are sought after by the richest people. Unfortunately these people for the first few centuries are heavily religious and there are a fewer paintings of naked people (though they cheat with pics of Angels and God's Mom)...and there seem to be a lot of cows: URL_10 Art goes through a great period of refinement. New knowledge & ideas are everywhere, science has begun to pry out the secrets of color and light. The understanding of the human mind and how it is influenced by external stimuli is being refined. All this, combined with advances in paints, art uses to increase the emotional capacity of paintings. Artists are continually rebelling against previous generations while also reflecting their times. The 19th Century is a very radical time for humans in Europe and art begins moving into a more abstract realm on the canvas, where the color and light within the painting is less realistic but deeply evocative in color and design so as to still generate a response in the viewer: URL_1 And: URL_9 Turner's title rain, steam and speed is itself an abstraction. There is an energy to this painting that reflects the energy that the railway brought to his time. Step further away from the painting, forget the subject... and the title still works. Again it would have taken a person in the mid 1800 hundreds in order to appreciate and understand this painting, and people from a hundred or two hundred years earlier would struggle with it. When life moved by cart and horse, cows were an interesting subject. By 1850 there are beasts of steel eating coal, spewing a faster future via fire and steam. The future is no longer a fixed certainly, unlike the era of cows and still fruit a few hundred years prior. The new art is beginning to be influenced partly by what will become psychology, along with the competing social/political ideas of the era. In the cities, new ideas are flowing, social patterns are broken, technology is changing life rapidly. And more naked people get painted: URL_6 With a bright new century of plenty and wonder ahead, the early 1900's develop a new generation of artists steeped in ideas of revolution and freedom. The old world is being transformed dramatically and permanently and will require a transformed group of artists to react to it. But where will they seek inspiration? The old world was...lots of cows. It is the era of Colonialism, remote lands are being explored and the objects of their peoples collected. Soon museums are opening, showing exotic exhibits from across the oceans. The art designs are often bizarrely abstract: URL_8 with accompany cultural stories of a fantastic, superstitious nature shocking to a Christian society. But not shocking to the younger artists who emerge with the new century. URL_3 The stuff from primitive cultures shocked and amazed its viewers... folks whose cultures had spent the last couple of centuries slowly unshackling the stratified dogma of religious-political monarchies and its accompanying literal, formal arts. So artists like Picasso are blown away by the new patterns, but more importantly freed from formality by the abstraction they are seeing in these beautiful objects. Of course abstract design already existed, but it would be a pattern like plaid and used for decoration on existing objects like pottery or clothing. Now it's the early 20th century and politics, psychology & science have moved even further along. Freed into abstraction, artists are starting to think about color purely on its own. It's pretty clear that the human mind reacts with this world without the need for a subject. On a rainy day we are more likely to feel sad; in fact we even use a color, blue, to describe it. So now art has been freed to explore color purely as an abstraction. Artists start to paint colors with no subject. And it is spectacular. Mark Rothko is my favorite artist and you will have a different emotional reaction to this painting : URL_0 then you would to his painting here: URL_2 Rothko is ignoring subject and trying to master the basic elements of his world: canvas, paint, light and sight. He is seeking to elicit a response freed from history and knowledge, he is seeking the purity of color, an idea very much of its time. I find it fascinating that one of the initial inspirations for this is from cultures that existed outside of time and history. Tribal peoples whose lives revolve around imaginations, a world of ghosts, spirits and gods whose influence was as true as the trees they made their art objects from. The human imagination is a powerful, amazing thing. Of course these Rothko are on a screen- in person they are completely more alive. What artists in the 20th century were capable of creating with paint was as much a statement as it was about technique. So my short summary of my entirely too long response is this: what you're looking at is a culmination of thousands of years of art, where the last several hundred years of great technological advances, social change, economic advancement, etc, have created a person with the economic leisure capable of buying a painting of pure color. Art evolved to the point where it's creation was freed from connection to concrete reality, inspired by people whose reality was abstract imagination. This piece is no Rothko and they paid too much money for it...so of course you should switch to art! And thus you have a guy who's painted one color on a canvas. As to why it sold for so much: it's what rich people do and it's the single greatest way to take their money: siphon it thru an art dealer with the sales skills appropriate for rich people. (ok they're not that dumb- there's actually some tax purposes to buying expensive art). This is of course a quick and dirty history and there is going to be exceptions to the idea of abstract art as a modern concept. Of course naked people are painted that way too: URL_4"
],
"score": [
19,
5,
3,
3,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[
"http://discovermagazine.com/2001/nov/featpollock",
"https://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/mondrian-original-is-simply-picture-perfect-131523.html"
],
[],
[],
[
"http://uploads4.wikiart.org/images/mark-rothko/blue-and-gray.jpg",
"https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5d/Monet_Water_Lilies_1916.jpg",
"http://www.markrothko.org/images/paintings/orange-and-yellow.jpg",
"http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/aima/hd_aima.htm",
"http://uploads1.wikiart.org/images/pablo-picasso/crouching-female-nude-1959.jpg",
"https://www.reddit.com/r/WTF/comments/3e9jq6/23_million_this_painting_sold_for_48_million/ctd4x9y/",
"http://www.naturistart.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/francisco-goya.jpg",
"http://www.jssgallery.org/Other_Artists/Roman/pompei3graces.jpg",
"http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/works-of-art/1978.412.425",
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rain,_Steam_and_Speed_%E2%80%93_The_Great_Western_Railway#",
"http://p7.storage.canalblog.com/79/54/577050/48870460.jpg"
]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
|
6eec3v | How does border control validate passports? | Is it purely a check between the information on the passport against the person, e.g. age, sex, photo or are there checks against some government/ international databases? Or any other checks? If government/ international databases are used for validation, I assume not every country is willing to share the information of their citizens with other governments? Many thanks! | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"di9nn2k"
],
"text": [
"I've read that (at least in the Shengen part of Europe) passeport scanner automatically check the interpol database (for wanted criminals). Each country might check it's own police database but they are not that much shared (that's how people under surveillance by the counter terrorism could go to Syria after taking a train to another country) For the rest I don't know what they check exactly, Something like making sure that you look-like the same as on the photo that you haven't travelled to weird countries (I am pretty sure that entering the U.S. with an Iranian VISA will yield some questions) and in paranoïd countries like U.S. that your fingerprint matches the one in your passport..."
],
"score": [
3
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
6eeqgu | Why do adults make silly voices to babies/pets? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dia7clf",
"di9papl"
],
"text": [
"Speech-language pathologist here. It's called motherese. This is how babies learn language. Babies pay attention to the rhythm and intonation of the speech patterns; the highs and lows of our pitch. When we present words via varying animation, such as using a sing-song voice, it gets their attention and facilitates their development of language through creating social circles of communication. Speaking in a monotone voice is not the listening preference of the infant and does not elicit their attention to language.",
"Because babies or pets don't understand the language, so communicating by making funny sounds (like the baby or pet make sounds) makes more sense. Some people go as far as to imitate a foreigners language, even the mistakes they make when speaking.(example: foreigner asks\"where is store?\" and some people might answer \"store, over there\" instead of \"the store is over there\"). So it's basically because we try to make our message clear to someone who doesn't understand the language by communicating in a similar way the person (or pet in that case) is communicating with us."
],
"score": [
5,
5
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
|
6ef9wy | Why do Americans eat ground beef medium rare? | I took my food service course here in Canada and it's illegal to serve ground beef that is not fully cooked. | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"di9swsh",
"di9tq3l",
"di9w2jl",
"di9tp5w",
"di9turs",
"di9u57q"
],
"text": [
"A medium burger or steak is a very specific texture you are going for, where the outside is charred and seared so it holds in all the 'rare' juices... and I'm refering to them as juices rather than blood since it is a protein called myoglobin. A good rare burger or steak, properly salted, has a wonderful contrast between the 'raw' and 'charred' and the 'crunch' and 'juice'. This is coming from a guy who grew up eating everything well done in Mexico but quickly acquired a taste for rare meat once introduced.",
"Aside from just preferring the taste, ordering a hamburger medium-rare when possible can be an attempt to force the restaurant to use somewhat better quality and/or fresher meat. Food service workers have told me a few times that if you order a well done piece of meat, you are sometimes getting the oldest meat they need to get rid of quickly.",
"If you get your ground beef at a Sav-a-Lot or Walmart, you probably don't want to eat it at that temperature. The real danger in eating undercooked meats comes them being contaminated by parasites and bacteria. Budget grocers buy their ground meat from producers who process thousands of animals per day. In this case, one bad apple can really spoil the entire batch when they are all ground together. If you go to a middle of the road or high end grocer, they are typically grinding their beef on site, which limits the cross-contamination opportunities from sick or diseased animals. It doesn't insure anything, but the drastically reduces your chances of getting ill.",
"That explains a lot about why I cant get a decent burger in Canada. I travel on business up frequently, the chain restaurants in Canada really have shitty food. E1- > Oh - Because they taste better!",
"Most don't. If you try ordering a medium rare burger at McDonald's you might get laughed at or stared at blankly. The only places I've seen burgers medium rare are higher end places, where they will use a different cut of meat, like /u/goingrogueatwork pointed out.",
"because ***'merica***!!! Also, because freshly ground beef (like, on premises ground) as long as it and the grinder are properly handled is as safe to eat as a medium rare steak. And, like a steak, rare beef tastes better to a lot of people. Personally, I am a \"walk it though the kitchen, show it the fire, and put it on a plate\" person myself (actually, I like medium rare. Still pink to red, but definitely want it warm) The issue comes in when the cleanliness of the grinding process cannot be controlled or verified and contaminates are allowed to enter the process. In that case, the meat needs to be brought to a safe temperature, which can still be medium rare, if held at that temperature long enough. Problem is, that is a lot more work than a lot of kitchens are willing or able to do, so they just go ahead and cook it to a higher temperature."
],
"score": [
19,
7,
5,
3,
3,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
Subsets and Splits
No community queries yet
The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.