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6effa4 | What is the Paris Climate Agreement and why should I care? | Everything I Google is complicated and I'm 5. Why should I be mad at my President? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"**ELI5 Answer** Basically France produced an agreement which require developed and developing countries alike to limit their emissions to relatively safe levels. Finance will be provided to poor nations to help them cut emissions and cope with the effects of extreme weather. Countries affected by climate-related disasters will gain urgent aid. The Paris Agreement (French: Accord de Paris) is an agreement within the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) dealing with greenhouse gas emissions mitigation, adaptation and finance starting in the year 2020. The language of the agreement was negotiated by representatives of 195 countries at the 21st Conference of the Parties of the UNFCCC in Paris and adopted by consensus on 12 December 2015. It was opened for signature on 22 April 2016 (Earth Day) at a ceremony in New York. As of May 2017, 195 UNFCCC members have signed the treaty, 147 of which have ratified it. After several European Union states ratified the agreement in October 2016, there were enough countries that had ratified the agreement that produce enough of the world's greenhouse gases for the agreement to enter into force.The agreement went into effect on 4 November 2016. **Details -** Paris produced an agreement which require developed and developing countries alike are required to limit their emissions to relatively safe levels, of 2C with an aspiration of 1.5C, with regular reviews to ensure these commitments can be increased in line with scientific advice. Like any international compromise, it is not perfect: the caps on emissions are still too loose, likely to lead to warming of 2.7 to 3C above pre-industrial levels, breaching the 2C threshold that scientists say is the limit of safety, beyond which the effects – droughts, floods, heatwaves and sea level rises – are likely to become catastrophic and irreversible. Poor countries are also concerned that the money provided to them will not be nearly enough to protect them. Not all of the agreement is legally binding, so future governments of the signatory countries could yet renege on their commitments.",
"It was an agreement between countries through the UN to reduce their carbon emissions by a certain date. This would include a reduction in coal plants and associated jobs, increasing green energy resources. Each country determined what they could do, and committed to those numbers. The goal is to keep the global average temp below a 2 degree c increase. You should care because if we don't make any change, the earth will keep heating, severe weather may increase, droughts may get worse, arctic ice will continue to melt. These will affect global food and movement. The us is no longer the number one producer of green house gas(may be wrong last I read it was China), but we are a huge contributor. Mainly it's industry not people, but reducing what you do helps too.",
"To add to this question, what is the argument for pulling out of it? Seriously. What is the perceived problem with the US being part of the agreement?",
"Carbon pollution from burning fossil fuels and removing forests acts like a blanket, warming the Earth and causing floods, droughts, hurricanes and even wars. In late 2015, after decades of negotiations, nearly every country on Earth got together and made a deal to reduce the amount of carbon pollution they each give off. Because no country would accept limits being imposed on them, each country voluntarily offered to make substantial cuts, with the expectation that this commitment would increase as it became more politically possible. But this plan only works if everybody is on board. Without the world's second largest polluter, there's less incentive for other countries to do their own work to cut carbon, especially since many have people coming out of poverty who want access to the same polluting lifestyle that Americans have enjoyed for decades. Global warming is at the point now where we have just a few years to avoid the worst impacts. Donald Trump pulling out of the Paris Agreement could mean we have almost no hope of avoiding catastrophic droughts, floods, storms, wildfires and conflict.",
"Long story short you shouldn't be mad. The Paris agreement with the scientists most optimistic projections was only said to slow global warming by .4 degrees in 100 years. That's a tiny shift of little magnitude and it would have cost the United States trillions.",
"So is the Paris Agreement an actual global financial commitment or is it more like everyone agreeing to cut down on greenhouse gases based on some loose terms? Couldn't the US still lower their emissions even without being part of the agreement? I've heard California and New York saying they still plan to uphold the agreement. Any chance the fact that Trump may back out will have no/little effect and states/cities will just enact changes at a more local level?",
"1. Jobs, in the U.S. There are 400,000 \"green\" jobs, there are 50,000 coal and jobs. The green sector is growing at a much faster rate than fossil fuels. 2. Money, green energy is cheaper than fossil fuels. This was not true in the past but is true now, we already put in a lot of the investment cost pulling out now is a ginormous waste of money. 3. It makes us look stupid when even China and India are doing more in this regard than us. E:Should not have included oil in this originally.",
"Lets say for arguments sake that the current extreme weather we are experiencing here in Florida is due to natural climate change like that that has occurred many times in the past. Its a slow process with a devastating impact that will result in starvation and violence as everyone competes to survive and the cost of food and water will increase the worse things get. Now add in the human impact of the Industrial Revolution with its smelting plants going back as far as the mid 1600s and all the plastic that are now polluting beaches due to the volume of plastic we have thrown in the ocean since the 1950s that will help to speed up the natural climate change. Coal use became abundant in the mid 19th century and only recently looks like it will be extinct. And add in vast world wide human development along the coast line and the deforestation to build homes. So if we are into the early stages of the next natural climate change, why would you not want to take steps to slow it down? Is it because it will not affect you as much as your grandchildren? Is it not being restricted in whatever you want to do and live for the moment? Is it because it will make you rich? Switching from a fossil fuel based economy to an alternative is no different than switching from an agricultural economy to an industrial one. Jobs will be eliminated and others created. And yes, it will cost more to implement the change. But it is a matter of what account you want to place your money because the money is going to be spent either way. You either spend it on fixing the problem or spend it on your fading health and damage caused by the worsening weather. The reality is you are going to have to fund both. As for Trump pulling out of the agreement, fortunately we have states rights that say anything not mentioned in the Constitution are reserved to the states. And among them are the big liberal states that have the most industry, GDP and population that will abide by the Paris Agreement.",
"The Paris Climate Agreement is an agreement to put regulations in place to help the environment and slow global warming. You should not be mad at the president because he promised less regulation, and by not signing on to it, he avoids more regulation. He is delivering as promised. Unfortunately this is probably to everyone's detriment.",
"Limits pollutant emissions of countries to save the Earth from global warming, president doesn't believe in global warming."
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6efgv5 | How do companies like Delta, the airline company, and Delta, the faucet company, not run into any trademark and/or brand issues since they both have the same name? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"There are 45 classes of trademarks, including goods like: * Class 10 Medical, Dental Instruments and Apparatus * Class 11 Appliances, Lighting, Heating, Sanitary Installations * Class 12 Vehicles and services like * Class 36 Insurance, Financial * Class 37 Construction, Repair, Cleaning When you register a trademark, it's only within a certain class, or sometimes within 2 or 3 classes. Someone can have the same name for a business as long as it's in a different class.",
"Because nobody is going to walk into a store to get a new faucet and accidentally buy a goddamn airliner. They exist in completely different market spaces and have no worries about competing with each other.",
"First, trademark is about preventing confusion in the marketplace and preventing a competitor from leveraging the good name & reputation of an existing company to get ahead. So you can have separate trademarks for \"Delta Faucets\" and a \"Delta Airlines\" because when someone says \"I'm flying Delta to New York City\" nobody thinks you're hopping a faucet to the Big Apple for the weekend! However, it's unlikely the Patent & Trade office would award a trademark for, say, \"Delta Bathtubs\" because that could reasonably be considered part of the market that Delta Faucets operates in. Second, trademark doesn't allow you to own a common word. \"Delta\" is a common word, with a meaning separate and independent from the airline or faucet manufacturer. \"Apple\" is another example. Although Apple Inc. has trademark on the word \"Apple\" that doesn't prevent someone from getting a trademark for \"Apple Housepainting Services\" or whatever. At least, as long as they don't try to create confusion between Apple Inc. and Apple Housepainting Services to make people think that Apple Inc. is branching out into iPaint! The exception to this is if the trademark is supposed to cover the very thing the common definition of the word means. I.e., a company that makes oatmeal can't call themselves \"Oatmeal, Inc.\" and get that trademarked. This inability to own a common word is why so many brands *make up* words for their company or product names that don't exist in any other context. Google, Airbnb, Xfinity, etc. Drug names are famous for this: Viagra, Ambien, Claritin, Prozac, Vicodin, etc. As are car manufacturers: Acura, Lexus, Infiniti, Canyonero, etc. It would be . . . hard for someone to trademark, say, \"Viagra Beef Jerky\" because the only association Viagra has is with the drug."
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6eghou | Beep sound used for censorship | I never understood why the sound of a beep was chosen by humanity as the official sound for censoring stuff. What's the story behind this? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"It's normally 1k tone, which is a standard for testing audio in broadcast. Basically it's used because broadcasters have always had it available. Many times silence is used, but you notice it less. There may be rules in place that I am not aware of, but generally tone is used when the person's mouth is visible. 'Audio drops' are used when the mouth is not visible. It is (usually) possible to adjust the level of the tone to match the dialogue, but it adds another step that no one (except the viewer apparently) cares about. URL_0 URL_1"
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6egnny | Why is it important that America maintains its status as a leader in the international community? Does this status make the lives of Americans better in any measurable way? Or is it just an ego thing that Europe has started to ice us out? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Sure. America's status means that a lot of international activity revolves around America. Places want to use our money. They want to send us their goods. They want to buy our goods. I can get just about anything I want at my door in 2 days. A lot of the world does not have that sort of luxury."
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6egr87 | Why/How do some people get "bathroom shy"? | How is it that some of us humans are unable to pee when people are talking/noisy in the restroom? Or completely unable to poop in unfamiliar restrooms?! | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Being bathroom shy is tied to an instinctive response. In the wild, using the bathroom is among one of the most dangerous acts any animal can do. Not only does it leave you briefly vulnerable, but it also creates a strong scent that other animals can pick up. Being secluded and in a quiet place gives awareness to any impending dangers. In a public bathroom, the sound of talking or someone's nearby presence are triggers that are telling your involuntary bathroom parts to not work, since there is there is 'danger' nearby. On the behavior/voluntary side however, I am not sure. For myself, I stopped being bathroom shy when I got older. Some are naturals and don't wink an eye, others are not.",
"It varies. My buddy was pee-shy because he was uncircumsized in an age and culture where others had been circumsized. After noticing the difference and being teased as a kid, he \"developed a thing\" where he wasn't comfortable having his dick out when other guys were present. Meanwhile in the more mechanical/animal sense the process of waste elimination is a \"vulnerable moment\" in the wild, so any sense of threat or uncertainty may be a sign that now is not the time to be doing what you are doing. So the combination of instinct and learned behavior may inhibit peeing. Same too for sexual responses, eating, the ability to relax or sleep, or any number of other biological functions. Evolution is not smart, so we are full of things that smack of poor design or crossed signals and inhibitions."
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6egw4b | How the women's only screening of Wonder Women is affected by antidiscrimination laws | Isn't sex a protected class? If a guy bought a ticket and was refused at the door could he sue? Disclaimer: I don't really care that they're doing it, just wondering about the legalities of it. | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits discrimination by employers \"on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, or national origin.\" However, Title II of the same act prohibits discrimination \"based on race, color, religion, or national origin in hotels, motels, restaurants, **theaters,** and all other public accommodations engaged in interstate commerce.\" Congress made no attempt to enforce gender equity on the Boy Scouts, men's clubs, women's groups, restrooms, or half-way homes for \"troubled\" women. Gender discrimination is completely legal in the United States in many sectors. Employment isn't one of them, but theaters are."
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6eh4rh | Why do we always ask animals and babies what they're doing, even though we know they can't respond? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"A large proportion of our language is either in tone of voice or body language, for the most part this is subconscious so when we ask babies and animals how they are doing it is also expressed in our tone of voice and body language. Whilst babies and animals can't fully comprehend what is being said to them what they can interpret is \"I am friendly, not a threat and I am interested in you.\" As a result they can respond in a positive manner. Additionally the more babies are exposed to language the quicker the understand it and they understand it far quicker than they are able to express it in their own communication.",
"In the case of babies.. it's natural to talk to them, because it's natural to want to help them develop language. And they learn to understand belt they can speak. In the case of animals - it's mostly dumb anthropomorphism, unless it's reasonably intelligent , like a sheep dog or a dolphin."
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6ehnvv | How did humans first figure out how to translate between foreign languages? | Like how is it possible that two early human cultures with two unconnected languages (say English and Mandarin, for example) could learn each other's languages, including all the nuances, idioms and grammar if they had no common language to communicate in in the first place? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Gestures! Firstly - true first-contact situations are rare. In most cases explorers/traders/travelers share a lingua franca that they can at least make an effort to speak to one another. But in cases where an explorer reaches a remote village, or Columbus landing in the New World, gestures were used to convey thoughts and to give meanings to simple words/phrases. Within a day of contact, it is possible for two friendly people to learn each other's word for eat/drink/friend and names of one another and places. Fluency is built with exposure, but often there is a communication barrier that lasts until a generation is raised bilingually.",
"What likely happened was that people who lived on the \"borders\" or in between two peoples who spoke two languages were exposed to enough of both languages to understand both of them. Imagine you have three groups, A, B, and C. Geographically, they are arranged in that order: Group A shares a border with Group B, who shares a border with Group C. Because B is in the middle, they get exposed to both A language and C language. Some people from Group A travel across to the B-C border. Group A tells some Cs, \"Hey! How's it hanging?\" The Cs reply, \"Ooga Booga!\" The As ask the Bs, \"Do you know what he's saying?\" The Bs say, \"Yeah, he said, 'It's not hanging anymore. The damn thing's dragging in the mud.\""
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6ehto1 | How is it in history that people who are conquered are able to learn the language of the conquerors with no real trouble, but people who are willingly trying to learn a foreign language today have trouble? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Most people can learn a language by *immersion,* that is, if they are surrounded by it in normal use every day. What's hard is learning it in a class, when no one on the street or at work/school is using it.",
"It's not like country A conquered country B and then overnight all of country B starts speaking a new language... it's likely not any different than now where it's gradual, over time and younger people, future citizens speak the new language while the older generations keep speaking their native one."
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6eidv1 | What is wrong with Globalization | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Most arguments against globalization fall under two main categories: economic and cultural. Economic arguments against globalization say that, regardless of technological advances and increases in global wealth, globalization doesn't actually benefit everyone equally, or even close. Sure, there might be more wealth in the world, but that wealth is still mostly going to the same people and countries. The people who need wealth the most are least likely to see it. Another economic argument against globalization is economic competition: people in country A have been able to produce goods and hold jobs for a long time, and globalization takes those goods and jobs and moves them somewhere else. An American steel worker might be against globalization because he is now facing competition from China. Or a Tshirt factory might move from Iowa to Mexico because labor is cheaper. In these arguments, someone either loses from globalization or doesn't benefit as much as the theory says they should. Cultural arguments against globalization are generally along the lines of being worried about losing distinct cultures or the things that make different groups of people unique. When you can go almost anywhere in the world and find McDonalds, everywhere starts to seem just a little less different. There is also a cultural domination aspect to some of these arguments: globalization tends to be overwhelmingly from rich, western countries into poor, non-western countries. These poorer countries sometimes feel like they're losing their identity because of globalization. As for wanting the world to unite, there are probably ways for countries to unite and work together without globalization erasing everything that makes us unique and interesting. I don't think those goals are incompatible."
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6ek8v7 | Why does "break a leg" mean good luck? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"In theater, it's considered bad luck to wish someone good luck; it's kind of like you jinx the performance and so wishing someone \"good luck\" is sort of taboo. Instead we say \"break a leg\" with a wink and a nudge because everyone knows we actually mean \"good luck\"."
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6emel0 | Why do so many Hollywood celebrities join Scientology? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"They're doing so less and less. More have been leaving than joining of late. But it has been a combination of factors. Active recruitment by the church, going after and marketing to aspiring actors in Hollywood. No other church really does that, at least not to the same degree. The more big names do it, the more small names see it as worth pursuing. \"If it's done so much for Tom Cruise's career...\" Its \"theology\" appeals to the humanitarian instincts many artistic types have, and also, simultaneously, it appeals to their narcissism and self-importance. Hollywood is nothing if not a pool of insecure people desperately in need of counseling, and Scientology provides a version of that through \"auditing\". All it is, really, is intense, vocalized introspection in the presence of another person. It can be a very helpful form of therapy. Celebrities are treated well by the church, especially the very famous ones. The church provides community and a support system. Kinda like a mafia family. They'll have your back. Yeah, I've been on a Scientology kick recently.",
"People are suggesting all these celebrity psychology factors, when really... it's tax reasons. 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. This counts as a big tax writeoff, but really, all your money is still there, just in the accounts of the cult. 4. 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.",
"Because they try to appeal to them by telling them they are special, important, unordinary people - which is easy for them to believe because they got lucky enough to be successful in the entertainment industry. Then they have the financial capability of \"graduating\" to different degrees more rapidly than others - so they see \"rewards\" faster than others which corroborates the \"you are special\" narrative. Also, once they are on the hook - because a celebrities very job is management of their public image... and Scientology collects so much embarrassing, private information from it's practitioners... it is arguably even more difficult for a celebrity to leave the fold once they are in than your average Joe under duress.",
"Not that many do. Scientology gets the ones they can and promote the hell out of them too make Scientology look like the faith of the rich and famous.",
"People often have holes inside they feel to fill, and that includes actors. Indeed in actors it may be especially prone as their trade is \"being someone else\". Scientology uses Barnum statements and cod psychology and fake science to offer a way to fill the hole (as long as you keep on paying)"
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6emn30 | What do song structures mean? (like bridge, break etc.) | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Think about music in terms of sections. Here's an easy sample structure: > Intro - > Verse - > Chorus - > Verse - > Chorus - > Bridge - > Chorus' - > Chorus' - > Outro The Intro is the start of the song. Maybe it's a couple of bars of piano or guitar. It's setting things up. Each Verse is going to have the same (or very similar) melodies and harmonies, but different lyrics. Each Chorus is going to have the same (or very similar) melodies and harmonies, and the same (or very similar) lyrics. It's tying the song together. The Bridge is a section that has different melodies and harmonies and lyrics than either the Verse or the Chorus. It contrasts with those sections and drives us towards the end of the song. Each Chorus' is a variation on the main chorus. Maybe we switched the beat or changed the lyrics. It's very similar to the Chorus, but something is noticeable different. The Outro is the end of the song. It's wrapping things up, resolving any harmonic tensions, and giving us a sense of completion. This is a pretty standard form for popular music, but things can obviously be simpler or more complex. We might add a break, which, depending on the genre, can either be when everything except the percussion drops out or when the percussion and the rest of the rhythm sections drops out. We can have an elision, when different sections overlap (great for creating tension). We can have ad libs, when some part of the band (like the vocals) kind of wanders off and does its own thing for a minute. Or we can drop all of that and just do one verse after another. The easiest way to kind of get into this is to chart out a few songs. Pick some pop or rock tunes (they tend to have simple structures) and mark which sections are doing what."
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6emrry | Why do people from South Asia clean their bum with their hands instead of TP? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Hand + lots of water. Is good, first dozen times you feel like puking, then it becomes routine and freshyfresh. Helps with shitting in the woods too.",
"They might ask why westerners simply wipe their butts with paper. If i smeared excrement on your arm, would you be satisfied just wiping it off with some paper? Additionally, in my experience in Thailand, Lao, Cambodia and Vietnam they used a handheld sprayer in combination with toilet paper. Though i do not doubt that in some areas they do not employ the paper."
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6emymy | when right-wingers talk about "globalism" what do they mean, and why is it a bad thing? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"\"Globalism\" is the idea that mutually working with other countries around the world, even if there is no obvious benefit to your own country, will eventually improve all economies, improve relations, and maintain stability in the regions. You might take a small hit for a while if you are working with a more impoverished nation, but it will help improve that nation and be a net benefit in the end. The alt-right seem to prefer \"Nationalism\" where you *can* work with other countries, but only if it directly benefits your country. You would rather not work with impoverished nations since there is little benefit to your country that they would bring or you would exploit them when possible to your advantage.",
"Quoting /u/Lokiorin: > The Anti-Globalist side argues that globalism has benefit people in less developed countries at the expense of people in more developed countries. That's not how the anti-globalist side sees it at all. Most of them would in fact argue that unregulated globalism has encouraged the exploitation of less developed countries by wealthier nations -- a lot of your clothes, and electronic gadgets like your phone, were probably made or assembled in sweatshops by people being paid a pittance while being forced to work long shifts in dangerous conditions, some of them as young as 12 years old. These products are then sold to you at vastly inflated prices, while the companies pocket the profits. Many \"anti-globalist\" campaigners actually don't oppose the principle of globalism itself, just the way it's being done. They particularly criticize the way big companies appear to compromize on worker safety, pay, rights and environmental protection, and how the system (as they see it) is perpetuating a massive wealth gap."
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6enbvt | How can a Disney non-princess character be a Disney Princess? And what are the criterias for a character to be a "Disney Princess"? | I'm a guy and this is somehow mind-boggling to me Example: Mulan and Pucahontas are Disney Princess while they technically aren't | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Any female lead character is a \"Disney Princess\" even if the character isn't technically royalty... It's a way to collectively group all the characters under a common label for branding/marketing purposes.",
"a quick google provided Disney's answer They are either royal by birth, royal by marriage, or considered a \"princess\" due to their significant portrayal of heroism in their film.",
"It's a branding thing, pure an simple. If a marketing executive at Disney thought they could make enough money by labeling Woody from Toy Story as a \"Disney Princess\", they would do it.",
"Mulan marrys a prince becoming a princess, and if American Indians had princesses the chiefs daughter would be it including Pocahontas as well."
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6enrqd | Thousands of years ago, cowries were used as money. How/Why was that a reliable money? Couldn't people go grab more on the beach? | The wikipedia page about shell money is not helpful in answering why shells became a good legal tender. | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"These shells were collected in the Indian Ocean, and traded as far west as Ghana. The further you went from the coast, the more value they tended to have, as someone in the heart of the Congo can't exactly just walk to the beach off the Maldives to get them. You're just as free to find, smelt, and press your own metal coins and trade them for things. But we use coins as money because that's easier said than done. Likewise, for most of the people that used cowry shells as money, gathering more just isn't that easy.",
"Yes, you can absolutely go get more cowries. Just like you can go get more gold. It isn't quite that easy, and if it was, you're right, it would not have caught on as currency. That said, supply and demand played a part. There are some parts of the world where you needed a lot of them to buy something, and other parts where only a few would get you a cow or a ship."
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6eoj6c | Why do all ancient Egyptian drawings use the same style with subjects heads looking to the side? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"I love art history, it's been a while since I studied this subject but I'll explain to the best of my memory: There are a couple of reasons, one major one being that the drawings interacted with heiroglyphs in such a way that they were sort of their own writing system. The drawings weren't intended to be art, they needed to be streamlined and consistent to be readable. Another reason is that they drew based on the simplest and most recognizable traits. Shoulders always faced front, heads, legs and buttocks were always sideways. Perspective in paintings didn't become popular until the European renaissance in the 1400's. The first known example being from 1423, a painting of St Peter by Masolino de Panicale. There was depth to the subjects of paintings before this, but the overall image was flat and lacked perspective, instead the emphasis was on making religious figures large and emphasized regardless of their placement."
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6epjro | Why was(are) there height restrictions on buildings? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Generally two reasons: Practical: If there is an airport nearby, you don't want the buildings tall enough such that an aircraft could hit it. Aesthetic: If there are historical landmark buildings, you don't want newer buildings blocking the view of them.",
"There are also infrastructure reasons, like the capacity of the water pipes, the electric wires and parking."
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6eptgz | Why are Native American names fully translated (Crazy Horse, Sitting Bull) while names in other languages aren't (Sakura instead of Cherry Blossom, Ren instead of Lotus)? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"From what I understand, Native American names are meant to be more literal than in other languages. In many cases, like Sakura or Ren, names are simply used to identify a person, and while there are names meant to evoke a certain feeling, they rarely go beyond that. But with Native American names, there's a lot more symbolism. The names are chosen intentionally because of what they represent, and they're supposed to make you think about the qualities of that certain thing when you think about the person.",
"perhaps tangentially: my name, which stems from german, french and english, means \"son of a tall warrior, shining in fame\". Dad was a 6\"2 marine in WWII."
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6erg0k | Why didn't the Russians discover the New World sooner, since they're so close to Alaska, or vice versa? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"You seem to be a bit confused about Russia's history. For most of Russian history, \"Russia\" was considered to be mainly of territory to the west of the Ural Mountains. No one beside \"barbarian tribes\" lived on the other side in Siberia. It was only in the 1700s when Vitus Bering made the first expedition to map the land east of the Urals, hence where the name \"Bering Strait\" comes from. Russia technically claimed the land, no one else had a better claim, it was too cold for the Chinese and the Russians were the closest to it, but it was hardly controlled by them.",
"Russia was not in possession of Siberia until long after the Americas were known and being actively colonized by Western European powers. It was the home of nomadic, Turkic peoples, not Russians. Russians were traditionally *afraid* of the wild lands beyond the Urals, because their history was full of barbarian hordes who had swept over their lands seemingly out of nowhere from these far-off places. The East was not identified as a place of opportunity in these centuries, but of fear and danger.",
"Because Russia prior to 1600 or so was primarily west of the Ural Mountains. Siberia was basically a wasteland."
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6es6hm | Why some people with financial difficulties seem to have a fixture on "looking good" | That is, some seem to make the effort to look as if they're well to do, while most others obsess themselves with making their property exquisitely clean. I've heard it said that it had something to do with dignity, but using valuable time and already scarce resources into something that doesn't actively promote one's finances seems counter-intuitive (to me at least). | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"There isn't one easy description for why people love to dress well, but I think there could be three large, distinct groupings for the human addiction to looking \"fly\"--socio-cultural, posturing, and reproduction. Some societies, despite being poor or developing, put a lot of emphasis on wearing nice, designer clothing. This may be seen more formally in cultures with active night lives and concentrated urban centers. Posturing can be seen in many poor communities across the U.S., but broke college kids and young adults freshly graduated are also guilty of this. Becoming successful, meeting new people, and landing a job can be easier if you look the part. Wearing oversized or worn hand-me-downs might not get you a job at a law firm or tech startup. And looking good in your community with a new pair of shoes might help your social standing. As for reproduction, looking sexy for that tinder date never hurts. Obviously, if you are working at McDonalds, don't have a college degree, and have three kids you probably shouldn't spend a ton of money or time shopping for clothes, but it is possible for people to be thrifty and buy cheap clothes that look nice. I think, at the end of the day, most people want to look respectful and project a certain image, and that's completely within their right."
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6esf2m | why Universal Theme park has Marvel rides if Disney owns Marvel | Doesn't that just seem weird? Aren't they in direct competition with each other? Why would Disney allow Universal to continue making money off their own property? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Because those rides and characters were purchased by Universal before Disney made deals with Marvel. Disney did not get the rights to those things when they got Marvel.",
"Back in the 1990s, long before Marvel was acquired by Disney, they signed an impressively tight contract with Universal for the rights to the characters in use within theme park attractions. The contract limits the use of the characters on the east coast of the country to Universal Orlando with even tighter restrictions within a 60-mile radius of the Orlando parks. The contract does have a few stipulations, like ensuring upkeep of the rides, but overall is definitely more favorable to Universal than Marvel. Since that initial contract, Disney has bought Marvel, pumped millions of dollars into it and made it one of the most popular brands in modern film history. With billions of dollars in sales annually Marvel has proven to be a cash cow for Disney. The company, long known for its theme parks tie-ins, has already announced a ride in Hong Kong along with a small exhibit at Disneyland in California. While Marvel is slowly but surely being rolled out into the Disney parks globally back here in Florida, that airtight contract from the 1990s still blocks them from building anything at their most popular resort complex. URL_0",
"Do they? I've never been there so I don't know. But if they do have them then it's likely the same reason Fox has X Men and Sony has Spider-man. Licensing."
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6eshxx | Why is drinking alcohol so universal among all cultures? | Is there any culture that don't drink, or haven't invented brewing? [Any study on anthropology concerning this?] | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Might be interesting to consider animals in this as well: elephants and various types of monkeys are well known to consume fermented fruit for kicks (and elephants will legitimately raid liquor stashes in villages)."
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6esto3 | Why do we only have a Social Security Number(In the US), and not any other back up identification card, to keep our identity safer from identity theft? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Better question is why are SS#'s used outside of the SS System to identify people? It was literally promised to the public that it wouldn't be used out side of it for identification purposes.",
"CGP Grey made a pretty goodd video explaining this. Essentially it's rooted in some slightly outdated ideas around not wanting a national identity number, which would be more federal involvement. Link: URL_0"
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6et3g0 | Why are rhythm games more popular in Japan than in America? | Sure we get a few popular games like rock band and guitar hero, but most rhythm games seem to be made in japan. For example, DDR, Sound Voltex, Mai Mai, Taiko, beatmania, In The Groove, and many more all originated in japan, and are so hard to find in arcades in the U.S. The only one you're likely to see is DDR, but not much else. Why do these games seem to be more popular in the east than the west? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Arcade culture is a big deal in Japan. One of the reasons is Japanese kids go to arcades to socialise a lot more than American kids do. Japanese arcades are sometimes 10 story buildings, filled with games of every type. Usually there's at least one entire floor devoted to dance/rhythm games. People that live in Japanese cities tend to have small apartments, so, it's hard to have all your friends over to play games, they go play at the arcades. Dance/rhythm games are a social thing and the Japanese take it very seriously whereas in a lot of other developed countries, arcades have died out, yes they still exist but nothing like the scale of what you find in Tokyo. I've been lucky enough to visit quite a few countries, Arcades in Tokyo are amazing. They even let you smoke and drink. Japan is awesome.",
"I'd like to direct you to a popular YouTube channel, Game Theory, that goes pretty deep into Japanese gaming culture compared to typical American gaming. URL_0 Arcades, and rhythm games are specifically brought up and talked about. It's actually a pretty interesting topic, and the 3D video/exploration is neat."
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6et8lu | Why Did The Founding Fathers Want Each State To Have 2 Senators Instead Of Just 1? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Having multiple representatives reduces the chances of corruption. They can keep each other in check (in theory). A lot of the rules that we have in how our government is set up is that there are redundant levels of keeping any given person or group in check.",
"A couple more reasons: It took a while to travel in those days, when one was home in their state the other could be in Washington. Also, when it was time for re-election the one up for re-election could spend time campaigning and still have one in Washington. And of course, if one gets sick.",
"Another reason other than those suggested: no one person could possibly represent all of the people of a state and their opinions. In any political race, most of the time there's a significant portion of the population who didn't vote for the winner. Having two instead of one means that they can be of different parties, or at least have different opinions, leading to a greater variety of beliefs represented in the Senate."
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6etmhj | Why are some cities 'twinned' with eachother? What does it mean for cities to be 'sister cities'? | For example: Lucca, Tuscany is paired with Colmar, France. Birmingham, UK is paired with Chicago, USA and Leipzig, Germany. | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Wow! Something I can actually answer. I do a lot of translation work for news articles and documents for this in China, so my scope will be limited to China and some of its own cities and their sister cities. The sister city program is a way for smaller cities (usually not Tier 1, which was a lot less until a few weeks ago) to get their name out in a country or region by pairing with another city in some way or another, promising better rates and opportunities for business, investors, entrepreneurs, and other notables between the two cities. It helps to foster a bond that will hopefully reap economic benefits sometimes in the near future. They provide opportunities for students and other citizens with potential to visit schools and universities in their partner to help foster studying abroad and communication that, again, they will hope will foster economic connections and benefits later. One of the more notable ones is Lodz, Poland (I think) and Chengdu being sister cities, which led to the first direct train route being built between the two cities, allowing for a lot more trade to happen between the region and Chengdu, which being a Tier 2 city, did not get some of the benefits cities like Beijing or Shanghai were privy to. Then, more direct routes from their respective airports opened up and have led to a more direct connection, both metaphorically and physically.",
"It is a way to create greater diplomatic connection on a local level. It is something that became popular after WWII with the general idea being that people would be much less likely to violently murder each other if they knew the people on the other side as more than faceless enemy. They created partnerships between towns in different countries and organized cultural exchanges on a local level. Usually the partner towns are similar in size and have something in common. Sometimes the something can be that both towns have an economy based on the same industry. Sometimes it can be something like the reason Coventry and Dresden became twin cities: They were both bombed a lot during the war.",
"I actually had a first hand experience with city twinning. I was part of a cultural artist exchange program between the cities of Detroit and Turin, Italy. The cities are sister cities due to their respective relationships to the auto industry. The project was officially endorsed by the cities mayors and universities. The universities funded our travel. It was an exchange between musicians and visual artists from the two cities. I went to Turin twice and hosted a photographer from Italy here in detroit several times. It was one of the amazing experiences of my life. It lasted a few years and by the time it was over we had put on some concerts and exhibitions in each city, and I made great new friends in Italy who I later revisited and stayed with.",
"I live in Bundaberg, Queensland, Australia and our sister city is Nanning, China. They send reps here for chinese new year and they give a speech. We send school kids over there for cultural exchange. And some of the Nanning investors are going to invest in some of our local farms, or so we're promised.",
"Many years ago I ran the Sister Cities program for a major US city that had 6 sister cities. In that city, at least, the programs were initiated by groups of citizens who wanted to create exchanges, each for different reasons. Most were cultural, but some involved business exchanges. Some groups petitioned the city to make new Sisters in order to make a political statement. At that time that I was there, the city put very little money and effort into supporting the exchanges, which were mostly arranged and financed by the citizen groups running them. So each program was only as active as the citizen group. The Sisters in other countries had differing levels on interest, too. In some, the Mayor's office was very interesting in the exchanges, spent a lot of money and worked very hard to promoted the connection. In other cities you could barely get anyone from the Mayor's staff to answer the phone. In my time at that job I helped to coordinate student exchanges, performances by artists from the Sister Cities, a couple of trade shows. The program was not very active. The bottom line is that each program is different, depending on the parties involved.",
"Twinning cities is meant as a way of cultural exchange. Our town is twinned with a town in France and one in the UK, and we have trips to the twin cities, student exchange, we celebrate special holidays of the twinned cities country (e.g. we have a Guy Fawkes night here, although without fireworks). I have to admit that I am a member of the twinning committee for the English city, not the French, so I have no idea what they are doing.",
"Sister cities, as mentioned elsewhere, are about joint economic growth and partnership. I won't delve into that because there's already been a great response on it. Twinned cities don't always mean anything besides diplomacy, if that. Certainly in the UK it's largely just a hangover from the war, where it was believed that getting two countries heavily involved with one another would make another war less likely. Twin *cities* will often promote cultural and commercial links and perhaps even international business links, but for the most part twin *towns* (and villages) don't really have any connections besides in name. E.g. my hometown of Crawley, population ~100,000 in the UK is twinned with Dorsten, population ~80,000 in Germany. And yet, I'm guessing maybe 1 in 20 people from either town would be able to tell you that. If you're familiar with how the concept of the EU came about - fostering cultural and financial ties between nations in order to encourage peace and not have another war in Europe - it's basically the same thing at a more local level, although each twinning program is independent and don't necessarily mean anything at all.",
"Just a clarification to all the other great comments on here: What you're asking about are sister cities, which is, like /u/darcmosh explained, when two cities that are far from each other decide to establish friendly economic/diplomatic/educational/whatever ties. These are different from places that call themselves \"twin cities\" (like Minneapolis and St. Paul) or \"tri-cities\" (like Richland, Pasco, and Kennewick, WA), which are just cities that are close to each other, and have just kind of grown to the point where they all run together.",
"Oakville, Ontario is twinned with several different cities. First, in 1957, they were twinned with Dorval, Quebec. One of Oakville's major streets is named after Dorval. Then, in 1984, Oakville twinned with Neyagawa, Japan. There is also a street named Neyagawa, which is close to Dorval. Finally, and most recently, Oakville twinned with Huai'an, China in 2012. There has yet to be a street named after Huai'an. The incentives towards twinning mostly seem to be economic, though there is a strong social incentive of promoting cooperation and understanding between distant groups of people. Source 1: I work in Oakville. Source 2: [Here.]( URL_0 )",
"I live in Boring, Oregon and our sister city is Dull, Scotland. I think we're sister cities because our names are quite depressing.",
"Toledo, Ohio and Toledo, Spain are sister cities. They are actually the oldest formally recognized sister-city relationship in the world.",
"Paris and Rome are sister cities, because; > \"Only Paris is worthy of Rome; only Rome is worthy of Paris.\"",
"I live in an area that had a lot of German immigration in the 19th century. In fact, you can still find a lot of churches and old buildings with German written into the stone. Some of these communities have German \"sister cities\" in Germany. I always thought it was a neat way to keep that heritage, even if those families have been in the US for well over a century now. (I, in fact, am a descendant of 19th century German immigrants to this area. Admittedly, I feel far enough removed that I've never been interested in \"German Heritage\") Another interesting use. In Missouri, there are two smallish cities that are colloquially called \"The Twin Cities\". They are Festus, MO and Crystal City, MO. They are actually right next to each other and if it weren't for the sign, you wouldn't know where one ended and the other began. Businesses and homes sort of overlap each. Even the main thoroughfare with small businesses flanking each side goes through both \"cities\". So you can go to a shop in Festus, and walk next door (attached buildings no less) to a shop in Crystal City. They each have their own mayor, their own emergency services, etc. Although kids in Crystal City go to Festus Schools.",
"In theory its to share cultural exchanges with foreign cities after WWII and help in reconciliation. In reality it means rate payer funded junkets for council members. The more twin cities in desirable or exotic locations, the better...",
"I may not know all the technical or financial reasoning behind it but... Boston is paired with my home city, Belfast (N. Ireland). It is also paired with Nashville and Hefei (China). As taken from this source about the Boston connection: URL_0 \"The agreement is designed to foster stronger economic development, trade and investment, tourism, youth, cultural, faith based exchange and educational linkages between the two cities, and to increase awareness of both cities as being growth cities in the connected health and life sciences, creative industries, tourism, financial services and the knowledge economy sectors.\" But closer to my heart, The Boston connection was benefical for us Ice Hockey fans in Belfast. We have since gotten to host 2 amazing tournaments known as the Friendship Four. 4 NCAA Ice Hockey teams from the US come over to us and play 2 games on a Friday for points in the league. On Saturday, they play again (Winner plays Winner) to win the 'Tournament'. This is the first time I am aware of but nearly certain ever... that an Ice Hockey NCAA game was broadcast from outside of the US. Pretty cool for us riotous muckers.",
"Bureaucrats like to travel. And the best way to travel is when someone else pays the bill. Instead of doing actual job and helping their community, bureaucrats find a 'twin' town or city - probably on the other side of the planet, where they can travel to 'observe how things are done' and have 'fruitful discussions' - what mostly translates to bills to be paid by the taxpayer. Basically officials travel, meet each other, eat good food, do sightseeing and have various banquets - what translates to mostly nothing, since not much real work is done: those are basically vacations sponsored by the taxpayers. Process of finding a twin town generally happens when the towns have big enough budgets to sponsor such travels, the explanations are mostly nonsensical: \"other towns are doing it\" or \"having a twin town can be useful in case of a natural disaster\" (as if other towns could not help without the partnership), while the underlying cause is human greed.",
"Follow-up, what about twin cities like Minneapolis-St Paul?",
"I don't know if they're officially twinned, but Montreal is absolutely the French Canadian Boston. City feels the same, roads feel the same, getting flipped off and cursed out as you get passed while doing 90mph feels the same.",
"Halifax, Nova Scotia is twinned with Hakodate, Japan because both are port cities and both have historical star-shaped forts in the centre of each city.",
"The relationship with Warsaw, Chicago's first sister city, was established in 1960. Polish language is the third largest language spoken in Chicago.....so lots of immigrants from certain part of the world coincides with those types of 'sister cities' connections.",
"It seems to be a \"hey, lets be friends\" thing with occasional publicity more than anything else. The town I grew up in was twinned with Hellovoetsluis in Belgium and Hameln in Germany. I went to Hameln on an exchange trip (brilliant place). fun story - when I first heard that we were 'twinned' with Hameln (the belgian town came later, i think) I was about 5 and I honestly believed that it was exactly the layout except mirrored (because they drive on the right hand side of the road compared with our left)",
"Aviles (a small coastal city in the principate of Asturias, Spain) is the sister city of St Augustine, FL. This is so because Pedro Menendez (the Gentleman that founded St. Augustine which also happens to be the first permanent settlement in the US) Sailed off from there. The sisterhood is mostly social and cultural in nature. For example both cities will gift historical pieces to each other. For example: The cities gifted each other this mural commemorating the sistership URL_1 Aviles for example also gifted St. Augustine a replica of their iconic seven head fountain in front of the Franciscan church Aviles: URL_2 St. Augustine: URL_0 In St. Augustine there are numerous references (in the way of street names and landmarks) Not so much in Aviles",
"The organization was established by Eisenhower in 1956. Here's the link to their website for further reading. URL_0",
"It can mean very similar layouts. It can mean it shares partnerships with other cities at local government levels. My city is Adelaide and we have sister cities all over the world. Here is a website with some more information (Video) about it URL_0",
"Cleveland OH - Gdańsk Poland, no idea what benefits are there in the deal but it's very cool to see a sign in downtown grandkids pointing to Cleveland.",
"I don't really understand it, but from living in Chicago, and traveling to Munich, it's sister city. There is a definite cultural understanding each place has for one another. Like doing German festivals in Chicago and vice versa. I am sure it was a unity thing after ww2, or the type of immigrants to a city. But it has deeper roots then that. These cities were matched by population, economy's that could help each other, and to a lesser degree longitudinal placement means similar weather patterns as well. Most small cities/large towns have a sister city.",
"Can add a little something, after reunification, a lot of cities and towns in the former DDR (East Germany) were twinned with cities in the old West Germany to help foster bonds economically and socially, and tear down the mental divide for people aka \"die Mauer im Kopf\"",
"It doesn't really mean anything. It's just a way to encourage people from one city to look into the other. Sometimes the cities send each other stuff from the government. There are statues from my city's \"sister\" around town. But if you never knew about sister cities you wouldn't really miss out on anything.",
"In the U.K. the number of towns twinned with EU towns increased to foster greater interaction with the EU when it was created from the EEC. I live in Huntingdon which is twinned with Wertheim-am-Main in Germany (there's a road called Wertheim Way) and Szeged in Hungary (there's no Szeged St cos no one can pronounce it apparently)",
"To add on to what others have said, the US has sister states as well. For example, Colorado and Hawaii. I'm at University in Colorado, and I'm actually shocked by how many Hawaiians we have. We supposedly have a tuition reciprocity program where Coloradoans/Hawaiians can attend Hawaiian/Colorado universities under in-state status. This shouldn't be confused with other reciprocity programs between Colorado and New Mexico though",
"Leeds in the UK is twinned with a city in Germany and in the centre of Leeds we have A massive statue of a German man carrying a barrel. Then once every year near Christmas we have the German market where Germans come over and everyone has their own market stall where they cook cheese and other food and everyone just gets very drunk in a massive tent drinking German beer.",
"Hi! My job used to be managing two sister city relationships for a city here in Japan! AMA! My understanding of the sister city program is as follows: - The program was originally started as a post-WW2 to heal the relationship between USA and Japan, but after that saw so much success, the idea was spread all over the world. - The main mission of the sister city program is to try to work towards world peace by building friendships between not just the cities, but the actual citizens themselves. - The level of activity and kinds of activity for each sister city varies a lot from relationship to relationship. - In my city, the mayors took turns visiting each other's city every 5 years, usually accompanied by their non-government sister city volunteer organization. - Activities included student groups, choir and performance exchanges (both amateur and professional), donation of commemorative items for parks, etc. - Student groups and the youth music exchange groups were particularly meaningful. When the young people communicated through the international languages of friendship, fun, goofing off, and music they easily formed deep bonds with each other. Within the sister city relationship, there were also sister schools, and many times the same families would take turns accepting each other's children as homestays. *It was very easy for me to see how they were forming bonds and ties and that it was truly inching the world forward away from war and hate and towards peace and love. * Being the coordinator for these kinds of things was a lot more stress than you would think, just getting everything sorted out in advance, but when I saw the kids say goodbye to each other and they were just crying and crying, and when I heard the children from both cities singing together, it made it all worth it.",
"I'm so happy to run across this post. Many people do not know these sister city relationships exist. And as someone said earlier, some cities like mine don't really provide funding at all for it and it's completely run by volunteers here except one staff person. Denver and Brest, France became sister cities after world war 2 when a teacher from Denver's east high school visited Brest which was completely destroyed after the war because the Germans were occupying it and the allies bombed it. The teacher from Denver started a fundraiser and raised enough money to build a children's hospital for Brest. This is the first Sister City of Denver and the second in the nation, started in 1948 and still continues to this day. We do exchanges for high school students every year and will take adult every year from Denver to Brest, France. With a cool route from Paris-Brest , journeying through beautiful Normandy and Brittany. In Brest there is a street named after Denver. Rue De Denver and in Brest there is a park called Brest Park. I think Eisenhower started it and it used to be called people to people. Many people still don't know Brest Park has anything to do about the Sister City so this year we will propose something to bring awareness about the relationship and history. Im excited out trip to Brest France starts Monday. URL_0 Lastly, ill give it up to the volunteers in Denver that make this possible and the one full time staff member. This is an organization that needs more support from the City of Denver, it does such great work for young people to visit another country where the people have a city connection in common. In Brest they put more of a financial investment into their committee. The deputy mayor of Brest visited Denver recently and the Denver mayor has been invited to visit Brest and had to decline this year. Hope he goes soon... Join your local sister city committee it's a great way to meet new people internationaly!"
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6eubio | When faced with the reality that a belief/thought is somehow flawed or just plain wrong why do most people ignore all evidence to the contrary and become even more aligned to said beliefs? | Third time attempting to post this without it being rejected! My question isn't so much how do people believe in certain things (such as religious faith) but more about how people can take a stance or a belief about a topic and then when faced with very clear evidence to the contrary they seem to hold onto their flawed idea/belief with even more fervour. I can give examples from current events in the US but the auto-moderator will boot this question :) General examples would be people who believe in conspiracy theories - not that they believe in the theories but when presented with evidence that would essentially crush the key idea or belief they will just ignore it. Where people protest and demand respect, non-violence, to be heard, etc.... while not allowing others to speak, being aggressive, and just acting in opposition to what they are requesting but can't see this fact. I might believe all elephants are blue and you could show me thousands of google images and bring me to a zoo and I might say something like "No... these are clearly a different breed of elephant, the ones I'm talking about are blue...." Psychologically what happens? Is it ego? Some sort of protection mechanism? Is there a name for it? How do people see very clear evidence to the contrary and completely ignore it? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"> Some sort of protection mechanism? Yes. People's beliefs are tied up into their identity. Anything that threatens to change their beliefs is felt as a personal attack. This makes evidence to the contrary emotionally painful and easier/safer to disregard entirely or find a way to contradict some part of it. The harder people are pushed to change the more they retreat into themselves and the more convinced they become of their already held belief. There is no easy fix to this but if your goal is to change minds, focus on parts they have correct or at least tell them you understand them. \"I agree with you that ______, however, ______\" or \"I understand how you could think that but did you know ______\""
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6euf97 | Generally speaking, why are conservatives so opposed to the concept of climate change? | Defying all common sense, it's almost a religious-level aversion to facts. What gives? Is it contrarianism, because if libs are for it they have to be against it? Is it self-deception? Seriously, what gives? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"A combination of corporate influence on public policy and a growing anti-science sentiment among American conservatives that is fueled (perhaps simultaneously intentionally and unintentionally) by religion, media, and access to the Internet. How we wound up with this mess took decades to coalesce. The corporate influence is the easiest to explain. Many large industries, including the energy industry, have traditionally viewed environmental regulation negatively, as additional regulation can create additional expense for industries, particularly in the short-term. This has put most large industries on the side of the Republican party which has traditionally been a proponent of smaller government and, thus, less regulation. So corporations that view additional regulation negatively throw their financial support behind Republican candidates that will vote against environmental regulation (and other types of regulation as well). The Republicans typically spin this as \"More regulation = higher expenses for companies = less jobs,\" while ignoring that throughout history the shift to newer and better technologies leads to economic growth and better-paying, higher skilled jobs. I.e., yes, we may have fewer horse groomer and wheelwright jobs now than we had before we made the switch from horse & buggy to automobiles, but those losses were more than made up for by the millions of jobs in manufacturing that came with the switch. Likewise, we will lose, for example, coal miner jobs as we move away from carbon fuels, but we'll wind up with millions of new jobs in newer, greener industries. However, that's not much consolation to the coal mining communities of West Virginia and their elected representatives and the coal companies that support and lobby them, though. So those representatives vote against progress. That part is fairly simple and straightforward and has played itself out over and over in the history of American politics. Eventually, progress wins (mostly). Where it gets trickier is when religion and media get mixed into it. Science has always had it's religious detractors (just ask Galileo), but until the mid-20th century there wasn't a lot of *direct* conflict between religion and science in the American political theater (mostly because religion held sway). However, science really picked up steam in the 20th century and started having amazing positive impacts on people's daily lives, increasing its acceptance in society and, subsequently, knocking religious/scriptural explanations of how the world works back on its heels. This gave rise to a fundamentalist evangelical Christian movement in the US that has a strong anti-science bent, as much science contradicts scripture. It particularly took off in the late 70's and the 80's, but you can see elements of it back to the 50's and earlier. Organizations like The Moral Majority strengthened religious opposition on scientific and science-related issues abortion, stem cell research, evolution, etc. to the point of things like preventing evolution from being taught in some school districts (or requiring that creationism be taught along with it). Since fundamentalist, evangelical Christians disproportionately identify as Republicans these issues became core components of the Republican platform. Concurrently with this, there was a growing backlash among conservatives against universities, as colleges and universities, particularly in the 1960's, were seen (not incorrectly) as having been a hotbed of liberalism that generated significant support for the civil rights movement, the women's movement, the opposition to the Vietnam war, and other liberal / Democratic issues. And where does science come from? Universities. So science gets branded with the scarlet letter of Liberalism by association. That adds to conservative distrust. And it's in the 70's and 80's where -- at least in my opinion -- stuff starts to really get murky. You have the corporate funders of Republican candidates pushing back against environmental regulations that limit their short-term profits. You have Christian fundamentalists pushing back against particular fields of science that contradict scripture. You have mainstream Republicans pushing back against liberalism in universities, and eventually, in primary and secondary school, which influences the Christian fundamentalists and spawns the home-schooling movement and the school vouchers movement (to use public money to send kids to private religious schools). **This all comes together in a weird mix of growing skepticism on the right about both science and education.** I think the corporate funders *picked up on this* and started backing candidates that expressed those skeptical, anti-science views because that landed them more Republican voters, hopefully more successful Republican candidates winning seats to get them (the corporations) more representation in government ... which then supports into their anti-regulation stance. **So somewhere in that late-20th century political realm, religious skepticism about science got in bed with corporate anti-environmental-regulation interests and that anti-regulation, anti-science combo made a powerful mix for getting Republican candidates elected.** And then, in the next decade, the nineties, you introduce the expanded role of media -- particularly 24/7 cable news -- and the Internet into the mix. What this does is create echo chambers, so that the population that is voting for these anti-regulation, anti-science candidates can now get all of their information exclusively from sources (e.g. Fox News Channel and conservative websites) that support and reinforce the same anti-regulation, anti-science positions that they hold. That's how we wind up with a whole political party that not only regularly ignores science and logic, but goes through all sorts of mental gymnastics to come up with alternative explanations that, though having no basis in fact, can be piped through the echo chamber to strengthen their hold on their political base. If you [look at the data]( URL_2 ), from the early 70's onward, except for a small bounce in the 80's under Reagan but *particularly* from the 1992 election onward, there has been a pretty continuous decline of trust in science among people who identify as conservative. (Source of that chart is [this article]( URL_0 ).) I used to think that Republican candidates were just in the pocket of Big Business, and took anti-science stances to keep their corporate campaign donations rolling in. But increasingly I think the Republican candidates that are getting elected now came up and were educated in the political environment of the last 40 years that I described above and _**actually** don't believe in science_ at all ... or believe it's a liberal conspiracy ... or at the least are selective in what science they are willing to believe. That's *really* chilling. This is a troubling position for our country to be in. The one ray of hope that I see is that, in the long-term, corporations know that they have to invest in science to continue to grow and be relevant. [Even Exxon Mobile and ConocoPhillips, the two largest US oil & gas companies, urged Trump not to abandon the Paris Accord]( URL_1 ). Of course, that may have just been a PR move, since they had nothing to lose at that point. But they *are* global companies and know that _they must make the shift to different energy sources **anyway**_ to continue to sell into the global economy. I expect that at some point in the next 5-10 years, the corporations that fund the Republicans will be well on their way to making the switch to greener energy policies to stay competitive in the global marketplace and will be driving the Republican candidates they fund *away* from those climate change-denial policies that they drove them *toward* for the last 30 years because the corporations are going to want those sweet, sweet government tax dollars to pay for their conversion to greener sources. That does not bode well for Republicans. Republicans benefited over the last 40-50 years from an anti-science alignment between corporate interests and the religious interests of their base. But that anti-science -- particularly climate science -- stances on the part of American corporations was inevitably destined to be temporary. As soon as the rest of the world -- *and the rest of the world's corporations* -- get on board with greener technologies, the corporations will toss the religious Conservatives to the curb quicker than you can say \"quarterly earnings report.\" EDIT: Thanks for the gold, kind stranger!",
"Well first you have to separate anthropogenic climate change and climate change. Almost nobody on the planet denies that the climate is changing, but there's more than enough scientific data to suggest that we have been over-attributing CO2s significance to the change. Observed temperatures have been rising much slower than the majority of models predicted, not seeming to correlate with rising CO2 at all. There are emerging theories for why this is, but the global warming propagandists call these legitimate scientists \"deniers\" if they suggest that climate change is anything but a human-caused apocalypse. This is why countries in the Paris agreement actually believe they can stop the climate from changing and restrict warming to two degrees, which is of course ludicrous and wholly unscientific.",
"By conservatives, do you mean US conservatives? Because conservative parties in other Western nations don't debate contemporary climate change or its human origin very much.",
"It's not necessarily the science of climate change that conservatives are opposed to, it's the policies that are being proposed *in response* to the perceived threat of climate change. In general, conservatives favor less government control over their lives, especially from governments that are far removed from them and that they have little control over. Climate change, being a global issue, is an issue commonly taken up by international organizations like the UN, organizations that conservatives are already opposed to. On a more domestic level, nearly all the policies that have been proposed to deal with the predicted effects of climate change involve more taxes and more regulation, which are also things that conservatives are already opposed to. So, from the onset, there is already an inherent bias (on both sides). That bias has been cemented by climate change policy proponents unwittingly subverting their cause by repeatedly and increasingly overstating their case in order to back policy proposals that are usually incredibly flawed and aren't actually a solution to the proposed problem.",
"Most of the proposed solutions to climate change involve heavy regulation to limit carbon emissions and move away from fossil fuels to cleaner energy. Conservatives oppose regulation and government interference in corporate business.",
"This may not exactly answer your question, but I have some conservative friends that were strongly against the Paris Climate Agreement. This had nothing to do with whether or not they believed in man-made climate change. They do. These guys are smart engineers, scientists even! It had more to do with what they felt the role of the Federal Government should be. They site the Kyoto Protocol - which was the predecessor to Paris Climate Agreement. The US never signed it, yet was able to meet/exceed all the goals of reducing greenhouse emissions based on market forces and *local (state) governments* regulations. The nations that didn't meet the goals were fined by the UN. The involved nations still had to help finance the lesser developed nations get their shit in order. US came out on top. And that's kind of what Paris is in their minds. We'll get our shit done anyways based on state laws and regulations (many states are creating a Climate Pact atm including NY and CA) and market forces, so why do we have to pay for.. Bangladesh to modernize their energy systems? From that perspective, I sort of get it. However, I argue the deal makes sense. See, we're *all* fucked if climate goals fall flat - so we risk a little financing as an insurance. Playing 'chicken' with the fate of the planet is terrifyingly retarded."
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6euilg | How did someone like Duterte rise to the power in the philippines ? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"It really comes down to the fact that the Philippines has had a massive problem with drug usage in the past several decades. Along with that is a prosperous organized crime epidemic. Rodrigo Duterte, while he was mayor of Davao, did manage to get rid of a lot of the towns drug problems. Yes, he did it through murder and a litany of questionable methods, but he still did it. At some point a problem or a set of problems becomes large enough that a population will take drastic measures and throw morality and justice out the window. This is what happened in the Philippines and some in the US would argue here as well with Donald J Trump and the hollowing out of industrial America, but lets not get into that. If any ~~Philippinos~~ Filipinos are here, they will probably answer much better than I have as my perspective is maybe over simplistic."
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6evngr | Religion. Honestly I don't understand it. | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"People want answers. But what are the questions? Things like these: What is the meaning of life? Why are we here? Who made us? Who made the universe? Do I go somewhere when I die? What is good? What is evil? Religion answers all (or at least one) of these questions and more while giving peoples' lives a purpose and structure."
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6ewoxc | what exactly are 'Daddy issues' and their cause | I consider myself a somewhat educated man, but I hear this phrase thrown around a lot, especially in refferencing to porn and 'needy women'. Can someone give me a more detailed description of the causes and effects please, thanks. | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"The idea is that a woman will have unresolved issues with her dad that she unconsciously tries to work out or repeat with the romantic relationships she has with men. For example, let's say a woman's father left her family while she was growing up. In her dating future she could be afraid that her boyfriend would leave her, so she would either be emotionally distant to soften the anticipated pain or she would act extra clingy in hopes that she'd convince him not to leave. I think there's validity to this idea, but I object to the term and how people only apply it to women. We all act out our fears and anxieties in healthy or unhealthy ways. It isn't a gender issue at all.",
"This particular term usually refers to girls who had absentee, or disinterested fathers growing up. So later in life, they are sexually promiscuous with older men in order to satisfy that need to have a father figure in their life. This also has never been confirmed in the DSM, so a lot of it just speculation. However, men also experience this. My personal experience was that my father was more interested in my sports star sister than his introverted book worm son (me.). So later in life, I started hanging out with older guys, whom I eventually became friends with, I would go out of my way to make myself \"useful\" in their eyes so they would keep me around, because I never had a good relationship with my father (and I still don't).",
"Some significant percentage of people, usually subconsciously, seek out a mate that reminds them of the opposite sex of their parents. So men seek out women who act like their moms, women seek out men who act like their dads. This isn't universal, but it happens often enough to become a stereotype. There's probably a gay equivalent, maybe a gay chap could chime in - do gay men seek out men who act like their dads or moms? Anyway, if a woman/man has unresolved issues with their father/mother and they seek out people 'like dad/mom' then they are going to project the same issues on their mate - even if they don't flat out seek out a mate with the same issues. Daddy issues are more prevalent than mommy issues because to some extent dad's cause more issues than moms. Mothers are very, *very, **VERY** attached to their babies and tend to cause them less rejection issues (but it does happen). You can thank a million years of evolution for that. So 'daddy' issues mean that a woman has issues with her dad rejecting/whatever her and she seeks out a man who perpetuates the problem because that's what's she's lacked her whole life. Men often have 'mommy' issues but they tend to be unique to having an overly attached mom, rather than an overly distant dad, and thus present different symptoms. Daddy's Princess is distinct from a Momma's Boy.",
"All the answers I read are great but daddy issues could also mean a girl never learned how a man should properly treat her and so can at times allow herself to settle for less than she deserves because she has no example in her life to use as a guide...same can be said of boys that grow up without a dad, they don't have that figure as a guide of how they should act, feel etc...and so they end up kind of just having to wing it and learn what does and doesn't work along the way."
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6ex4s9 | What is the difference between a kingdom and an empire? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"To put it very simply, a kingdom is ruled by a King or Queen, an empire is ruled by an Emperor or Empress. Queen Elizabeth, for a while, was Empress of India. Fun fact. Kingdoms are usually smaller, with only one major ethnic group, and localized in a smaller area. Take the Kingdom of Britain for example. It was really just Britain-- Not Ireland or Scotland or Wales, just Britain. All the people in it were British. Then you have empires, which are usually much much larger in scope, and usually contain many ethnic groups from all over the place. Take the Roman Empire for example. It stretched all the way from Britain all the way over to Babylon, and all the way south to Egypt. It had Egyptians, Spaniards, English, French, German, Persians... well, everybody really. Empires are huge, Kingdoms are small."
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6exmtg | How does government sanctioned marriage benefit society? Why can't people who love each other just live together without meaningless vows and signed paperwork? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"People who love each other can totally live together without vows and paperwork - plenty of people do so their entire lives without any legal documents needed. However, from a government/legal point of view, a marriage is basically a contract that gives both people certain rights, so the government does need to have it sanctioned and regulated in some way to ensure that these contracts are fair and correct. Being married has a lot of specific legal perks - joint tax filing, next of kin rights, social security and IRA benefits, inheritance without taxes (or a will), etc. Because these are really specific and the kinds of things that people can commit serious fraud over, a legal marriage has to be licensed and filed with the government - if it's not on paper, these aren't valid. Here's a classic example: let's say that a guy dies suddenly without a will, leaving behind his longtime partner (but not wife - they never married), along with 2 kids from a previous relationship. Generally, that estate will be split between his two kids, and his partner wouldn't be entitled to anything (she would need to have been in his will to get anything). If there's a marriage contract, it tells the government \"Oh, he legally wanted her to have inheritance rights\" and she would be entitled to up to half, with the rest split between the kids (in most jurisdictions).",
"Vows aren't meaningless to the people who make them. They are a commitment made in front of other people who both witness and commemorate the event. Marriage is also a set of promises and a contract that government both sanctions and helps enforce.",
"Government sanctioned marriage comes with certain economic benefits (tax breaks are one of them) but if we're talking \"being legally married makes people less angry\" benefits, I don't think there's any benefit to having law-based marriages as opposed to commonwealth or \"informal\" marriages. IMO as a sociologist, the government creating marriage laws is a reflection of the cultural significance that's placed on marriage as well as the increase in bureaucracy within our modern societies. It's hard to know if governments decided to make marriage a form of law and that caused people to think getting legally married is important, or if society said getting married was important so it was made into a law when governments were formed. I think it was the latter, but I don't have any real proof of it.",
"Beyond the legalities of inheritance, there is a social benefit to promoting marriage. Marriage tends to be stabilizing force within a society. A nuclear family is more likely to successfully raise children into productive members of society. Studies also show that married people live longer, healthier, and more mentally stable lives than single people do. By offering extra benefits for married couples, the government is incentivizing people to get married, and thus society as a whole benefits.",
"First, people live together without getting married. Vows are a religious rather than a government thing, and plenty of people get married without being religious, so I'm just going to tackle the government part. \"Marriage\" is basically a way of saying \"this person makes joint decisions with me.\" It is assumed that you are closest with your spouse than any other person and that you share everything, including a home and other assets. Why do married couples file joint taxes? Because it's assumed they pooled their money into a common account. Why does one spouse automatically inherit if the other dies without a will? Because it's assumed that all their stuff was shared between them and so it's basically that spouse's stuff already anyway. Why is a spouse automatically next of kin in the absence of another arrangement? Because it's assumed that you trust this person to make decisions with you, and thus *for* you if you're incapacitated. Is it possible to have these benefits without marriage? Certainly. But it would *increase* the amount of paperwork you'd do, not lessen it. Think about having to fill out a separate form for every benefit that marriage provides, including long contracts giving someone medical power of attorney and combining assets (that was the reality for gay people prior to 2015). It's easier to have the government just give you all the rights at once, in one document (the marriage certificate). Incidentally, it's also possible to do the inverse, such as legally being married but leaving everything to someone who isn't your spouse. But again, that requires more paperwork (writing a will) instead of going with the default.",
"> Why can't people who love each other just live together without meaningless vows and signed paperwork? You can do this. (The vows btw are the religious side). Some places have common law marriage, but many are starting to get rid of it, or don't. CL comes back from the days when poor people didn't really get officially married. > ELI5: How does government sanctioned marriage benefit society? At the end of the day, marriage (legally) is a standardized contract. When you get married, you're entitled to certain benefits that we've decided you deserve. Similar to how if you buy stocks, you have certain protections. It benefits society because we've decided people deserve those benefits (for example, the right to visit your SO in the hospital,next of kin, etc). Basically, marriage is saying \"yes, we are serious enough that if i get into an accident, i want them to have control over my healthcare decisions, not my parents. They know my wishes better\" You could say people should do separate contracts, but the reality is a lot of people don't. Or it's extremely hard to verify. Just ask anyone who had an agreement, but wasn't married, you need to show the paperwork. The last thing you want is to be scrambling for paperwork when your SO is on life support and could pass at any moment. So it benefits individuals (who are part of society), and the government from having to figure all these details out. It's a pain in the ass to figure out inheritance, or next of kin medical decisions etc, without a well laid out method. > As for inheritance, without governmental recognition, it would come down to the will, which people would necessarily be more careful about, and encouraged by their partners to have in place. I don't think you realize how messy these things can be. They can turn into slug fests, quickly. And if they aren't done, at the end of the day, the court has to make a decision anyway. It might as well have a streamlined default method. That's why things like wills,prenups etc exist- so you can change the default if it doesn't apply to you. But it still helps to have a default instead of nothing. > In other words, if the financial benefits were removed completely, Even if you get rid of the tax deduction stuff, stuff like tax for inheritance is important. Part of marriage is that legally, they become family. For obvious reasons, we allow gifts between family members (up to an amount). People would be pretty pissed if they got taxed every time they transferred funds. You'd also have an incentive for some creative tax dodging. A husband would have to gift it to the child (who doesn't have control of it), and then they gift it to the mother. That's convoluted and also dumb. The ability to help out family is an extremely old tradition. side note: There's also the ugly historical side, where it was used as a way to prevent certain types of marriage (interracial, same-sex). You couldn't prevent 2 gay people from getting married if it was just a religious ceremony. Ironically, this is starting to backfire, but the history is still there."
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6exy9w | Ayn Rands Philosophy and why it's frowned upon | I have read The Fountainhead and I really enjoyed it. Also, I think her points were pretty good but maybe I didn't get it. | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"I was drawn in by the Fountainhead as well when I was 18 or 19. It makes basic sense the idea that each person should just take care of themselves and everyone would be fine. About a year after I read the Fountainhead I read Atlas shrugged. Longer story but same basic principles apply. As I became an adult I began to get some cognitive dissonance over some of the things that we practiced and preached in there. Probably the biggest problem I have with her philosophy now is that it assumes that a free-market will allow the good businesses to drown out or quash the bad businesses or the cheating businesses. Reality is far from that. In fact it's quite the opposite. The cheating bad business collude to drown out the good players. You're left with fixed markets in little choice for the consumers. Also I began to realize that it's actually smart for society as a whole to put aside some money to take care of those that need help for example Health insurance. And the older I got the more I realized that we are not just a bunch of individuals. While we are all unique we also all share a common thread. We don't only need to act individually but also as a collective for the betterment of all of us. It didn't help that I found out that Ayn Rand happily accepted social security benefits. Also, to understand how she came up with these concepts that helps to understand where she came from. She came from pre-Revolution in Russia. Unlike most people, her family was doing very well under czarist Russia. The Russian revolution happened when she was a young girl and her family fled Russia. Understandably she was affected by this and it came to shape her reasoning. If you study her at all you'll find out that she seemingly had some pretty major issues. If you were going to be on her team or on her side you had to agree with her on everything if you disagreed over even the smallest point you were out. Lastly, finding out she idolized serial killer William Edward Hickman did it for me. I realized she was really just a woman with some problems with a world view shaped by her childhood. Also, as I got older I realized the guys that idolized her are so often know-it-all guys that so very often have little or no experience with women or raising kids but claim to know how everyone should be. Turns out I'm just too compassionate and close to normal to remain a Rand-er. URL_0",
"Ayn Rand's views are completely contrary to my own (personally I think she was a sociopath), but I've read The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged. I enjoyed the Fountainhead as well, despite my political views, simply because it's a good story with fairly compelling characters. Atlas Shrugged is more of a manifesto on her philosophy, which is essentially just pure selfishness. She believes that altruism, i.e. helping others, is evil. And that the only moral thing a person can do is care only for their own desires. It's frowned upon because that's the opinion of, at best, a very unpleasant person, and at worst, a dangerous psychopath. Atlas Shrugged is much more unabashed in displaying this ideology, so you should read that too to understand why she is frowned upon, because The Fountainhead isn't quite as... aggressive.",
"It attracted me as a high school student. I was an angst-ridden valedictorian who found myself validated by her characters. When I went to college and studied philosophy and religion more in depth, I quickly abandoned her ideas. She's fun to read but lacks the depth of other philosophers, and her philosophy has some gaping holes in it. A few examples of why philosophers typically ignore her: * Her philosophy only touches on politics and ethics but ignores the essential building blocks that most others use to get there: her system is fun but intellectually shallow. For instance, Kant offers ethics and political ideas like Ayn Rand, but he also overturns how we understand understanding itself in his \"Critique of Pure Reason\". Kant gets you to ethics by pointing out the difficulty of understanding things-as-they-are-in-themselves (his work on this is a real mindfuck when you get deep into it), whereas Ayn gets you there by saying \"Wouldn't it be nice if people were fully and only rational and self-serving?\" Her system is weaker because her foundations are less basic, less primal, and rely on shallower foundations than others. * Ayn Rand's ideas require perfectly rational and philosophically consistent people, and those don't exist. It's why pure communism fails beyond the small scale. All people are imperfect humans and make dumb, irrational decisions. The first Bioshock video game even offers an Ayn Randian dystopia, where everything goes horribly awry because (surprise), people aren't truly rational and ethically consistent. * Ayn Rand's system does little to overcome the [tragedy of the commons]( URL_0 ), which is a major problem of politics and economics. Her system fails because she incorrectly assumes rational self-interest will sort out all problems, but the tragedy of the commons is all about situations and times when rational self-interest is leads to undesirable outcomes or even self-destruction. Her system by-and-large cannot overcome this existential problem that faces every community in the long run. * She largely rejects government welfare programs as mooching, but that's more her ex-Soviet background speaking than anything else. The majority of homeless people in my home county were there due to unforeseeable medical emergencies but were previously major assets to the community. Under Rand's system, too bad so sad: get a loan, hope someone's self-interest leads them to be charitable, or die in the streets. Under a good social safety net, you hit a rough patch, are freely supported for a bit by the community, and then return to normal life and contributing to society. Also, think about this: robots have replaced factory workers, are slowly replacing drivers and accountants, and are close to outsmarting human doctors now too. Under Rand's system, the advancement of robotics would leave the vast majority of humans destitute, leading to civil unrest and wars, which again is unhealthy and unhelpful for a functioning human society. * Ayn Rand's novels celebrate geniuses who would succeed in fair competitions, but even if there were no governments, Howard Roark and friends could still be stomped by unscrupulous corporations. Life and people aren't fair: humans are not only often dumb and inconsistent but also major jerks. Nikolai Tesla was arguably smarter than and had the better electricity system compared to Thomas Edison, but Edison manipulated people to try to discredit and destroy the superior electricity system. The oil barons of the early 1900s did even crazier things to destroy their rivals, and they did a lot of it purely on their own by manipulating market forces and people's self-interest, no governments necessary. Now rather than rival inventors or old-timey oil barons, imagine you start up a brilliant new website in a world where no government exists to defend net neutrality. Comcast would steal your idea and restrict traffic to your website until you gave up, sold the rights to them for cheap, and went home broke. People are dicks and abuse their power, with or without government intervention, and again, Ayn Rand's system fails to prevent Comcast from dicking you and your startup company over. * EDIT: Stealing from the stack-exchange post, which is one of the best replies here, Rand also doesn't meet the philosophical standards of today's two major intellectual camps. Analytic philosophy prefers \"If A and B, then C unless D\" kinds of discussions of very specific questions, while the Continental school favors broader and more comprehensive/holistic discussions (I'm really weak with Continental philosophy, so I can't explain it well). She doesn't do either Analytic or Continental well and doesn't fully engage with other philosophers in a real way, mostly because she primarily advocates her ideas via stories and proverbs rather than via full and honest argumentation against rival philosophers. * There are certainly more problems with her philosophy than listed here, and it's been years since I've read her books, so I may have a few things wrong here. The crux of my objections is that her books are a fun read but not really that intellectually sustainable when you start stacking her up against other philosophers. My advice? Go read Plato's \"Republic\", Aristotle's \"Nicomachaen Ethics\", Adam Smith's utilitarian ethics, Kant's deontological ethics, Reinhold Niebuhr's \"Moral Man, Immoral Society\", some modern analytic philosophy essays, and a few other big-name philosophers of your choice for good measure. Then you'll probably start to see why Ayn Rand is looked down upon.",
"I mean, she effectively argues that there is no other worthwhile value than pursuing your own self interest and that the only morals worth having are those that enhance your ability to pursue your self interest. *A lot* of philosophers argue there are other ethical concerns beyond your own self interest and that her point of view is very superficial for a wide variety of reasons. I don't really think it's a stretch to see why a moral philosophy that literally rejects altruism as a worthwhile pursuit would be frowned upon.",
"Her philosophy was basically \"Only capitalism unfettered by any regulations or responsibility to the society at large is a valid system. All others are forms of slavery\". It assumes that supply and demand will just force everyone to act in society's best interests, and anyone who expects a government to do things like enforce safety and quality standards is a \"leech\" on the true and virtuous capitalist paragons who always know what's best. Under a system based on her philosophies, things like OSHA, or public assistance,subsidized loans, public education, public municipal services,etc are for freeloaders and thieves.",
"You can divide objections to Ayn Rand into roughly two categories: the reasonable and the unreasonable. Let's start with the unreasonable. Rand's philosophy is structured around the idea that people have no right to impose the costs of their personal moral philosophy on others. This is largely a reaction to her experience of the Soviet Union, but it really harkens back to Enlightenment era ideals. In her mind, an argument like \"we need to spend tax money on the homeless because it's morally right\" is a non-starter. If you have a moral vision of society, it's up to you to pay for it - not coerce other people into paying for it on your behalf. Many people object to this notion strongly because they have no counter-argument except to weakly protest \"but it's the right thing to do\" - the argument Rand just told you she rejects. People like this - and that's a large share of the citizenry - find that framing the issues this way makes them very, very uncomfortable. Pointing out that there's really no difference between \"we use state coercion to force you to pay for someone else's food\" and \"we use state coercion to penalize you for private, consensual sex of the 'wrong' variety\" on the basis of *morality* forces people to consider that their personal moral vision might not be absolute truth. On the other hand, there are *reasonable* objections. Rand's philosophy as derived from her works of fiction is, of course, *fictional*. Howard Roark and Dagny Taggart are not real people any more than Batman and Wonder Woman are. However, a surprising number of her supporters and detractors act as if such people really exist. Rand also doesn't explore much beyond the most basic levels of Enlightenment thought. She simply assumes that, absent evil, humans self-organize into functional societies. She never really considers the how the coercive force of government can be used to promote prosperity or how to sufficiently restrain it such that it's force not be abused - she's not an anarchist, but she's pretty close. So, from the standpoint of the philosopher, Rand is a bit of a yawn. She's not introducing anything numerous other people haven't said before and (in her non-fiction) she's really not doing justice to the philosophies she extols. In a sense, she's a 'pop intellectual' like Michael Moore or Noam Chomsky. There are people who view such folks as serious thinkers. But serious thinkers tend to view them as a bit of a joke.",
"Mostly because it fails at being internally consistent and being well reasoned. This stack overflow answer is very good: URL_0",
"Empathizing =/= justifying. Don't get me wrong here, I'm on your side because I agree that we can only thrive as a society when there is both self interest and the interest of others. Reading all the responses I've gotten all day has made me realize that she had very extreme beliefs that could not possibly work.",
"ELY5.... Some people don't like to share. They like Ayn Rand's philosophy because it says their selfishness is OK. Grown-up people realize sharing makes for a healthier society and frown upon greed.",
"I've studied and contemplated Ayn Rand's philosophy for over 15 years. Here's my **ELI5 of Objectivism:** Reality is what it is--facts are what they are--independent of anyone's wishes, hopes, or fears. This goes for cultures as well as individuals. Human beings can gain knowledge about reality only by using reason, which is based on sensory experience. Since contradictions can't exist in reality, if you arrive at a contradiction, you have made an error. Human beings have free will and must choose to act to sustain their own lives by their own choices. These choices need to be guided by morality in order to consistently support human life. Morality consists of principles akin to the principles of science, but applicable to the living of one's life generally. Moral virtue means sustaining one's life by reason-based action, (rationality.) The initiation of physical force is always destructive to human life, and, outside of some emergency situations, is immoral and always worse than not initiating force. Government should exist solely to protect individuals from initiations of force by others, such as robbery and murder. Genuine art is a re-creation of reality in such a way that it depicts the artist's basic view of life in a perceptible form. Technically good art performs this function well. Philosophically good art is art whose depiction matches the reality of human beings and their relationship to reality. Those are the very basic positions Objectivism takes. My [Introduction to Objectivism page]( URL_0 ) starts with an ELI5-friendly video, as well.",
"From what I have observed the philosophy of Ayn Rand still has to this day a massive following that is for the most part not the big bad that many seem to try to make it out to be. It is unapologetic in its base for sure but as an idea of how to live your life with others they seem to value the individual over the mob.This is probably where many have a problem with the philosophy, It say's that you are the final arbiter in your own life and need to treat yourself with the respect that in tales, but that doesn't really fit the narrative of original sin and we are our brothers keepers and all that. She did have an interesting way to look at the world and the way people interact if even not dated to the time she was writing in."
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6ey79y | What can congress people do with the money companies give them ? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"They use it for their campaigns to get re-elected. So they can spend it on TV commercials or fliers or lawn signs or to rent a giant bus with their name on the side and drive around the state or even to pay campaign staff. But they can't just take the money. Duncan Hunter, for example, allegedly did so, buying \"family travel, flights, utilities, health care, school uniforms and tuition, jewelry, groceries, and other goods, services, and expenses,\" and now he is apparently being investigated by the Justice Department."
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6eztfx | How is governing a state relevant to child rearing? | I was going through the text in tao te ching (pronounced 'dao de jing') by lao tzu when I came across this statement: 'child rearing is as closely connected to governing a state'. How come one can draw such a parallel between the two? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Both are situations where you have limited control over something you are supposed to protect, with the ultimate goal being that it is healthy enough to exist once you are done. A child has to go on and become a person beyond your influence in their adulthood, they have to maintain their own healthy system that can exist without you guiding them. A state has to go on and exist beyond your influence, they have to maintain an effective government that can exist without the founding father. This is why many nations seem to be in constant turmoil. The state becomes dependent on the leader and cannot exist once the die. The Founding Father(s) do not create a Constitution or outline to governmental procedure so without someone that officials and civil servants can turn to when a problem arises, there is no cohesive plan. Look at North Korea. It has no Constitution, it has no plan, the nation serves at the will of the Kim Dynasty. If Kim Jong-Un were to drop dead, they would not be able to hold the nation together because too many people would be competing. This is one of the problems that lead to Rome falling, too many politicians and generals trying to take control because there was no always a clear line of succession. Whereas with the USA the Founding Fathers spent years going over what to do in certain circumstances. This is what the Constitution is, a list of rules that people and government need to abide by. And why more amendments have been added over the years as more problems have come up and been dealt with, such as the 12th Amendment which outlines how to elect the President and Vice President and ensure a peaceful transition of power. Similarly you have to leave a child with a proper moral/ethical code to ensure that they know how to act in a given situation even if you aren't there to guide them yourself."
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6f0pkm | If someone's date of birth is unknown, how do they get a passport or any other kind of identification? | I'm thinking if someone doesn't have any proof or knowledge of when and where they were born, would they be able to get any kind of I.D? And if they do, what do they put under date of birth? Is it simply the best guess someone can make? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"I don't know of any laws or regulations that spell out what happens in his scenario, but I know in practical terms, at least where I live, they just estimate. There is a large immigrant population in my region who all have the first of January of estimated years as their date of birth on official forms of identification.",
"From my experience in my area, its very common for Somalian immigrants to not know their exact dob when they apply to move here. There are countless Somalians that were assigned dob's of 01/01/year. Seems like more recently they will at last stagger the birth month. Again, from my experience, Mexican legal and illegal immigrants/aliens have actual dob's. Knowing that, I would guess that very few countries overall don't keep birth records. You will likely never get a passport if you claim you don't know your dob, and you're from a country civilized enough that you have the luxury of accessing Reddit.",
"There was a Radio Lab, a podcast, recently talking about a women from a family that had all their kids at home no doctors. She finally left the family when she was 18. But doesn't have a social security number or a birth certificate. She then has a huge legal battle trying to get those"
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6f13gr | How does a person born on a ship in international waters gain citizenship? | This is something that has bugged me for a while. Is a baby born in international waters even allowed to go on land with their parents when the ship makes port? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"It would depend on the nationality of the baby's parents and which country they were attempting to enter. But as a general rule, most countries endow citizenship based upon your parents' nationalities rather than where you're born, so it wouldn't make much difference if it was in a hospital in your home town, or a ship in international waters."
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6f1yrx | Why can they play movies on TV with explicit language and violence on any channel but they can't play songs with explicit language on the radio? | Always wondered this because children watch tv and have access to all of the channels the same way that they do on the radio. | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"There are very specific FCC rules about language and adult content on *broadcast* television. The FCC regulates such content on radio and television broadcasts. However, the FCC doesn't have that same regulatory authority over cable/satellite transmissions. So, if it's a channel that isn't broadcast, but only available through a satellite or cable provider, then it's really up to the channel itself what kind of language and content they have. The distinction is the same on radio -- satellite radio can have content that terrestrial radio would never be permitted to air.",
"Radio and Network television goes out over public airways for which there are stricter rules about content from the FCC. Cable TV doesn't have such restrictions, since it's a private network. They are accountable to their advertisers, so they are somewhat restrained. Subscription channels aren't restricted by the FCC or advertisers, so they typically have the least restrictions.",
"Broadcast tv is regulated, but not satellite/cable. Antenna radio is regulated, satellite radio is not. It comes down to \"oh, anyone can stumble upon it if it's free and you don't really do anything special to get it, but if you're paying for it, it's up to you to control your exposure or that of your little ones.\" That's pretty ELI5, I think.",
"FCC governs broadcasts. That is Radio and the base TV channels that can be picked up with an antenna. The are transmitted on public airwaves which are owned by the US population as a whole and leased out to specific stations to transmit on. Cable and Satellite however do not use publicly owned resources. They use privately run cables, and private satellites. This means that the FCC has almost no regulatory power over them, them are private entities using their property. Some channels self regulate in order to appeal to specific audiences and specific advertisers, but they can all technically cuss, show violence, or nudity if they want."
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6f229j | what is the point of Esperanto? | From what I know, it was created as an artificial language to make communication easier but why? English seems like a more logical option as there are plenty of native speakers in the world already, and the basics are easy to learn for everyone else (forget correct grammar, you only need to know enough to get your point across). Whereas with Esperanto, everyone would need to first learn it as their second language and only then it could be really used. Also it sounds more difficult than English. So what was the idea behind it? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"At the time Esperanto was created English were not a universal language. At some point it would even be easier to travel the world knowing French rather then English. It is only in the last couple of decades that you could expect English speaking people all over the world. English were a very illogical choice for a universal language. Very few people knew it as Spanish, French, Russian, Arabic, Hindu and Mandarin was extremely common. And English does not have much in common with any of these languages so it is very hard to learn. English in itself is perhaps one of the hardest languages to learn because of all the strange rules and sounds. The only reason so many speak it today is because it is taught as a second language in schools at a very young age and because there is so much culture in English. Esperanto is designed to be a mix of all other languages to make it easy to learn and have no cultural ties. It does not take that long to learn the grammatical rules and most of the vocabulary is made by combining existing words. For example they use the same word for forest as for tree, byte is just a combination of eight and bit. And a great part of the vocabulary is already present in your mother language. So Esperanto would have been a much better option for a universal language.",
"The idea was for it to serve as a common language that would be on equal footing with everyone else. English seems like a good option... currently, and to English speakers. 100 years ago French would have been the better option, as it was already established as a *lingua franca* at the time. Why not Chinese??? In sheer numbers, less people would have to learn another language overall. By using a separate common language like Esperanto, the hope is that no one would feel like they were being preferred or put at a disadvantage by having to learn someone else's language. > Also it sounds more difficult than English How so? Because you don't know it? Because you speak English already? I don't think anyone is in a position to say another language is more difficult or not than their native one, because obviously your native language will come more naturally. It affects the way you think (i.e. English sentence structure affects how your brain actually classifies and looks at the world). It didn't catch on because there really wasn't a pressing need for it. Those of us that speak the more common languages don't feel a need to learn it, and those that speak the more rare ones are already used to translating into some other language when needed.",
"Esperanto speaker here. Zamenhof made it to be a language that everyone would learn alongside their native language. The reasons it's more practical than English are as follows: 1. It's phonetic. Every letter has the same sound every time. There are diphthongs ( Ej, aj, oj etc.) But it's easy to learn. 2. It's 100% regular. 3. Its grammar and syntax are simple. All nouns end in o, all adjectives in a, and all adverbs in e. So on and so forth. There's only 3 tenses. (Past: is, present: as, future os. For example: Estis, estas, estos) The endings of a word explain the purpose. There's actually only 16 rules in total. 4. The vocabulary is borrowed from the most common language families, namely from Europe. Examples: - Šati - \"To like\" from German \"Schätzen\" - Esperi \"To hope\" from Spanish \"Esperar\" - Manği \"To eat\" from French \"Mange\" Feel free to ask any questions. I love talking about Esperanto. Havu bonan tagon, amiko!"
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6f26pg | What does it mean for something to be "kafkaesque"? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"It's a reference to Franz Kafka, who wrote short stories and novels about surreal, nightmarish situations. Kafkaesque government policies might be things like laws and policies that can only be followed by not knowing about them, such as prosecutors excluding you from jury duty if you understand that a jury can nullify a law. Another example from his own short stories is that there is a law, and that law is behind a door, only slightly ajar, with a guard in front of it, who says you may not enter without permission. You point out that it would be easy to just go in, and he agrees it would 've easy, but you decide to wait until you have permission. You wait for years, and as an old man you finally ask the guard, \"All this time I've stood here, no one has asked to go in to see the law. Why is that?\" > It is true that no-one else has passed here, that is because this door was always meant solely for you, but now, it is closed forever."
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6f3ef2 | What is the difference between bluegrass and folk music? For example, when people say Bill Monroe "invented" bluegrass, what do they mean? What was he doing differently? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"In the most basic sense, Bluegrass is a type of folk music with specific instruments, specific singing/harmonies and generally includes group playing interspersed with solos (called 'breaks') by each instrument (banjo, fiddle, mandolin, acoustic bass, guitar). the part of the drum in, say, a rock and roll band is usually taken up by the mandolin (bill Monroe's instrument) playing a chop on the offbeat and by the bass (and occasionally guitar). there are different variations (although Monroe often called those \"no part of nothin'\") that either are or are not considered \"real\" bluegrass depending on how strict the \"bluegrass police\" are in the neighborhood. Other folk musics exist that have different criteria -- old time, traditional irish, Cajun, Quebecois, gypsy, klezmer, Breton ... usually grouped as \"world music\" when there were music stores. They also have their do's and don't's and their trad \"police\" but bluegrass is generally better known.",
"Folk is a catch all phrase for a lot of music genres. It's descended from European musical traditions. Bluegrass is specific to the Appalachian region in the US. The most distinctive part of Bluegrass is the instruments. There's a mandolin, bango, fiddle, and dobro (which is more of a recent addition) that make distinctive sounds during the music. A typical song with include a jam session or solo of any one (or more) of these instruments. The most identifiable sound is a bang played in a three finger picking style, which was popularized by Monroe's bango player. Bluegrass music differs from country or folk in a number of ways besides the instruments. It's played at an almost alarming tempo. The singing involves a lot of sophisticated harmonies. As previously mentioned, there's a lot of solo work but it usually demonstrates a lot of skill especially with the tempo."
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6f3wvd | What does it mean for an actor to be executive producer on a tv show? | What kind of direction do they give? How does this affect the production? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Sometimes nothing. For a popular show, when the lead actor(s) renegotiate their contracts, they may ask for an Executive Producer credit as a sign of their status, or because it gives them a small portion of the profits. Sometimes they may actually have a larger role in determining the direction of the show and the writing, or may even choose to direct an episode - see Bryan Cranston in Breaking Bad. Sometimes they may have lent their name and status to helping a show get made, but have little to do with it afterwards. See Martin Scorsese and Boardwalk Empire - he directed the pilot and was involved in developing the show, but didn't have much of a hands on role after that.",
"Executive producers make much more money on the back end. For a TV show, giving an actor an exec producer credit boosts their earnings considerably—especially in the residuals. In Seinfeld, for example, Jason Alexander admitted that the reason he didn't continue with the series is because there was no upside for him. Whereas, as an Executive Producer, Jerry Seinfeld stood to make billions in syndication. Bryan Cranston's Executive Producer credit in Breaking Bad probably increases his earnings in syndication by a factor of 10 (if not 100).",
"I work in the film industry and am an 'executive producer' on smaller productions. Simply that means I work with the client stakeholder to hire any and all staff (either directly or indirectly) for a production. I also handle budgeting and empower a director to execute the project vision, etc. In professional productions, there is a consistent standard which you can read about here. URL_0 When things are altered beyond this 'standard set of roles' someone can handle multiple roles such as acting and putting forth the financials to make the production and may gain multiple credits in IMDB or as the credits role... Summary: there are many ways to skin a cat ;)"
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6f4x7f | In Broadway shows, when they replace an actor does the whole cast have to redo rehearsals to train that one actor? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"They usually rehearse thoroughly on their own, then in small groups (like for individual numbers), and finally they get one (maybe two) full run-throughs before their debut. Learning a new role is a pretty standard thing for a performer to do. They're really good at it. For roles with understudies or swings, they're already rehearsed; they can jump right in anytime - even in the middle of a show, if need be. Source: Have worked countless road productions as crew."
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6f4xpl | Why are some people against gun control? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"It's because of the reasoning that criminals will still do illegal stuff and thus own guns illegally, only now legal citizens will be unable to protect themselves against armed criminals. If a country has always been deep-rooted to gun rights, then that means that guns are, deep down, the anti-authoritarian tool of the masses. In the US, the right to bear arms became instilled to push off the British, and with such histories in mind, prevent any authoritarian rule from rising in the US by forcing such governments out via civilian militia. Long Edit: when controlling who gets to access guns and what type of guns, the populace will oppose it with a slippery slope argument. These can always be either fallacy-grade or totally reasonable. The 'smart gun' example: smart guns (guns that only fire from the owner's finger) have trouble taking off in the US because of this. The reasoning: politicians will see smart guns as really good and safe, and force every gun to be smart. Hey, we just got the population to change all their guns! Cool! Wait, if we can do that, why not ban big rifles? Hey, we banned those, so let's also make all guns 9mm or less only! This is much less dangerous! Hey, why not let police turn off the chips in those smart guns to stop active shooters! Now all guns can be remote-disabled! Then the ground splits, Mao Zedong rises from his grave, turns off everyone's guns, establishes iron-fist dictatorship and it's Great Leap Forward Season 2, Episode 4 because communist Hitler just banned hamburgers.",
"History shows that anytime a villain wants to commit atrocities, he first makes sure that his victims are unarmed. Using the aurora colorado movie killer as an example, his weapons were used against unarmed movie goers. One would say, that if he didn't have access to guns, he couldn't have done what he did. But we've seen many examples of crazies using knives, clubs, trucks, crockpot bombs, etc. It's not the tool, but the person and the intent. On a grander scale, every dictator or despot has first unarmed the populace he wants control over. Mao, Hitler, Stalin. They all had strict gun control laws in place."
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6f5k3z | Why is it socially acceptable to wear the same pants multiple days in a row but not the same shirt multiple days in a row? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Changing shirts is an issue of hygiene. Shirts get dirty faster. Food can fall on them. Bodily fluids. etc, etc get on your nice cotton shirts. If you wear the same shirt for 3 days straight it will start to smell and get gross. A pair of jeans on the other hand, if you measure bacteria and dirt when you start wearing them, and then measure a month later very little has changed. Sweat itself is effectively odorless to humans, the smell from BO comes from the bacteria eating proteins in your sweat. You have two types of glands Eccrine glands which just secrete sweat . Their only job is temperature regulation. Apocrine glands secrete sweat with shit in it on the other hand, namely the proteins the bacteria love eating to make shit smell. They are scent glands, where pheromones likely come out and influence social interaction. You find these glands in the armpit, around the nipples and near the groin. So two of these scent sweat glands sweat into a shirt, the other into your underwear - both areas where clothing is generally thought of as needing to be changed daily. Your thighs on the other hand just produce light sweat, effectively just water with salt in it. Bacteria aren't interested, so you just end up being sweaty rather than smelly. tl;dr - the sweat glands in your armpits produce scent based sweat with proteins in that bacteria eat. The byproduct of them eating protein is a bad smell. Washing and replacing your shirt gets rid of this smell. Sweat glands in your legs just produce water with salt which doesn't attract bacteria and thus does not smell.",
"I think most people accept that you aren't shitting your pants on a daily basis but might sweat the shit out of your shirt.",
"Armpit sweat tends to get to your shirts. And undergarments tend to protect your pants better from that sort of thing. So it's a bit less gross to repeat pants. Also depending on who you are pants tend to be more similar than shirts (you probably have a few not so different pairs a of jeans) so people aren't as likely to notice repeated pants anyway.",
"People can't tell if you're wearing the same pants because all pants usually look the same, whether it's jeans or trousers or whatever. People own multiple jeans, or multiple leggings. But people will know if you wear the same palm tree printed button up everyday",
"Pretty much everyone wears some sort of underwear on their lower half, so your pants are pretty much guaranteed to have some shielding from personal filth. Upper body on the other hand is relatively un-shielded, so you're dumping pit sweat into your shirt pretty much constantly. As an extra way to fuck with people, I literally own a few dozen pairs of the same pants.",
"Are you talking pants as in trousers, or pants as in underpants? You're likely to get very different responses to your question depending on how you clarify this.",
"I always wondered if it was the fact that it's more acceptable, or that pants seem to have more generic, solid colors which make pants much less distinguishable. Myself and many others own a lot of jeans that look pretty similar. Same with dress pants. That, and they're further down from eye level. I must sound like an endless horizon of philosophical sophistication and depth if my sense of wonder and curiosity compels me to revisit a mind bender like that, lol.",
"I could have skipped a lot of laundry if I knew this was socially acceptable. Although now, it's been a while since I've even worn pants. down with pants",
"Both are socially acceptable and somewhat paradoxically, neither are. It depends on who you ask. Everybody has different ideas of what is socially acceptable, and this particular issue is not as clean cut (accidental pun) as you'd think. In some clusters of people it absolutely is ok to wear the same shirt multiple days in a row. Similarly, to some it's not ok to wear the same pants multiple days in a row. You're asking why is it not socially acceptable to do something that to many people *is* and why something is socially acceptable that other people do not consider ok. As a crude outline, as commercialism has increased over time and people own more clothes washing has gone up. If you have 1 pair of pants it's not as feasible to wash them every day. If you have 20, it's possible to do washing once a week and still have pants available. The invention of the washing machine also led people to wear more clothes."
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6f6f3b | Why do so many Asian women run beauty salons? | I've seen this stereotype a lot online, and I don't mean to come across as racist or anything, I'm just genuinely curious. I've noticed recently that there are quite a few beauty and nail salons near me, and the majority run by Asian women.(I live in the UK) I say Asian because I'm unsure of the specific region of where they're from. My guess from looking at them and hearing them is Philippino, but I'm not sure. I've also seen TV series in America where Asian women run salons too. Can anybody explain this to me? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Asked a lot, you should probably search. Short version is that [a famous actress decided to teach Vietnamese refugees to do nails]( URL_0 ) and it's taken off in that community. It's a good job for women with limited language skills and a fairly low barrier to entry for somebody wanting to start a small business."
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6f6hc2 | How much power/influence does the Vice President have? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"It (mostly) depends on the President. In the U.S. system, the president is allowed to delegate power to other officials in the executive branch, and in the modern era the VP often ends up running various councils or committees on behalf of the president or speaking on the president's behalf. But, this power all flows voluntarily from the president, and the president can reverse the VP at will. But, the VP does have one piece of real, individual power, which is the authority to break ties in the Senate. So, when the Senate is divided evenly, the VP as an individual becomes the deciding vote on whatever issue is in question."
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6f6m6b | Why do areas around university campus and train/bus stations tend to have higher crime rate in most cities? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"They both have large transient populations, providing both anonymity and opportunity."
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6f6ysn | Couldn't Jews in Third Reich Europe just convert to a different religion or say they aren't Jewish anymore? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"The Jews were persecuted by the Nazis because of their ethnicity, not because of their religion. A converted Jew was still a Jew according to them. Hiding their Judaism wasn't easy either - they lived in Jewish communities, had Jewish last names, their neighbors knew they were Jewish and the local censuses also said that they were Jewish.",
"Because it the persecution was based on race, not religion. Catholics have a long history of persecuting Jews in Europe, blaming them for anything imaginable. Poisoning wells, eating babies, causing plagues even killing god. The nazis had a complex mythology built up about Germany, \"blood and soil\". They refused to accept Germany had been defeated in ww1. Many Germans believed this. This is why hitler was popular, because he promoted an idea, that even though it was a complete fantasy, many people believed. The only way they could accept that they'd been defeated was if they'd been betrayed by Jews, communists, gypsies, queer people, the mentally ill, the physically disabled etc . Basically everyone that wasn't what they considered to be a pure blood German was guilty of betraying the German empire and had to be purged.",
"Nope. Of you were once a jew, always a jew. Was a parent Jewish? Tough luck. They had great records. Your name gave you away and getting your name changed legally wouldn't help. False documents aren't easy to make.",
"Not really, because being Jewish was at the time (and even somewhat today) was considered a race or an ethnicity vs simply a religion. Like if your last name was silverstein or something there was little chance of convincing the SS that you were Catholic, even on the off chance it was true.",
"No. The persecution of the Jews was not a religious extermination, it was an ethnic cleansing. They were trying to eliminate the bloodlines from the human race.",
"A Jewish woman named Edith Stein converted to Catholicism and became a nun. The Nazis murdered her anyway. She was made a Catholic saint after a young girl who was expected to die prayed to her, and miraculously recovered. URL_0",
"As I've had it explained to me in school, communities were smaller back then and everyone knew everyone. That meant that if an officer asked if a family was Jewish, the community would say they were and thus it was hard to simply just \"not be Jewish.\" Alongside that, their names (And often businesses) were Jewish or Jewish related. The last thing I can say is, while the stereotypes/propaganda from the Nazi party of Jewish people weren't and still aren't true, they had distinctive features that likely gave them away."
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6f7heu | Where the origin of the Southern U.S.A being known as dumb/slow came from and how it has persisted. | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"The southern states are the poorest, most rural, and have the least state funding towards education. That all contributes towards the lack of intelligence stereotype",
"Everywhere in the world, rural people are considered stupid and urban people are considered smart. There's a whole host of reasons why, but if we accept that, then the question is why is the South more rural than the North and if it's not, why is it *considered* to be so? While I think that generally more people are living in the \"North\" now than the \"South\", the difference these days isn't so great as to create that stereotype. But **before air conditioning**, it was. It's why New York and Philadelphia turned into...well, New York and Philadelphia, while large port cities in the South didn't. Savannah. Charleston. Back in early colonial times there was no reason why those ports couldn't have become just as big and urban as the two aforementioned northern ones. Except the summers were sweltering and there was no relief. At least when it's cold in Philly and NY, you could light a fire. No such luck down south. So even if the population distribution is currently closer to equal, and not skewed enough to consider the North urbanized while the South is rural, that's only a semi recent development. Historically/culturally/whatever, Americans still consider the South to be more \"country\". Thus less educated and less smart. So, air conditioning is the reason. Or lack thereof.",
"The South has always been a very rural part of the country. If you go literally anywhere in the world, there will be negative stereotypes of farmers as dumb hicks.",
"The Civil War devastated the South and in many ways it has still not recovered. Not only did they lose the war, have their cities burn and infrastructure destroyed, but they also lost the engine to their economy. Lose slavery would be like Canada invading the US and overnight saying it couldn't use fossil fuels anymore, figure it out. Ever since, the South has lagged behind the rest of the country, economically and in other ways. People are less educated, which means fewer high skill jobs and the industry that surround them, which in turn means less incentive for higher education. Social and cultural norms also lag behind the rest of the country. Many people call out the South as being racist, sexist, and homophoic, but the reality is they typically hold the same sort of attitudes as more developed regions did a few decades ago.",
"I'm not sure. I watched a small video over it, and they claimed much to do with how Southerners talked. Now, I'm from the south, I've graduated from a tech school, gotten my bachelor's and Master's degree. I'm not the smartest person in the world, but my IQ is higher than \"normal,\" whatever that's supposed to mean. No matter how\"dumb\" someone is, everyone has something they can teach you. Back to your question: the south is pretty poor. The only money is in the cities, or if you own farms. Most people don't think of farming as something to make money off of. Huh, try buying one. They're worth millions. I digress. No money, poor education. Industry, technology and education drive pushing the envelope of intelligence. The North had it until the rust belt collapsed. Now all of these businesses are looking at the south, because everything is cheap and wages are cheap. As someone who is from the south, but has also lived and worked in the North, I found that it was the same up there. Cities and farms. Small communities have poorer education (with exceptions to the both and the south); cities have higher educated people. There just used to be more industry up there. But yea, the way we talk. It's actually closer sounding to English accents, than the way people speak in the Northwest and New England (with a few exceptions). People say the word yonder down here all the time. I imagine when people hear it from the north, they roll their eyes. But people in England say it all if the time, no one says a damn thing. My final point is, no matter the original situation, people not from the south might think that because, it's a handed down stereotype. I don't think anyone means ill by it, some might. But either way I'm not offended by it. Things get handed down from generation to generation, and the original intent gets lost along the way, but people keep doing it."
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6f8obr | Why does there seem to be so many more (recent) terror incidents in the UK when so much of Muslim extremist anger is directed towards the US? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Pretty much everything that is true of US involvement in the Middle East is also true of the UK. The UK has partnered with the US in most of the recent interventions in the Middle East - Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria. The UK is the second largest arms dealer in the world and (in particular) trades to Saudi Arabia, which uses those weapons to bomb Yemen and contribute to the jihadi terrorism in the region. The UK has a long history of self-serving intervention in the Middle East which has resulted in much ill-feeling towards the British government. The Police Federation (the government-controlled police union) has said that the reason there are more attacks is because of a reduction in the government budget for policing and therefore less preventative policing happening in communities. The Government does not agree with that assessment.",
"Radical Islam is against *everyone* who isn't like them, even other muslims. \"Western society\" includes a lot more than just the US: you could consider the majority of the EU as western society. To that end, they're attacking places like Germany and the U.K. because of a two main reasons. - Opportunity: Europe is a lot closer and easier to get into than the US. They took in millions of refugees with very little safeguards to prevent attacks. After all, there's no identity check system in most wartorn countries. - Media: Terrorism only works if people notice it. To that end, they attack places that will gain them more media coverage. Ever hear of a terrorist attack in Georgia or Lithuania? For reference Georgia is currently at tepid war with Russia, steadily losing land to the former Soviet Union, but we don't see this on CNN do we? You need media coverage to instill terror after all! --- Thankfully they haven't realized that there are much more impactful \"soft\" targets like schools that they would have fairly good success in attacking. Instead, they opt for flashy, spur of the moment attacks most times. An aircraft isn't hard to take down, they're rather fragile. To run over a crowd of people, you simply have to turn the wheel a bit. Aside from the airport attack a while back, most attacks have been poorly planned and not of great impact. A worrying example that they might be getting smarter is the attack on the concert recently, a perfect example of low effort, high impact.",
"The [Sykes-Picot agreement]( URL_0 ) is mentioned by ISIS a lot. It was essentially an agreement between the British and the French in 1916 dividing up the area known as the Levant (the 'L' in ISIL). ISIS/ISIL would like to reverse this by force so the UK (and France) have become favoured targets of late.",
"Islamic extremism is a problem across the entire world, not just the US and the UK. Just this year, there have been over 900 islamic terror attacks in 46 different countries, killing over 6500 people. URL_0 It's just that most of the major (worldwide) news agencies, especially the english-speaking ones, are in the US and the UK, so that's most of what you hear."
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6f9fs2 | Why are ships always referred to as "her" and "she"? | For example: "thar she blows" or "I just got her waxed" | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"> \"thar she blows\" - that's a whale > \"I just got her waxed\" - wax a ship? I suppose you could might reduce drag! 😁 Ships being female is an English thing stemming from the romance of men at sea. The old joke also that says: *\"A ship is called a she because there is always a great deal of bustle around her; there is usually a gang of men about; she has a waist and stays; it takes a lot of paint to keep her good-looking; it is not the initial expense that breaks you, it is the upkeep; she can be all decked out; it takes an experienced man to handle her\"* Even other western languages use male for some ships (for example Spanish) Interestingly Russian ships are refered to as male not female.",
"I imagine if youre spending weeks and months on a boat with nothing but other men, everything starts to look like a she."
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6f9ix0 | Why Japan and USA have such strong 'cultural export'? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"A full study of this phenomena would be complicated and beyond the scope this subreddit, but here are a few reasons: Both the US and Japan are economic powerhouses and vast amounts of money are spent on marketing. The US is a young country and was in it's \"golden age\" during the 20th century. It was inventing itself, all the while being a major player on the world stage. With 300+ military bases worldwide, its presence is felt in every corner of the globe. Two major new art forms- Jazz and then Rock & Roll- were invented in America and teenagers all over the planet ate it up whenever they could. Hollywood is nothing like the world had ever seen and was/is a a major export. Television is privately run, unlike many other countries that have state run television stations like the BBC or dozens of others. This allowed the power of capitalism to press any angle it could. The press is free allowing magazine images to litter the world. Japan did a hard reset after WW2 and even though it is an ancient country, it put everything it had into re-inventing itself. Industry thrived. If you had an electronic device in the 1970's-1990's, chances are it was made in Japan. People everywhere were and still are driving Japanese cars. The video game revolution would not have happened when it did if not for Japanese companies. A new art form- anime- was a hit and has fans all over the world. This is an overly simplistic revue and others will no doubt come up with even better reasons than I can think of right now."
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6fac91 | Horses, hunting, and the Native people | I've heard the reason why many native cultures were not as advanced as the Asia/Euro/African people due to the lack of domesticated livestock such as horses, cows, pigs etc, which also led to the unprepared immune systems of the North American Native people. Then how are some native cultures, like the Lakota so heavily influenced by horses and hunting if apparently horses came from Europe? How do the time lines match up? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Horses were introduced into the Americas by some of the first europeans when they came, over time, more europeans came, along with more horses. Soon enough horses became an important part of many native american cultures."
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6fbglr | How come gravy comes in a gravy boat but every other condiment is traditionally served in a bowl? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"text": [
"If gravy sits for any length of time there becomes a \"skin\" on the top. A gravy boat allows you to still pour the gravy because the skin will float to the top (which the back becomes the top as you tilt it) and the liquid runs underneath and out of the half-spout."
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6fd9bk | How does "Off the Record" work in journalism? | Couldn't a journalist say "They didn't say off the record" and consequently, couldn't an interviewee say, "That quote they used in the paper, I said off the record!" Seeing as a lot of conversations and interviews aren't recorded per se, what's to stop people from doing this? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"It happens all the, it just rarely gets much publicity unless somebody decides to take it to court. It's mainly prevented by people wanting to maintain their professional reputations. If a journalist or news outlet gets known for shafting sources then people won't speak to them. Statements from sources should also be getting corroborated with other evidence before being published anyway - but this also doesn't happen as often as it should.",
"If someone asks you to keep your name out of an article when you give an opinion and they go and do it anyway you won't want to talk to them anymore and moreover, you'll warn everybody that the person's word isn't any good. So then if your job is going out and talking to people and people won't talk to you all of a sudden then that's not good news for your career. So its a balance. You want to keep people honest obviously but you want to be judicious about when you name names so you don't end up killing your story prematurely."
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6fdd33 | is there difference between Hebrew bible and Torah? | whatr is the the difference between Hebrew bible and Torah?? Does the "Old testament" have big similarities with Hebrew bible? thnx in advance | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"The Torah specifically refers to the first 5 books of the Old Testament. When people talk about the Hebrew Bible they are referring to the complete Old Testament.",
"The Hebrew Bible, also known as the \"Tanakh\", is a collection of religious writings, most in Hebrew with a few in Aramaic, which basically comprise Jewish scripture. It's divided into three parts: 1. The Torah is the first five books, from Genesis to Deuteronomy, which describe the creation of the cosmos, the early history of mankind and the Israelites, and Israelite law. 2. The Nevi'im are the books of the prophets. 3. Everything else is known as Ketuvim, and this is subdivided into poetic books, the \"five scrolls\" (Song of Songs, Ruth, Lamentations, Ecclesiastes and Esther) and everything else. The Christian religion developed from Judaism, so Christians kept the Tanakh, but with some of the books in a different order, and called it the Old Testament, while stories about Jesus and his followers are in the New Testament. Catholics have some extra material in their version of the Old Testament: this is material that is in Greek *translations* of the Tanakh, but not in the original Hebrew or Aramaic texts -- it's thought these parts were added later. Protestant Bibles don't usually have this extra material; but if they do, they're put in a third section called the \"Apocrypha\", between the Old and New Testaments."
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6fe0xi | - what's the difference between the different sects of Islam and why do they seem to be at war with each other? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"It has very little to do with religion, and more to do with tribalism. You can substitute any tribal psychology (nationalism, racism, etc) and the pattern of internecine conflict would appear. Human psychology is inherently tribal - it's an evolutionary imperative, not a intellectual one. Tribalism was the basis for our early survival, it's actually written into our genetic code (there's a genetic bottleneck in human history - one tribe 'won' (ie survived) over the others). What's happened is that a few wealthy and powerful individuals (Ali Khomenei, Salman ibn Saud, etc.) have hitched their political power to this tribalism. They use tribalism, in the guise of religion, to build a power base. This power base must be exercised to maintain its potency, else the autocrats would fall from power. A true war would quickly exhaust the tribal motivation (war losses, economic and human, are a huge demotivator), so they fight 'skirmishes' to antagonize but not truly damage the populations they rule. It's not something mysterious or unique to Islam. Internecine conflicts are ancient. It's merely being exploited here in a clever way to perpetuate an oppressive power system (which is also an ancient technique for maintaining your power base). Old Ruler's Maxim: You don't hate your leaders enough to depose them if you hate your 'enemies' more.",
"Hey, remember how Christians would wage wars against Christians over interpretations of the Bible, and different translations and versions? Weird how history repeats itself."
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6fe1w1 | Why is "Death" often pictured carrying a scythe? | Is there some sort of a symbolic meaning? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Because he is the reaper of souls. Like, You and so many others are the soulwheat. He's the guy with the scythe, reaping it on the fields of death. For him to collect/harvest. That's basically how it is.",
"Death is often depicted with cutting objects because he cuts the thread of life. For example the Greek/Roman deities of fate were depicted as spinning the literal thread of life for each human and cutting it at the end. This was later mixed with the Chronos/Saturnus, the Titan of Time who carried a sickle (with which he castrated his father, by the way). This was later mixed to time cutting the life of persons with a sickle. In Christian times, this image was coupled with biblical images. The bible describes how death is sweeping over the lands, leaving dead bodies behind \"ike sheaves after the reaper\". However, really popular did the image only get after the Plague in Europe when people were literally dropping dead like wheat in the field. So in total a combination of ancient Greek/Roman and Biblical imagery, coupled with the horrifying experiences of omnipresent death during the Plague.",
"You may have heard the personification of death called 'The Grim Reaper', ie the reaper of souls. This imagery (scythe and all) first appeared in the Middle Ages.",
"I believe it has to do with the symbolism of... 'Reaping what was sown', like... Gathering a harvest or crop when its time comes."
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6ffv88 | why do celebs/politicians preach saving environment yet have private jets and huge mansions? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Many of them dont think they are the specific problem, which technically, they arent. The problem comes from the cumulative millions of people who dont think they are the problem which added together, becomes a problem."
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6ffvtd | Why exactly movies are released on BR/DVD waaay after the release? | We live in digitized world, why aren't movies digitally available right after the release? AFAIK there's no other industry so withheld by one entity (movie theater). It's like games would not be available AFTER you can play them in arcades for couple of months first. I apologize if my question is confusing, English is my second language. | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"It is an agreement so that the movie studios can make more money. By having a tiered release it allows the studios (and industries) to make more money off the release of a movie. If a movie was released in theaters, on BR/DVD, on HBO/Showtime, and on Netflix all at once, most everyone would just watch it on the easiest format available to them. Mostly it would be renting the movie and others would use a streaming service. By releasing the movie in theaters first, all the people willing an able will pay a lot to see it in theaters. Later the BR/DVD is sold and people who can buy it. Lastly the movie is made available on streaming services. Doing this you even get some people to do all three: see it in theaters, buy the disc, and pay for a streaming service that has the movie.",
"The theater release + disk/digital release essentially lets them \"double dip.\" Many people will end up paying for this movie twice. First to see it in theaters, then later to own it in another format. > It's like games would not be available AFTER you can play them in arcades for couple of months first. This has happened! And it used to happen a lot more a few decades ago. Pong, Pacman, Street Fighter, Donkey Kong (among many others) got their start in arcades before being ported to home computers and consoles. It's no longer as big a thing, but in Japan (where arcades are doing much better) you still see it, Namco made millions releasing the idolm@ster games in arcades and then getting otakus to re-buy their waifus for consoles.",
"Lol, when I was a kid, it seemed like it took 18-24 months for a movie to be released on video. Now it's like 3 months.",
"Its not nearly as delayed now as it used to be back in the days of VHS. it's progressively gotten faster, now i'm at the grocery store and i'm like \"logan? didn't i just see that like a month and a half ago?\""
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6ffx3y | Why Do Well Known Criminals Get Addressed by Their Full Name? | It seems like when a criminal has committed a particularly heinous crime or garners a lot of attention they get addressed by their first, middle, and last name. For example, someone like Lee Harvey Oswald. Is there a reason for this? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Because there are way fewer \"Lee Harvey Oswald\"s than there are \"Lee Oswald\"s; cuts down on mistaken identity and vilification.",
"Seems to me that this is partly to more strongly distinguish them from people with similar names, and to further differentiate them from \"normal\" people. If I started talking about how \"Oswald shot the president\" you might not immediately realize who/what I was talking about, but if I started talking about how \"Lee Harvey Oswald shot the president\" you'd immediately know who I was talking about and what happened."
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6fg8s1 | Why do movie reviews have such a large influence for some movies, but are ignored on others? | There are movies that get bad reviews, but still make a sizable profit, such as many Adam Sandler movies. However, there are also movies like Baywatch that tank due to bad reviews. Why does this happen? Thank you in advance. | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"This is a complex topic, but it comes down to branding and preconceived notions. To use your example; Adam Sandler has a brand. Regardless of what movies he puts out, there are going to be Adam Sandler fans that will watch his movies. He has a specific brand of humor that does not sit right with a lot of people, but is very attractive to his fans, and his fans don't care much what the broader audience thinks. Bay Watch, while there are some fans of the original; everyone who likes an original is skeptical of a reboot. Those that aren't familiar with the original have no ties to the movie. So now most people's biggest piece of information regarding Bay Watch is going to be reviews. The more branding surrounding a movie, the less reviews matter. For example, the next Harry Potter movie, the next Star Wars movie, the next Avatar movie, etc...it doesn't matter what critics say, these will all generate a ton of revenue. A movie you've never heard of, like Get Out...its success depends solely on what critics have to say about it.",
"Reviewers usually talk about the quality of the movie, the script, the character, the visuals, the music, the actors, etc. Different audience mostly care about what they like. Some audience will like bad movie or hate good movie. It's not because a movie isn't technically good that people will dislike it. There is two question you need to ask yourself. Did the audience looked at reviews at all to decide to see the movie or not? And did the review had an impact to see the movie or not. Take transformer for example. Do you really think that people look at review of transformer movie to decide to go see or not that movie? Everybody know that transformer movie are bad movie. They have bad characters, bad actors performance, bad script. But that's not what the audience look for in that type of movie. They know that transformer will have big robots, actions and good special effect and that's what they want. The audience just want some stupid good entertainment and they know what they will get. Now take King Arthur : The Legend of the Sword. Nobody knew really what this movie was about. It's not a sequel/prequel/reboot/etc. People don't really know what to expect from that movie and to make things worst, the trailers were really bad. They didn't tell much about what the movie was about, they didn't have a big star, etc. People didn't know if the movie was going to be fun for them. So they probably waited for the review and the review affected their decision to go or not to see that movie. For Baywatch, I don't think that the review had anything to do with the flop. I think that the second they announced the movie, people already know if they wanted or not to see that movie. The movie was clear from the start. It's Baywatch, we know what to expect and even if it worked in the 90s, it doesn't seem to work for the modern audience."
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6fgbe5 | What is the purpose of non-discriminatory hiring laws in workplaces if employers/companies reserve the right to hire or turn away anyone they want? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"They aren't allowed to hire or turn away people for those reasons that the law forbids. Proving it is the case in legal action might be difficult though, unless they're clumsy about it.",
"50 yrs ago - companies wouldn't even waste their time interviewing minority or female candidates because they were pretty sure it was a waste of time because they would end up hiring the experienced white man at the end of the day. Now days. Many companies have rules in place that they must interview a couple of female candidates and a couple of minority candidates.....just so it at least looks fair. Even if its still a waste of time and they will end up hiring their original expected guy",
"Employers can say that they have the right to hire or fire anyone they want. This is largely true. However, even in \"at will\" employment states, employers do not have the right to hire/fire someone for any Reason that they want. For good reason, and like many other crimes, it all comes down to intent. If the employer makes the decision on the basis of race, religion, etc., they've still likely broken the law, despite the fact that they had the basic right to make that decision in the first place."
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6fgjd8 | Why is the pronunciation in the English language so illogical compared to other languages? | Why? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Have you tried swedish or portuguese? Evey language has its perks. They are old, living things, and as they age new words from neighboors get added, and not all of them are adapted very well.",
"> ELI5: Why is the pronunciation in the English language so illogical compared to other languages? I'm not sure that I agree with the premise of your question. Why do you think that English language pronunciations are more illogical than pronunciations in other languages?",
"The great vowel shift in the 1600's happened after the printing press started standardizing spelling of English. The spellings mostly stayed the same, but pronunciation changed significantly. URL_0",
"It's because English is a mixture of French and Germanic words. English was originally a Germanic language, but then William the Conqueror took over England back in 1066. After that, for many years, French was the prestige language of the English court, and English was the vernacular language of the English people. This led to the English language adopting tons and tons of French words, with their French-style spelling and pronunciation. So when you cobble together pieces of two languages into one, you get a lot of inconsistent spelling and pronunciation.",
"What's weird about English pronunciation? We do have two dental fricatives, even though having just one is rare in European languages, but that's not something I would call illogical.",
"Languages like Spanish, Portuguese and Italian have adopted a phonetical spelling by choice at some point, to simplify things. They weren't always spelled just as they sound. When it comes to French, the central authority decided to preserve its \"weird\" spellings because they valued the Greek, Latin and other historical origins of each word and wanted them reflected. English has never had a standardization or simplification of its spelling, so it is what it is. There also isn't an \"English Academy\" to recommend such things.",
"The only thing illogical about English is the spelling, and that problem exists because we the Latin alphabet, in stead of one with characters suited to English. If you learned to speak English before learning how to read or write it, like every native speaker did, there wouldn't seem to be a problem. A long time ago you might have said the same thing about Korean, which used to be written with Chinese characters which are immensely less suitable for Korean than Latin is for English. Eventually there was a reform, and new script was devised, and now the written language has no ambiguity in pronunciation at all. What happened to English? Well before English there was Anglo-Saxon, which was written in Runes, like the ones the Vikings used. Unfortunately, nobody was really writing a lot with that script, and the new Christian missionaries, who wrote a TON, brought their own language and script: Latin. Eventually as the Norman's invaded, famously bringing their different animal names, and settled down the two languages merged over time into what we know now as Old English. It's script had several characters carried over from Saxon, but the Norman scribes of the time, still doing a lot of writing, used their characters most. After more time people jus found other ways to write the special characters ( like representing the \"wuh\" sound with uu or vv instead of the original Wynn character, or the Thorn as th) or just approximated and let the reader figure it out. Add in another several centuries of influence and time to settle, and modern English retains none of it's unique characters. Nobody's over tuned the system with a new script (though some have tried) mostly because it isn't really necessary. Our system is still pretty good, and despite the fact that learning to write English is harder than it might be otherwise, people fan still do it without an unreasonable amount of difficulty. With any language you eventually get to the point where you don't reason out how to write or read something you just know it instinctively, and when you do screw up the spelling or pronounciation it just gets glossed over. The aesthetic value of consistency has never been enough to motivate a change.",
"You try convincing people who don't even want to learn a foreign language because \"English is the best language\" that their language badly needs a spelling [reform.]( URL_4 ) Germany had one in [1996]( URL_2 ). Dutch in [2006]( URL_1 ). French in [1990]( URL_0 ). [Here]( URL_3 ) is a list of many examples. Notice there are barely any dates for English. Basically most major languages in the world have done some sort of spelling reform within the last 100 years. English hasn't had anything since the few words Noah Webster changed in American English in 1828."
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6fglx5 | For a long time now, the idea that 'reason can't truly know reality other than an individual's subjective reality' has been established in Philosophy. In the meanwhile, scientific reasoning had made impressive achievements. How do contemporary Philosophers reconcile these two facts? | I'm not trying to prove a point about Science/Philosophy. I don't know a lot about either but I'm curious about how Philosophers deal with that or if they even consider it an issue at all. | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"I'm a bit confused. It sounds like you were describing relativism, which is a pre-socratic school of thought long deemed outdated, rather than something philosophers still believe."
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6fgoft | Why have swear words developed such a taboo around them? | Words are words. Why do the classic swear words have these negative, almost blasphemous use to them that is considered ''adult language''? It is considered rude to swear in front of children, and outrageous for children to use. But where did these meanings come from? Why - or how have these particular words developed such a taboo meaning? Why those words and not others? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"What makes profanity different is that it invokes a different part of our brain than our normal speech uses. The part of the brain that controls aggression is called the amygdala which also controls other emotions. So one theory is that profanity is a type of verbal aggression, and our brain recognizes them as such, causing us to feel differently when we hear or think them. There's nothing about the words themselves that makes them different, it's how we associate these words as being aggressive or in some other ways taboo. This can explain why certain illnesses that affect the brain can cause some individuals to swear more than they would if they didn't have the illness. Invoking this part of our brain can be done with profanity. For example when he hurt ourselves, we often yell profanity as an outlet of aggression which has pain-reliving applications. This is probably due to an evolutionary benefit of being in an aggressive state of mind when you feel pain, as it will help empower you to defend yourself if you are under attack. That's not to say profanity is always used as aggression, such as the way we use it to emphasize things. Since these words can invoke the amygdala, it can alter how we perceive a statement when he hear it with profanity that causes us to emphasize the meaning of that statement. This is probably why the F-Word is used so often in casual speech, it literally alters the way our brain handles words. Also the more you use profanity, the more your brain will be comfortable with profanity, and will invoke less emotion when you say or hear it than you would if you don't speak with profanity on a regular basis. The tabooness of the profanity is due to the emotional charge these words are associated with. Our societies decided to make these emotionally charged words taboo as to avoid invoking negative feelings. Once a word becomes taboo, there's societal pressure to avoid using the word, so really it's compounding our instinct to avoid using profanity in certain situations where you would normally avoid taboo subjects. This explains why we might refrain from using profanity at work, but might use it a lot when we are with our personal friends.",
"Bad words are bad on purpose, by design. Since humans sometimes want to offend others, it's useful to have words that have the offensiveness built into the word itself. Why is \"poop\" not a bad word but \"shit\" is? They both have the same denotation, but different connotations. That's on purpose. We may need to talk about the subject with a child (\"poop\") or a doctor (\"feces,\" \"stool\") or I may want to compare someone to something disgusting in which case I use the word \"shit\" because that way it's obvious I'm being crude. Naturally the bad words tend to refer to things that are disgusting (bodily functions), or formerly considered extremely private (sex), or else something someone should be respectful about (religion). If you have used classic swears so much they seems just like normal words to you, then perhaps you understand racial epithets better? Can I talk about \"Former President Barack Obama, our first nigger President\" without being offensive? \"Oh, I wasn't *trying* to be offensive\" I could claim. A. you don't have to intend it, the offense is part of the word itself (not the sounds, but the definition in common English B. Since you *KNOW* (or should know) point A, you're lying or stupid if you say such a thing and act like people shouldn't have been offended because you \"didn't mean it.\" What do you think the word \"nigger\" means? It does not mean \"black person.\" It means something more like \"offensive word used to dehumanize black people.\" Racists that use the word know what they're doing. Why are they using that word instead of \"black\" or \"African American\" or something else? Because it means something else. It's not a synonym for \"black.\" Likewise, \"shit\" is not a synonym for \"poop.\" They're not the same thing, even though they both refer to the same physical substance. By the way, many adults consider swearing to be quite rude regardless of whether there are children present. The number of them have gone down, I'm sure, or at least the ones that will speak up has gone down. But if you swear in public in front of people you don't know approve of swearing, that makes you a dick.",
"It's not so much that they \"developed\" a taboo, as that they were intended from the outset to be crude, vulgar, shocking, or offensive. This has probably been the case throughout human language history; linguistic studies of ancient cultures shows that they had these types of words and expressions These words have always referred to things that were considered taboo, private, or not usually discussed in polite company: religious blasphemy, sex and sexual organs, bodily waste, etc. In olden times, it was likely that the blasphemy/religious swearing was considered more \"shocking', as you were literally damning God or calling a curse down on someone. Nowadays, this stuff is much less offensive, so it tends to be the sexual-based terms that are considered the 'worst'.",
"The modern version of English swear words, the ones where some words are taboo while others with similar meanings are not, developed during the middle ages (IIRC). It had to do with the nobility/commoner divide. Words like \"defecate\" have latin origins - the nobility and clergy were generally educated in latin. Words like \"shit\" have germanic origins, spoken by the commoners. So the words the nobility used inherited the sense of being proper/polite/pious, while the commoner versions inherited the sense of being rude/vulgar.",
"Swear words reflect our culture's values. They make light of things we consider precious. Right now, the words that will make people cringe the most are going to be words mocking the disabled and non-whites. Since the civil rights era, we place way more value on diversity and inclusion than before. Recently, words that alluded to bodily functions (sex, going to the bathroom) were the most taboo. Early 20th century America was kind of obsessed with hygiene and purity (Victorian morals, naturalist ideals). A while ago, talking about bodily functions was totally ok, but saying something like \"zounds\" (short for \"god's wounds\") was totally taboo, because blasphemy was a bigger deal."
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6fgoyb | Why do so many Asian nationality adjectives end in "ese" (i.e. Chinese, Japanese, Vietnamese, etc.) where so many other nationality adjectives end in "ish" or "an" (i.e. Scottish, American, German, Egyptian, Italian, etc.)? I know there are exceptions, but in general, this seems to be a thing. | Edit: I mean nationality adjectives in English, not their native languages. edit edit: For instance, Portuguese and Korean are exceptions, and then you have nationalities like "Czech" and "Filipino" which don't end in "ese," "an," or "ish." | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"We get our language/nationality names from European explorers who first made contact and had to call them something pronounceable. Those ending in \"ese\" were countries first visited by explorers speaking Italian, Portuguese, or a similar language -- this ending is normal in those languages. Those ending in something else were first visited by explorers speaking other languages.",
"It's actually a matter of origins. For example, the Portuguese explorers were some of the first to have large scale trade expeditions. They coined those words in their conventions, as did Spanish, French and English Speakers. However, most English speakers kept others' conventions. Geography has nothing to do with it. There's Incan, Congolese, and Malaysian, which are supposed counterexamples.",
"Note however: Indian, Indonesian, Malay, Korean, Thai, Singaporean... I don't think there's any relation between the \"ese\" ending and Asia.",
"Most of the Arabic speaking countries have the -i ending because that is the ending in the Arabic language. The countries that have the same name in English as they do in Arabic get the -i ending like Saudi, Omani, Yemeni, Qatari, etc. Countries that have different names in English than Arabic use English conventions like Moraccan, Egyptian, Palestinian, etc.",
"African Albanian Algerian American Angolan Argentinian Armenian Asian Australian Austrian Bahamian Belgian Belizean Bolivian Bornean Bosnean Brazilian Bulgarian Cambodian Canadian Chilean Colombian Croatian* Cuban Djiboutian Dominican Egyptian Ethiopian European Fijian Gambian German Guamanian Guatemalan Haitian Honduran Hungarian Indian Indonesian Iranian Italian Jamaican Kenyan Korean Laotian Liberian Madagascan Malaysian Martian Mexican Mongolian* Moroccan Nicaraguan Nigerian Norwegian Palestinian Panamanian Paraguayan Peruvian Romanian Russian Salvadorian Samoan Saudi Arabian Singaporean Sri Lankan Sumatran Syrian Terran Tibetan Tongan Tunisian Ugandan Uruguayan Venezuelan Venusian Zambian Zimbabwean British Danish English Finnish Irish Polish Scottish* Spanish Swedish Turkish Chinese Congolese Bhutanese Burmese Faroese Gabonese Guyanese Japanese Lebanese Maltese Nepalese* Portuguese Senegalese Sudanese Surinamese Taiwanese Timorese Togolese Vietnamese Afghani Bangladeshi Bahraini Iraqi Israeli Kuwaiti *Nepali Pakistani Somali Basotho *Croat Burkinabe Cypriot Czech Dutch French Filipino Greek Greenlandic Icelandic *Mongol Ni-Vanuatu Nigerien *Scots Slovak Swiss Thai Welsh I left out many nations whose demonym I don't know, as I was doing all this from my head. Feel free to add (or correct) the list below, but keep in mind this is a list of adjectival demonyms, not nouns (nor languages). And I just realised New Zealander doesn't count as it's a noun, not adjective. I can't think of anything that works... New Zealish? New Zealese? New Zealan? Kiwi? Any ideas? Edits: thanks to all those who are contributing.",
"The word you're looking for is [Demonym]( URL_0 ) The Wikipedia article has the answers to your questions.",
"The word you were looking for is demonym: A demonym or gentilic is a word used for people or the inhabitants of a place. The name of a people's language is usually the same as this word, for example, the \"English\" (language or people). Some places may not have a word for the people that live there. URL_0",
"I don't have an explanation for you, but as an added question: Are there demonyms for native Americans? Aztec, Lakota, Iroquois. I can't think of any with added suffixes. Edit: Thought of a few like Incan and Mayan but they seem to be exceptions.",
"What's the demonym for some from New Zealand? I've only heard them referred to as Kiwis.",
"As you have observed, there are a lot of ways to make demonyms in English. While we can draw some generalisations for which kinds of place names (toponyms) get which kinds of demonyms, there are no hard and fast rules. The various suffixes come from different linguistic sources, though, and that has some bearing on which ones are used where. We can observe some trends: #-an / -ian The Latin-derived suffixes *-an* and *-ian* are by far the most common choice for English demonyms. One reason is that English names for non-English-speaking places are often Latin-derived: - *Italian, Croatian, Arabian, Indian, American* (the name predates America's settlement by English speakers) *-an* is also common for Spanish and Portuguese-speaking places: - *Mexican, Paraguayan, Mozambican* The simple suffix has become the go-to for most newer demonyms, even if the place names are not Latin at all: - *Hawaiian, New Jerseyan, Chicagoan* Variations include *Torontonian* and *Panamanian* For toponyms that end in *-o* or *-u*, if the suffix is true to its Latin roots it becomes *-vian*: - *Oslovian, Peruvian* Some places have Latin-based demonyms even though the English toponym is quite different from its Latin equivalent: - Guernsey → *Sarnian* - Newcastle → *Novocastrian* - Halifax → *Haligonian* And of course - Norway → *Norwegian* which spawned the analogous demonyms - Galloway → *Galwegian* - Glasgow → *Glaswegian* # -ite *-ite* comes from Greek. Few Greek demonyms have survived into modern English, but the suffix lives in the public consciousness due to its use for nations and tribes in the Old Testament. It has become another common choice for recently coined demonyms: - *Manhattanite, Wisconsinite, Tokyoite, Delhite, Vancouverite* # -er Many places in Germany have identical demonyms in German and English using the suffix *-er*, such as Berliner and my favourites: - *Hamburger and Frankfurter* *-er* is Germanic in origin and is used with many toponyms of pure English origin: - *Londoner, New Yorker, Marylander, Aucklander* and of other Germanic languages: - *Amsterdammer, Stockholmer* # -ish *-ish* is also Germanic in origin but is less versatile because it's a adjectival suffix; you don't refer to someone as an Irish, a Spanish, a Turkish, or a Swedish. Some places have one demonym for the people collectively, and another for an individual: - *Irishman, Spaniard, Turk, Swede* Suffix-less demonyms like - *Turk, Swede, Dane, Czech, Pole* and *Afghan* derive from their local languages. In fact, these are not demonyms in the strict sense because they do not derive from place names; rather, they are the opposite phenomenon, wherein the place name derives from the name of an ethnic group or tribe. *-ch* of *Dutch* and *French*, and *-ic* of *Icelandic* are derivatives of *ish*. *French* deriving from Germanic *frankisch* / Old English *francisch*. # -ese *-ese* is Romance in origin. It comes from Latin *-ensis*, which is commonly seen in the scientific names of species. It is common in demonyms for Romance-speaking places and places that became connected with Europe as a result of explorations by Romance speakers, particularly ones in East Asia and French-speaking places in Africa. These demonyms also are more often used as adjectives or collective nouns, rather than referring to individuals. When the toponym ends in -o and isn't Romance in origin, the suffix becomes *-lese* (*Congolese, Togolese*). # -i Several places in the Middle East and South Asia use the suffix *-i*, which probably has sources in several unrelated languages: - *Israeli, Iraqi, Emirati, Azerbaijani, Nepali* # misc And of course there will always be outliers with their own unique linguistic history: - *German, Swiss, Greek, Icelandic, Argentine, Cypriot, Montenegrin, Edinburgoynian* ------------------------------------ Source: URL_0",
"For \"Korean\" my theory is that the word came from what the people called themselves. \"Korea\" probably came from the old name 고려(ko ryə) and the people were 고려인(ko ryə īn) which isn't far from \"Korean\"",
"And how did it come to be that \"Frenchman\" and \"Englishman\" are OK terms but \"Chinaman\" became pejorative?",
"And in the middle, there's that central Asian zone where all the countries names end in \"-istan\", based on the primary ethnic population that lives there. Uzbekistan is primarily Uzbek; Turkmenistan is primarily Turkmens; Tajikistan is Tajik; Kazakhstan is Kazakh (although to be Kazakh is just to be from one of seven different ethnicities that all decided to join together to fight off the Chinese and Russians, there is no \"genetic\" Kazakh nation)",
"There are lots of comments here describing the origin of \"-ese\", but I wanted to point out the origin of \"-ish\", which is likely Germanic. In German, nearly every language/nationality ends in -isch, even the Asian ones that the Germans clearly didn't name (Chinese is Chinesisch, Japanese is Japanesisch, etc. Spelling may be a little off. I always thought it was funny that they get two suffixes in German!) The only exception I know of is the word for German (Deutsch) which is pretty close, and Welsh is probably another exception but I'm not sure. So English, being a Germanic language, uses the Germanic ending for a lot of European nationalities. As for the -an ending, my gut tells me Latin is the origin (which would make sense, as English is also heavily derived from Latin because it apparently didn't want to commit hard enough to being a Germanic language) but I don't know enough to say that for sure.",
"I wonder if it's a English thing. A lot of these that end in -ese require letters that force us English speakers to shut our mouths or make contact with the roof of the mouth (think consonants) whereas the ones ending in open sounds or vowels end in different sounds: - PortuGuese - VietnaMese - ChiNese - JapaNese - SudaNese - BeniNese - ItalYan - ColombiAn - AmericAn - MexicAn - MongoliAn - KoreAn - RussiAn - SomaliAn Weird ones: - Swedish - Finnish More weird ones (maybe they ended in a different sound?): - French -- > so turns out \"French\" came from an older English version of Frank: \"Francisc.\" I assume that sounded a lot like the name \"Francesca.\" - Dutch - German - Greek -- > \"Greek\" actually comes from the ancient \"Graikoi,\" a supposedly prehistoric name for the Greeks. The Romans then called them \"Graeci,\" old English called them \"Grecas\" and now we say Greek. - Czech Notice these are weird but also could sound sort of correct if they existed/were common in English: - BerliNese - GermaNese",
"'Filipino' follows the common Spanish method of adding -no to the country name (argentino, chileno, colombiano, mexicano, boliviano, australiano, coreano, sudafricano...) The Philippine islands were named after the Spanish King Phillip II (rey Felipe II)",
"Malaysian Singaporean Indonesian Cambodian Indian Mongolian I guess you haven't really thought through this? I can name more Asian nationalities that end with \"an\" than \"ese\"",
"**-an** * Mongolian (Asia) * Cambodian (Asia) * Laotian (Asia) * Singaporean (Asia) * Formosan (Asia) **-ese** from outside Asia... * Congolese (Africa) * Senegalese (Africa)",
"Because english is weird like that. In French, for example, it hardly changes: Americain/Vietnamien, Chinois/Hongrois, Japonais/Francais, Russe/Prusse. The Portuguese explorators thing only works for English, it seems, and even then it doesn't uniformly apply, as pointed out by B_CD",
"-an is from the Latin \"anus\" which modifies a noun into an adjective; e.g., Rome/Roman. -ish is from the Greek \"iskos\". The same thing as the Latin but equivalent to -esque. -ese is also from Latin; however, while the former Latin term was appropriated by Old English/Germanic (developing into English), -ese was appropriated by Old French, Italian etc., the Romantic languages. The difference between the two is based mainly on their early discoveries of the wider world. Marco Polo/French used -ese, Columbus/Armada used -an. edit: ish not directly related to iskos, rather linguistically cognate (see comment below)",
"What the fuck. Did you read my mind? I just thought about this this morning, and thought, \"this would be a good idea for an ELI5.\" At least I get to learn what I wanted to know!",
"There are Asian nationalities that end with \"an\" too, like Singaporean, Malaysian and Indonesian.",
"Well, not all Asian countries end in ese~ Indonesian Indian Cambodian Laotian Malaysian Mongolian",
"and who get's to be \"..udlians\"? Liverpudlians yes but 'Manchesterudlians? Manchudlians. Blackpudlians but 'Londonians'? Lutonians. New Castletonians? blahh",
"I don't know if it is true or not but someone told that Polish people who's name ends in Ski have been honored by poland or something? Its like being knighted or whatever. I should look into that...",
"Speaking of etymology, how do people make names for other countries in their own language? We call China \"China\" even though they call it \"Zhong guo\" in Mandarin. Nippon (or was it \"Nihon\"?) is what Japanese call Japan, and so forth. How do these come about?",
"> edit edit: For instance, Portuguese and Korean are exceptions, and then you have nationalities like \"Czech\" and \"Filipino\" which don't end in \"ese,\" \"an,\" or \"ish.\" The Czech Republic is (rather unsuccessfully) trying to rebrand itself as Czechia, which I guess would make it's citizens Czechians.",
"I don't see an explanation for -ish in the top few comments I read, so I'll add that one. -ish is from German -isch (Englisch, Italienisch, etc.). Pretty much all the old Germanic nations that existed in some sense back during the Anglo-Saxon invasion of England have Germanic names. \"French\", for instance, is from Germanic \"frankisch\", which became \"francisch\" in Old English (hard C), then \"francisch\" (soft C) later on, and then \"French\" because that's easier to say than \"francisch\". -ic like in \"Icelandic\" is a variation. Interestingly, the name \"Germany\" itself is from Latin \"Germania\" because it was already \"Germania\" in English before the \"Deutsche\" was a word.",
"All language can be traced to a general middle eastern-Indian origin. So there are some traits that remain no matter where you go. These are primitive words that likely can be traced back to Africa as well. There's quite a lot of archaic terms in the oldest languages that are shared by all. Take in Korean and Hebrew. Both basically use Abba for father. China uses Ba. Half that. The Turks use Baba, the Mongolians use Avna, which sounds similar to Abba. The Russians actually use it for Grandmother, which is an amusing gender-jump. Newer languages may show more differences. But for isolated cultures that have been rather strict in their language, it tends towards that. Fun fact: All western Alphabets can find their origin in primitive Semitic tribals in the Levant. Every single one of them. From Runes, to Greek, to Latin, to every one. They come from the Semitic tribes in the Levant. It's actually likely they got the ideas from Egypt, but as they were illiterate at first contact, the images are the same, but their meanings totally different. They plagiarized, as we did. Hell, Alphabet? That's basically Hebrew for Aleph-Beth. First two letters."
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6fhau3 | Why aren't cram schools popular in the west like they are in Asia? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Because acing a single test/set of tests generally doesn't get you into Harvard/Yale, or even mid tier colleges. In places where cram schools are more popular, your standardized test score tends to be much more important for placement in prestigious universities."
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6fjix4 | How are the Oscars seen in "over 200 countries world-wide" when there are only 196 countries in the world? | Most articles give this stat, including Wikipedia. Some more specifically say 225 countries. Am I missing something? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Mostly because saying what is or isn't a country can be very difficult. There are 193 UN Member states, which are recognized by most countries to be countries. You have some countries like Taiwan which used to be in the UN but which China insists is not a real country even though everyone treats it like one in all but name. You have places like Palestine and Kosovo which are very hot potatoes when it comes to recognizing them as country. You have small countries like Cook Islands and Niue which are only sort of independent, but generally quite non-controversial to see them as their own country. It adds up. The Olympics for example have over 200 member nations because in addition to places like Taiwan and Palestine they also recognize places like Puerto Rice and Guam as their own 'countries' despite the two being very much part of the US. It all depends on how you count and who you ask."
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6flk1h | In developed countries, assuming the marriages all take place within the country, how is polygamy even possible? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"1) Not all religions ban polygamy and so they can have religious ceremonies to be married even if the country does not grant them a secular marriage license. 2) Not all countries ban polygamy so they can get official marriage licenses to marry in these countries. 3) Not all polygamists are officially married. Sometimes they just live together in the same manner than many monogamous couples choose to without being married. Remember while polygamy is used in most common language to mean having multiple wives it more accurately means multiple female mates (sexual partners). Multiple male mates would be polyandry.",
"You just don't go to down and ask for a marriage license, some churches will say you're married, and for many people that's all that matters.",
"Your marriage license only stays at that clerks office. If you go get another one in a different county or even another state, there's no record."
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6flmcy | UK political parties and how they compare to US political parties? | I know nothing about the political parties in the UK and how they compare to US political parties. This question arose after Stephen Hawking declared he was voting for the Labour (sic) party. | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Roughly speaking (many might disagree): The big two national parties are the Conservatives and Labour: Conservatives (Tories): Mainstream right wing party, currently in government. Pro-business, socially conservative, historically very split on Europe. Their support tends to come from the richer south of the country. Labour: Traditionally a left wing party. Under Blair they moved to the centre, enough that some would say the centre-right. Now under Corbyn they have a more left wing leadership, but the party is struggling to work out exactly where they should pitch themselves. Their support is highest in poorer more northern ex-industrial areas. Then there's some other smaller national parties: Liberal Democrats (Lib Dems): A centrist party with a tradition of anti-authoritarian polices. When Labour was in power the party gained a lot of left wing support, which they then lost when they went into a coalition with the Tories. They are currently heavily struggling to retain their place as the third party. United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP): Heavily anti-European right wing party which is effectively an off-shoot of the Conservative party. Imagine if the Tea Party had broken away to form their own political party. Greens: primarily concerned with environmental issues, and with a strong left leaning stance. There's also some parties which only campaign in parts of the country: Scottish National Party: Dominate Scottish politics and want independence for Scotland Plaid Cymru: A Welsh party. Less focused on independence than the SNP, mainly because Welsh independence is a lot less likely And a whole bunch of Northern Irish parties which I'd hesitate to describe, given the complexity of Northern Irish politics. In all of this it's worth remembering that the US is considerably to the right of the UK. It might be tempting to say that Labour are like the Democrats and the Conservatives are like the Republicans, but that's only true in their relation to their country's centre ground. Put the Conservatives in the US and they'd be massively to the left of the Republicans, perhaps even the Democrats. I should also point out that some political terminology varies between the US and the UK. Labour (increasingly rarely) describes itself as \"socialist\", which is very much not seen as extreme as it would be in the US. \"Liberal\" in \"Liberal Democrats\" does not imply left wing, but comes from the more traditional anti-authoritarian sense. Also \"Conservative\" does not carry all the same religious connotations it might in a US context.",
"Hello, I'd first set of by saying just because the Tories are right wing and Labour are Left wing it doesn't mean they compare to your left and right wing parties. Firstly we have the Conservative and Unionist Party (est 1833) a party who came from the old Tory (est 1678) party, hence why they are sometimes referenced to as Tories. The Tories currently hold a majority in the Commons and are the largest party in the Lords (though they are in minority), they are the second party in both the devolved Welsh Parliament (Senedd) and Scots Parliament. They also hold 5/17 directly elected mayors. The Conservative Party is a broad church of the right holding many factions. Currently Mayism is the leading ideology in the party, quite different from their prior Thatcherism, they are currently running on a fairly authoritarian platform and due to their stance on Brexit I'd say they are anti-business. Interms of USA parties the Tories fall between the Right-Wing of the Democrats (such as the Blue Dog faction) and the Left-Wing of the Republicans (such as the Rockafeller faction). Both President Obama and Chris Christie could easily be members of this party. We then have the Labour Party (est 1900), the Labour party are the second largest in both the Commons and Lords, they are the Government in the Senedd and they are third in the Scottish Parliament. They have 13/17 of the directly elected mayors. The Labour Party is a broad church of the left (authoritarians) and currently led by their hard left faction (used to be referred to as Bennite from Tony Benn likely to be referred to as Corbynistas for some time). To give an example of how left wing Labour currently are the Communist Party UK isn't contesting the 2017 GE for the first time since the late 1800s or early 1900s. Labour are running on a platform of massive state control, nationalising the rail, energy, post, NHS, energy lines. The IFS works out their tax policy to be inline with 1940s, when we were at war with all of bloody Europe. In terms of USA parties the modern Labour Party has no mainstream equivilent, I'd guess either the Communist Party America or the US Greens. Under the right wing of labour faction (Blairites) the party is closer to the left wing Democrat factions. Bernie Sanders would certainly fit into Blairism but maybe not so much with Corbynism. **** We then get to the smaller parties the first shall be the most good Liberal Democrats. The Liberal Democrats (est 1988) formed from a merger of the SDP (a labour splinter party, opposed Foot who was till Corbyn the most left wing recent leader of Labour) and the Liberal Party (est 1859) who mostly came from the Whigs (est 1678). The Liberal Democrats are the fourth largest in the Commons (till 2015 we were the third for a long period of time) 3rd in the Lords, smallest party in the Scottish Parliament and joint bottom (though in coalition) in the Senedd. We have 2/17 of the directly elected Mayors. The Liberal Democrats are currently being led by the more left wing faction of the party (social democrats) after being led by the more right wing faction (orange book) to our biggest defeat in modern times. The party is a centrist, globalist liberal party. In terms of USA parties the Liberal Democrats too struggle to find a home, I'd guess between the Democrats and the Libertarian Party. The party is extremely pro civil rights and in coalition achieved equal marriage so it is hard to see an equivalent in all regards, certainly closer to most Democrats than Labour. Getting smaller we have the Nats (Nationalists). For the most part they are left wing and I guess similar to a California Separatist Movement. In Wales we have Plaid Cymru (the Party of Wales) who have 3/40 welsh seats and are the third largest in the Senedd. In Scotland we have the more successful SNP (Scottish National Party) who hold 46/49 Scottish seats in Westminster and are the largest party in the Scottish Parliament. In Ireland we have SDLP (Socialist Democratic Labour Party) (who are the sister party of Labour) and Sinn Fein (a PIRA party who stand in both Irelands). SF are the largest nationalist and second largest party in NI assembly. SDLP are the third largest. SF have the second most MPs for Northern Ireland, though they don't take their seats, and SDLP are third."
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6fm7ki | What is the big investigation with Russia attempting to find? And if they find wrong doing by the president what can really be done? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"They are trying to find out if the Trump campaign violated the foreign policy laws. If they did, as the Nixon campaign violated burglary laws, the President could be impeached by the House. He would then be tried in the Senate, and if he lost he would be removed from office. This would \"really do\" something.",
"1. Exactly how and to what extent did Russia hack into/meddle with the Presidential election? 2. How much did the Trump administration know about/benefit from/collude with #1? 3. Did Trump try to impede a true investigation into #1 and 2? 4. Who is leaking all the not supposed to be leaked info re: all of this? 2 & 3 could possibly lead to impeachment, depending on the politics. If Trump is impeached, we get President Pence, unless he turns out to be guilty as well.",
"The investigations are about the campaign and whether things were reported legally. That's all about whether people were following rules, and ultimately won't affect the President much (I mean, he's practically a saint according to his followers. He really was right that he could shoot someone on fifth avenue and his followers wouldn't care). The bigger deal is if he told FBI Director Comey to stop investigating National Security Advisor Michael Flynn. That would be obstruction of justice, and it's the exact thing that made Nixon resign (when he was trying to get the Watergate investigation stopped).",
"The Election has three major parts, and there's a fourth part that is slowly growing like a malignant plot tumor. The First Part is: Did Russia intentionally interfere with American Media (Traditional **and** Social) in order to manipulate the results of our Presidential Election? The Second Part is: Did the Trump Campaign cut a deal with Russia to get them to do this, in exchange for future favors if Trump won the election? The Third Part is: Did Donald Trump **know** about his campaign staff cutting that deal? If the first is true, then we need to take precautions against future interference by Russia. If the second is true, then people committed Felonies. Suffice it to say, the American Legal System takes a poor view of *asking* for a Foreign State to interfere in our elections. I'm not familiar with the specific laws involved, but this could potentially end in Life-Sentences for those who cut the deal. If the third is true, then Donald Trump committed a Felony. It *might* also be possible to argue that he committed Treason in doing so, having given aid to the enemy. We're not at war with Russia at the moment... but they are a state which we have had a rather *rough* relationship with for the past ~60 years. This brings us to the Fourth: Is President Donald Trump attempting to interfere with the investigation? This is one of the points where Donald Trump could be hanging himself. If he interfered with the investigation into Russia as it relates to his campaign *or* current staff, then he would be committing a Obstruction of Justice *using* Presidential Power. Obstruction of Justice is a Felony, and justification for an impeachment. Now, here's where things start looking like Trump has tied a noose around his own neck. He admitted on an interview that he fired Director Comey to try and make his Russia Investigation problems *go away*. That means that the Fourth question is almost certainly True. However, **this means nothing at the moment.** The United States Congress holds the power to Impeach a sitting President. Congress is the ultimate arbiter of whether or not the President has committed a Crime. If they choose not to file Articles of Impeachment, there's nothing that can be done. It's safe to assume that Republicans *will not* impeach Trump in the short-term. Trump is still valuable to the Republican Party, since he's their key to holding onto the Rust Belt and a few other regions. *However*, Trump is also becoming increasingly radioactive as his presidency goes on. In the future, the Republican Party *may* consider Trump *too toxic* to leave in Office... and trade him out for Mike Pence. It's also safe to assume that Democrats *will not* impeach Trump if they win the Midterms. Trump has a combination of Impeachment and Assassination insurance in the form of his vice president, Mike Pence. Democrats **do not** like Trump, but they are likely to prefer him to Mike Pence. This is because Mike Pence is actually *competent* and *patient* enough to get things done. Of course, this whole situation changes if Mike Pence is implicated by the investigation as well. If they could impeach the VP and the P, then the Democrats might very well do it *if* they get control of the Congress.",
"Three primary things - the election, Trump's appointments and attempts to give security clearances to \"compromised\" people, and Trump's obstruction of justice into the investigation over the first two things. That can lead to claims of perjury, witness tampering, and obstruction of justice. The investigation into the election is trying to find out if Trump's campaign coordinated and worked with a foreign power (Russia) during the election, which could lead to various campaign finance law violations, a crime against conspiring with others to deprive people of the \"right to honest services\", crimes against public corruption, and violation of the Campaign Reform Act of 2002 that makes foreign spending to influence a federal election a crime (and any American assisting with that would be charged too). For the appointments (stemming from Michael Flynn), the Logan Act bars private citizens from obstructing foreign relations (but never really gets used) - it's more likely that there will be charges of lying to FBI investigators and perjury regarding testimony to Congress, and charges of being and unregistered foreign lobbyist or agent. General \"failure to be honest\" crimes related to the need to make full and honest disclosures before getting appointments to government positions.",
"At its very core, this is about faith in the democratic process. The faith of the populace that their votes are counted and the candidate that wins reflects the will of the people. If Russia \"hacked\" the system by exposing secrets and running a disinformation campaign online to manipulate the outcome. If the winning candidate knew of this plot and willfully benefited from it. And on a broader scale, is this a covert action to undermine all western elections to bring about a more favorable political climate for Russia (see similar actions in the recent French election and other.) Our government works because people believe it works. Take away that faith and democracy crumbles.",
"So far absolutley nothing. It has been a severe provocation by media abd the left to try to Highlight the only possible worst case scenario with Trump. I'm not American, I have no aleigance. But statistically America has been doing great since Trump took over even they day he decided not to sign the Paris agreement the D.O.W index rose several points. The fact of the matter is instead of talking about the president like a human being, there is this major focus on making him seem awful, so even tho Obama and Hillary both said anyone who questions the electrol system of America doesn't deserve to be president, they are doing exactly that now. It's a load of hype over nothing and Russia is laughing away at the Americans who think it is some huge scheme."
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6fmhe8 | In what ways do languages that write right to left (like Arabic and Hebrew) differ from other languages? | When I say differ, it has to relate with the difference in writing direction. Here are some follow-up questions I have in mind: -*How do numbers work?* Like how would the number 32,805 [thirty-two thousand eight hundred (and) five] be written and read? Rules on where to put digit dividers? [You know how in English, we write the number 3, then the 2, then the digit divider (comma, dot, etc), 8, 0, and then 5 from left to right and read it from bigger value to smaller value to stay true with the direction.] -*Is math formatted differently as well?* Would 2 + 3 = 5 be favored the other way around, among any other differences? -*Are units of measurement written left of the number?* How would 43 cm or 5′ 2″ be written? [In fact, I just found out that I never knew how to write 5′ 2″ properly up until now (prime symbol, not apostrophes? a space after the foot symbol? never knew that wow)] -For books, documents, and notes (or anything that has more than one page), *are they written from right to left page, from the "back" end of one book to the "front"*, just like in manga? -*Does writing right to left affect punctuation?* -*Would there be more left-handed writers of these languages? Any disadvantages for writing in such languages using the right hand?* Are there any other interesting points that you may want to add? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Answering as a Hebrew speaker (and I believe this also applies to Arabic): Numbers and math are still written left to right. A range of numbers (for example 2004-2017 or 9:30-10:45) is written right to left (i.e. 2017-2004 or 10:45-9:30). Units of measurement are written after the number, same as in English. Of course, \"after\" means \"left of\", since you write right to left. Symbols like the degree symbol are considered a part of the number, so they do go to the right of it (however ' an \" aren't quite used, we would just say 5 feet 10 inches). Books are also written right to left. Yes, like manga. No, handedness has nothing to do with the direction of languages. Handedness develops before you learn to write. RTL languages are more convenient for right handed people when you're writing inscribing on a stone tablet, LTR languages are more convenient for right handed people when you're writing with ink (so you don't smear)."
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6fmsqh | The difference between Pop music and Rock music. | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Listen to Britney Spears and then listen to Nirvana. Both are popular bands of their receptive genres from the 90s. Explaining music is a hard thing to do but pop is generally very artificial in it's sound and centered around one or multiple singers that sing on top of music that is pre-recorded. Rock centers around three main instruments (guitar, base, and drums) being played at the same time as one or more singers are singing."
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6fo62o | How did the term 'Gothic' go from barbarians, to churches and architecture to punk subculture? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"URL_0 Long story short, it was an insult to architecture built before the early modern (renaissance) period which were seen as un-roman and ghastly. They were against roman ideals and seeing as the goths sacked rome, it seemed appropriate. People took that term and used it in an almost ironic sense by using it to describe their gloomy, heavy, punk subculture.",
"Gargoyles. I am dubious that the punk subculture as a whole is privy or even cares about the sacking of Rome by the Goths I really think that the appeal of \"Gothic\" to the modern subculture has to do with gargoyles. Many famous Gothic cathedrals are covered in macabre, dark, scary looking gargoyles that appeal to the teenagers."
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6foj37 | Why does buying cars involve so much negotiating and not just set prices? | Just wondering since I will be getting a car if my own soon and it still confuses me as to why u can't just but a car for a set price and that some people get the same car cheaper than other and vice versa | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Sellers can make the most money if they charge everyone a different price, but that's hard to do. From an economics perspective, if you're dying of thirst, maybe you'd be willing to pay $100 for a bottle of water, but if they charge everyone only $1, from a seller's perspective, they're losing $99 they could have earned. So with a car, it's the same. The sticker price is a generally high price, which is the most any buyer would have to pay. Dealers make the sticker price high because some people are willing to pay the high sticker price, without negotiating anything. Some buyers won't negotiate because they don't know how to, don't want to, think it's rude, are afraid to, are too shy, or they have enough money that they don't want to spend the time and effort to lower the price. If dealers charged a lower price to everyone, then they would lose out on the money from all the people who would have been willing to pay more. If instead the dealer refuses to negotiate and they make their prices firm, then they'll lose customers who would have bought from them if the price was a little lower.",
"Carmax has set prices on their whole fleet of cars, nationwide. I've bought a couple cars from them and the overall experience was great! No fuss.",
"Because cars are a large transaction that most people will only make a few times in their lives, so it's worth it from the seller's point to maximize revenue by capturing the absolute most everyone is willing to pay, even if they have to share most of the captured revenue with their own sales staff. Less expensive, more frequently purchased goods are only sold at one price because the labor costs to employ a skilled negotiator greatly exceeds the increased revenue, so it's more profitable to sell things quickly, cheaply, and with as little employee time per sale, as possible. In lower labor cost nations, many more objects are sold via negotiation and haggling.",
"You can just buy a car for the sticker price (+ taxes and regulatory fees usually). But with cars (as with houses and a few other things) there's a cost and revenue potential on both ends of the equation so both sides want something. The car dealer has carrying costs - it costs him money to have this vehicle on the lot, most likely the vehicle was bought with borrowed money, and the longer it's on the lot the more they pay in interest (or lose in money that could have been invested in another car that would have sold faster). Some cars are good to have on the lot though, because people look at them and decide they want one, but not in that colour or the like and order one. Cars that move quickly are harder to get a good price on that cars which are not moving quickly. Sometimes they really do want the damn thing off the lot to make room for something else. As a buyer you want stuff, but not all buyers want the same things. Maybe I want a free go at their racetrack, you want a free key, someone else wants to buy the vehicle a month from now, or whatever. Each of those is worth something. As a buyer you also have value in your time, or maybe you don't. My dad is retired, when he buys a car he can drive 2 hours to save 500 bucks. I'm not retired, I have a job, and serious posting on reddit to do, I can't just be driving all over the damn country trying to get the best deal on a car. But the car dealer also knows that I *could* drive across town, or to a big city or whatever, and you can use that in your favour. Where I bought my car they have a BMW, Lexus, Infiniti, Volvo, and Jaguar dealership (all owned by the same guy) in a row. There, the sales guys knows if you walk away from his deal you can literally walk to a competing dealership for a different car, and he personally is out the sale. But the owner doesn't care. There are, in the US at least, places that offer fixed prices, and you can look up the general prices of certain cars. The TL;DR of it all is that for some buyers negotiating prices provides and advantage, and for some sellers negotiating prices provides an advantage. So both sides are happy to keep this arrangement. Of course for lots of buyers this is disadvantage, but on a many thousands of dollar purchase being out 300 or 500 dollars is usually not the end of the world."
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6fotb3 | What is the history behind boys hiding their emotion? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"The expression of emotion (though not necessarily emotions themselves) is influenced by the culture of the society the person is born into. Both Americans and Russians experience happiness, but it's not normal in Russian culture to smile at strangers, while in America it is. What emotions are \"allowed\" to be expressed by what gender, and how they can be expressed, is also largely a cultural thing. So in our culture, logic and reason are seen as the opposites of emotion (think Spock), even though emotion is fundamental to making decisions. This comes from a couple of different historical influences, particularly Greek philosophy. Being logical and reasonable is seen as a good thing: thus, being outwardly emotional and allowing emotions to dictate your decisions is not seen as a good thing. However, we still feel emotions. And we do on some level recognize emotions are necessary. So how do we reconcile \"logic good, emotions bad\" with \"emotions exist\"? We say that logic is important for big decisions (affairs of state, money, war, etc.) and emotions are good for smaller, more personal decisions (friendship, romance, honor, and insult). Notice that the former is dominated by men while the latter is dominated by women. So over time you get this dichotomy where women are taught to express emotion more, while men are taught to suppress it... except in the case of anger and insult, because those things are tied to honor, and until very recently, honor was a male thing (women couldn't duel over an insult, for example, but two men could duel if one insulted the other's lady). Add to this a healthy serving of Victorian gender ideals (women are sweet pure homemakers, men are dirty politicians given to vice) and you get the modern idea of emotional expression by gender.",
"Male humans generally keep their emotions to themselves as not only is it viewed as 'masculine' to keep tight control of your emotions, men find little sympathy when they do display their emotions. There may be an evolutionary reason for the deliberate withholding of inner emotions and thoughts. In times when humans lived in tiny groups, there would likely be a main male leader. If the group was not doing well and food was scarce, it would be bad if the leader began to display lots of negative emotions because it would damage the morale of the other members. This isn't to say women are incapable of hiding emotions due to either social rules or for self- and group-preservation, but men do it way more often because they have to.",
"I was listening to a program on NPR a couple of years ago that highlighted that the degree to which emotions can be displayed and which emotions can be displayed and by which gender are very tied to culture. They vary significantly from one culture to the next, and from one era to the next. She highlighted that if you go back 150 years ago it was perfectly acceptable in the US for men to take to tears when hearing beautiful poetry or music. Lincoln f.ex is recorded as doing it several times. And of course most poetry etc at that time was written by men. Today it is still common to see Middle Eastern men openly show affection and tenderness to their kids, while here in the US men are more restrictive on that score. IIRC she said the cultural shift in the US happened roughly a century ago. I've tried finding the relevant NPR interview, but can't. I wonder whether it was Carolyn Strange speaking about her book \"Honour, Violence and Emotions in History\" but I may be wrong."
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6fpy9m | Why did religions like Norse, Greek, and Egyptian die out but religions of Jewish decent (Jewish, Christian, Islamic) thrived? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"The basic answer here is that Christianity and Islam became the official religions of empires that ended up conquering most of Europe and the Middle East. And, since they were monotheistic religions, they tended to replace rather than exist alongside the local religions in those places. Judaism is the odd man out since it survived less as a result of its own conquests, but because it is in a sense a prequel to Christianity and Islam, and so ended up being more like a \"sect\" of those two faiths in terms of how it was treated, rather than being absorbed or displaced. There are, of course, other more specific factors as well, like the nature of the faiths, their own resistance to being co-opted, the displaced faiths being tied into political or social structures that were also outlawed, and particularities of history and culture.",
"Norse, Greek and Egyptian religions were all overtaken by Christianity (although in the case of Egypt, Egyptian religion has blended somewhat with Greek because of Alexander the Great's conquest and the Ptolemaic dynasty). So what you're asking is why did Christianity spread and take influence over those and other religions, which is complicated. In general though, Christianity, which had already made large advances in the Roman Empire, became the official religion of the Empire under Emperor Constantine, which hastened its spread throughout Europe, North Africa, and much of the Middle East. Germanic and Slavic areas that were outside the Empire each have unique reasons for conversions, but in general it was seen as advantageous to adopt Christianity both for political reasons and spiritual reasons. The rise of Islam mainly supplanted other religions like Christianity, Zoroastrianism, and common polytheism through conquest. Waves of muslim armies conquered the middle east, then North Africa, and far into Europe before being partially turned back. Other large gains were made when the Mongols, who captured a huge portion of the world, converted to Islam. Judaism is truly unique in having survived for by far the longest time but also despite having been conquered and having its people dispersed many times over. The best explanation is that theologically it is a religion based on text and law and keeping a promise with god (covenant) to follow the law, which is perhaps harder to stamp out (despite the efforts of many conquering powers).",
"u/justthistwicenomore explained it pretty well. To add a bit more, Abrahamic religions (Christianity, Judaism, Islam) are monotheistic, compared to the pagan religions that you mentioned which worshipped many gods. This was an important advantage as in some cases, such as Rome, people would worship only one of the many deities or [mystery religions]( URL_0 ), which meant that there was no one god that clearly dominated. Another way that, say, Christianity differed from paganism was that it had a well-defined concept of heaven and hell, as well as sins (most importantly of all, the sin of non-believing) that could prevent people from ascending to heaven, and worse yet an eternal punishment of hell. This provided a strong incentive for people to first of all adopt the religion and then remain loyal to it. Finally, Christianity and Islam are proselytising religions, which means that they actively recruit new members, either through force or through the act of preaching. That allowed these religions to spread rapidly compared to paganism, which generally did not proselytise."
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6fq1po | Codependency | I'm reading "Codependent No More," and I understand the codependency in extreme situations, but I'm confused about the subtleties. Can someone explain what codependency is? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Putting the needs of others ahead of your own, to the point where you are not taking good care of yourself. Often mentioned in situations where that \"other\" person has a substance addiction or other destructive habit, and the \"codependent\" person works so hard to take care of them, it ends up \"enabling\" them to do their bad habit even more. /r/Codependency/"
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6fqc0c | Why is it so hard for me to agree with views from the other end of the political spectrum? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"u/lateral_roll touched on the subject, but didn't actually explain the underlying issue at hand here. Confirmation and belief biases and framing are all well and good, but that isn't the crux of the issue. The real problem here is the \"Us vs. Them mentality\" (or \"Social Identity Theory\"). Not only are we biologically hardwired into this kind of thinking, our entire lives are built on top of that structure. When you're crazy about something, everyone who doesn't understand/agree with you *is wrong*. Everyone who does agree with you is *right*. Let's take this away from politics for a moment and bring it into the realm of sports, simply because it's an easier topic to visualize. Say you're a supporter of the Dallas Cowboys football team because you grew up in and around Dallas, Texas. You decide to go to a football match with an old friend, so you both wear a Dallas Cowboys jersey (blue and white) to the game. When you get to the stadium, you see a *whole lot* of the other fans wore a jersey, painted their faces, or are holding Dallas Cowboy's signs. You're all seated in the same area of the stadium, and you're all wearing blue and white. In come the opposing team's fans. Let's say it's the Balitmore Ravens. Their team is wearing black and gold. All of their fans are wearing black and gold jerseys. They have their faces painted black and gold. They're cheering every time the Ravens make a good play that puts your team at a disadvantage, and every time it feels like a personal slight against you and your team. It's *so* easy to paint them as the villains, because they look, act, and sound like they're attacking you and your team. It's you and your fans (us) versus them and their fans (them). Now extend that out to politics, and the roles don't change. If you're a Republican, you wear red and go to Republican rallies and support Republican politicians, and every time they do something good you cheer and cheer... while your opponents, the Democrats, wear blue and support Democrats and when your team does something bad, they cheer and cheer. Humanity has been doing this since it first began. One tribe versus all other tribes, because you only really care about the survival of you and your friends/kin, and they only really care about them and their friends/kin.",
"Mental bias is one hell of a drug. You have subconsciously made your mind and made assumptions about the other side the second you heard your own side. URL_2 URL_0 URL_1"
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6fqoh0 | what is a meme? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"The word meme was actually coined by Richard Dawkins in his book The Selfish Gene. He defined it as any information that is spread without genes such as language or learned behaviors. An internet meme is a subset of memes that include those Wendy's Tweets and such. These are generally amusing images or videos used to mock someone/something or make a point in a comedic fashion.",
"For an 8 year old...it is an idea that spreads. In Internet culture it usually spreads with a picture or video with a dose of humor.",
"ELI5: An idea that keeps spreading from person to person. It can be a joke/fact/opinion. It can spread by word of mouth, by book, movie, or internet.",
"A meme a neologism coined by Richard Dawkins, is \"an idea, behavior, or style that spreads from person to person within a culture\". Copied and pasted straight if wiki"
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6fs9ig | Why do Muslims get offended when a picture of the prophet Muhammad is shown, but followers of the other abrahamic religions don't care if a picture of one of their religious figures is shown? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"There was an old dispute among the byzantine Christian about whether drawing icons representing the christ and the saints is idolatry URL_1 This dispute passed to Islam (A nice question for /r/askhistorian) some Muslim consider that it's Haram to represent the prophet while some other allow drawing of the prophet URL_0 It happens that at the moment the one who are angry, violent and pissed off are the one that forbid to represent but the prophet. But I saw drawing of the prophet for sale in some Bazaar in middle-east."
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6ft4ew | How do perfect architectural layouts like that in Barcelona happen? | You've probably seen the photos of [Barcelona from above] ( URL_0 ) where the buildings appear to be in clumps, made up of an outer ring with a courtyard of some kind in the middle. How does this happen on a city-wide basis? Does the government have super-strict planning regulations? Or is each little block just owned by one company to begin with? And all the materials are basically the same colour. | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Barcelona's layout was engineered. It was the work of a city planner called [Ildefons Cerdà]( URL_1 ). He designed a plan on how the city should grow around the old medieval city (the darker area in the map linked in the Wikipedia page linked above). His plan took into account the need for sunlight, green spaces, transportation, sewers,etc. New real state developments followed this plan from 1860 for about a century, until land owners and speculators got in the way. In [this satellite photo]( URL_0 ) you can see the old city in the center bottom, and newly developed areas near the top and left side of the photo. Source: I'm from Barcelona (though I have been living in Tokyo for many years now)"
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6ftare | Why is male and female handwriting distinct? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Studies have shown females as a whole have better fine motor skills where as males as a whole have better large motor skills. This can be somewhat attributed to genetics as men where expected to hunt while women would go pick berries. As these differences became expected in society they would get reinforced by expecting, for example women to sew and men to lift heavy things. In addition when a female is bad at handwriting society will harp on them to make it better because they expect it to be better, whereas if a male has bad handwriting they'll say \"well boys are just bad at it\". The reverse is true for sports in many cases. Basically it's nature that gets extra reinforced by nurture.",
"One theory is that men and women are taught to handwrite at the same time, which is the best time for women but a bad time for men. Thus men learn to handwrite too late/early for them to learn it effectively.",
"I was surprised how pretty Aaron Hernandez' handwriting was. URL_0 : Edit to add: And Prince's as well! URL_1",
"From my own anecdotal evidence, I've seen that both genders can sometimes have the same type of handwriting.",
"Confirming psychology, based on personal experience. I used to crave any affirmation or attention from my dad and I remember he once commented on my good handwriting as a child. I soaked it up so much that I became obsessed with perfecting it. If I started a book report and it wasn't perfect, I'd rewrite the whole thing again. Edit: Upon further thought, I think social expectations coupled with fine motor skills played a part. I do remember my brother always got outside toys and I seemed to like activities where I could make bracelets, write and color. However, the desire to please my parents and teachers really played a big part. Would like to take the time to also mention my superb typing skills. Shout out to the home row keys! :)",
"It is because of the differences in how female and male brains develop in childhood. Females have developed better fine motor skills at that age than young boys have, thus they have more finesse during their learning which follows them as they get older.",
"Here's the study: URL_0 TL;DR - Motor skills, gender stereotypes, and language literacy contribute to handwriting skill development And then the other study: URL_1 TL;DR - Your sex hormones have a meaningful impact on your handwriting style (a little better than ~two thirds of the time, the sex of the writer could be determined by handwriting)"
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6fuejy | Why do most conspiracies involve Jewish people? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"text": [
"Around medieval europe times Jews were not allowed to own land. Not much else to do besides farming so a lot went into money managing and scholarly trades. In other areas like middle east, muslims can't take loans that have interest. That's an important thing to start a business or trade. Jewish folk in those parts probably took advantage of that to gain wealth and power. Also, as an ethnic group the jewish sects are very close knit and don't mix a lot so it's easier to see it as \"us vs them\" kind of thing."
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6fvwc9 | Why do Roman/Greek sculptures have such small genitalia? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"It was a tradition in ancient times that a small penis was associated with heroism, wisdom, and moderation - basically, the ideal man wasn't distracted by lustful urges, so his genitals were understated. If you look at Greek and Roman art depicting satyrs, barbarians, pervy old men, they've got big floppy ol' wing-dings, because they were ruled by those lesser urges. But the heroes were focused on other stuff, though I'm sure they got around plenty.",
"Big floppy dicks were considered barbaric at the time in Ancient Greece, so they wouldn't have been included on statues meant to embody the perfect human form. Much of the Roman style was copied from the greeks, so although they appreciated a fine dick joke in other forums, the artistic style on their sculptures didn't reflect that.",
"They're normal sized. You're going to read a bunch of opinions on style, and tradition, but the fact is all those sculptures show a normal sized flaccid penis on a guy standing around casually.",
"Other than heroism, wisdom, etc like the others have stated. People have theorized that the small genitalia referenced the ancient Greek ideal for per-pubescent male nudity [**{Source; Wikipedia}**]( URL_0 ) URL_1 As said in the top article, \"one of the most common and socially acceptable relationships was between a man and a young boy\" in ancient Greece. So one of the most ideal forms of beauty at that time was looking like a 12 year old boy so you could attract wealthy old men. > \"pleasing women was about the last priority that any self-respecting Greek hero would have had back then\"",
"Many have already covered the common answers of \"That was the ideal penis because of modesty, associations with barbarianism\" and \"Well, honestly, that's what most cocks look like flaccid and standing in a cold room modeling for someone\" both of these have some truth to them, but don't think that the cultures were afraid gigantic cocks and portraying them, because that's absolutely not the case. The \"modest\" argument tends to a late addition, and it comes from a period which ignores a lot of the sexuality that the Greeks and Romans showed in order to portray something more moral. The \"well shit, it's cold\" is a bit more on the point. That's not to say modesty isn't involved at all, because it is an important fact, and things like the kynodesme relay this, but: but what I haven't seen mentioned, at least in the top comments, is that large cock statues DID exist in both Greece and Rome, but for different purposes. The Hermae of Greece had absolutely gigantic cocks, the ones in Athens were cut off on either an act of vandialism, or an act against democracy right before the Sicilian Expedition (there's a lot of debate on this, and as much as I'd like to say it's the latter, there's no definite proof and even the people admitting fault were pressured to do so to save their lives.) But we do have representations of them in pottery, here's one showing a gigantic cock of a herm (the statue on the right) and the gigantic cock of pan URL_0 and another likely showing hermae (though they would not have shown this much of the lower body...err the lower body below the cock) URL_3 Then we have the URL_2 of Rome, essentially signs of luck and fortune and fertility. which gives us things like this lovely monstrosity URL_1 And of course, everyone's favourite god: Priapus: URL_4 These things survive better in frescoes and descriptions because things sticking out a long distance tend to break off easily of statues (this is why a lot of statues also lack arms... same thing going on with erect penises... lack of support, and more likely for something to accidentally rest upon it and break it off -- and while the amount has been exaggerated, there have been crusader types that have purposefully censored works like this.) But I'm rambling now, so I'll stop. But basically: big cocks did exist, just many didn't survive in the sculptures we have today.",
"Hey first off I take offense to this, my flaccid penis kind of looks like David's but when I get a boner it is slightly above average. But seriously all the things about it symbolizing wisdom and not giving into lust and all of that is true. But seriously if David's cock was down to his knees that is the only thing people would talk about, it would take away from the beauty of the sculpture. This is true in many famous paintings as well, getting the human figure accurate is a very hard thing to do and putting a gigantic ding dong on it will overpower the beauty of it. I am an amateur artist and have done many human figure drawings and realized that if you put a huge schlong on your male figures that will be the only thing people notice. I am aware that in art everything is symbolism but the fact that this question is even asked kind of proves my theory. The focal point of these art pieces is not supposed to be the weiner. I know this sounds like a simpleton answer but imo it's true.",
"Large penises were seen as animalistic, barbaric, and borderline sub-human in Ancient Greece. So statues of heroes, nobility, and philosophers would show small penises if nude. Rome copied much of its culture from the Greeks including that sculpture style.",
"I was told by a history professor once that the Greeks/Romans preferred smaller knobs because they were tidier and more masculine. Although to be considered barbaric and unheroic in nature seems to be a better explanation."
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6fycnu | The Council of Nicea & The Compilation of the Bible. | I'm on a learning spree about Church history & I stumbled upon the Council of Nicea. From my understanding that is where scripture was solidified as canon, right? A council of church leaders gathering to determine which books were canon and which should be put into the Bible. But it's confusing and there are a lot of moving parts here and I just want to get a clear and accurate understanding I guess of how the actual Bible was formed, and if the Council of Nicea was what actually brought all the books together and made it 'The Bible'? And if so, what did Christians & church leaders use as scripture before that? Just as many religious texts as they could get their hands on? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"It's hard to explain this without getting into the nitty gritty details about Christian theology and politics in the ancient world, but I'll try! I'm going to first talk about the Council of Nicea, then touch on the Biblical canon. The Council of Nicea was the first **ecumenical council**. What this means is that it was supposed to be a council representing the entire Christian Church. The attendants were primarily bishops, who are members of the church leadership. The early Christian Church had grown a lot, and there were increasing numbers of disagreements about how the Christian faith should be practiced and what its essential beliefs were. Some things that they thought were important seem a little silly to us (like how to determine the date of Easter) The biggest controversy was over something called [Arianism]( URL_3 ) which had to do with the nature of Jesus Christ. The exact details are hard to reconstruct, but this is as good as we can get: Christianity teaches that Jesus Christ was both a human man and a divine person: not just a good guy, but also God. Arianism was basically the idea that at one point in time, God the Father existed alone, and then created Jesus as the first and most perfect of His creation. After that, Jesus helped create everything else. In this view, Jesus was not really \"God\" but rather a created, lesser being with a different essence. This view didn't sit well with much of the early Christian Church, which believed that Jesus was fully God, and equally **eternal** with God the Father - he has always existed, basically. The controversy got bad enough that emperor Constantine called the ecumenical Council of Nicea to resolve it, among other issues. The Council affirmed (by a wide margin) what has become the traditional non-Arian view, that Jesus as a divine person is fully God and co-eternal with the Father. The main product of the Council of Nicea was summary of the faith, or **creed**, called [the Nicene Creed]( URL_0 ). The key words that relate to the Arian controversy are: > And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God, begotten of the Father before all worlds (æons), Light of Light, very God of very God, begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father; Now, to move on to the question of the Biblical canon. In short, no, the Biblical canon was **not** decided at Nicea. The Biblical canon [formed over time]( URL_1 ) through a gradual consensus throughout the church. The \"Old Testament\" (the parts that predate Jesus) were largely inherited from the Jews, with some minor changes. The New Testament primarily consisted of the four Gospels, or accounts of Jesus' life, from Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, and the writings of St. Paul. There's also some additional letters and odds and ends (e.g. Revelations which is too complicated to go into). Most of these writings were accepted without a lot of controversy, and were pretty widely known throughout the church within a century or two of Jesus' life. They typically circulated independently as scrolls - remember, they didn't have physical, bound books at the time like we do today. There were some local differences, however. The church in Syria, for instance, had the [Diatessaron]( URL_5 ), which combined elements of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John into a single narrative. It's not totally clear whether this was meant as a supplement or a replacement for certain audiences. In addition, there were other books - like the [Acts of Paul]( URL_4 ) or the [Gospel of Judas]( URL_2 ) that received only limited support within the Christian Church and eventually fell by the wayside, and was not included in the Biblical canon. Going into why each and every one was not included would take a book and be far beyond my abilities or ELI5. In short though, when they taught something contrary to the rest of the canon, or came significantly later, or wasn't approved of by knowledgeable and respected church authorities, they generally were viewed as non-canonical or heretical. I hope that helps! If you have any follow-up questions, I'll answer if I can."
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6g066e | Why is Russia the "bad guys" of the world? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"They're not. They are, however, one of our chief competitors. So they're our bad guys. Just the same, we're their bad guys.",
"Nations by design put their own self interest first. Their allies interests comes second. The U.S. and Russia have different interests, different geopolitical goals, and different allies. So that creates totally normal tension, competition, shit talking, espionage, and political scheming. The idea being thrown around that U.S. and Russian tension is fabricated is nonsense. For people just waking up to politics this last year it seems plausible, but if you read the history of the world from 1922 to present there's nothing remotely surprising about U.S. and Russian tension.",
"Russia isn't inherently bad, but their government is. Putin made a power grab in 1999 after a series of bombings. Quite a few Russians believed that he was somehow involved in using the Russian intelligence agencies to orchestrate the bombings in order to manufacture a crisis. People who investigated this turned up dead. Journalists in Russia keep being assassinated, most likely by agents of the government. Putin annexed Crimea, violated international law, and sent troops with no identifiable national or unit markers into Ukraine to help the pro-Russian rebels in a civil war that continues to this day. Putin has been funding the Taliban. Putin used cyberwarfare and propaganda to influence the US election, and had already used the same capabilities against Ukraine in a \"dry run.\" I haven't bothered citing any of those claims, if you care to read about them just throw some keywords into google and pick reputable sources in order to read about it",
"The U.S. thinks Russians are bad. Russia thinks the U.S. is bad. The rest of the world is sick of your pissing competition.",
"They're not the bad guys of the world. Just the bad guys \"of the west\". Just like \"western propaganda\" is the devil to them. It's easier to blame a foreign influence than it is to admit that fault may lie in your own country."
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6g0fgw | what is prom and why is it such a big deal in america. | As a german i don't really get the whole idea from what i see on the internet. Why is it such a big deal? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"The United States does not have elaborate \"rights of passage\" ceremonies that other societies enjoy. However, the \"prom\" serves many of these functions. When you go, you are considered an adult with adult interests. You wear adult clothes (formal clothes), drive an adult vehicle (a car), have a date like an adult and may drink alcohol like an adult (although most are too young to legally drink). You might consider it the secular equivalent to the bat mitzvah, confirmation, etc and the cultural equivalent to the Quinceañera although focused on the peer group and not the individual.",
"It's just a formal dance to mark the end of the school year for students about to graduate (and juniors who are about to become seniors). For many it'll be one of the first formal events they'll attend and definitely the first that is focused on them rather than someone else (like a wedding).",
"Prom, short for promenade, is typically a formal dance held by high schools for juniors and seniors (typically 17 to 19 year olds). Although many schools hold 2 to 3 semi-formal or formal dances a year, prom is usually seen as the most important social event of the year. It serves somewhat as a rite of passage in the American culture."
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6g18rh | when a restaurant runs out of something, why is it "86ed"? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"As you'll see in [this article]( URL_0 ) there are a number of theories, none of which are confirmed and all of which have problems. I think as the article states at the end that the most likely answer is that it rhymes with \"nix,\" meaning eliminate or negate. Wouldn't shock me to learn that a bit of rhyming slang just caught on and became popular somewhere, and then ended up in a book/movie and so became popular everywhere."
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6g2d92 | When a new word develops (slang, tech words, etc.) in a language like French or Spanish, who "decides" if it is a masculine or feminine word? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"It can come from different sources. * **Original language** : If the word comes from a language where it is already attributed a gender, it sometimes keeps it. *e.g.* a \"Gelato\" (Italian ice cream) is now commonly used in French. Gelato is masculine in Italian, and so it is masculine in French. * **Users** : The first few person to use a word may attribute it a gender based on their own will. This sometimes leads to inconsistencies. *e.g.* a \"Job\" (work) is now a common word in French. However, it is masculine in France, but feminine in Canada. * **Ending** : Most endings are attributed to a gender. *e.g.* most words ending with *-a* are feminine in Italian & Spanish. So if the new word ends in *-a*, it will most likely be attributed the feminine gender in those languages. * **Etymology** : If some related word already exists in the \"receiving\" language, the new word might take the same gender. * **Context** : If that new word is a new variant of something that already exists and is bounded to replace an older concept/thing, it might just take the same gender as the older concept/thing, as people already refers to certain things in that field with a certain gender.",
"Well, when a language uses masculine and feminine words, native speakers \"feel\" the gender of the word even if it is invented. It just sounds masculine or feminine to you, or neutral. source - native Bulgarian speaker, we have genders for words. Can't tell if it is the same for French and Spanish, though."
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6g2o05 | why is the West more closely allied with Saudi Arabia instead of Iran? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Iran used to be a pretty close ally of the USA and Britain. In the 1950s they elected a Prime Minister named Mohammad Mosaddegh, who nationalized the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (which means he kicked out the foreign owners of the company and transferred control of the company to the people of Iran) In response, the USA and Britain launched a coup d'état to overthrow Mosaddegh. This allowed Mohammad Reza Shah, the Emperor of Iran, to replace Mosaddegh with a series of stooges who pretty much let the Shah govern the country as a dictator. This was the state of affairs in Iran for the next 20 years, until the Shah was diagnosed with cancer and his enemies in Iran used it as an opportunity to overthrow him. The Shah was overthrown in 1979, and replaced by a fundamentalist government led by Ayatollah Khomeini. The Shah himself went to the USA for cancer treatment. Later on in 1979, a group of students in Iran took over the American embassy and took 52 American citizens hostage. Among their demands was that the USA return the Shah to Iran so that they could put him on trial (and, most likely, execute him). The same regime is still in power in Iran, and because of the USA's involvement in the overthrow of Mossadegh, plus their support of the Shah, the current Iranian leadership doesn't exactly care for the USA.",
"The US used to be super friendly with Iran. So much so that the US had direct access to The Shah (Iran's leader from the late 50s until 1979). The Shah was overthrown via revolution in 1979 and US citizens were taken hostage. This was probably the biggest thing to kill Jimmy Carter's 1980 election campaign. Ever since then, Iran was considered an enemy of the US (except we sold arms to them illegally) and on top of that, we gave Saddam Hussein weapons to attack Iran in the 80s.",
"The Bush family had a large part to play in it. According to a journalist called Unger, the amount of money that has been flowing back and forth between the Bush'es and the Saud's amounts to billions. So they're not really the allies of the US. They're allies with the oil-rich people of the US."
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6g4o59 | How did 4chan go from basically worshiping "V for Vendetta", to rallying behind the very things the protagonist of that movie stood against? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"There's a couple things at work here: Firstly, if you start a website or section 'ironically' supporting something, then sooner or later you will attract people who don't realise its irony and support it in truth. This because especially so when a website is anonymous so you can't distinguish between an 'ironic' poster and genuine one. Secondly, 4chan does not celebrate diversity. Part of the reason behind being 'anonymous' is that it means in a sense, everyone is the 'same' and on the same footing. Expressing a difference from the assumed default of \"young straight white male\" means you're separated and different. Thirdly, 4chan's traditional userbase has usually leaned towards being libertarian, or occasionally what some call 'brogressive' - pro freedoms, pro-drugs, but little action on social issues of class, gender, race, etc. A splinter/extreme/different faction is 'neoreactionary' (NRx for short), which is kind of a political philosophy based around supporting 'great thinkers' and technologists and restricting the rights of those who 'don't deserve them'. 4chan has a decent amount of NRx people although the movement is not as popular as it once was. However NRx is many ways is basically the alt-right except with so-called 'scientific' justification. So you can basically draw a progression between 'brogressive' - > libertarian - > NRx - > alt-right.",
"The user base of 4chan shifted when it became a mainstream/popular website. Now it sounds more like a slightly edgier version of most other websites, and not the greasy underbelly of the Internet as it once was.",
"The belief that 4chan used to be far left is a reddit meme based largely on incomplete information and wishful thinking. 'Hitler did nothing wrong' is almost as old as the site itself, and the whole 'pool closed due to aids' thing, popularized during the Habbo raids of 2006, was perhaps its most iconic meme. 'Tits or gtfo' is similarly ancient. The original news board, /new/, was shut down for being even farther right and more offensive than /pol/. Regarding the masks, the actual Guy Fawkes bore little similarity to his portrayal in V for Vendetta, and Guy Fawkes masks were around *long* before the movie. A good portion of its popularity came from Epic Fail Guy, which was about as apolitical as memes get. Don't get me wrong, there's more directed and charged political energy on 4chan today, but they aren't the ones who declared that war. They're largely reacting to trends such as the UK, Germany, and Canada jailing people for offensive tweets and Facebook postings, the recent campaign by journalists to destroy the 'White, male' old internet, and the decline in relevance of figures like Jack Thompson, who used to serve as their right wing counterparts. If you embrace talking points like 'Hate speech is not free speech', don't be surprised if websites that revel in free expression decide they hate you and act accordingly.",
"They used the mask, but the appeal is from the anarchic aspects of that character more than the anti-fascist aspects. That site is really just a depository for a certain kind of mindset, one that sees itself as strong, righteous, above it all, clear-thinking, and utterly besieged by the forces of feminism, PC culture, liberals, etc. Basically the type of people the term \"white fragility\" was coined to describe. People who see themselves under threat by people they also view as weaker than them. It's a weird mesh of right wing ideology and conspiratorial world views that started merging online and in media back in the 90's. It's no coincidence that Alex Jones and Infowars get a press pass in Trump's White House, he helped put him there. There's a long tradition in certain conservative circles where they think that Democrats and liberals are engaged in some shadowy conspiracy (probably with Jews) to undermine the strengths of white America and ultimately neuter and subjugate the \"real\" America and turn the country into a communist wasteland. Most conservatives don't think this literally, but many have a shade of it, that liberals aren't \"real Americans\" and they perceive a culture war being waged against their values. But some strains take that ball and run with it. It becomes a literal conspiracy involving false flag operations and chemicals in the water turning frogs gay (literally and Alex Jones quote, btw). The people who really gravitated to the extreme form of that congregated on 4chan. The Guy Fawkes appeal is that he's standing up to an evil government telling you what to think and how to be. They think they're doing the same thing, but against the evil feminists trying to make them watch Ghostbuster remakes. The horror.",
"As far as I'm aware of, the Anonymous Mask does not reflect an appreciation or following of the ideas behind the movie. The use came from a meme called Epic Fail Guy, who at one point stuck his face into a trash can and the mask got stuck on him. The meme used to be very popular and kinda became the poster child."
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6g51bz | why is private education in England called "public school"? | It's confusing. | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"A small number of older private schools are known as \"public schools\". When they were founded, the name made more sense because it indicated that they were open to the general public rather than being tied to membership of a particular church or other organisation. Other private schools tend to refer to themselves as \"independent schools\", emphasising their independence from the government, but \"private school\" is also used. Government-funded schools are known as \"state schools\".",
"Back in the day, gentlemen typically had tutors educating them at home. That was a private education. So if you sent your son to a school that wasn't at home that was a public school as it was not an at-home, private school."
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6g6ion | The legalisation of Duels in Canada | I read that duels are now legal in Canada. What difference does this actually make? What situation would it become appropriate to engage someone in a duel? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"You would still face the related consequences of a duel. It's more about the removal of an antiquated law. So I guess technically you could challenge someone to a duel and not be charged with a crime. But if you engaged in a duel you could be charged with assault with a weapon, murder, etc."
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6g7ef4 | the basics of Prussia and its difference from what would be the rest of Germany | What was the rest of Germany doing at the time? Who were they? How come they weren't part of the country? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"text": [
"Prussia first started to exist in 1525 as an ethnically mostly German duchy under the Polish King. \"Germany\" didn't exist, there existed a metric shit-ton of kingdoms, duchies, counties, bishopries and all kinds of weird stuff. There was the Holy Roman Empire which was more like a mutual defense cooperation. The Empire was far from a country. The Prussia you probably think about is the Kingdom of Prussia, which is what the Duchy of Prussia became in 1701. They slowly expanded by annexing smaller German States (which were independant countries). Prussia became a real Big Player after Napoleon. French Emperor Napoleon defeated basically all of Europe, including Germany. He dismantled the Holy Roman Empire and cleared up the chaos of German States and lowered their number to around 30. Prussia, as one of the winners later against Napoleon gained huuuuge new territories, especially the Rhineland which just started its first attempts at industrialising, already had a large population, and thus was quite valuable. This is the time most people first hear about Prussia, because now Prussia became interesting for Europe and the world. Prussia continued to wage war against its smaller German neighbours, and when it became strong enough it forced most other small German States into the North-German Confederation. At this point only four other German States remained. The Kingdom of Bavaria, the Grand-Duchy of Baden, the Kingdom of Würtemberg, and the Austrian Empire. Prussia didn't want Austria in. And after Prussia successfully provoked France into war, it called the other States (without Austria) to help them. After the victory against France, the Southern German States agreed to be incorporated into the German Empire. So for the question about the rest of Germany: They were independant countries. The Kingdom of Saxony was a sovereign independant State until it joined the North-German Confederation in 1866. The Kingdom of Hannover was an independant sovereign State until it was forcefully annexed (conquered) by Prussia in 1866. The Kingdom of Bavaria was an independant sovereign State until it joined the German Empire in 1871. You get the idea."
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