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6i3s2m | Why can't we stop the Chicago shootings? | 113 people shot last week is Chicago. 19 died. What can be done? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"The *New York Times* magazine section had an interesting article about this, I think it was about a year ago. They surveyed Chicagoans at random, over a thousand of them, to get their answer to the following question: \"If you were the victim of a crime, and you called the police, would they (a) make things better, (b) make no difference, or (c) make things worse?\" They then drew up a map of which neighborhoods in Chicago gave answer (c) more than 50% of the time. It mapped almost entirely onto the map of Chicago homicides. And in the accompanying article, a *Times* reporter rode along with a Chicago homicide detective all weekend, driving from shooting site to shooting site. At every site, there were people gathered already. None of whom would admit to having seen anything, none of whom would voluntarily speak with the cops. Except for one old woman, at one shooting site, who walked right up to the cops and told them that she knew who did it, but no way was she going to tell them. Sounds crazy to you? It wasn't long after that that ProPublica broke the story of a Chicago cop who was railroaded by the department for reporting some of her fellow officers to the FBI for (among other things) drug-running, extortion, and murder for hire. The reporter for the ProPublica piece talked to people who had friends who'd been murdered by cops -- for talking to other cops -- about killers or drug dealers who had paid protection money to the police. Guess which neighborhoods the dirty cops were working? Chicago is never going to solve its homicide problem until it has a police department that people can trust, that witnesses and victims can feel safe talking to. Because as long as people can't trust the police, the only way they can get anything like justice, when they're victimized, is vigilantism.",
"Lack of political and community will, for the most part. The shootings are by and large concentrated in a few neighborhoods. The neighborhoods are largely black, and people don't have the greatest trust for police there. At the same time, these are communities hit super hard by tears in the social fabric, such as drugs, imprisoned or otherwise absent fathers, little to no job prospects, etc. So you get a community of people who don't really trust authority figures but aren't socially equipped to take care of their own. Toss in social media to make it a lot easier to remotely diss someone without even being in the same place, and you get an explosive combination. Furthermore, as much as everyone abhors the shootings, the richer and more stable neighborhoods in the city aren't all that interested in paying tons of money for more cops that aren't even really seen as allies by the people they are supposed to be policing.",
"URL_0 chicagoan here. i see a lot of comments about the police and distrust of the police. but no one wants to be a snitch around here, and it's not because they don't trust the police.there was a reward for information on killers/robbers in the south end and an ex girlfriend came forward. they got caught and she got the reward, but then her young son got shot and killed for it. street justice keeps people quiet. you don't want to be seen talking with the cops. you don't want any trail that could lead back to you.",
"Disclaimer: some hard truth ahead Honestly its because Chicago PD doesn't want to see half its force killed and the fact that any meaningful action would be considered an act of racism/oppression. Your talking about 6 neighborhoods that you'll notice cops aren't patrolling. Why? Again, everyone is going to call foul if we actually addressed the issue. Secondly, your only talking about 6 poor neighborhoods that seem to only shoot each other. This is something our corrupt state is content with. I was reading we're possibly going to invest millions in a new opera house or something. The metaphor is not lost on me. It's very sad but until the black community takes ownership of their own safety, its not going to change. No one is going to risk being called a racist/nazi to protect them.",
"I'd imagine allowing the people to concealed carry is a start. Statistically the stricter the gun laws, the more crime, mostly because laws only effect the law abiding. I'm in the gunshine state, and we have a relatively low number of non justifiable homicides, because we have a lot of guns. But to the flip side of the same coin, we have a lot of people dying from accidental shootings as well. So what can be done in chiraq? Let the people be armed."
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6i3xwf | What does the word "Umbrella Term" mean? | I'm trying to understand it's definition but all the definition uses large words. Still can't seem to understand how, why or when is it used | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"It's just a word that covers a whole category of related things. For example if I said \"groceries\" you'd know I was talking about vegetables, meat, grains, cooking oils, soft drinks and everything else you buy to store at home and eat. Or if I said \"automotive\" you'd know I was talking about something related to cars, whether it's the car themselves, the sound system, maintenance, etc."
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6i4km9 | Why is religion so important in American politics | Politicians ending their speeches with God bless America. Oaths. Bibles at presidential inaugurations. This seems particularry absurd to me. Does this mean US presidents have to be religious? Because if you're not how can you put your hand on the bible and say all those things? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"The historical context is important to understand. The entire \"freedom of religion\" premise was about a particular subset of a particular faith feeling oppressed in England and moving to someplace where they could be as insular and bigoted as they wanted. It was never about respecting the beliefs of others. Many of the \"founding fathers\", despite their many and deeply held faults, were about as non-religious as it was possible to be at the time, but they weren't the only ones making policy and people tend to follow whatever beliefs their parents and relatives had. This means that we began the American nation with a bunch of people who were not about tolerating other people's beliefs (modern interpenetration), they were about preserving their own beliefs no matter how ridiculous they appeared (original interpenetration/system) and screw anyone else with a sharp stick set on fire. For the majority of people this hard-line view has lessened, but there are still some holdout areas, and some of them happen to be politically important due to the States Rights principle. As other have said, politicians have capitalized on this combination and used emotionally important leverage points to gain power and sway people, and people are particular susceptible to simplistic arguments and will make important policy decisions based on side issues (abortion, for example) regardless of the positive or negative consequences of their vote. The vast majority of people who \"believe in the bible\" have not read *and* thought about the contents, surveys and almost universally indicate that the people most knowledgeable about the bible are non-religious people and those who espouse the strongest adherence to it know the least about it. Despite this, religion is important in the US, and as a result of this people take their understanding of the bible from unscrupulous people who use select portions if its message for personal gain. This leads to a large body of people who are easy to influence via a very simplistic message, usually incorporating some version of \"us-vs-them\"which is an easy message as part of that is biologically encoded and feels \"comfortable\" as a result. By law you don't have to have to use a bible to swear upon and legally a president doesn't have to be religious, but it's taken as a given that you will swear on a bible and no president who isn't one of the major christian religions will be elected unless there is a mandatory universal voting requirement installed, with a penalty for anyone who doesn't vote (essentially, just like a Yelp review, primarily angry people participate and religious people tend to be more angry than most and vote in higher numbers than normal people who are not so concerned with gays, abortion, pre-marital sex, immigrants, etc). The US has pushed itself back into a modern day medieval Crusades mentality. Many of the people aware of this are so disgusted by it that they refuse to participate, and those who like portions of it fervently participate. Politicians pay attention to who actually votes and as a result they are swayed in an increasingly radicalized direction. This is self reinforcing as radicalization is easy to justify via simplistic arguments and people are less likely to disagree with something if there is a portion of it they agree with, even if the rest is anathema. The US is pushing itself towards a radicalized version of Christianity, much like Afghanistan or Saudi Arabia. The potential saving graces are the large and diverse population and the idea that laws trump (irony there) ...isms. TL/DR: people are self serving shitheels who will do whatever it takes to get ahead and promote their own agendas in the goal of getting ahead. Religion makes this easy, and the historical context of the US makes it even easier.",
"America is a very Christian heavy place so a lot of religeous rhetoric has remained from older times/been added to appeal to the masses/religeous lobby groups. > Does this mean US presidents have to be religious? Legally no, realistically yes, Just look at Obama for example. He wasn't outwardly Christian enough so his political opponents, playing on the current islamophobic feelings in the US, started rumors that he was a muslim."
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6i5x4o | Why are we able to distinguish wether or not someone is attractive, but we can't with ourselves? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"The answer to this is very similar to the reason people who grow up surrounded by one race of people will commonly think other races \"all look alike\" or why a chess grandmaster will beat me 100% of the time. When we are more familiar with something, we are able to notice small details about it. A small freckle on the side of the nose, maybe some extremely mild asymmetry. Whatever it is, in this day and age with mirrors and photos and selfies everywhere we are very familiar with our own faces, since we have been looking at them for so long, so we are aware of any tiny little flaw we may have. Another reason is that we generally don't like to hurt others feelings, so if we see a tiny flaw on somebody else we'll ignore it and not say anything, after all they are still good looking and such a small flaw doesn't really mean anything. With ourselves though we can't \"not say anything\" to ourselves when we think things, and thinking those negative thinks about self-perceived flaws will take it's toll eventually on our own self-image.",
"We can. If you're hot you more than likely can see it and if you're ugly you're in denial."
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6i6vnt | Why do the people around you always look the same to you, while you can look totally different to yourself even over the course of a few hours? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Basically, because we are only aware of our own stimuli. If I step out of my office to grab lunch, I might walk in the sun and feel a little sweaty, I might get caught in the wind and feel a little mussed, I might eat a big greasy lunch and then feel gross about it. Because I FEEL windswept and uncomfortably full, if I look in the mirror, that will be reflected. I'll think I'm fatter, I'll be frustrated that my hair isn't cooperating, or embarrassed that I'm hot and sweaty. But the truth is, no one else in my office knows that I was in the wind or I ate too many fries. As far as they're concerned, I walked out and then walked back in a little later, as people do in offices. They didn't experience any of the external factors that are currently making me feel different than I did an hour ago. The woman who sits at the desk across from me just cam back from the bathroom. She might have started her period and be totally uncomfortable and in pain. She might have read an email while sitting there and gotten some great news. She might have suddenly realized she wore different shoes than she meant to and her outfit is way off. Her entire state of mind could have totally shifted while she was gone, but I'd have no fucking idea.",
"You are very familiar with your own features and tend to focus on things that stick out to you. With other people you tend to just see the \"big picture\" and not the little things. This is why it's so easy to become insecure about odd features that you have, while other people don't question them.",
"Can't give a scientifically accurate answer but I know that our brains will pick up on the smallest changes of our own face and exaggerate them. So even if *you* look the same, *you* look different to yourself. Same reason some of us tend to feel self conscious about certain facial features. If their proportions are perceived as off to you, for what ever reasons, they'll be exaggerated in your mind.",
"There's this saying: People think a lot less about you than you think. If someone was intimately familiar with you they would probably notice, but most people won't think about your face very much at all.",
"You know about you. You're so familiar with yourself that when something changes, it sticks out to you. With other people, you just notice patterns; we naturally see patterns that are familiar and ignore ones that aren't. It's the same reason why we see dicks in everything; we notice the foliar pattern first.",
"This is probably a generalization of The Illusion of Asymmetric Insight. We view ourselves as complex persons with unique inner turmoil and motivations, but think of others as simple creatures with broad-stroke opinions and motives. The same things probably apply to our physical view of others. We look deeply at our own face but gloss over the mere presences of others most of the time. Then we have Dunbar's Number, the genetically dictated limit on the mamalian brain as to how many peers the brain can handle as \"real individuals\". Dunbar's Number for humans is about 150. When you meet someone new, when they transition from \"some guy in accounting\" to \"Bob, who helps me with the department budget\" they bump someone else out of the cache of real humans in your brain. When Bob becomes Bob, someone who used to be Terry becomes \"one of the guys I went to school with\". The meat in your head has practical limits, and there are more people on earth than there are slots in your brain. Largely because you couldn't function if you had to give full and nuanced attention to every person you encountered day and night. Nobody's got time or emotional capacity for that. So particularly when dealing with hundreds or thousands of people, we just use a mosaic of hair color, eye color, nose-size, sexual availability, and like/dislike metrics. This modeling is the real, true, and correct definition of Stereotype. Now don't trigger on that word, every non-proper noun is, itself, a stereotype, and society wouldn't function without stereotypes. Teacher, Cop, Waiter, Good Teacher, Bad Cop, Crappy Waiter, \"guy\", \"girl\", \"child\", Pizza Guy, Cashier, Sargent... literally every title, role, and word that isn't a specific name for an individual is a stereotype. This ability to stereotype is factually what allows civilization to function. We don't have to know every shop-keep in order to go shopping. In other species where stereotypes have not yet evolved the troupe, tribe, pride, or pod must split when there are more individuals than the Dunbar's Number for the species brain because the individuals just aren't comfortable in a sea of strangers. But we can live in cities of millions by being able to categorize strangers. So all these forces are positive adaptations that let you see people in sets of expectations instead of just friend or foe."
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6i780a | What makes something considered a terroist attack | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"1. It is intended to instil fear among a certain group of people. 2. It ultimately has a political, religious or ideological motive. 3. It's usually indiscriminate, the victims innocent. In some cases, who the victims are is less important than the number of victims. Of course, very often people use the word \"terrorism\" to mean \"violence carried out by somebody whose political opinions I disagree with\" -- as the old saying goes, \"Your freedom fighter is my terrorist\" -- or sometimes just any indiscriminate attack; so you may see the word applied to incidents that aren't actually terrorist attacks. Mostly, though, it's to do with the motive: if the motive is political, racial, ideological or religious, it's probably terrorism."
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6i7cvh | Technological unemployment and the possible impact on society | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"The basic idea is that, as machines get better at doing more and more things, they will start to reduce the need for human workers or replace them altogether. For example, if self-driving cars catch on, then we won't need nearly as many truck drivers, taxi drivers, and so on. That will lead to a lot of unemployed truck and taxi drivers, who will either have to train for other jobs or who will end up collecting welfare. What we don't know is how fast this will happen, how many jobs will get replaced, and how hard it will be to retrain people for new jobs. What we do know is that technology has been replacing jobs for the last 250 years or so (do you know many barrel-hoopers, cobblers, or buggy-whip makers?) and that the technological advances usually result in higher productivity and a higher standard of living overall. We also know that some people suffer pretty badly because they can't or won't retrain to other jobs, or their jobs become very low-paying. Some people think that we will need to implement some form of universal basic income so all the newly-unemployed people won't starve in the streets. Others think that we will all end up making money by developing phone apps or making funny YouTube videos (or other creative careers that don't even exist yet)."
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6i7e7l | How did the number four get to be accepted as unlucky in Chinese culture? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Pronunciation changes are not deliberate, but are a normal part of language evolution. For example, no one decided that \"which\" and \"witch\" should be pronounced the same, it just happened (for most English varieties). Once \"four\" and \"death\" cane to sound the same in Mandarin, the unlucky association came easily."
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6i7iy7 | What is the lore behind Insane Clown Posse's music, and what are "Joker Cards"? | I've read that each ICP album is part of a greater mythology, but I don't really get it and the explanations online are very cryptic and vague. Anyone know what it means? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"The 6 Joker Cards were ICP's main LP's that was supposed to build up to a final message. The final message of the Joker Cards was revealed on The Wraith: Shangri-La LP. Listen to the song Thy Unveiling to get their final message. Each Joker Card is supposed to represent a certain part of their Dark Carnival. There is already good explanation of each Joker Card on wikipedia. Search for Dark Carnival."
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6i7sr4 | Why hasn't our alphabet been expanded? | And what would qualify or deem something worthy of being new, unique and making it necessary to give it distinction. I just asked another ELI5 question, and was doing some reading on QWERTY. Figuring out letters, and listening to today's culture in music, online and in general. A lot of shortcuts have been taken in day to day communication/speech/linguistics/text. So as our culture, or any really absorbs other cultures or transients into its own the overall communication. And after reading what I just wrote, this should probably be clarified to the English Alphabet. Because I'm guessing the Korean Alphabet or Indian Alphabet may not have the standard A-Z. | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Adding a letter to the alphabet would be a **HUGE** change. Think of all the keyboards and software that would need to be changed. My computer at home doesn't even have a € key (they standardized on that symbol 20+ years ago). If you want to adjust the spelling of all the words all the speakers of the language have already memorized, that would take forever, youall. It's a lot easier to do the plausible things with custom fonts, in the age of the computer.",
"It has the original Latin Alphabet you are currently using only has 21 Letters: A B C D E F Z H I K L M N O P Q R S T V X At some point in the past English was written with this Alphabet: A B C D E F G H I K L M N O P Q R S T V X Y Z & ⁊ Ƿ Þ Ð Æ Modern English uses all the letters in the alphabet you know but other languages using the same script use additional letters such as: Ä Ö Ü Ë ß Æ Ø Å Ñ Á É Í Ó Ú À È Ì Ò Ù Special non-alphabet characters such as: & % § have been added all the time. Ever since the beginning of moveable type print the variations of the alphabets used in various languages have become more and more fixed and with typewriters they have almost completely stagnated. However the rise of Unicode as a standard way for computer to handle characters meant that the alphabet is once again wide open. The goal of the Unicode consortium is to include all the letters and symbols people actually use in writing somewhere on the planet. At some point somebody figured that this should include smilies and the emoji was born. Current generations are extending the use of the traditional Latin alphabet by including these non-alphabetic pictograms in written messages. Who knows were that will lead? 😕💦",
"I still don't understand what your question is. Are you asking why mixed cultures don't change their alphabet to accommodate the new words that come into out lexicon? Are you asking about why the English alphabet doesn't incorporate letters with symbols like the umlaut?"
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6i7suv | Why are US area codes 212 (New York, NY), 213 (Los Angeles, CA), and 214 (Dallas, TX) sequential but geographically so far apart? Were they issued at random or is there a system to the numbering? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"When they initially set up North American area codes in the 1940's, there were a couple of considerations: * states with just one area code got one with a zero as the middle digit * states with multiple area codes got ones with a one as the middle digit * because of rotary dialing, areas with lots of numbers (NY, LA) got area codes that were shorter to dial As an old guy, I can attest to the last one -- if you had a phone number with a lot of 7's, 8's, 9's, or 0's, it took a *long* time to dial your number. Here's more: URL_0",
"Actually hare is why: The old rotary dial phones used to actually send the dialing sequence by a series of pulses that are generated when the dial RETURNS TO POSITION known as back spin. Because the backspin actually dialed the number, the switching equipment was sitting idle waiting for that back spin. Back then the the way the system worked was that the SECOND number you dialed told the equipment whether it was a local or long distance call If the SECOND number was a 1 or 0 the system read it as a long distance call Otherwise it saw local call. So as a result all area codes at the time had to have the second digit being a 1 or a 0. Only once those numbers started to run out in the 1990s the new all digital system was put into place and we could have area codes like 757 242 434 540 URL_0 also opened up things like 303 and 314 to be local numbers not possible before. In order to manage the long distance switching equipment and get it operating as efficiently as possible the Bell System did some research when the system for dialing your own long distance calls was being designed they tried to figure out which parts of the country would make the most and the least long distance calls. The places that were determined to likely get the most long distance calls were given the area codes that would have the shortest \"back spin\" times and therefor kept the equipment sitting idle as short a time as possible As a result NYC got 212 which generated the shortest back spin time possible 213 was still very good so LA got that one sticking San Diego with 609. The entire state of Hawaii has 808 before it even had statehood North Carolina at the time was 919 Virginia 703 etc But they didn't get that many long distance calls So that's the reason. I am not at all convinced that the Bell System was even capable of allowing anything to happen totally at random. It was not their culture at all.",
"There is nothing tying area code to geography like zip codes -- the biggest cities got low numbers when they were rolled out because the original rotary phones made clicks/pulses for each digit and the clicks for 212 was 5 clicks, and 949 is 22 clicks. In addition to ones listed above, Chicago was 312, DC was 202."
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6i7wt3 | Why do people seem to intuitively find topics like war and combat interesting and entertaining? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"It's not war itself, but rather its far reaching consequences. Though wars are an exercise in futility, as losses on both sides do not justify the \"victory\", they have led to innovations in all areas, technology, medical, weaponry obviously and communication to name a few. Turing, for instance, made major breakthroughs in computing, primarily to decode Enigma. Also, from a psychological perspective, I think it's interesting to think about what motivated people to hate other people they do not even know exist as much as to justify killing them."
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6i8dpv | How come humans usually do not consume insects? Even though they are a great food source and most omnivores have no problem eating them, including our closest animal relatives. | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Larger mammals (or even animals) in general don't subsist on insects. There are some exceptions like aardvarks but most things over a certain size tend to shift diets in order to help feed them. Our ancestors as well as close relatives are no different. They largely subsist on fruits (and sometimes meat), they do eat some insects like ants and grubs but as a more opportunistic form of protein. And humans are not so different. There are plenty of humans (often tribal) that will eat insects and grubs but not as primary sustenance though. As for why it's not that common in more developed human society that can be due to lots of factors. First as i mentioned bugs were not a large part of our diet (meats fruits veggies were) and some humans would live in areas where bugs wouldn't be that abundant anyway. As such we don't have that much of a natural taste for them (not to mention some would likely be outright nasty like stinkbugs) Moving on past the agricultural revolution people were working on plants and for protein domesticating animals. I imagine it's much easier to keep a few ungulates around in varied conditions and terrain than trying to farm insects in a hole or a hide sack, also there would be other benefits to animals like milk, eggs, leather, feathers, bone, labor, etc none of which the insects would provide. So we never really had a history of trying to farm them, and if we aren't farming it likely we aren't eating it. the final piece is disgust. Even early on grubs and other maggot type creatures would be associated with rot, bad grain etc. Insects like locust associated with plague or godly wrath. Further up the timeline just filth in general (like cockroaches and trash). Sure farm animals are dirty but a pig in mud is a different dirty than the association of filth and insects. So over time we develop a cultural disgust for the creatures and that certainly inhibits our appetite for them. as Jules would say, \"Hey, sewer rat may taste like pumpkin pie, but I'd never know 'cause I wouldn't eat the filthy motherfucker.\"",
"The do in many parts of the world, where protein is relatively harder to come by or more expensive. The developed world doesn't, but that doesn't mean that people don't in general.",
"Humans do consume insects/ bugs. In South Korea, its common to buy cups of mealy worms in a spicy sauce. They even come in cans so you can eat them at home. My wife loves them. I'm not opposed to eating them as long as they are spiced up. Western cultures are more averse to the idea of eating bugs for protein. This probably has a lot to do with the massive meat industries in a lot of western cultures. In the US, pork, chicken, and beef are cheap and plentiful. So, it would seem very odd to eat bugs for protein when other meats are so plentiful.",
"Humans DO consume insects. The majority of cultures on Earth eat insects. Western counties are the exception.",
"I've had a few different types of insects. Dry roasted and salted meal worms are acceptable to a western palate and a good place to start out. It's somewhere in between roasted peanuts and regular salted potato chips in taste. It's a safe route for a positive first experience eating insects. Chocolate covered ants are pretty safe too but a bit of a cop out because it's much more so chocolate than ant. I've read arguments that insects are a much more sustainable source of animal protein than traditional live stock. The amount of input cost and space required to produce a kilo of insects is dramatically lower than the costs of producing a kilo of large mammal flesh. It's my understanding that the protein content per kilogram is also higher in the insects.",
"What do you mean humans do not usually consume insects? What kind of humans have you been hanging out with?",
"Insects as being anathema to diet is a Western convention. Many cultures around the world consume insects as part of their traditional diet. Many crustaceans that Western cultures consider delicacies are extremely similar to insects in biology.",
"Mainly because we chose to domesticate the tastiest meat animals: the pig, the cow, the chicken, etc. If there was a flavour advantage or nutritional advantage to meal worm or witchetty grub, over traditional meats, we would be farming them instead. LSS (long story short): tastiness wins."
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6i8l6w | Why do most big trucks adamantly say "NOT FOR HIRE" (box trucks, U-haul, big rigs etc). Who are these lawless people in the streets attempting to rent trucks at whim? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
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"text": [
"DOT regulations have very different requirements for a private vehicle and a for hire vehicle when you get to medium duty and heavy duty vehicles. They are required to display either the commercial DOT licence number, or a large not for hire sign.",
"It's less about people flagging trucks down on the street and trying to hire them, than it is about lawless people renting trucks from Penske and then offering their driving services in the rented truck to people on the street. Or on Craig's List."
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6i8mi7 | If Japanese people refer to others by their last names what do they do if they're talking to siblings at the same time? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"I'm pretty sure the question is how a japanese person would refer to *other people who are siblings*, not how siblings would refer to each other.",
"They call them by their first name. Japanese refer to others by their last name (or surname/family name) just as much as we do. \"Good day Mr. thetree\". Japan culturally might have a bit more respect in the usage than say in the west, but I still call my girlfriend's father by his last name. Yet others the same age I have a closer relationship with I call by their first name. That's the key, how close is the relationship between the two, and it's a very important aspect in japanese culture/communication.",
"Well, how would you do it if you were talking to two people with the same name? If you know them well enough, you might have different nicknames for them. In a more formal setting, you use body language -- your posture, gaze, hand gestures, and so on -- to make it clear whom exactly you're addressing. However, think about a normal conversation with more than two people. How often do you actually say anyone's name? Imagine the following conversation: \"Well, Peter and Susan, it's great to see you again.\" \"It sure is, Colin. Wouldn't you say, Peter?\" \"It's been a long time, Colin and Susan. Hey, Susan, am I imagining things, or has Colin lost weight?\" \"I think you could be right, Peter. Colin, have you been working out?\" \"Yes, Susan. I've taken up jogging as well. We really don't talk like that in real life: names are actually almost never mentioned.",
"Japanese do not refer to each other by their family names any more often than we do here in the West. They simply have a different name order. They put their family name first, personal name second. They use nicknames just as often as the west, and they also have suffixes that show familiarity."
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6i94qe | How did X's over eyes come to symbolize death in cartoons and drawings? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
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"text": [
"Upon death, many peoples eyes are prone to opening. Obviously, it'd be pretty scary to see a dead person's eyes opening during a viewing so in the past, sewing the deceased person's eyes shut was the best way to prevent that from happening.",
"There was also the custom of putting a coin on each eye to keep them shut. This also seems to have got tied up with the Ancient Greek custom of putting a coin in the mouth to 'pay the ferryman', Charon who rowed the soul over the river Styx, or otherwise be doomed to wander its barren shores for eternity."
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6i97fi | Why are most songs that come out 3-4 minutes long? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"It was the length of sound one could record on an original 78rpm phonograph record.",
"Radio stations like shorter songs so they can play more per hour.",
"Song length has changed over the years. I am not sure why but for some song contests (like the Eurovision song contest) every song must be of a certain length with very little wriggle room. This graph shows how song length has changed with time: URL_0",
"It was originally a technological limitation; songs had to be shorter than 4 minutes to fit on the recording media. Now, though, people are acclimatized to songs being that length, and of a certain structure that gets used in pop music. But if you venture outside of what's playing on the radio, you find that songs can be [whatever length or structure the creators wish it to be]( URL_0 )."
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6i9o4e | If humans are social creatures then why are products that decrease human interaction popular? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
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"text": [
"What types of products are you referring to? I would argue that the vast majority of products that we use actually _increase_ social interaction, rather than decrease it. For example, you and me right now. We are interacting, despite the fact that we are not in the same room (or maybe not even on the same continent). We are having a discussion, talking about the answer to your question. That is a form of social interaction. Between our computers, smart phones, game consoles, etc. we probably spend more time communicating and interacting with other people than any other time in our history. No, as for why we might choose this type of interaction rather than in-person interaction, the stakes are lower. Social interaction comes with social graces and social ramifications - when I am with my friends or my wife, there are roles that I have to play and if I screw up, there are consequences to that. Using my phone or my computer is less taxing, as I am able to jump in and out of interactions as I see fit and, since you and I may never speak again, the penalty for a \"mistake\" is non-existent. For people like myself (an introvert) this is a much more appealing way to socialize than in the real world."
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6ia9nf | How and/or why did the food portion of the rich or people in power go from a full on feast to tiny fancy portions? | I've been wondering about this since the time I was invited to go to a fancy restaurant with a cousin and their former coworkers. In movies depicting a time in the past, the king or people in power would have a full on feast or a four course meal with big portions, but in more modern ones, they're shown eating smaller meals or even just one fancy dish instead of the multiple course meal. | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
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"text": [
"When a king feasted his court, the average person was either starving or living on a diet of bread and whatever veggies and herbs they could scrounge up. Meat, sugar, spices, and plenty of other modern staples were luxury goods for the merchant and upper classes. And since food was more scarce, cooking as an art form hadn't really developed to what it is today. So the best way to show wealth was simply \"Look at all of this food! You'll be full for days! We have turkey, beef, pork, and fish, bet you've never seen all of those together before!\" Now, in developed countries, scarcity isn't as much of an issue, and most people know what being full feels like - and they've probably seen most of the common foods. So now a better indicator of wealth is \"Look at this really unique food, prepared by the best chef ever.\" The meal isn't about being full, it's about experiencing something new and delicious, so a lot more work goes into comparatively little food. And of course, if the food is small, you have more room to try more courses and even *more* unique and interesting foods. And just to add to that - plenty of fancy, expensive meals will fill you full to bursting. It's just not a requirement any more!"
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6iaah9 | Why the word "drink" being more associated with drinking alcohol beverages rather than any other drinks? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dj4o1wj"
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"text": [
"Probably because consuming non-alcoholic drinks doesn't constitute a whole activity worth talking about. When was he last time you drank orange juice and wanted to talk about just that? One exception to this when you drink water or sports drinks during exercise or in the heat. But there people usually use the word \"hydrate\" instead of \"drink\"."
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6ib2xl | Why do people throw pairs of shoes onto telephone wires? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dj4w2qv",
"dj59216",
"dj4vp76"
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"text": [
"From my limited knowledge of rap videos and secondhand information: it means a place where drugs are sold. I was in a sketchy area deep in Florida when I was younger, and asked my guide what the shoes meant. He told me it means you can easily score in the neighbourhood.",
"It means nothing. It's just one of the million stupid things stupid people do. I saw these as a boy near me in the 70's. Drug sales had NOTHING to do with it.",
"It was my understanding while growing up in Los Angeles county (specifically the Azusa/Covina \"suburb\") that shoes on the wire denoted a place to buy drugs."
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6ibane | Why are there almost no first world countries in the tropics? Why are so many first world countries found in the mid latitudes? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
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"text": [
"A lot of it has to do with Europe being the first area to industrialize and dominate the world. They were used to mid latitude environments and so only really attempted extensive settlements in those climates. For the rest of the world they just strip minned, exploited, etc.",
"One hypothesis is that the warm, moist climate of tropical regions support a greater biodiversity of parasites and diseases that kill humans. As a result, small tribes in tropical regions that adopted taboos against trading and socializing with other groups who lived nearby would have less exposure to new pathogens and a higher rate of survival. Also, large livestock like horses that provided mechanical power and faster travel to early civilizations are killed by some tropical insects like tsetse flies. It's only in temperate regions, where cold temperatures impede the growth of most deadly parasites, that the benefits of large scale collaboration and trade outweighed the risks of higher disease exposure. That's my understanding from reading [this article]( URL_0 ) about the research of evolutionary biologist Randy Thornhill.",
"Production technology in the tropics has lagged behind temperate-zone technology in the two critical areas of agriculture and health. The difficulty of mobilizing energy resources in tropical economies also has contributed to the income gap between climate zones. The problems of applying temperate-zone technological advances to the tropical setting have amplified these factors. Agricultural, health, and some manufacturing-related technologies that could diffuse within ecological zones could not diffuse across them. For the major crops (rice, maize, and wheat), productivity is considerably higher in the temperate-zone than in the tropical-zone: In 1995, productivity per hectare of grain produced was approximately 50 percent higher in temperate-zone countries. The explanation lies in soil formation and erosion, pests and parasites, water availability, and the effects of tropical climates on plant respiration. Poor nutrition, resulting from poor agricultural productivity, in turn contributes to poor health. Economic development in tropical eco-zones requires a concerted international effort: agricultural technologies must be specific to the needs of tropical economies. The burden of disease is considerably higher in the tropics than in temperate climates. Even after controlling for GNP per capita, health outcomes are far better in temperate-zone countries: infant mortality in temperate-zone countries is 50 percent lower; life expectancy in temperate countries is 8 percent higher. Infectious diseases affected all parts of the world in the 19th century. Temperate-zone infectious diseases were partially brought under control through a combination of improved nutrition, societal adjustment to diseases, improved public sanitation, and the introduction of immunization. Tropical vector-borne diseases, such as malaria and helminthic infections, have proved much harder to control. Ecology affects the transition of many important diseases, some of which are now confined to tropical countries. The income gap also has been amplified in the tropics as poor public health and weak agricultural technology have combined to slow the demographic transition from high fertility and mortality rates to low fertility and mortality rates. Imbalances in geopolitical power too have played a role, for example the domination of global financial and development institutions by the rich, temperate-zone countries. This in turn might help to explain why the importance of physical geography in the development debate, and in framing development policies, has been neglected."
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6if5xx | why is clapping such a universally accepted way to celebrate something awesome? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dj66dmg",
"dj600y8"
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"text": [
"Actually, in Germany (particularly in academic settings) people sometimes knock on surfaces with the knuckles as a form of applause. Scares the hell out of visiting speakers sometimes if nobody warns them in advance!",
"Because it is an easy way to make a lot of noise that doesn't require anything you don't already have with you?"
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6if67f | what did families do with there spare time before the introduction of tvs? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
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"text": [
"They spent time together. My dad talks about how his family used to sing, play sports, paint, cook, garden, read, etc. together. Basically, families used to do things together that families can do now.",
"First off, life had a lot less leisure time in general, as tasks like washing clothes/dishes was all manual. And shopping for food, etc. needed to be done virtually daily since there weren't processed foods with preservatives or good refrigeration. And people worked more before the advent of the traditional 40 hour week, which wasn't too long before TV came along. But they also had radio, visiting with friends/family, playing music, reading, hobbies.",
"There was radio, phonographs, toys, puzzles, games, crafts, musical instruments, and believe it or not, books and conversation.",
"Try reading the Little House on the Prairie book series. They have a lot of examples of how people passed their leisure time back in the late 1890s. They played violin, went swimming, and also ice skating"
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6ifoee | why do social sciences have a bad reputation? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
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"text": [
"Humans are incredibly complex. Two people who grew up with an alcoholic dad, 1 could end up a teatotaler and one an alcoholic, and both claim that it was because of their dad that they made that choice. Science generally throves on the idea that anyone could recreate an experiment and get the same results. The problem is that it is impossible in the social sciences to completwly recreate an experiment. It is different subjects, or a different time of day, or different weather that say that impacted moods, or different things in the news, or different breakfast the subjects ate that morning. Now, this doesn't mean it is worthless. It just means that all it can do is speak on trends, in \"more likely,\" in x influences y, in probabilities. These findings can be super valuable and can be as influential to society, but especially to a scientific mind searching for certainty and replicability, it can seem a bit wishy washy. Also the fields suffer from a publication bias (as many do, but it seems harsher in social sciences). Basically people don't want to publish articles about how nothing happened. So say 20 psychologists are testing if popcorn makes you like a movie more. At each school they have a group with popcorn and a group without popcorn rate a movie. At 19 schools they find... nope, doesn't look like it. At 1 school they find the popcorn average is a bit higher. The last school gets published, the first 19 get ignored (not maliciously... just because \"nothing happened\" doesn't seem interesting). Now newspaper articles across the country say \"psychologist show eating popcorn makes you like movies more!\" When really say showed \"if you do enough experiments, one is bound to be an outlier and show something.\" This is the \"replicability issue\" facing a lot of classic studies. So, in summary... it isn't a worthless field. But it cannot provide the same level of precise if-this-then-that that other sciences can because they are studying a subject (people) that are too complex to completely model currently."
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6iilxh | Why would the devil punish you for breaking the rules of his enemy? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dj6kqdj",
"dj6js3k",
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"text": [
"Cuz the devil was a made up concept for a made up concept. There's no real indication in biblical text of Satan, lucifer, and the morning star being the same entity.. Revelation is the only book that indicates an evil/antagonistic being, and it was written after Christ died, but outside of that there are loose interpretations of Satan being an enemy of god...everything has a purpose, and everything is planned and known. God has knowledge of his creations pasts and futures, and angels don't have free will like humans, so there is an issue with that logic as well... The devil and hell was really a construct of dark age/post Rome Christianity. It helped reinforce the idea that people better conform to certain principles, otherwise their punishment will extend beyond this life for eternity..as well as causing people who had relatives that were sent to hell or limbo to atone for their loved ones sins, causing non-stop selflessness that was enriching the church/state/empire further.. Simple contradictions like this occur in all religion doctrine and accepted views.. If the devil is this ultimate enemy of god, can influence man(unlike god), and is an ultimate trickster, couldn't man have written the Bible under the influence of the devil?",
"In Christian Doctrine the Devil does not run hell. Hell is the place where he will be imprisoned and tortured at the end of time and his goal is to take as many human souls down there with him as he can.",
"The stereotypical Western conception of Hell - a place ruled by the devil, where demons torture the souls of sinners - does not appear in the Bible. There's a couple of words that get translated as \"hell\" and conflated: *Sheol* (Old Testament)/*Hades* (New Testament) - Often translated as \"Hell\", but more accurately means \"the grave\"; where souls wait for judgement day. *Gehenna* - The name of a real place in Jerusalem, but used in Matthew 10:28 to describe a place where body and soul can be destroyed, and in Mark 9:43 as \"unquenchable fire\". *Tartarus* - 2 Peter 2:4 gives this as the name of the place where rebel angels are imprisoned, awaiting judgement day. The Lake of Fire - Revelations refers several times to a lake of fire, referred to as \"the second death\". Also, Lucifer (the rebel angel) and Satan are not the same entity. Satan comes from Hebrew *Ha-Satan*, meaning 'the adversary'—not the adversary of God, but a 'prosecutor angel' whose job was to test the faithful. Which explains what he was doing running around the Judaean desert in the gospels, and making bets with God in the book of Job."
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6ij3nj | How do we know anything about the new Healthcare Bill since has been kept a secret and written in private? For example, how do we know that millions will lose their coverage, and that the Bill will be disastrous for most working class, disabled, and elderly people? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dj6qhkb",
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"text": [
"The assumption is that the senate bill will be similar to the house bill and similar to the bill that failed to pass the first time. Both of those were scored by the CBO and those were some of the findings as well as the reading of those initial bills.",
"The main reason is the assumption that it's going to be imilar to the bills in the House. Both because they are ideologically on the same page,but also because if it's completely different the House would have to vote on it and it seems unlikely they'd be able to pass something the polar opposite of the House version. However, we can also infer a bit from two other things- because so much effort is going into hiding it,it seems likely that it's going to be extremely unpopular. Hiding a bill this major is extremely unusual,so it's reasonable to assume that there is a reason they're being so secretive. The other issue is that it's being passed via reconciliation. That extremely limits what is able to be passed in the bill,because part of the requirement to use reconciliation (which only requires 50 votes in the senate) is that you can only change things that affect the budget"
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6il9yg | How do new words, names and things - such as fidget spinners, trunkie, ISIS, get made into sign language? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dj74d6b",
"dj83gj5"
],
"text": [
"Very slowly, generally someone will spell it out, and after spelling it a couple times, make a new sign indicating what it is. IE: my deaf friend does a \"fidget spinner\" by holding her thumb and index finger together with one hand and drawing the index finger of her other hand down in front of this. Eventually a sign spreads and becomes integrated into the language. This is also how \"regional\" signs are made to represent things in their community, be it a college, popular city, sports team, etc. People outside of the region won't know what the sign means, of course, so they'll just ask what they mean.",
"It comes very naturally. If somebody gave you a fidget spinner before you ever knew what it was and asked you to come up with a name for the thing, you probably wouldn't have too much trouble coming up with something, simply using all the subconscious knowledge about your native language and its word building. So SL users just name things out of the top of their heads, usually based on the visual properties of the things or concepts. Another question is then, how do these new signs spread and become common? Well that's a different stroy and, as Atlas_Rising has mentioned, it usually happens slowly and begins with the new sign being regional only. No matter the type of a language, the incorporation of new words depends heavily on how may people have access to the new word. If a group of friends came up with a word and only used it between themselves, the word will probably just stay within the group. But if they start, for example, using hashtags and letting other people find out about this new word, chances are, it will spread and in some time, it will become just a regular everyday word. One of the fastest ways for new sings to become common is news in SL. In most countries of the world, deaf people are still struggling when it comes to getting information in their native language, so if there are any news in sign language, be it on the internet or on broadcast TV, most people will watch it. So when the news caster or, in some cases, the SL interpreter introduces new sign, it spreads super fast. Another great way are all sorts of social media. For example, I live in a very small country and there's only around 8000 deaf people in the whole country. They've got their open Facebook group where they discuss all kinds of topics, just uploading videos stating their opinions. And the group is very large, almost everybody is there. That's a great way for the whole community to pick just one sign out of all the individual ones that people came up with at first on their own. I've noticed that sometimes a signer would fingerspell and/or use a few different signs for the new concept they've already seen in the group, and the number of synonyms would just drop in every following video till only one or two are left."
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6iljye | Why does womens' fashion offer so many more options in terms of clothing types than mens' fashion does? Was it always like this? | As the title states, my question is as to why there are so many different types of clothing available for women's fashion compared to men's fashion. Specifically I'm wondering about clothing types that are considered appropriate for professional wear. It seems odd that this division would have developed. | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dj74yp5",
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"text": [
"Men's clothing has traditionally followed **military dress**. Since military dress is generally restricted to only three or four uniforms, men generally only get a few different kinds of styles to choose from. Fashion designers have always tried to make men look **manly**, which stems directly from the military background because men in the military are considered very manly. Women's dress was seen as a way to attract husbands, and so they're often garish and exciting, which lead fashion designers to try to outdo each other in garishness and excitement.",
"You have to look at this on a case by case basis, some of these extra types of clothing have a knock-on effect. For example, pockets have never been popular in dresses and this has created a demand for handbags or clutches. Heels and skirts emphasise legs while serving no practical purpose for walking or protecting your legs from thorns or knees while kneeling. Women have traditionally been objectified as objects of visual attraction while men have traditionally been objectified as performers of manual labour. These clothing types conform to that and so much so that womens trousers still don't have pockets (which is itself a knock-on effect of women carrying bags). Breasts are the central reason for the different types of tops for women. Tops are either opened at the chest in some way or hanging from the front or back to show/emphasise something, again for beauty. For men most tops are functional, vests do emphasise muscle but it's less common. Finally, since we are only just approaching real equality in the work place the business suit has driven mens fashion for decades or centuries."
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6iluhf | Why is a refrigerator referred to as just a fridge, why does the shortened version have a "d" in it, and what is the purpose of the "re" prefix of it? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dj79nr1"
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"text": [
"The word \"refrigerate\" was coined in the 15th century from the Latin which means \"make cool again\"; the sense of \"again\" was important, because originally it had the sense of taking away a sick person's fever -- returning them to their normal cool state. It was then simply extended to mean \"make something cool\" in a general sense, and the \"re-\" prefix lost all meaning. The word \"refrigerator\" to mean \"a device that keeps something cool\" is surprisingly old: it dates from the 17th century. There was also \"refrigeratory\" to mean \"room for keeping things cool\", very useful for beer brewers. In the 19th century, refrigeratories had been replaced by cabinets called refrigerators, and by the 20th century there were electrically powered refrigerators. The word \"refrigerator\" was shortened to \"fridge\" by the 1920s, either in the same way that \"telephone\" was shortened to \"phone\", or influenced by a popular manufacturer of the devices, Frigidaire -- nobody's sure which it is. The \"d\" is added by analogy with words like \"bridge\". How else would you spell it? If you spell it \"frig\", then it would have a hard \"g\"; if you spell it \"frige\", then it would have a long \"i\". You need the \"e\" to keep the \"g\" soft, but then to keep the \"i\" short you need to write at least two consonants. The rules of English orthography are such that you need to write \"dg\" for a soft \"g\" sound after a short vowel."
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6iml5a | Why is Salt and Pepper the standard table top spices? How did it come to be and is it a North American thing? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
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"text": [
"It isn't a North American thing, they're very popular in the entire western world. Refridgerators are a very recent invention and for thousands of years before that salt has been used to preserve food. It absorbs water, leaving bacteria and other harmful organisms dried out. We take it for granted nowadays but in the past wars were fought over the control of salt production and it was a necessity, hence terms like one being worth their salt and the like. Pepper has for over a thousand years been a luxury spice from halfway across the world, where again, wars were fought over the trade and production of these sought-after goods. I don't know if pepper has any more practical uses (such as masking the taste of rotten food in warm, humid climates) like salt or if it's just a luxurious spice. It could be that it's been a status symbol for a long long time and now that its commonplace we still use it frequently out of tradition. Either way, both pepper and salt go very well with a wide variety of western cuisine, especially barbeques and meat."
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11
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6in227 | Why is it that major motion picture companies feel like they need to keep rebooting classic good movies to an extent that makes people who haven't seen the original hate it? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"People *say* they hate it, but more often than not these reboots are making enough money to cover what it cost to make them, and then some. So clearly, enough people are going to the movies based on it being a name they know & like.",
"Safety of investment. If people know the intellectual property then investors assume they can be sure of a certain base of viewers no matter the quality of the final product. They don't know if the movie will be good or not (some producers are good bets, others are hit and miss) so making the bet less risky is a good deal. In the event of a stinker they recoup more of the investment, while a great movie can still make just as much."
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6iphm7 | why do American and some other school systems typically have summers off? | Is there scientific proof that it's better to take summer off? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"dj82d4j"
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"In the case of the US, it's hot weather + standardization. (It's not farming, that's a common myth but most farming work is done in the spring and fall.) Back in the day, schools were open many more days (240ish to todays about 180ish) and kids were encouraged to come when they could. Then they decided to switch over to making kids go, and using a standard system that's more consistent across the country. but this was happening in the 1800s, when huge chunks of the us would be *hot as balls* (especially the south) and air conditioning hadn't been invented. Being indoors was *painful*. So they decided to set summer off as the standard."
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13
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6ipmjz | why is it common to begin a conversation with the word "yeah"? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Yeah I see this a lot. I think it is a way to make the other person feel like they were listened to, because it affirms what they said before moving on to new points, but the irony is I hear it most often from people who were just waiting for their turn to speak and I rarely feel like they were listening at all. The best is \"yeah, no, absolutely\". This absurd yes-no-yes has become more and more popular recently.",
"It's a verbal tick. It's the sound your brain makes when it's thinking. Kind of \"ummm\" is a pause.",
"I love using this as a method of trying to get into a conversation mainly because if you just showed up it's easy. For example if two of my friends are talking and I want to join in I could easily listen for a minute, get an idea of what their talking about and than once they ask another question or come to a good stopping point I can come into the conversation. Example- Friends are talking about their vacation and then I show up Friend1- I hate it when sand gets in your sandels when your at the beach. Friend2- that's the worst Me-yeah it happens to me al the time Friend1 and Friend2- oh hey *Sorry that example was kinda cringey"
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6ipnym | Why is it that only people from the US are called "Americans" but not the rest of the continent? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"text": [
"Because it's the actual name of the country. \"United States of **America**.\" When the country was founded, they gave it the same name as the continent. And we can't call ourselves \"United Statesians\" or something like that, because there are a lot of United States. Our neighbor to the south is one of them - it's full, proper name is Estados Unidos Mexicanos (United States of Mexico). If they're called Mexicans, it only makes sense that we be called Americans."
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6iqsx7 | Why do different translators for Japanese to English give different results for the same phrase? | Reposting because the original got taken down by the sub's automoderator. Fixed the word that triggered it. I was recently reacquainted with the side of my nerdiness that revolved around anime. I picked up My Hero Academia and absolutely loved the second opening song to the series. However, I noticed one thing though. When I looked up the song on YouTube, different YouTubers had different translations for their dubbed covers. This is not something exclusive with the two YouTubers I compared and noticed that a lot of subtitled anime have different translations compared to their dubbed counterparts. I did prior research and found out that because the languages formed so differently, English and Japanese have completely different 'bases', so to speak, for their languages. Is that enough of a factor to cause such discrepancies in the aforementioned translation? Or are there other factors at play? The examples I mentioned with the MHA Opening: [Caleb Hyles version]( URL_1 ) [Nathan Sharp version]( URL_0 ) Edit: The Caleb Hyles version also does the original Japanese lyrics for anyone curious | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dj8elre"
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"text": [
"Languages are not just the same word written differently. Languages convey ideas differently, have different tones and meanings to certain phrases. If you say \"thank you\" to someone in spanish they respond \"de nada.\" Literally \"of nothing.\" So the one exchange \"gracias\" \"de nada\" depending on the inflection, context, relative class of the speakers, and situation could be translated as Thanks Thank you Thank you very much My thanks Many thanks I appreciate it It was nothing. You're welcome You are very welcome. Don't mention it. It wasn't no thang Of course My pleasure. That is for a three word conversation. Don't even get me started on italian's \"bella\" That could be beautiful, delicious, my dear, sweet thing, babe, gorgeous, wonderful, hey sexy, handsome, very nice, etc. Translation is an art of copying a painting using all different colors than the original but conveying the same meaning."
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6irsw7 | What is the difference between a "culture" and a "subculture" | I've asked my sociology professor twice and am still confused. He says it isn't arbitrary but he also says that it depends on which sociologist you ask for whether something is or isn't a subculture. Would someone please explain what the difference is and how one culture can have many cultures but not all cultures within that culture are "subcultures"? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"dj8muys"
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"A subculture resides within a dominant culture. The simplest example is probably the African-American subculture existing within the larger North American culture. So you can see both are characterized by larger patterns: both eat at McDonald's, shop at Walmart, and watch the NFL on Sundays. But then there are things that distinguish the African-American subculture, like the droopy jeans and hilarious content on twitter."
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6iry53 | Why do some people defend capitalism with teeth and claws like their life depends on it whenever you bring up constructive criticism and point out its flaws? What makes people so attached to such an abstract social system? | Even when you say something like "it has brought a lot of progress but we may have to rethink our setup because it might not work in the future because *insert reasons here*"... Some people very nearly jump at your throat, even if you weren't the one who actually started the discussion. I don't understand, why is that? It's not like somebody attacks them personally or something. | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
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"You can ask the same question of any hot-button issue in politics, or hell, even sports teams. They're not so much attached to the idea itself so much as the notion that they and others who agree with them are in the right. It takes a great deal of maturity to separate your self-image from the arguments you make in a debate. It's why online arguments on things that should be entirely fact based, like evolution and global climate change, quickly devolve into ad hominem attacks. You are perhaps conflating the literal definition of capitalism with our cultural interpretation of everything that supposedly comes with it. Mostly, there's some historical antagonism towards the spread of Communism (in itself a bad example of communism with a lower case c). That may be where the defensiveness comes in. Propaganda from that time and since has portrayed this \"abstract\" issue as a primal Us, the good guys vs, Them, the bad guys. It has since spread to include socialism as a sort of \"communism lite\", due to socialism's demonization by fiscal conservatives. To the degree that calling someone socialist/communist can be seen as an insult. That's patently absurd because plenty of modern Western democracies that we consider wonderful places to live in, are socialist. Tl;Dr... There is no rational reason for why people do that. It's in inherently irrational way to approach an argument. No amount of data or logic will get you anywhere once the discussion reaches that visceral nerve.",
"I think people have this misconception of this \"one size fits all\" when it comes to political and economical systems. What looks nice on paper doesn't necessarily reflect the same results in practice. Which is where I think many get lost in that translation. I believe most of those who so strongly defend it either 1) Are looking at just the paper version and see the potential of great things It could offer if the universe was perfect and 2) Those who extremely benefit from it - and that's a relatively small percentage. But it's not just capitalism that experiences this sort of blind following, so to speak. it's a number of different types of political systems. Probably one of my favorite Obama speeches was when he talked about this exact issue. Each of these major political structures and ideologies has their flaws. So why not pick out the good things from each of them and implement them into one system that is successful. Going all in one direction or the other is unrealistic and unsustainable. We've all seen first hand how having that mentality can have negative consequences on societies around the world.",
"In American, capitalism has worked well for big business and for the people with stocks and estates. But for the past 35 years our economic system, stripped of sensible regulations, has poisoned the nation with deadly inequality and driven much of middle America to an ever-widening lower class. Yet for much of the nation the delusion persists, against all common sense, that deregulated free-market capitalism works, that it equates to true Americanism, and that people have only themselves to blame for their failure to thrive in this expanding world of wealth. The reasons for this delusion are not hard to determine. * The Rich are Easy to Understand: Capitalism Justifies Selfishness Studies have consistently shown that increased wealth causes people to turn inward, to believe more in their own “superior” traits, and to care less about the feelings and needs of others. This anti-social attitude blends well with the Ayn-Randish “greed is good” message of unregulated capitalism. Other studies have determined that money pushes people further to the right, making them less egalitarian, less willing to provide broad educational opportunities to all members of society, and certainly part of the reason that our investment in public infrastructure as a component of GDP dropped by 60 percent from 1968 to 2011. * The Would-Be Rich: Dollar Signs Dance in Their Heads Capitalism allows profit-seekers to view students as sources of revenue, and to drain money from the public school system. Jeb Bush likened schools to milk cartons in a supermarket aisle: “I wish our schools could be more like milk…You can get whole milk, low fat milk or skim milk…chocolate, strawberry or vanilla…milk alternatives, like soy milk, almond milk and rice milk…Who would have ever thought you could improve upon milk? Yet, freedom, innovation and competition found a way.” Bush’s milk alternative is the charter school business. David Brain, head of the tellingly named Entertainment Properties, called it “a great opportunity set with 500 schools starting every year. It’s a two and a half billion dollar opportunity set in rough measure annually.” But the money didn’t start rolling in until the public school system began to be starved. The U.S. Department of Education reported that $197 billion is needed to repair the nation’s K-12 public school buildings. The public system is going broke, deprived of tax dollars that go to charters. State budgets are providing less per-pupil funding for kindergarten through 12th grade than they did six years ago – in many cases far less. And the results of the capitalist school experiment? Still coming in, although evidence is quickly accumulating that many charter school systems are mired in fraud and secrecy, and shaping up as a prime example of the folly of treating human beings like products to be bought and sold. * The Rest of Us: The Media Keeps Telling Us that Capitalism is the Only Way to Live The mainstream media’s unwillingness to state the truth about inequality has led people to vastly underestimate the wealth gap in our country, guessing that the poorest 40 percent own about 10% of the wealth, when in reality they own much less than 1% of the wealth. Out of every dollar, they own a third of a penny. Conservative writers overwhelm us with their capitalist-loving mantras: Income inequality is simply not a significant problem. (The Wall Street Journal) Income inequality in a capitalist system is truly beautiful… (The Washington Post’s George Will, quoting John Tamny) Capitalism has worked very well (Bill Gates) A free market system…ensures a fair, democratic process (Sarah Palin) Let the market do its job (Chicago Tribune) Many of them believe that the state of America is reflected in the stock market. But the richest 10% own over 90 percent of the stocks and mutual funds. No problem for the Koch Foundation. They comfort us with the knowledge that If you earn over $34,000 a year, you are one of the wealthiest one percent in the world. * Anyone Above the Lowest Class: It’s Empowering to Look Down on Someone Members of the sinking middle class in our pathologically unequal society may well find it convenient to blame people in lower economic classes, who are unlikely to fight back. Guidance for such condescension comes from libertarian write Charles Murray, who apparently doesn’t understand the family stress caused by the lack of educational and employment opportunities. He accuses the poor of having a “genetic makeup that is significantly different from the configuration of the population above the poverty line.” And, he adds, “Married, educated people who work hard and conscientiously raise their kids shouldn’t hesitate to voice their disapproval of those who defy these norms.” This inspires people like Paul Ryan and Scott Walker, both of whom compared the safety net to a “hammock,” and John Boehner, who explained the thinking of poor people: “I really don’t have to work…I think I’d rather just sit around.” The critics of struggling Americans should be reminded that the cost of the entire Safety Net is only about ONE-SIXTH of the $2.2 trillion in tax avoidance that primarily benefits the rich. A good American capitalist like Republican Senator Lindsey Graham would say, “It’s really American to avoid paying taxes, legally…It’s a game we play.” It’s a game for the people looking down on a troubled nation."
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6iuowx | Where did bagels originally come from, and who popularized them in America? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Bagels were invented by Jewish People living in Poland sometime in the 1600s. The hole in the middle was practical - it allowed lots of bagels to be put on wooden rods so they could be carried around. Back then, many things had to be transported by horse or even by foot. These Polish Jews brought bagels to the United States when the immigrated, and they became very popular as a breakfast food in New York in the early 20th Century. Because New York is such a cultural centre (lots of people arrived in America there and spent some time before travelling on), a lot of early American customs come from New York. Edit: Fun fact, the word Bagel comes from the Yiddish word \"beygal\" which means ring or bracelet."
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10
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6iuwoo | Why has popcorn become a movie theater staple? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Because: * It's not very messy to eat * It's easy to eat in the dark * It doesn't make a lot of noise to eat which would distract other movie-goers * It's easy to clean up if it's spilled * It's cheap for the theater to make * It doesn't need to be pre-packaged * It's salty, so people want to buy drinks with it",
"Popcorn popularity can be traced back to the early days of movie theaters and nickelodeons. It is cheap to produce and therefore very lucrative for theaters. It's popularity escalated during the Great Depression when nickelodeons could sell it cheaply and still make a profit. It is estimated that a vast majority of profits for movie theaters are from concession stands and largely due to popcorn."
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6ivmet | Today my route home is absolutely littered with police. Saw 5 different cars pulled over in a 7 mile stretch of highway and there was a cop at every possible "authorized vehicles only" turnaround between the highways. What goes on to cause something like this? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"My guess would be that since it's nearing the end of the month they're trying to fill their citation quotas so they're out trying to catch traffic offenders."
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6ivusf | How does a citizen's arrest work, and what are my rights? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"text": [
"It depends on the state you're in (if in the US). In most states you are allowed to arrest someone for felonies, and in some states also misdemeanors or other such offenses. Note that, unlike a sworn police officer, you have absolutely no legal protections. If you harmed the person, mistakenly arrested them, damaged property in the course of arrest, or anything else, then you could face civil or criminal liability. Citizens' arrests are usually not a great move.",
"It varies with jurisdiction, but usually, if you witness a serious crime or a theft of your property, you are allowed to use the minimal force necessary to detain someone until the police arrive. It is usually a terrible idea to try to make a citizen's arrest. If you are wrong, you could be found guilty of assault, battery, unlawful detention or even kidnapping. Even if you are right, you do not enjoy the qualified immunity that law enforcement does, meaning you could still be civilly responsible for anything that happens as a result. If someone tries to use a citizen arrest on you, and you have not committed a crime or could not be reasonably mistaken for someone who has, you can *probably* ignore it and defend yourself as necessary, although there are some risks in doing so. The safer move is to stay where you are or get to somewhere safe and public and call the police yourself. Also note that if you are in a place of business, there are often laws in place that make it easier for the shopowner and their agents to legally detain you if they suspect theft."
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6iwhwf | When you're about to cry and someone hugs you/asks if you're okay, why does it make you cry right away? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"One reason can be since when you try not to cry, is when you're trying to stay strong. When someone hugs you and makes you feel safer, you tend to psychologically put down your walls and allow yourself to be vulnerable. But I ain't no expert so take that as you will :)",
"Usually when you are holding back tears you are attempting to mask that emotion. You don't want to cause a disturbance to those around you. When someone asks \"Are you okay?\" They are saying a few things. -You don't look okay -You are visibly upset -You may need comfort -I'm concerned By asking you if you are okay they remove your shroud, you no longer need to mask that you are upset as it's evident that it didn't work. You don't need to worry about disturbing those around you as they have already admitted to knowing you likely require attention. You acknowledge that holding in is no longer preventing anything. So you cry"
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6iwi3z | Why do so many cigarette smokers find it ok to litter their butts? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"The same reason why other people litter or do things that in general only poorly educated people would do. The world is full of assholes, smokers who just throw the butt anywhere are a good example.",
"When I've asked in the past, the general response has been \"They're biodegradable; they'll go away eventually.\" This is despite the fact that filters usually are NOT biodegradable. I've found that over the last decade, littering is on the upswing again, as the anti-litter campaigns of the 80's and 90's seem to be wearing off. I see people toss their fast food wrappers out their car windows and doors, leave their Starbucks and Slurpee cups wedged in to any available crack, and cigarette butts and gum splotches are covering sidewalks again. I find this surprising, because I know fewer and fewer people who smoke cigarettes (e-cigs are pretty cheap now) and know pretty much nobody who chews gum regularly, compared to the 80's where everyone under 30 was chewing gum."
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6iwuir | How did ancient people know when the summer and winter solstices were, and why was it important to them? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Even in the stone age people knew winter would end, spring would come, then summer and fall. They generally knew the length of the year. They knew how to tell the solstice which kept their year straight for them. When people started farming it became very important to know when spring had arrived. But even before then the migration routes of reindeer, bison, and other migratory animals was very important. It is easy to determine the shortest and longest days by aligning things to see where the noon sun's shadow was, or was not. Two sets of vertical stones set up properly would show when the sun had achieved the solstices.",
"They didn't have complicated calendars, but they COULD watch the sun. It's not hard to line the sun up with any given landmark, sticks, stone walls, or build something like a circle of standing stones (ie Stonehenge) and track the sun's yearly cycle. These solstices were important markers for the progress of the seasons, and so became important part of custom, ritual, and celebration."
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6iwv28 | How come movies that are universally panned can have trailers where the critics say that it is "epic" or "a must see?" Isn't that false advertising? | I heard one of the Transformers 5 trailers do this. | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"they're finding the one good review and pulling quotes from that. Whenever you see a quote from a reviewer in a TV commercial, you should always look closely to see where the quote comes from. If it's not from a well-regarded publication, it's pretty safe to assume the movie's gonna be bad. Also a reviewer could say Transformers has \"epic visuals\" but then shit on the rest of the movie, but the commercial will just pull the word \"epic\" and go with that.",
"Actual review- \"This piece of crap was an epic failure on every level. I now must see a psychiatrist to forget how awful it was.\" Movie poster- \"Epic... on every level!\" \"Must see!\"",
"Movie reviewers for news papers and magazines get paid to review movies. People buy those papers and magazines for the reviews of upcoming films. But the film reviewers are chosen by the studio's to get early access to the film to review them before the general public. So if the reviewers go and say that studio x's latest blockbuster is a snore fest, that studio is less likely to invite them to the next early screening. If the reviewer cannot get into early screenings any more they are less likely to be hired by magazines to review movies. Thus reviewers get creative with their reviews or just flat out lie, and even when they do give bad reviews the studios can pull stunts like this URL_0 The review between their heads from the guardian, is actually a 2 star review. But careful positioning gives the impression that it is just cut off by the picture and is actually a 4 star like the ones around it.",
"You only need one critic to say anything for it to be \"true\". If a blogger for \"Transformers are the BEST MOVIES EVER\" says the movie is a \"must see\" then guess what - critics say it is a \"must see\".",
"Someone's opinion maybe? The arts are subjective. What i think and feel can be completely different from the people sitting on either side of me."
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6iz9qj | Did women really faint or get hysterical in emotional or shocking situations during the Victorian era? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"In addition to physiological causes such as constricting garments, it was also *socially expected* for women to faint in certain situations. Consequentially, to a woman who felt dizzy, the idea to try and \"pull herself together\" simply didn't occur - clearly she was fainting, so she did what she had seen others do. Furthermore, since it was considered normal, fainting could be faked and used to one's advantage, e.g. to get out of an uncomfortable situation, or to be caught by a young gentlemen one wished to get closer to - some considered this an important skill to be practiced.",
"Women wore tightly laced corsets back then. A lot of them fainted just because they couldn't draw a full breath. Also, layers upon layers of clothing OVER the corset, so I imagine many ladies swooned from a combination of restricted breathing and heat stroke. In polite society they called it \"a case of the vapors\".",
"Hysterical, maybe not. Faint, probably. This is attributed to a person's biological response to stress, typically heightened respration, being hindered greatly by their corset.",
"The way that people respond to and express strong emotions is influenced by their cultural context - it doesn't dictate the way every individual responds but it does give people a kind of shared playbook of \"normal\" ways to react, which changes historically and across cultures. In most modern, Western cultures, it's generally understood that people might respond to intense, acute stress by having a panic attack that can involve dizziness, shaking hands, crying and difficulty breathing. Now imagine doing that while wearing a corset and multiple layers of floor length skirts, in a culture where it's seen as improper for women to express anger, assert themselves or deal with interpersonal conflict bluntly, where the definition of what constitutes a shocking situation is a lot broader, well brought up women are expected to have delicate sensibilities and a failure to be appropriately shocked could be read as a sign of loose morals. The Victorian era also happened to be an era where it was seen as attractive for women to be very delicate, more emotional than rational and even a little bit sickly.",
"Gas lighting as well. \"Low pressure was a common problem for consumers, caused by the numerous fractures of pipes and joints due to poor workmanship, accident or sabotage. However, rather more concerning, were the increased reports of fires, explosions and suffocations. The image of a Victorian lady fainting is as likely to be due to lack of oxygen caused by gas lighting as an overly tight corset.\" - [Source]( URL_0 )",
"In Belgium, I've never heard of kids being \"hyper\" because of sugar until I saw it in a US sitcom. There are plenty of cultural responses that exist because they are expected, there are even mental disease that only or mostly exist in a specific place or culture. So yes, if it's a normal reaction for a woman to faint, then women will faint often. But fainting from surprise or stress is not all that unusual anyway."
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6j046e | How Europe can have so many distinctly different languages in close proximity. (eg, German, Czech, Polish) | For example, were Germany, Poland & The Czech Republic meet: wouldn't have these different people interacted in some way forming some form of similar/universal language, Or did everyone just keep to their own people? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Europe has been populated for a really really long time (tens of thousands of years), and for the overwhelming majority of that time the fastest way for people to get around was walking. Even as recently as 200 years ago most people did not have the resources to use horses or carriages. That means that populations were generally very localised; most people may not venture further than 30 miles from where they were born for their entire lives. Communities were relatively isolated as a result. That means not only can a range of languages exist in close proximity, but speakers of those languages often have really localised dialects. See, for example, all the different accents you find across the UK. If you put a Geordie (someone from Newcastle) in a room with a Somerset farmer I guarantee you they will have at least some difficulty understanding each other even today. Now, combine that with tens of thousands of years of tribal then national wars, as well as the growth of various empires, and the borders that those empires built and maintained for decades or centuries at a time, there is lots and lots of opportunity for some languages to become completely isolated, and others to pick up things and share with others. The Romans, the byzantines, the Vikings, the Anglo Saxons, the Holy Roman Empire, The Russian Empire, and countless others have all marched their way across various parts of Europe and shared or isolated parts from different influences as a result.",
"Actually, it's quite the opposite that happened. Almost all currently spoken languages in Europe are part of the family of ~~Indo-Germanic~~ Indo-European languages, with a couple exceptions like Finnish, Hungarian and Basque. All these languages have a common origin, and evolved into their modern forms over time. What you have to consider is that people used to be a lot less mobile for a very long time. Most people spent almost all their time close to their place of birth. Tribal people were usually relatively mobile, but even they would have spent almost all their time within their group. This meant that there was very little exchange between normal people living far away from each other, leading the languages of the common people to diverge. But the sharp languages between borders are recent. In much of Europe, the official languages spoken are the languages used at court by the nobility in that country, which then became the official language taught in schools. Local dialects can be very distinct from that: The dialects of Northern Germany for example are much closer to modern Dutch than they are to modern German. People at the border could speak with each other in their mother tongue."
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6j0o00 | How have beauty standards changed so much throughout the years? Wouldn't what humans find attractive be genetically ingrained into our heads and not really allow standards to change over time? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"A lot of the things we find attractive are not physical attributes but does have different physical manifestations depending on technology and culture. For instance we are attracted to wealth. Previously wealthy people were fat and sat indoor all day as opposed to poor people who were skinny, fit and dark as they worked outside on the fields all day. But as times have changed poor people started working inside and the current symbol of wealth is to have time to exercise and have a nice golden natural skin color.",
"Some standards have changed while others haven't. The .7 hip/waist ratio still holds true no matter the size. I think most of our beauty ideals are designed fir optimal health and ability to procreate. In the old days, you had to have enough money to eat and enough fat to get you through a famine. Now our biggest obstacle to s long life is not famine but heart disease, so we are attracted to slimmer people. Full lips are a sign of youth, clear skin is a sign of health, and symmetrical features are a sign of genetic hardiness. In the past, Anglo Saxons had the most wealth, so those features were the most desired. The Roman nose was revered and the Celtic pug nose was scorned. As Celtic people grew more mainstreamed, those prejudices fell away. Today, as Hispanic and African Americans achieve increased success and wealth, the physical traits associated with these groups are becoming more desirable. People are dying their hair black, getting Brazilian Butt Lifts, and lip injections. Lips thin with age, so that's another reason that people are attracted to fuller lips - they signify fertility just like the ideal hip waist ratio.",
"Humans are successful because we adapt to environment. We adapt by learning skills instead of genetically changing. Finding a potential mate is important part of successful survival. If traits we find attractive were genetically imprinted in our brains we wouldn't be able to adapt as fast and well. People would find outdated skills and characteristics attractive and new generation would inherit these characteristics and learn these skills in order to attract mate. There are certain universal characteristics that people do find attractive across the species though. Facial and body symmetry (indicates health), scent (indicates genetical compatibility to certain degree), good social behaviour (indicates strong social bonds)",
"Have they? I find historical portrayals of beauty to be remarkably consistent through time.",
"They haven't. Being fit has always been attractive. As proof I present [greek statues]( URL_0 ). That's 3000 years ago. Fit. Now let's move on 1500 years and we get the [Statue of David]( URL_1 ). Fit. It very much is genetically ingrained and it has changed less than you'd think. And people saying it's socially engineered *is* the social engineering.",
"One important biological concept missed in discussions here is \"**imprinting**\" - an animal's tendency as an adult to follow its caregiver when the animal was young. [Not just geese]( URL_0 ), all animals imprint to varying degrees in differing behaviors. That is, we are genetically programmed to be attracted to what we see in a critical learning period during infancy/toddlerhood. If you have tall parents then you will be attracted to tall people, fat parent-figures will cause a child to find fat people attractive. So to answer the question.... we are genetically programmed to prefer those who are genetically fit (e.g. clear skin) *but are also genetically programmed to imprint, to like what we see as children (e.g. freckles maybe) so these affinities differ with each person and may change en masse according to culture*.",
"> Wouldn't what humans find attractive be genetically ingrained into our heads and not really allow standards to change over time? Yes, but the details are left to you and your environment. You're programmed to find women attractive (or whatever) once puberty kicks in. Because that's what keeps the species going. To that extent any sexual dimorphism that helps us differentiate the sexes will trend towards \"looking sexy\": tits, hips, beards, shoulders, dicks or lack thereof. Things like \"long hair\" is an example of sexual dimorphism that isn't the result of evolution and your genes in the least. It's entirely social. \"After-market modification\". You've been trained to think that those people with long hair are women. That's not your genes, that's society. Details like preferred height, breast size, the ideal shape of the nose, the perfect BMI, skin tone, if you like piercings? All of those are all also social cues you've picked up from your surroundings. Our genes dictate a lot about us, but a lot of it is left entirely up to our environment. And even when our genes steer us towards a certain path, the environment can make adjustments."
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6j391n | What is the difference between "Neo-Liberals" and the modern "Left" and why do they have beef? | I was under the impression that noe-libs were slightly more centrist, yet still progressive, but recently I've been questioned on that. | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"From a European perspective, neo-liberalism is a right-wing policy, promoting pro-corporate measures like privatization, tax cuts for big business and limiting regulation that place consumer, environmental or similar interests above corporate ones. Pretty much the opposite of what the left does.",
"Neo-Liberal has become a term of derision used by some on the Left on people who support the status-quo, usually in areas like economic growth oriented policies, free trade, free speech, and a general position that things are good enough to improve with minor tinkering, not radical change. The modern Left has factions that believe much more radical change is required and that neo-liberals are enablers of oppression by being incrementalists.",
"First thing to understand is that Left and Right are to do with economic views. Left being lots of government control, right being complete market freedoms. The second part of the scale is Authoritarian vs Libertarian. Authoritarian being that the government tells you how to live, who to marry etc Libertarian being complete freedom for anyone to do what they want. Once that is understood then it becomes much clearer. Old School left believe in both Left economic policies (regulation by the government etc) and Libertarian policies, equality between men and women, free healthcare and the like. Neo Liberals share the Libertarian views, free healthcare, equal rights, gay marriage etc but do not share the economic views. They often are far more in favour of free market capitalism and deregulation and privatisation of many industrial sectors. A good example of this is what happened to Labour in the UK. When Labour went from a traditional Left party, to a Neo Liberal party and re branded as New Labour in the mind 90's. Their policies were actually very similar to the previous Tory government in terms of economic policy. Now we are seeing a shift back to traditional Labour economic policy under Jeremy Corbyn. Edit: Realised I didnt actually answer the question. The reason that they have beef with each other is that they disagree on the economy. And that its actually not really a good idea to lump the two groups together as on the left, because in reality they arent on both on the left. As you said the Neo Liberals tend to be more centrist progressive than left progressive (using progressive to mean Libertarian). Again Labour in the UK is currently going through a big change as the Neo Liberals are now losing ground to the Traditional Left within the party itself, and if it wasnt for Labour doing well in the recent election, no doubt they would be trying to turf Corbyn out.",
"The reason is that Liberalism and the left-wing politics of Socialism represent fundamentally different and incompatible philosophical, academic, political and economic perspectives on the nature of society and human progress. Sometimes Liberalism is grouped in with left-wing politics, or one is used as a synonym for the other, but this is both a) an Americanism and b) incorrect. Liberalism is the ideology of capitalism. Liberalism is the belief that all human beings are rightfully free from coercion, and are endowed with fundamental rights that allows them to act without interference from the powerful. A critical aspect of this freedom is the free market, or the view that trade and economic activity is best carried out without interference from the government (the principle of \"*laissez-faire*\", or \"let [it] go\"). This was the case for many centuries, with little government interference in the economic affairs of individual people or private companies. However there was always social pressure for reforms by which the government could help improve the lives of society's poorest and more vulnerable, which came to a head in the early 20th century. After the 1930s and 40s, many countries in the West began to move away from the *laissez-faire* model. Instead, they expanded the level of government spending to create jobs and fund welfare safety-nets for people, and introduce regulations on businesses designed to protect the environment, stop unsafe or exploitative work environments, prevent the sale of unsafe products, etc. This is a brand of Liberal politics and economics known as *social democracy*, and was the norm (\"the post-war consensus\") until the 1980s. **Neo**liberalism emerged as a reaction against the high-tax, high-spend policies of social democracy. The election of the likes of Ronald Reagan in America and Margaret Thatcher in the UK marked an attitude change in favour of the principles of *classical* liberalism, emphasizing and expanding the role of the private sector in everyday life. Neoliberal policies have focused on privatizing industries that were previously ran by the government, cutting regulations, opening up new markets in foreign countries and enacting fiscal austerity (cutting the level of money spent by the government on society and lowering taxes on corporations and the rich). Socialists and Liberals are, in fundamental terms, ideologically and practically opposed. The conflict between Liberals (\"neo\" or otherwise) and the left makes perfect sense when you understand that Socialism rejects the idea that capitalism can still bring long-term progress to humanity. While capitalism did advance human civilization, Socialists identify that it also created tremendous economic - and, therefore, social and political - inequality, as the ruling class in society grew rich from the profits made by other people's hard work. Socialists believe that, as capitalism concentrates ever greater percentages of global wealth and power into the hands of fewer and fewer people, eventually the system will collapse, and give way to a Social Revolution that will end the capitalist era. Socialists see capitalism as the ultimate root cause of inequality and social injustice, and oppose neoliberal policies that have given unprecedented economic and political influence to private companies and unaccountable individuals. Socialists believe that this power is used by the ruling class - the tiny minority of people who now privately own all the tools and resources of economic production - to profit from the exploitation of everyone else."
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6j39by | Why do official writing guides emphasize the importance of writing clearly and concisely when the best passages I've ever read are dense and full of figurative language? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Because you're confusing speaking clearly with speaking plainly. Using a word that has a specific meaning or an allusion that is pleasingly apt allows you to save pages of explanatory text. The adage \"don't use a long word where a short one will do\" doesn't mean you aren't supposed to use long words. It means consider replacing \"utilize\" with \"use\" in most cases. Things like that. The point of writing is to convey a thought. Conveying a simple thought like \"I am hungry\" doesn't need to be complicated. But describing an emotion needs more expression than, \"I am sad.\"",
"Because some of the worst writing you have ever read was also dense and full of figurative language. A lot of beginning writers mistake obscurity with cleverness. \"You don't understand what I am saying? You just can't follow my creative brilliance!\" The reality is that you must first learn to write clearly and simply before you are ready to master the more creative points. Also, writing guides often apply to less creative forms of writing. A report for your boss or a magazine article shouldn't have a lot of dense, figurative language.",
"Usually writing guides are to help you write things like newspaper articles and essays -- situations where you want to be all business, and pure efficiency. Creative writing has its own set of standards and expectations.",
"I was chafing under the authority of the writing guide in high school until one of my teachers explained it to me like this: It is a guide. Not a law book. It doesn't tell you how you must write. It tells you how you should write in the absence of a compelling reason to do otherwise.",
"It entirely depends on what you are writing for. If you are writing a newspaper article or publishing a scientific journal then you dont want prose, you will want language that is appropriate and can be understood by its target audience. If you're writing a novel or a poem then figurative and dense language is fine to use, provided you know how to use it. Those passages you have read are no doubt written by accomplished writers who know what they are doing. I think this assists with the old adage of 'learn to walk before you run'"
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6j4zdj | Why were past decades (e.g. 70s, 80s, 90s) so stylistically and culturally distinct, when the last two decades seem so "samey"? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"How old are you? I think it might be an artifact of perspective: I wasn't born in the 70's and was too young to remember the 80's in terms of style, so they do seem to have very distinct styles that differentiate them from other time periods. But i'm looking at them from the perspective of history: I'm seeing the things that have been highlighted by our collective cultural memory. For example, not everyone dressed like a hippie in the 70's. They weren't even really that common. But if we look at the media that we have about that time period, we'd think that everyone wore tie dye and bell bottoms. Sure, those were part of the fashion and culture, but they were just one part that has been disproportionately highlighted in hindsight. I can remember the 90's pretty well, and was an adult by the time 2000 came around, so I have firsthand experience with the cultural identities current in these decades, so I can see that each individual identity is just part of the tapestry of society, rather than the only color in it.",
"I think it depends on how exactly you're viewing it. In terms of music there is a clear difference between 00's and 10's. Only need to take a quick look at something like the 'Now Thats What I Call Music' albums to compare the difference in music taste between now and then. The biggest change will be the prevalence of the Internet and social media. 2003 when you and your mates had a debate about what the world record for the most amount of burgers a man has eaten in 10 minutes and unless you had the Guinness Book of World Records to hand you could debate it until the cows come home. Now you ask that question, one mate has the Youtube video loaded on his phone for you all to watch, another has brought up the Wikipedia article to go back through all the various details etc. Sure we had the internet, but I feel one big difference between the decades is the prevalence of mobile internet, and as a result of that social media. There are so many 00's plots in TV shows and Movies that simply wouldnt be an issue in todays age. You only need to watch The Wire and note how odd it is that everyone is using telephone boxes and landlines to chat to each other. One thing that is likely to have happened is that it is now easier to listen and consume the culture that you prefer. Be that 80's Power Ballads, 70's Glam Rock or 90's Rap, and as a consequence you might feel like the culture isnt changing too much, but you only need to go talking to teenagers and younger to see the difference. Im in my early 20's and my reaction to a Fidget Spinner was WTF is that? Whats point? But then I remember when Digimon Digivices/Tamagotchis hit schools and EVERYONE had one. Everyones reaction back then was very similar to Tamagotchis."
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6j5e5s | Why do a lot of vegetarians not consider fish a meat? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Someone who doesn't eat meat but eats fish is a Pescatarian. If they're calling themselves a Vegetarian, they're using the wrong term. I know a few Pescatarians, and typically they're health conscious people who have some sort of problem with various types of meat. Either actual physical problems occur when eating certain types of meat, or they have an issue with how certain things are farmed. This is anecdotal obviously, and I don't know if there's any validity in their medical claims. Just going by what I've heard from them.",
"By most accepted definitions, eating fish is not vegetarian. But some people might say they are vegetarian even though they eat fish because it's easier than explaining that they eat fish but not other meat. There is a word for it, pescetarian, but it's not a particularly widely known word so they'd probably have to keep explaining it."
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6j5nwn | Why do newsboys in movies etc. say "extra" when calling out headlines? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Newspapers, back when they where the main source of daily news, used to be printed several times a day (each time being updated with newer information or stories) so for example there would be both a morning and an evening edition of the same paper, and maybe more inbetween depending on the size of the paper and the city. When something really important happened an \"Extra\" edition would be immediately printed and rushed to news stands and of course the person selling the newspaper would want to loudly advertise this special event. So the newsboy shouting \"Extra!\" is sort of like the early 20th century version of a \"Breaking News\" story where they cut into regular TV programming.",
"Back when newspapers were a major source of information about the world, there were generally two printings a day. You'd get the morning paper and the evening paper. But if something of great importance happened between printings, the paper would rush out an issue with the breaking news. This was an Extra edition outside of the two regular ones. The newsboys shouting \"EXTRA!\" were announcing that one of these special printing had been done, to entice people to buy a copy and read the breaking news story."
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6j5och | Why would IS want to blow up Mecca's Grand Mosque? | There was a recent news article about Saudi Arabia reportedly stopping a suicide attack on Mecca's Grand Mosque. I understand IS have been particularly destructive and don't represent Islam however much they claim to, but I can't understand how they could possibly justify attacking Islam's holiest site. | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"From discussions with friends and reading random things about the situation, what I gather is that they are intending to bring about the apocalypse. Basically, and this is from my limited understanding of the situation, there are prophecies that say that the temple will fall before the end of days and a new one built in its place. This is one event in a chain of things that are supposed to happen when the world ends. I hope my assumptions and facts aren't too off base.",
"Ramadan is a month of fasting and prayer, a time for Muslims to pray for mercy and forgiveness and blessings. But groups like IS take the idea a little farther: if the month is all about getting into Allah's good graces, maybe going out and killing Allah's enemies would earn them some points. And once an idea like \"God has enemies\" makes sense to someone, it becomes easier for them to see who those enemies might be: anyone who has a different opinion about Allah or religion. Once someone gets hung up on the little details and loses sight of the big picture it isn't other religions who seem like the enemy (because most people know little about what religions other than their own *really* believe), it is people in the same religion who disagree on one or two specific points. So IS sees attacking Mecca during Ramadan as a good idea for a few different reasons: * The idea that Ramadan can be focused *outward* (\"let's punish the sinners\") rather than *inward* (\"let's pray for forgiveness\") goes back far enough that Ramadan has been called \"a month of conquests\" by groups like IS and al Queda. The Prophet Muhammad's first jihad, the Battle of Badr, took place during Ramadan in 624. He conquered Mecca during Ramadan in 630. So groups like IS see themselves as following a tradition of using Ramadan to purify and/or punish *others*, or to claim territory in the name of Allah (even places considered holy by the majority of Muslims), that goes back to the Prophet Muhammad himself. (To put it into terms from Christianity: some people see Christ's casting the money-changers out of the temple as a call to arms, something that needs to be repeated every so often.) * Mecca is in Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia is in bed with the US. So to the IS, attacking Mecca is equivalent to attacking the US... *and* punishing Saudi Arabia for their complicity... *and* punishing people who are celebrating Ramadan as a time of prayer and introspection instead of going out and fighting non-believers. * They also know that if Mecca is attacked, a huge chunk of Muslims in Syria and Iraq will believe that Israel or the US did it, even if there is evidence to the contrary. Not so different from the way the US attacked Iraq after 9/11, despite evidence that it was planned and executed by Saudi Arabian terrorists, not Iraqi terrorists. But the biggest reason might be that terrorists gain power by unleashing terror on the world. The specific details rarely matter... these are people who twist *anything* until it fits their worldview, even things that are the exact opposite of what they claim to believe."
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6j68p5 | If cashews have to be steamed or baked to be safe to eat, how did someone discover that? | As the title suggests, how did humans learn to eat cashews? The fruit is poisonous as is the cashew raw. | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"TIL cashews are poisonous unless cooked. I had no idea. They're probabaly very bitter so no one really ate enough to die, but I suppose everything eventually gets cooked and people try it. Maybe a Forrest fire burned the cashew tree and the cooked nuts were left.",
"there are some people out there who will try every thing possible, things that you can't even think of. even today, when it comes to games, you see people discover bugs and techniques that you would never have. that's just a game. when it comes to food, people are highly motivated. i see these posts all the time about food when it's so obvious. first they'll feed that new food to an animal and observe the effect that food has on it. then they'll try it. if it doesnt taste good, they'll use all the cooking techniques they know on it and see how it turns out. that's all.",
"The fruit is not poisnous or at least the species in Kerala. I remember spending loads of time plucking the fruit from the tree and collecting twigs to roast the nuts in my younger days",
"Cashews contain urushiol, the oil that causes all the itching and blistering in poison ivy. I think that they have to roast them outside as well because the smoke contains the urushiol droplets which if, inhaled could cause severe, sometimes life-threatening, reactions by irritating the lungs. Found this out last year when I got a case of poison ivy from a mango tree."
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6j6csa | Why is Armenian Genocide recognition so controversial at the political level? | While academics and historians almost universally agree that the Armenian Genocide took place, few countries around the world officially recognize it. Why is this? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Turkey denies the Armenian genocide occurred. Turkey has historically been a very important ally to the west, controlling the strategically important access to the Black Sea, and being a more moderate liaison to the Middle East. Armenia, on the other hand, is not of particular strategic importance. So politically, even if the historical evidence supports an Armenian genocide, there is little upside and quite a bit of downside in harm relations with Turkey by proclaiming in occurred. In Turkey's defense, genocides were not terribly uncommon in the 19th Century. They just happened to have one a little later, in an era of photography and mass media. It by no means excuses it, but it is a little unfair to single Turkey out when just decades before the US was killing off Native Americans, the Russians elimated the Circassians, and even back a little further to the the Potato Famine (UK/Ireland) and War in the Vendée (France).",
"Most of these countries that don't recognise the genocide do so because of possible diplomatic consequences regarding Turkey. However, the official reasons are usually along the lines of \"not enough evidence\" or \"should be left to historians, not politicians\".",
"I guess because then we have to recognise all the terrible shit that all the western empires did. And it's easier to just act like it didn't happen (for most people).",
"Descendant of a Genocide survivor here. I've spent a lot of time researching this very thing and the short answer is: pressure from Turkey. Turkey's government actively denies that the Genocide happened and it's illegal, even dangerous, to talk about the Genocide (unless you're screaming from the rooftops that it's a hoax) in Turkey. People have been jailed for it and others have ended up dead under suspicious circumstances. The United States, and many other countries, prioritize Turkey's co-operation and access to Turkey's resources (both natural and things like strategic military bases) over formally acknowledging that the Genocide was a real genocide and not a \"tragedy\" or \"incident.\" Obama came very close to actually saying the word \"genocide\" in a speech about it last year and Turkey's president started making all sorts of threats. As related note: I was reluctant to respond because there are many Turks who are militant in their zealous denial of the Genocide and I have received death threats for my activism in the past."
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6j6l61 | How can tv shows and channels show original content such as youtube videos without paying the creators and not get sued? | Best example would be "chive tv", which is a subscription based tv channel vobsisting entirely of 4-10 seconds clips from YouTube videos. Another would be a show like ridiculousness of tosh.0. Do the channels pay an amount to the content creator, or the video host even? If a famous youtuber made a blunder in a video could a show air the clip, even though youtube is their primary source of income? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"> Do the channels pay an amount to the content creator They should get the content creator's written permission (and the content creator can legitimately ask to be paid for that permission), but whether they do or not is a different matter. Most that don't will either think that \"fair use\" applies in their case (it very likely doesn't), or simply won't care. The problem is how to sue. It's a long, complicated and expensive process, especially if the content owner and alleged copyright infringer are in different countries. It may simply not be worth it, especially if the content creator is then branded as some kind of money-grabbing killjoy. > If a famous youtuber made a blunder in a video could a show air the clip That depends. If the show simply airs the clip for fun, they probably need permission to do that. If, on the other hand, there's a serious valid point to be made -- \"This claim, however, is false, as evidenced by...\" -- then that's comment and criticism, and so very likely \"fair use\" under US copyright law. Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer."
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6j6ttu | Polynesian people look very different from East Asian people, yet are hypothesized to have expanded out of East Asia only a few thousand years ago. How have the come to look so strikingly different, so quickly? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"It's the routes you need to verify. Try India, to the Philippines, to New Zealand, Fiji, to Marshall Islands, to Tahiti, Samoa, Tonga, and the Hawaiian islands. You will find common ancestry throughout."
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6j76cr | Why do we still talk about the 90's, 80's, 70's, etc as their own era yet we tend to lump 00's - now together? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Maybe because the birth of the internet and social media sharing has made it difficult to pin down what is the \"2000's\" ? I always feel its easier to kinda say what music was most popular for any of the pre 2000 decades. Maybe its because we can look back on the completed decades and decide what was popular. Compared to today maybe peoples tastes in things have expanded recently, or its hard to realize what ere you are in while you are living in it. I think the 2000's can be labeled the decade of terrorism, lost freedoms and when country music turned pop. 2010's marks the beggining of the end of the EU, and the rise of exteme opposites ive seen Folk Music and Dubstep rise and fall in the last few years. Or maybe we can classify the last 17 years and the next 3 as \"the 20 years when heat records were broken consistently every year."
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6j7jb5 | Why do European countries have many more manual cars than the US? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Not so much now, but traditionally, manuals delivered a more performance from a smaller engine and thus better fuel efficiency. Fuel is generally much more expensive in Europe (even double the price) so fuel efficiency was important. In addition manual drive chains tend to be longer lasting and easier to maintain, making them popular especially in eastern Europe where incomes are lower.",
"Agree with all the points here and can add one more: On average (I know there are plenty of exceptions) Europeans roads tend to be twistier and hillier than in the US. Manual gearboxes are more successful at negotiating difficult terrain in contrast to automatics that are at their best on long straight roads.",
"Traditionally smaller cars with smaller engines and less space means easier to make a manual gearbox for those cars. So that started manuals being the norm and it's continued. Also in most euro countries you have an automatic driving licence and a manual one. You cannot drive a manual if you pass with an auto but you can drive an auto if you pass with a manual. So most learn manual so it's the norm there too. To add. Having driven a small engined fiat you have to drive differently depending on the road. Reving high when needed and being in the right gear before you need it. Auto would be rubbish in that situation.",
"Economics and inertia. The economics comes from the fact that, historically, manual cars were more fuel efficient than automatics. That made automatics more expensive to operate, and a bit more of a luxury item. But why does that make a difference? Doesn't everyone love to save money? Sure. But the US has some of the lowest fuel prices in the world, since it's a major oil producing nation and has very low fuel taxes. As a result, the additional cost of operating a car with automatic transmission was significantly less in the United States, which means that more people could afford to do it. While that efficiency gap still exists, it's far smaller today as a result of more advanced automatic transmissions. Humans aren't any better at knowing when to shift gears than we were 30 years ago, but cars are *much* better at it, to the point that for a large number of people, the cost savings is negligible. And that's where the inertia comes in. A generation that grew up on automatic transmissions is likely to teach their children how to drive on automatic transmissions, and a generation that grew up on manual gearboxes is also likely to teach their kids how to drive a stick. So even though the economics are different when these generations learned to drive, they are likely to be most comfortable driving what they were taught on."
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6j7zfd | What is Cultural Marxism? | A term I often seen tossed around, it is often used as derogatory, and I would like to know why. As well, who coined the term? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"From [the Wikipage:]( URL_0 ) > Originally the term 'cultural Marxism' had a niche academic usage within cultural studies where it referred to a form of anti-capitalist cultural critique which specifically targets those aspects of culture that are seen as profit driven and mass produced under capitalism But later... > However, the term remained niche and rarely used until the late 1990s when it was appropriated by paleoconservatives as part of an ongoing Culture War in which it is claimed that the very same theorists who were analysing and objecting to the \"massification\" and mass control via commercialization of culture were in fact in control and staging their own attack on Western society, using 1960s counter culture, multiculturalism, progressive politics and political correctness as their methods. > This conspiracy theory version of the term is associated with American religious paleoconservatives such as William S. Lind, Pat Buchanan, and Paul Weyrich, but also holds currency among alt-right/white nationalist groups and the neo-reactionary movement. Hope this helps.",
"In it's original usage, it refers to the Marxist critique of culture and society. Broadly speaking, this *critical theory* suggests that the social superstructure must be reproduced with every generation, and that this reproduction is done through codifying the dominant ideology of society through culture, media and daily interaction with society. In this way, culture reflects and promotes systems of oppression, inequality and injustice. In that context, \"Cultural Marxism\" is typically used as a criticism by more orthodox Marxists who feel that viewing culture through the lens of race, sexuality, gender, disability, etc. detracts from analysis of the class struggle, from which all other forms of inequality ultimately originate. In 99% of cases today, however, the exact phrase \"Cultural Marxism\" is one used by right-wing, reactionary movements to refer to a conspiracy theory that the advancement of progressive ideologies within culture, media, academia and society is the result of a deliberate plot by the secret rulers of society (the Jews, left-wing academics) to undermine Western civilization and control the masses. It is the Nazi theory of \"Cultural Bolshevism\" with a slightly different name."
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6j9hsw | Why does "The People's Republic of China" have the word republic in it when clearly the country is not one? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"I think you are mistaken about the meaning of the term republic. In its most base form it just means that a state is a \"public thing\" and is used to contrast with monarchies. Outside of the US where it has a slightly different meaning somebody calling themselves a Republican means that they are for the abolishment of a monarchy if one is present of for keeping monarchies away if one isn't. China used to have an emperor and they turned into a republic when the monarchy ended. The Chinese Empire became the Republic of China. then a few decades later the communist took over and created the *People's* Republic of China to make it clear that unlike the previous one they were a communist country. The original Republic of China sort of continues on in the form of Taiwan, where the last remnants of the old republic are gathered both the republic and the people's republic claim all of China including each others territory and don't recognize the other as a legitimate government of anything. So the difference in the name is quite important. But the important part is that 'republic' just means that there is no monarch and does not imply anything about freedom or democracy of anything like that.",
"In American schools, people are taught that the word 'Republic' means 'constitutional democracy'. This nomenclature is not universally agreed upon. Plato's Republic, the origin of the term, was described as an academic dictatorship, where philosophers agreed to live lives of abject poverty and isolation while governing the state according to reason. For America, the idea of the Republic was that the rule of law and judges could overrule the public, that the judicial branch would act as the philosopher-kings who were above corruption and the need to appease powerful interests, and who could decide on reason alone if a law violated the principles of the state. The Soviet Union, however, decided that the important part of the Republic was that there was a scholarly dictatorship where succession was chosen by merit, not birth, and where the leaders existed to advance the state, not their dynasty. As a result, the United Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) felt the term Republic better applied to them. Going back farther, the Venetian Republic felt that, by having votes conducted by the wealthy to secure a patrician to advance the state, who was limited in his ability to claim power over the other wealthy, they had a ruler who was immune to corruption, and thus called their state a Republic. In the case of North Korea, they don't seem to appeal to much of any of the existing types of Republics, but because their government is modeled after the Soviet Union, they called themselves a socialist republic. Much of the government, with the exception of the leadership, is managed that way. High school education is generally massively oversimplified for the sake of making it possible to teach a little bit of a lot of important concepts. The idea of Republic, and how various forces through history have interpreted it, is a complex one, not one that's actually subject to a single definition, other than 'inspired by something inspired by a book by Plato'. You were likely taught in high school a single, modern, local definition that helped you place your own state in a broader legal and philosophical context, and that's a good thing, but it is not the end of knowledge on the topic, and many others have been inspired by Plato in different ways.",
"What makes it so obviously not a republic? It certainly isn't a monarchy.",
"It is a republic. They haven't had an emperor (or king) in China since 1912.",
"A \"republic\" is any country not ruled by a hereditary monarch. China is specifically a \"unitary one-party socialist republic\": * unitary: it has a central government which delegates powers to administrative regions * one-party: only one political party is allowed to govern * socialist: the governing party strives towards the creation of a system based on collective ownership of the means of production * republic: its head of state didn't get the job because his dad was head of state"
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6jaob0 | why do people say, "fuck" when they're angry? | Why did people use the term that way? Did the expression "fuck you" originate from, "I'll fuck you," like some kind of threat or something? Did people use other words that mean: to have sex, in similar ways? Like did people ever yell, "fornicate!" when they stubbed their toe? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"The word 'fuck' derives from the old German word 'flicken', which means \"to hit\". It eventually evolved into an expletive for sex or sexual acts. It's also an extremely versatile word.",
"One basic idea is that over the many many times that Britain was invaded, what would happen was that the language and vocabulary of the losing side was used by the poor, whereas the aristocracy would use their own language. Gradually both get subsumed into English, but then you end up with a taboo developing where it was rude for the aristocracy to use words that were from the poor language. I could be wrong, but I think many of our swearwords come from German, Danish etc and so were taboo when our ruling class was French. So gradually words that were perfectly legitimate become rude, firstly because 'that's a word the peasants use' and then because 'that's not a word polite people use'. Incidentally it's fascinating when you find some of them still around. There's plenty of towns in the UK with medieaval roads still called 'Gropecunt Lane' or something similar - since that was where one might go to procure a prostitute. On another note the really successful swearwords are beautifully percussive. Fuck starts at the teeth and races to the back of your mouth. The vowel sound is little more than an emotive grunt and then the final hard 'k' sound is excellently harsh. It's a word you can really spit. 'Cunt' is more or less the same thing but the opposite direction, starting at the back of your mouth and racing forward until you can spit the T out as hard as you like. To answer the last bit I have heard people use 'shag it' as an expletive, and Shawn of the Dead punnily employed 'cock it' in a similar way. I don't think I've ever heard someone throw something down in frustration and yell 'have sex with it' though."
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6jawlt | r/incels | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"INvoluntary CELibacy. Basically people who want to have sex, can't get laid, and feel like the world owes it to them.",
"That is a sad sad sub about lonely men who cannot find love. They seem to be mad at the world because \"attractive\" women don't like them."
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6jbgxf | If William Shakespeare's works contained 100s of words that he made-up, then how were they able to be understood? | Works with so many made-up had the potential to be dismissed as the ravings of a lunatic, but instead, his were seen as genius. Why? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"He didn't just create words out of thin air, he coined (or at least was the first to print) words based on existing words. For example, he's credited with coining the word \"bedroom.\" It's pretty easy to understand what he meant by that since the words \"bed\" and \"room\" already existed. Or the word \"invulnerable\" which was based on the already-existing \"vulnerable.\"",
"First, he *popularised* more than actually invented words. Second, a lot of the \"words\" he is responsible for were actually *phrases*. As such, you can understand them from context.",
"1. Most of the words Shakespeare is credited with creating were already existing words that were turned into other parts of speech, or combined with other words to create compounds. Large parts of Shakespeare's cannon were written in verse, so it was a useful way for Shakespeare to communicate complex ideas while sticking to a poetic meter. 2. When we say Shakespeare invented a word, we mean that the first recorded instance of that word in the English language is found in Shakespeare's work. It could be that, in some instances, Shakespeare was using a common phrase or a bit of slang that was too informal for many writers. Shakespeare had a great ear for all types of dialogue, for kings and commoners, so it would make sense that he payed attention to the way ordinary people used language. 3. This is the big one most English teachers forget to mention in High School: The reason that we still use those \"new\" words *is because Shakespeare wrote them.* Shakespeare is so important because the time he lived in was a sort of a fulcrum point in English history, between older medieval ways of thinking and the modern world we live in, and the English language was undergoing a similar transformation. We still read Shakespeare because he was considered the first really important writer who wrote lots of stuff in the type of English we speak today. Other writers may have been coining new phrases at the time, but we still use Shakespeare's phrases because he wrote a body of work that has been constantly read, studied, and picked apart for four hundred years. The word \"eyeball\" didn't necessarily slip into common usage because it's a particularly brilliant turn-of-phrase (although it is pretty catchy, I suppose). It entered common usage because it appears in a play that generations of English speakers have read and watched over and over.",
"The words that he made up where not gibberish like gafagas. They where modification and mutations of already known words like awesome. awesome was not a word always a word, but awe was a word. Using context and a understanding of the word \"awe\" you can deduce that awesome means something full of awe",
"Context is key. We've become really lazy about that because we can highlight a word then right-click to get its definition. But if you have \"made up\" words (and Shakespeare didn't really string together a bunch of letters and create a new word), you can suss out the meaning based on how it's positioned within a sentence. You might not know exactly what it means, but you'd have a pretty good idea of its definition. And the more often you do that, and the more you read (actually, the more you *challenge* yourself when you read), the better developed this skill will be.",
"Because most of the words Shakespeare was credited with inventing weren't completely made from whole cloth. Most involved changing nouns into verbs, changing verbs into adjectives, connecting words never before used together and adding prefixes and suffixes. For example, the word Barefaced (as in barefaced liar), makes sense even if you'd never heard that word before. You'd get it's meaning in context: Lying with a bare face, as in openly lying without trying to disguise it. Others are pretty self explanatory like Catlike, Coldhearted, Leapfrog or Moonbeam. Then the prefixes or suffixes...people knew what to sully something meant, but Shakespeare was the first to use the term 'unsullied' to mean pure. You know what 'sullied' meant, so to be unsullied must mean the opposite Then there are phrases like 'Household name'.. In Henry V, there's a speech where King Henry is basically telling his men that they'll be so famous that their names will be as 'familiar as household words'... even if you've never heard the phrase 'household words' or 'household names', you can grasp the meaning."
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6jbv47 | Why is French considered one of the most useful languages to learn in the world, despite the relatively few speakers compared to other languages? | There are more speakers of, say, Spanish, German, and Portuguese than French in the world. So then how did French become one of the lingua francas of the world instead of those other languages? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"For centuries, France was the largest, most powerful, (and the first major) nation-state in continental Europe. So when you had diplomats and businessmen speaking dozens of languages needing to negotiate and conduct business, French became a natural language of choice. Note that this was a niche fulfilled by Latin in the days of Rome. Also note that, regionally, other languages were used - German quite often in Eastern Europe because of the reach of the Austrian empire, Polish and Russian as well. For a long time French was also the language of the English nobility, because of William the Conqueror's introduction of it (after all, he was a Frenchman from Normandy). So French had that going for it as well. France's colonial empire reached far and wide, spreading the language's influence as an international language of diplomacy. But I suspect that its influence on the continent (which Britain could not share) was the main reason it kept being so important. In the late 19th and 20th centuries, France's fortunes fell as Britain and America's rose, and that's how you begin to see English supplanting French as the most broadly spoken international language. As far as whether it's still useful to learn French today, I seriously doubt it. I'd learn Chinese or Arabic, personally.",
"French is the official language, or has special legal status in: Belgium, Benin, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cameroon, Canada, Central African Republic, Chad, Comoros, Côte d'Ivoire, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Djibouti, Equatorial Guinea, France, Guinea, Haiti, Luxembourg, Madagascar, Mali, Monaco, Niger, Republic of the Congo, Rwanda, Senegal, Seychelles, Switzerland, Togo, and Vanuatu. If you live in the USA, the reason you're told French is a good language to learn is \"Quebec\".",
"Today, English is the closest thing we have to a \"world language\". However, that only became the case in the last 250 years or so. Before that, French was the lingua fraca in Europe, used in diplomacy and business. Plus, French culture has always been considered very prestigious, and knowing French has long been considered a sign of a cultured individual. Things have changed, but the perception that \"French=sophisticated/useful\" still sticks around in a lot of people's minds."
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6jcs1d | Why do Asian currencies tend to have very small denominations while western countries have big ones? For example, 1 USD ≈ 22,500 Vietnamese Dong | 1 USD is about: 100 yen, 1000 won, 8000 kip, 35 baht, 22500 dong But on the other hand, one USD is about 0.85 euros, 0.7 pounds Etc etc So why is it that Asian countries have currencies that are so finely granular (for lack of a better term) that the smallest physical currency they have is worth 500 units? And why do western countries have currencies that are so big that a quarter of one unit is relatively significant? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Well, one reason is that many of these countries are ( or were ) quite poor. So, poor people need to be able to sub-divide value quite small. Another reason is relative inflation, many of these countries have had periods of really high inflation. So the numbers have gotten really high. As a comparison, the smallest coin (200 dong) in Vietnam is worth about 1 US cent. In fact, many countries will sometimes rebase the currency to get the numbers to be more usable.",
"one part of the reason is because some currencies do not have a separate \"cent\" type denomination. You are quite literally comparing dollars to cents. For example, $1 = 111.28 Japanese Yen.. But yen is the smallest unit. it's basically saying $1 = 111.28 Japanese cents.",
"It is because of inflation. Most of these currencies started out as having similar value, but when governments went from the gold standard some had more inflation than others. A single yen for example in used to be worth about half a US dollar until 1931. This is also not really an Asian thing. The Italian Lira when it still exited was had similarly low value as had the Turkish lira before they decided to cross out a few zeros. In the end the actual number on the banknotes don't matter as much. As long as it is stable. Many Asian currencies simply ended up stabilizing at a lower value than European counterparts.",
"Inflation. Vietnam let a musician who didnt know anything about economic becomes the economic minister and the currency went bomb. Back in 1980 or so, the highest is 500 dong. You can buy a big house with some thousand dong. Right now you need several billions to do so. The dong keeps failing thus Vietnam need to print the 500k dong money. I wont be surprised if we need to print 1million dong soon. Source: I am Vietnamese",
"I don't know about the others but I do know why then yen is like that. In Japan, there's no smaller denomination, 1 yen is the smallest amount of money you can use. So instead of comparing yen to the dollar you should compare it with the cent.",
"The issue is inflation and the reason that $1=¥111 is because the value of one yen is so small relative to one dollar. This isn't a result of cultural differences but because of financial crisis in southeast east Asia a couple of decades ago. The economies of the region haven't recovered or their central banks aren't trying to deflate their currency. Post WW1 Germany is a great example of currency devaluation and inflation but their currency was rebuilt unlike those of Asia.",
"To a degree it's because they are newer currencies, and to a degree you're overstating the difference. Also hyper-inflation has occurred with some of them. The first currencies were gold and silver, or beads, or imprinted discs of wood, or shells. Gold and silver were valued based on weight and you'd actually carve slivers off a chunk of gold to buy something valuable enough to be traded in gold. If you weren't rich enough to own gold you'd barter directly - a bucket of milk a week for a month for a new metal hammer. Eventually we standardized values and started minting currency worth a 'fixed' amount with a standard amount of silver in it mixed with other metals. (then obviously problems with debasment - the government declaring it's 1/4 gold coins now had 1/8 gold buy expecting people to value them as per the old value). Originally American pennies were very large denominations because it was a lot of work to mint currency and it had to be carry-able on a person. They were made of copper, and copper was a useful and valuable metal. So you wouldn't want to mint say ten-thousands of a penny because it would cost more than a ten-thousand of a penny to make a physical object that a person could carry....(and this is true today, it costs about 3 cents to mint a penny, and we therefore need to get rid of pennies...) This de-valuation has happened slowly over time, so we never got rid of pennies and never started rounding. And our government is ineffective and no one cares enough to force it through. Now currencies are electronic and newer currencies are based on much more granular amounts, because everything is done by a machine. And also a lot of these currencies went through periods of hyper-inflation. Their 'pennies' were worth a decent amount but they de-based the currency to pay the bills so much that a penny became worth nothing because people needed ten trillion pennies to pay for a hot dog. Zimbabwe currency was actually 'reset' to zero because it was ridiculous to have trillion dollar notes. Obviously a one-zimbabwe-dollar note would have been utterly worthless. You can Google pictures of Germans taking wheelbarrows full of cash in salary to buy one day of bread. The ones that didn't reset their currencies, their 'pennies' are ten-thousandth of a useful amount, so they simply started rounding up to a useful amount."
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6jdpk4 | when and why was it decided that cereal is usually a breakfast meal? | *usually* ;) | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"In 1863, James Caleb Jackson, a religiously conservative vegetarian who ran a medical sanitarium in western New York, created a breakfast cereal from graham flour dough that was dried and broken into shapes so hard they needed to be soaked in milk overnight (so they would be eaten in the morning). He called it granula. John Harvey KELLOGG, a surgeon who ran a health spa in Michigan, later made a version and named it granola. Using the same idea, a former Kellogg patient, C.W. POST, created Grape-Nuts, which would become the first popular product to offer a discount coupon. Hope this helped."
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6je693 | why is "colored people" offensive but "people of color" not? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Such terms start out innocuous, and over time, are turned into insulting language via the buildup of chosen usage. For example, over time, the word may itself be used as an insult or it may be commonly bundled into racist, hateful speech. So, then, over time, it becomes necessary to shake off the old word and adopt a new word that is fresh and doesn't contain the baggage... yet. As long as people contain hate for others, this cycle will continue. (this also happens with non racially charged words- many \"insults\" today were perfectly reasonable and mild descriptive terms originally) A non-race affiliated example is \"retarded\", which [started out as a medical descriptor]( URL_0 ). Over time, as it was used as a wider insult and associated with negative stereotypes by unkind people, it has now *become* an offensive term to people who suffer mental or emotional disabilities- not because the medical definition is incorrect, but because the word has been changed over time by unkind usage. The word now has baggage. Side note: Regarding race related terms, it's helpful to know all this when interacting with older ones. Their usage of terms we now consider racially insensitive *may* indicate a racist or uncaring attitude.. or it *may* simply be a leftover habit from when the word was considered the most respectful and neutral term. It's likely that, as we age, we will also struggle to continue to adjust our language to the newest, \"fresh\" words- but it is always worth it to remain caring about the experience of others and to seek to avoid causing pain. - Tl;dr: Over time, words pick up baggage, and eventually we have to set the word down when it becomes too heavy. - Disclaimer: I am not a professional linguist or sociologist or anyone in an official capacity on this topic. I'm simply sharing what I have gleaned about this topic over time and informal study/reading. Please, correct me if you have more accurate info/sources.",
"It's complicated. But to reduce it down to the basics, the phrase \"colored people\" was one of the ones used during segregation in regards to which facilities were available depending on skin color. Repeating a phrase that was very heavily used in conjunction with segregation is an easy reason why it is considered offensive. Yes, there is very little difference between saying \"colored people\" and \"people of color\", but that's the reason why one carries extra weight. Personally, I, a black guy, think the terms are stupid. Last I checked, white was a color too.",
"The best explanation I received for the same question is that \"person of color\" emphasizes their personhood first, while \"colored person\" defines them primarily by their race.",
"It's the history of the terms. \"Colored people\" is a term used heavily in discrimination against Black people. \"People of color\" is a term created by people of color to join in solidarity across a number of movements against racism that targets people who are not white. The first refers primarily to Black people; the second to pretty much anyone who isn't white.",
"Whatevers most important comes first, usually. Which is more important, that they're *people*, or that they're not white? This works with other groups, too. For example: Disabled people vs people with disabilities."
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6jez4w | Why did/does the US hate communism so much? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"The US was founded on the idea of a Open economy with strong individualism and individual rights. Communism is basicaly the opposide where the economy and industry is state owned and planned and invidiual rights can be negated in favor of group planning. This lead to strong pressure from industry leaders in the US to push anti communist sentiment in both propaganda directed at the public and economic lobbying of public officials. This sentiment was reinforced by how russia pulled out of World War I from the ally side since the war was a \"rich mans war\" and wokers should not get involved in it, this was followed by a civil war in russia between the Tsarist and Communist (white vs red) and the allied poweres did send volunteers unofficialy to fight on the Tsarist side. The sentiment was reinforced when russia started providing logistical and economic support to socialist and communist political activists in europe and the US during the 1930´s great depression which lead to more animosity towards communism and the USSR.",
"Every real world \"Communist\" government has been a brutal authoritarian regime that uses Communism as a dogmatic justification for its villainy. Even if you speculate about an idealized Communist utopia, you're still structured your society around the notion that people are merely fungible elements of a certain socio-economic class rather than individuals with their own needs and wants. Given the strong streak of individualism in classical American character, such a notion doesn't tend to sit well."
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6jf6zm | How do you determine the quality of a classical music performance? If two musicians play a piece perfectly according to the sheet music, what makes one person a Glen Gould and another just really good? | I have a neighbor that is really good at piano and his wife is really good at violin. Like really really really good. Playing Rachmoninov good. Can sight read most things, play around with time signatures and all that. When I suggest that they should play pro or something they just laugh. They play me the piece by a pro and I can't hear the difference but they say its there and that they aren't even close to the guy on Spotifys level. I struggle with the cycle of fifths so I am not gonna argue but could someone explain to me what I am not hearing? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"If a musician plays a piece perfectly according to the sheet music he is good technically but not musically. A good musician play slight variations upon what the sheet music say to better fit the rhythm and emotions of the piece. It is hard to explain but there is just certain sounds and timings that resonate specially withing the human brain and can create strong emotions.",
"In the classical idiom, most of what you hear instrumentalists doing is interpretive rather than purely creative. The process of translating visual markings into sound is complex because the musician must stay true to the composer's intention (which is inherently vague, especially in music from composers who were long dead before the advent of sound recording) while also imbuing their own personality and musicality into the performance. It's a delicate balance. There are plenty of musicians capable of physically executing the notes on the page, but the best musicians are capable of 'upselling' pieces of music to bring out the most interesting or emotional aspects of the composition by the way they perform - energy level, virtuosity, interpretation, pacing, sound color, etc.",
"Other people on here have mentioned it, but primarily, it's the way a musician plays the composition. Take for example the way a person gives a speech. Anyone can read aloud a few paragraphs of something that is \"meaningful\". A masterful orator will know how to invoke what he or she wants the audience to extrapolate from the words. There are deliberate inflections, hesitations, and other methods for articulating and capturing the emotions you want to resonate with everyone. A seasoned musician who plays classical pieces professionally will be well-versed on the original composer, the general playing and composition style of the person, the contextual dynamics of the piece of music itself, and then be able to transcribe that as well as add his or her personal inflections on the piece. The result is the original piece that captures the intended feeling as well as the musician's personal interpretation of navigating through some of compositional harmony."
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6jg3xz | why the letter 'x' is commonly associated with mature/inappropriate topics. | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"In US movie ratings, the MPAA rating system originally had G, PG, R, and X. X was deliberately not copyrighted and was a special case that anyone could label their movie rated X meaning the MPAA had not rated it. I have been told X was meant to mean unknown but that was told many years later by someone who would not have had first hand information so I do now know the truth. Then came the Supreme Court ruling that adult video (commonly called porn) is legal. With the MPAA refusing to rate adult movies they were rated X. Being rated X quickly became associated with adult films. And so adult content in general. It was some time later that the MPAA created the NC-17 rating we have today to represent content above an R rating.",
"In the old British cinema film classification starting from 1912, there were just theree grades U, A and X. Flims for an adult only audience were graded \"X\". They were assessed by the then British Board of Film Censors, now called The British Board of Film Classification (BBFC). The gradings and remit have changed since.",
"It harks back to old fashioned censorship. Rude or inappropriate words on posters for \"lewd\" shows were covered by stamping XXXXX across them to hide them from public view. As human nature is to investigate what is being censored then the promoters of the lewd shows would actually print XXX on the posters instead .",
"Is there a connection with the xxx generic label on hard liquor bottles?",
"Midnight Cowboy is the only X-Rated movie to win Best Picture. However, I think it's rating has since been changed. And none of that answered your question but lends evidence that X-rated didn't always mean porn."
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6jg7zc | Why are Portuguese and Spanish considered separate languages despite being mutually intelligible, but Swiss Standard German and German Standard German are considered the same language despite not being mutually intelligible? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Portuguese and Spanish are definitely not mutually intelligible. I'm Brazilian and my dad's side of the family speaks Spanish, and while I can sort of understand them by this point that's only because I was raised with Spanish sometime spoken in the house. They definitely can't understand Portuguese, and that's the common case.",
"I don't speak german, but from my understanding, swiss german and german german are pretty similar in spelling, but it's pronounced differently and hard to understand. so it's kind of like how someone from los angeles might have trouble understand someone from liverpool, but they both speak the same language, and can consume the same media. If you pay close attention, you can understand each other too, without out having to be taught a different language. Spanish and Portuguese, on the other hand, are going to have a lot of words in common, but that doesn't mean that they can completely understand each other, no matter how much they try to pay attention. It's kind of like english and french. Here's a recent french headline: \"Turquie : la police disperse la Gay Pride à Istanbul\" now, I don't speak any french, but pretty much any native english speaker can read that, and understand what it means. To an english speaker, written french looks like english spelled funny. Similarily, to a spanish speaker, portuguese is going to look like spanish spelled funny. However, just like english and french, it's going to be really hard to completely understand spoken language, and communication isn't going to work well either. So you end up with languages that are similar, but not similar enough to garuntee mutual understanding - like french and english, or portuguese and spanish. On the other hand, you have dialects such as southern californian and scouse, and in that case, it might be hard for one side to understand the other, it is really because there is lack of exposure to the accent. pretty soon, the person will adjust and be able to easily understand scouse.",
"There is a saying \"a language is a dialect with an army\". There is no clear line on what is and isn't a separate language and there is tons of examples where something is counted as the same language where it seems weird that they do and examples two languages seem pretty similar but are counted as different languages and the answer is basically that it's arbitrary and no one sat down and decided it all so it mostly falls on random political decisions."
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6jgods | Why is it more ok to show nipples in movies/TV shows but it's so rare to see genitalia? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"When it comes to nudity, nothing makes sense. Once upon time it wasn't OK to show your ankles.",
"I think that's because nipples are seen as less 'bad'. We see man-nipples all the time and our social rules grew as such that we don't consider them sexual. Woman-nipples are seen as sexual, however not in every culture and to a lesser extent: in some cultures breasts are not seen as sexual and not always covered up, while the degree to which we view them as sexual between the western world varies from country to country. For genitalia, the sexual nature of those body parts is very aparant, in every cultuere, since they're literally the body parts we use for sex. So in general a movie that shows nipples and not genetalia would be viewed as softer then a movie that does show genetalia."
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6jgyhf | why are many American volume units base-4 (16 tablespoons in 1 cup, 4 cups in 1 qt, 4 qt in 1 gal)? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Because it is really easy to eyeball half of something, then half of that (one quarter), then half of that (one eighth), etc. So having units that work on that basis is convenient when you don't have good measuring tools."
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6jidkn | Why can the Discovery show Naked and Afriad show full butt but other shows blur out even the smallest butt crack? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"There are basically 3 levels of content on broadcast television in the US. Discovery falls into the second category. 1. Over the air TV. Over the Air TV is directly regulated by the FCC. Most major commercial channels broadcast over the air somewhere, so they need to follow these FCC guidelines. The FCC rules governing content on over the air television are some of the most strict. 2. Commercial Cable channels. These channels don't broadcast over the air, and therefore don't have to follow the FCC's content rules. These channels make their money from selling advertisements. Most advertisers don't want their advertisements to be shown next to overly inappropriate content. So these cable only channels make their own rules to make their advertisers happy. These rules are usually less strict than the FCC rules. For this show, the advertisers don't mind them showing butts, so they can do it. Showing more than that would make advertisers unhappy, and would affect the channel's income, so they don't do it. 3. Premium or Subscription Cable channels. Channels like HBO and Showtime make their money directly from their viewers through subscriptions. These channels don't broadcast over the air, and they don't have advertisers, so they don't have to follow the FCC rules, and don't have to please advertisers. These channels can show pretty much whatever they want, as long as the viewers stay happy. This is why shows like Game of Thrones can cover many plots that can't be shown on most other television. Edit: Moved a sentence.",
"It is on a cable channel. Technically they are not required to blur out anything. Their company censors have decided that the butt is not severe enough a transgression to need blurring."
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6jiooe | Polynesian people look very different from East Asian people, yet are hypothesized to have expanded out of East Asia only a few thousand years ago. How have the come to look so strikingly different, so quickly? | People from Hawaii look extremely different from people from Taiwan, for example. Yet from what I read, Polynesian people were East Asian sea travelers who made land on the various Pacific islands. Why do they look so different from East Asians? How did they develop such different physical characteristics so quickly? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Polynesians are thought to be descended from Taiwanese aborigines or Formosan people of Taiwan, which are a different ethnic group from the Han Chinese which mostly populate Taiwan today.",
"Imagine you have an island with 5 brown haired people and 5 blond haired people. They decide to go voyaging to find a new island to colonize. 4 blond haired people and 1 brown haired leave and find a new island 500 miles away. Their island is now mostly blond haired people. The island that is left behind also now has shifted to mostly brown haired people. Even though the original population was a mix of the two. This is called the founder effect. Polynesian people settled islands over great distances in canoes, so most islands had a relatively low starting population. This is how despite the fact that these people were all part of the austronesian expansion, you have some very distinct populations in the Pacific."
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6jjr1f | Why is the 'applause' a universal gesture? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"It's not really universal. Two examples: - German speaking university students traditionally (and to a degree until today) knock their knuckles on the table to signify approval or make noise dragging their feet on the floor to signify disproval - The British parliament frowns upon clapping and instead encourages shouting \"hear, hear\"",
"It's not a universal gesture. Why did you think it was? Clapping has lots of utilities for our species, making the action reasonably universal. Calling attention to other humans or animals, without straining the voice, and in a fairly repeatable form, is as immensely useful as any basic element of language. It's not magic that it's (almost) universal to the species, babies quickly discover it in their normal range of movements. But \"applause\" is not universal in the slightest. A baby can learn to clap without associating it with approval. Groups of humans show appreciation and engagement in a multitude of ways that is always multiplying. Lighters and Cell Phones are held aloft at concerts. Hands are raised to the sky at church concerts. Silence is delivered en masse to convey some deep appreciation. And yeah, lots of different kinds of apes enjoy slapping their hands together to make a sound. Lots of hooting, too. Some throw feces to show disapproval, while some others shout \"Booo!\" or \"hisss.\" Just remember that an action, whether it's with our hands our our mouths or any part of the human form, can be \"universal.\" But the enormous variety of the human species means that any definition attached to that action is *not.* Even within an audience of 100 people clapping in normal applause, there are a 100 potential motivations behind it, and 100 variations on the biomechanical action and its effects on the air around them. *Edited for edits"
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6jkzy7 | In the U.S.A. why are things that are considered to be public services (hospitals, prisons) allowed to be "for-profit"? Doesn't that create a clear conflict of interest? | How did this come about? How was it decided upon, by who, when, and more importantly, why? What are the implications of this and is it a problem in the United States currently? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"When the founding fathers created the constitution, they didnt forsee many instances where certain socioeconomic problems would arise without a governmental social aspect, they just enforced the law and court side. After hundreds of years different political parties and economic tides, the capitolistic model of the freedom of your dollar was instated. Different private instutitions arose with changing times such as healthcare, utility, resource companies and since it was commonplace and cheap nobody had to much of a problem. You could work and pay into the for profit system of many things, and if this wasnt easily doable, changes happened. (if you look in american history, when the system was getting bad numerous public protest created policy to challenge and improve these systems, ie unions, social security, etc) Fast forward to now and some for profit instutions along with the decay of the economic front has led to people noticing the relativeley equal oppurtunity of prosperity in so many for profit instutions of american life has become really unequal unless you are lucky or within a certain generational group to promote you into the system thats been working for the past years of the inception of the united states in the first place. The world has global trade, and many countries figured out if you put public ownership of some things you keep people protected and ensuring they get the services the society has advanced to, keeping this relative equal oppurtunity in place. Global trade has established relative balance from the american superpower it used to be ,where before america could keep the influx of economic prosperity allowing a for profit society. Again, it didnt use to be a conflict of interest, because the for profit instutitions made profit while still relatively providing equal service and people could relatively afford everything. The rise of neo liberalism after the post war era of american history rode on a time of prosperity that kept america from making the changes the rest of the western world incorperated to try and make things better in the system they created for their society. This placed the NGO's in a place to make up for the degrading spread of for profit instutions of things like healthcare, utilities, and basic social technologies, things like housing, intetnet access, social nets to help fling people back into the prosperity machine american capitolism had been running for quite some time. Nowadays you would see for profit healthcare and think \"why would they care if people live or die if they are motivated to make money anyways, the end goal is a conflict for the service they provide\", and thats true for todays time, but many older voters lived in the days were the for profit framework worked really well, and they have beliefs in that system because it worked for them. Many younger generations constructed their views from this older generation, and argue on many fronts that the system can work again with certain principles enacted. Not neccesarily saying its just american conservatism in a nutshell, just things like profit being good for society in general. These older generations lived in times where it worked, and believe that taking the profit goal away from many institutions that arent working the way they used will ensure it wont work at all. Its simply a slow change of tides and the american people slowly accepting the new reality they are in. The ability for freedom of your dollar used to be a prosperous thing, and when that system started to erode (you dont have much freedom if theres hardly anyway to ensure theres tons of dollars floating around), the people alive from the recent (talking all the way to 1960 here, verrry recent), believe the way things made them prosperous. It wasnt that inherently these systems were in conflict of intrest (however that is actually arguable), because at the time they provided the service adequately. Its also the fact that the growing divide of where actual money is in the economic spread of the american populous eroded the innate freedom that the \"choice of your dollar\" allowed. The proportional redistrubution of wealth started to ensure many for profit instutions switched their pricing and policies to ever rising economic distancing from the general populous. The slow distancing has ensured that more of the population is unable to be in the system of american for profit service of social product, and you can see it in things like for profit healthcare, industries that provide utilities, all kinds of services that provide the 'social technology' of american society. The framework was relatively stable, and with the changing times its not, and only recently has this hit american society as a whole."
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6jl7hr | Why is burning religious books considered a hate crime? | URL_0 Here's news about a burned Qur'an. Why is it a hate crime when it's just a book? I get that it was burned most likely because whoever did it hates Islam, but, at the end of the day *its a book*. It's not like they burned a real live Muslim. These types of hate crimes confuse me. | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"It isn't necessarily considered a hate crime. For example one way that is considered acceptable to \"dispose\" of a bible is to cremate it. The reason it's considered a hate crime is as you alluded to, because it was done in a hateful way. The book is a symbol of the faith. Consider a nation's flag. In many countries the national flag is burned when it has reached the end of its service. However flag burning is considered disrespectful by many. At the end of the day a flag is just a coloured piece of cloth; it's what the flag symbolizes that matters.",
"Though the article doesn't outright say it, it appears that the burned book was placed on a fence at an Islamic center, or otherwise used as part of an attempt to harass specific people. I don't know the specific laws of San Francisco, but my guess is that it's illegal to leave burning things on someone else's property, especially with the intent to intimidate or harass. Burning this Koran in a field or on your own property or as part of a protest likely would be fine legally, however carefully done. But, it's possible that doing it as part of an act of vandalism might add extra hate crime penalties.",
"> It's not like they burned a real live Muslim. There's a quote by the German-Jewish writer Heinrich Heine: \"Where they burn books, they will eventually burn people.\" Just over 100 years later, members and supporters of the Nazi Party publicly burned books written by people they considered \"degenerates\": Jews, communists, political enemies, anyone they didn't like. And not long after that, people they didn't like were first incarcerated and then exterminated. Yes, \"it's a book\". But it's important to note what the act of burning it represents: it's intended as a message to Muslims. It shows more than mere contempt for a pile of paper: it is an expression of hatred towards a group of people based on their religious beliefs, and a veiled threat: \"Leave now, or this is what we'll do to you.\" It's not really different than the KKK burning crosses in people's front yards, or Jihadists burning American flags (or, in one famous incident, Turks burning a French flag thinking it was a Dutch flag): the fact that it's a mere artefact isn't the point. It's about what it expresses."
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6jlizw | When and why did people begin consuming the milk of other species (cow, goat, etc)? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Why? Because it's some convenient, nutritious stuff. Humans can't eat grass, but by simply guiding a cow around a bunch of grass, and then eating the cow, we can still take advantage of the grass. Once we started keeping livestock simply to eat once they grew up, it was just a matter of time before we started using the milk. When? We at least know that ancient Egyptians raised cows for milk, and they probably weren't the first. So... at least 5000+ years ago?",
"This is not that uncommon among animals. Different animals might try to steal milk from other mothers, including different species. But it was not until right after humans domesticated animals that we started doing it on a large scale. Initially it was only for babies and in large parts of the world it is still only babies who drink milk. Most animals including humans change their digestive system as they gets mature so they can no longer efficiently process milk. However with humans there was a mutation that prevented this from happening. And due to the availability of milk to humans as opposed to other species this mutation have spread to a large part of the population."
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6jltb1 | How is the original meaning not lost when ancient literature or poems are translated? | I was ready some Plato quotes and have begun to wonder how much of his actual thoughts are getting across to us. Because not only is it translated to another language but the meaning of words just in one language can change greatly thru out time. So how can we be sure what we're reading is actually what he was trying to say? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"People never stopped using Koine Greek, it's not just a \"book language.\" It's spoken everyday in Greek and Arabic Orthodox churches.",
"The short answer is that we can't. Translation is a complex field, and it requires a certain amount of judgment on the part of the translator to try to capture the nuance and meaning of the words in the original. For instance, two different translations of the same passage from Marcus Aurelius's \"Meditations\": > From my tutor, not to side with the Green Jacket or the Blue - at the races, or to back the Light-Shield Champion or the Heavy-Shield in the lists; not to shirk toil, and to have few wants, and to do my own work, and mind my own concerns; and to turn a deaf ear to slander. and > From my tutor, not to have sided with the Greens or the Blues at the races, or the fighters with the light shields or the heavy in the amphitheater; to endure hardship, and have few needs; to do things for myself and not meddle in the affairs of others; and to turn a deaf ear to slander. There are some interesting nuances in those two translations. The first one talks about \"not shirking toil\" whereas the second one talks about \"enduring hardship.\" Those are similar but not the same - not shirking toil means not giving up on difficult tasks, whereas enduring hardship means being able to handle it when things get tough (and might not have anything to do with physical work necessarily. Weeding your garden is toil, your mom dying is hardship.)",
"Generally, we can be sure that what we're reading is at least *close* to the intended meaning. > Because not only is it translated to another language That's true; it is translated. Nuance can be lost and also regained through tactful and experienced translators. > meaning of words just in one language can change greatly thru out time Very true, word meanings (and many other aspects of both written and spoken language) change over time. However, when translating, we are doing so with two (or more) languages in a static state. > For example someone asking for a coke they can mean something as broad as just asking for a soda or mean literally that they want the brand coke True. You have to ask yourself though, does this discrepancy really take away from the meaning of the utterance? If Plato was referring to the cold drink of the day (let's call it \"Goat-a-Cola,\" would you expect the translator to literally repeat the brand? Likely not, you'd expect a contextualized interpretation that would make more sense to modern readers. [Radiolab did an excellent podcast that keeps things in layman's terms about translation.]( URL_0 ) [This book]( URL_1 ) is the subject of one segment of that episode wherein the author translates one French poem many times over achieving different (but ultimately \"correct\") results. [\"Thus Marot's initial ''Ma mignonne'' variously emerges in English as ''My sweet dear,'' ''Honey bun,'' ''Sugar lump,'' ''Turtle dove,'' ''Chickadee,'' ''Pal petite'' and much else.\"]( URL_2 )",
"It easily can. Here's a more modern example, involving two entirely modern languages with hundreds of millions of native speakers. For almost 80 years, Marcel Proust's epic novel \"A la recherché du temps perdu\" had it's title translated into English as \"Remembrance of Things Past\", because that's what the man who initially translated it rendered it as. Anyone who took a couple years of high school French will realize that it isn't quite what the title means. When I was in college many years ago, I got to hear a lecture by D.J. Enright, who undertook to do an updated English translation of the massive work. His first suggestion, and one that met with a lot of initial resistance, was to change the title to a more literal translation of \"In Search of Lost Time.\" It took a while, but that is the generally accepted title of the work now. Enright said that he spent weeks just thinking of how to translate the first line of the book. In French, it reads: \"Longtemps, je me suis couché de bonne heure.\". The initial English translation went, \"For a long time, I used to go to bed early.\" At the time I heard him speak, he was intending on translation the first line as \"Time was, I went to bed early\", but evidently sometime between his lecture and the book's publication he decided this was too radical and instead went with \"For a long time I went to bed early\". And all this was over a title and an eight word opening line! And bear in mind, this is English and French, two of the most widely spoken languages on the planet. Imagine how hard it can be capturing nuance from a language almost no one speaks anymore.",
"Not a direct answer to your question, just a couple observations: I like to read manga, which is mostly translated by amateurs. Due to that, you can get a small window into the translation process. 1) Often, jokes won't translate nicely, so they'll give a description of the context and the joke and the reasons that they substituted something else. It can give you some visibility into the difficulties. 2) Sometimes you'll find two different translations of the same work, so you can see where some of the \"fuzzy edges\" of the language overlaps are. Some concepts seem to be in agreement no matter who does the translation, while other concepts are more likely to have differences. 3) Frequently when the translation is done, you'll find that it doesn't match up with current colloquialisms in your own language. So while the translator may be good at mapping the concepts to your language, it may still sound a bit odd since they're not fully conversant with modern slang in your time/region. If you're really interested in things like this, one of the best accidental resources I found was the Dover printing of \"The Thirteen books of The Elements\" by Euclid. I thought I'd try reading it to see what many people learned Geometry from. But it turns out that the first volume contains an amazing amount of information about the process of trying to determine what the most original text could be. Since the document is so old, they tracked down multiple copies and compared them to find out approximate \"lineages\" of the text to try to determine the approximate \"original text\". It's a fascinating read. I never really got into the Geometry part, but if you find a copy, are interested in history, you may find it as fascinating as I did."
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"https://web.archive.org/web/20130616192456/http://www.nytimes.com/books/97/07/20/reviews/970720.20altert.html"
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6jnm0v | What is the difference between " & " and "and", and in what context to use one over the other? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"In most cases there's no difference. A good rule of thumb is to always use \"and\" unless there is a specific design/stylistic reason to use the ampersand. There are industries and contexts where they can mean different things. For example, in screenwriting, \"By John Doe & Jane Smith\" means that the two people collaborated together on the script, while \"By John Doe and Jane Smith\" means that they worked on different drafts or versions of the script, and may have never even met each other.",
"As bazmonkey mentioned, it came from the latin \"et\" and early versions of it look more like an e and a t together. Over time, the mark became more stylized, to the point where you really have to use your imagination to see either letterform in there. As an addition note on the ampersand: at one time, it was not called that, it was simply called \"and\". Technically, the & was referred to as \"per se and\", meaning that the mark was standing for itself as \"and\". Children would recite the alphabet, and after getting to x y z would add \"and per se and\". Eventually, that got slurred to \"ampersand\", which is how we know it now.",
"They're perfectly interchangeable, but in modern writing ampersand is usually only used in titles like \"Johnson & Johnson\", or when writing as a shorthand. \" & \" is a stylized rendering of \"et\", the Latin word for \"and\".",
"Maybe I am the dipshit here, but my understanding of the use of an ampersand is that you only employ it when you need to use \"and,\" but you are referring to a singular noun. For instance, Johnson & Johnson refers to a single company. Same with many law firm names. So, you would not use an Ampersand to say, \"hey, I am going to hang out with Katie and Erica\" because you are referring to two separate entities.",
"One context in which you use one over the other is for in-text referencing of multiple authors. For example, outside of parentheses (), use the \"and\" version to separate the two; Pierce and Matthews (1990). For within parentheses, use the \" & \"; (Chambers & Daniels, 2017). This is for APA format, but I think this is the case for other types as well.",
"As far as rules go, they are interchangeable, but usually, the ampersand is reserved for situation where you have an \"and\" in something that actually is a single unit, such as \"research & development division\", as opposed to \"research division and development division\". In the first case, it's one orginazitorial unit with both fields in its name, in the second case, it's two different divisions. You can also use it if you have a list with items containing \"and\", to avoid making it messy. \"Add onion, salt & pepper, garlic and mayonaisse.\" (Bad example, but the best I could think of right now, hope the point gets through.) Or, you could revolt against the system and go full ampers & inista, spreading the use of the ampers & far & wide over the l & ."
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6jpbm1 | In US, we have a legal system, not a justice system. | Ideally, wouldn't a legal system and justice system be synonymous? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Justice can be subjective. A legal system follows, interprets, and possibly changes the law based on court rulings. Justice implies a moral rightness, legal system don't necessarily mean morally right decisions. It's the difference between a rapist getting off on a technicality and a rapist serving a morally justified sentence. They don't necessarily reach the same conclusion.",
"Ideally yes, but justice is a term that comes with perspective. What's justice for you or me might not be for someone else. More to the point legality depends on other things, like legally proving something might not lead to justice. A lack of evidence, even if we know the truth can stop justice but be legal, but if we didn't have that standard than injustices could occur, like the Salem witch trials. So while the idea is to have the law bring justice, it's often not possible for it to occur all the time because either perception or to try and remain \"fair\" on average."
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6jpz94 | How does the Mandela Effect generate the same false memories for numerous people? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Memory is unreliable and susceptible to suggestion. I broke my leg when I was two and I very distinctly remember walking back to the car. Obviously that didn't happen, my mom carried me. But I remember walking. Most people haven't spent more than ten seconds considering their memories of what happened to Nelson Mandela, and it's easy for someone asking the right questions to get them to think one thing or another happened. It's like most internet meme theories, just mass suggestion. Like how you'd probably never thought about clusters of irregular holes until someone told you about trypophobia, and now mysteriously everyone is affected by it."
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6jrgkg | Why are roasted pigs traditionally served with an apple in their mouth? | I usually see roasted pigs being served with an apple in their mouth. So I wonder, why are they being served like that? Does apple go well with pork, or is there a different, traditional reason? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"The pig is roasted without the apple. When it comes time to serve / display the pig the apple is added for looks. The thought is that it is more pleasing with the apple in the mouth. As stated in this quote... “It may be, in the process of roasting without the apple, that the jaws would tighten into a ghastly grimace. The apple can soften the look.” Here is a link to a quick overview of what I just explained and a bit more historical information. URL_0"
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6jryxt | Why do so many stories involve the main character's parent(s) dying? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Generally speaking, there are two reasons why this is done. Traditionally, the parents die because it creates a motivation for the protagonist to start his adventure. Typical in young adult stories and novels, the death of parents signify that there is no more reason for a protagonist to keep the status quo, making them act on their emotions and allow them to go on an adventure. This is prevalent in stories like The Batman, Flash, Inigo Montoya of The Princess Bride and Chun-Li from Street Fighter where their entire trigger is the death of their parents. It also compels the audience to relate with the protagonist because they lost a loved one. The second and more recent reason for this relies on the idea of parental absence/abandonment scenario - prevalent in newer stories. This is where the parents die just for convenience so that the protagonist will not be questioned in things that he's bound to do for the plot. This type is prevalent in pre-teen stories where the protagonist would need far more supervision than an adult but since they don't have parents, they can be excused with whatever they do for the sake of plot. Some garden variety stories include Naruto, Harry Potter and the Last Airbender.",
"Building up of character and motivations that generates within the character when a love one died. This helps to drive the plot and audience understand why the character is doing such action to justify his/her motivations. E.g Batman parents died to a mugger so Batman is motivated to fight crime,Uncle Ben dies so Spider-man learns to be responsible, alot of revenge stories.etc",
"Assuming that the story arch is not about the dead parents, it also \"frees up\" the character from familial obligations or supervision. A young character can be read as more in charge of their own destiny than a young character with parents.",
"Everyone has parents, parents dying is relatable to everyone, and would hit everyone in the same way."
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6juyg4 | Why do many governments allow 16 year olds to marry, reproduce and engage in sexual activity with little to no repercussion, but allow only over 18/21s from watching porn? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"TLDR: Morality > Logic in the legal system Almost all laws are created to simmer down an angry public after something bad happened. This means they're completely based off of the location, time, and emotions surrounding a particular incident and there really is very little logic used in the drafting process. So to see morality shaping our laws let's take your example. Many religious organizations preach about the evils of pornography, but legislatures can't outright ban it's use without a riot. This means they had to change the language to say minors shouldn't be watching porn, which sounds good and fair so why not? Thus it's become law. Now remember these very same organizations and legislatures believe a baby out of wedlock is an incredibly immoral thing, and seeing as how teenage pregnancy is still a common occurrence you can't very well tell them *not* to marry or risk sending half of the South to hell. You see the same thing with a number of other topics such as drug law, gun law, and my personal favorite example [prostitution.]( URL_0 )"
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6jwwxg | Why are cocktails and mixed drinks generally considered more refined and elegant than beer? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Because they cost more and traditionally was less common. They cost more because they take more work. Beer is just putting the ingredients (who are easily gotten) together, and then waiting, then pouring. While cocktails need a broader selection of ingredient and more complex procedures.",
"Traditionally, beer was a simple concoction for the average person to make in their homes while alcoholic spirits require a still and a little more refined chemistry to perfect. Beer is made from simple ingredients... water, yeast, sugar, hops, malt, barley, wheat, etc. Alcoholic drinks are made from many different ingredients, some of them likely harder to grow and/or source... and the distillation process is a bit more involved than fermentation, racking, and bottling. Afterward, you have a beer which can be opened and drank as is... but a cocktail is a complex drink made from 2-5 different liquors, blended with exotic spices or juices, and prepared in an ornate glass with a fancy garnish. One beverage would be ideal for the working class, and the other would be hand crafted for the elite socialites."
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6jy07g | how would you spell something verbally in Mandarin, considering their writing system is symbolic instead of phonetic? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"You name each character and then give an example of a common phrase that uses that character. So you say things like: \"My name is Xian Fu, Xian as in xian xia, Fu as in xing fu\"."
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6jy48f | how come nearly every star from the Mickey Mouse Club ended up famous? | Title but specifically Ryan Gosling, Britney, Christina, Justin Timberlake...etc. i feel like that's a lot of kids and for them to all become rather famous is strange. | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Because Disney has been doing this for 60 years: they take hundreds of kids that audition, narrow it down to 30 or 40, and then send those 30 or 40 to school and take the top 10 finishers in that school. Every one of them has had hours of instruction in acting, singing, dancing, and just generally how to be a Professional Show Business Person, including how to deal with the press and the fans. And that's not a dig at all: they got there because they earned it."
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6k03mc | Why are individuals being prosecuted over the Hillsborough disaster, rather than organisations? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Usually the negligence/obstruction/intent can be traced back to a specific person or group of people that were aware of the issue and went forward anyway. That's potentially a criminal act. The organization as a whole is generally also liable financially, but it's not actually a person for criminal proceedings. If you could escape prosecution by comitting crimes in the name of a company then white collar criminals would never go to jail."
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6k0hgb | why is it okay for actors to impersonate police officers when filming in public locations? Are there special laws that govern filming? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Laws vary by jurisdiction. However, laws against impersonating a public official will usually have language like the following, which prohibits impersonating a public official: > ...with purpose to induce another to submit to such pretended official authority or otherwise to act in reliance upon that pretense. In other words, the law that I borrowed that language from says that it's only a crime to impersonate a police officer if your purpose is to make other people believe that you're a police officer, and act accordingly. So if your state uses that same language, it's not illegal to impersonate a police officer as an actor, or a stripper, or at a Halloween party. It's only illegal if you're trying to trick people. Most or all states in the US use very similar language in their laws. On the other hand, the use of an official police *badge* may be a crime, even in a theatrical setting, unless the use of that badge is approved by the relevant law enforcement authority. Again, this will depend on state and local law. Edit: clarity",
"It's not like there is just the one actor and a hidden camera. There is generally a full crew sound/light/camera crews, the director and all that jazz. They aren't going to be mistaken for real police officers. Plus inn public areas the have too get permits to film and generally type off the area they are filming inn to keep random people out of the way.",
"They aren't doing it with the intent of deceiving the public. Even when filming in public locations the filming area is often closed off to public foot and vehicle traffic. No one is going to reasonably confuse them for a real officer. And if they did, the actors and other film crew would correct them."
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6k1j0p | Why did money become a thing and trading goods stop? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"I think the term is \"coincidences of wants\" in the official economic language. Essentially the idea being for you to barter you need to have 2 people that want what the other has. Me personally I could run analysis and diagram out an architectural system, however if I want my AC fixed in my car I don't think that skill is very helpful to him. So I'd have to barter with someone who wants my skill in exchange for some bread, well apparently the car guy wants meat, so now I have to find someone who wants bread and has meat so I can finally get my AC fixed. Instead the idea of currency comes up and we all agree that we will accept it in exchange for goods instead of having to trade 30 times to get what someone else wants. Currency also doesn't have to be dollar bills or coins technically, prisons use cigarettes and the romans also used salt because the items themselves were so valuable to everyone they would sometimes stand in as payment.",
"Because alot of times, I have 10 chickens and need jar of milk, but the cow lady doesn't need chickens but needs hay. The hay farmer doesn't need chickens or cows or milk but needs a scythe. The blacksmith needs iron and eggs and milk to be big and burly. So how do you trade goods so everyone gets what they want?",
"Because bartering is very inefficient. If I have chickens and you have wheat and I want flour but you do not want eggs or chickens I cannot get flour. Money is a medium of exchange that represents a value of work that everyone can use to get what they want and need."
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6k1v9j | What did Homo sapiens do for the first 90% of their existence? | [Anatomically modern humans][1] have been around from a conservative estimate of 200,000 years to as far back as [350,000 years][2]. There is evidence of [behavioral modernity][5] (abstract thinking, planning, burial, symbolic behavior (e.g. art, ornamentation, music), ranged weapons (spears and arrows)) between 50,000 to 100,000 years ago. But, it was't until [~25,000 years ago that we find evidences of pottery, storage, cooking vessels, ovens, huts, hamlets, domestication of pigs/sheep/goat, ropes, pottery figures][3] and large scale settlements (the oldest known city, Jericho, is founded ~12,000 years ago). Even writing is a relatively new invention (about [5000 years old from Sumer][4]). My question is - what did the humans do all this time? They have been around so long and why only during the last 10% of their existence we see evidence of some progress? 200,000 years is a LONG time. Think how much has happened in just the last 2000 years. Yet, we don't have much going on for the first 180,000 years of the existence of Homo sapiens. Why? Why did "behavioral modernity" itself take 100,000 years to manifest given that we were anatomically unchanged? Secondly, we know that [Australia was settled 50,000 years ago][6] - how did early humans manage to build boats and cross large oceans 30,000 years before the invention of ropes, clay pottery and fishing nets? We cannot even imagine what society would be like 1,000 or 10,000 years from now. Imagine 100,000 years from now!? Yet, there was hardly any noticeable progress amongst Homo sapiens between 170,000 BC and 70,000 BC - a period of 100,000 years! [1]: URL_3 [2]: URL_4 [3]: URL_0 [4]: URL_1 [5]: URL_2 [6]: URL_5 | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"A simple answer is that they were hunter/gatherers. There won't be a whole lot of evidence that survived that long. Early humans used a lot of natural resources in their more pure form. Early Australians probably used boats or rafts held together by plant fibers. It's not true rope but it does work. So basically they hunted, gathered, and laid the groundwork for the civilizations that we can see evidence of."
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6k3ty0 | Why are we so irritated when we’re not in on the joke? | I’m sure it’s happened to everyone before… Your friend or loved one in the next room over is laughing hysterically at something for what feels like a solid minute. Or you walk up and catch the tail end of a conversation your friends are having when they erupt in laughter at a joke you didn’t catch. There’s a reason too why it’s thought to be rude to enjoy inside jokes when in the company of someone who isn’t in on it. Why is it so infuriating for us to not be in on something others find humorous, even (if not especially) when it’s people we love? Why do we have such a strong desire to know what it was they found so humorous? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Ok based on conversation I've had with people smarter than me: all comedy is derived of fear. The act of laughter is (supposedly) a physical response to us feeling relief, as in thinking that we were about to die, then making a noise that celibrates the fact we survived. So assuming that's true, my THEORY would be when we see people we know laughing, is not being able to laugh WITH them, on a primal level (maybe?)we assume we are still in danger. Would love to hear from someone that can spell better than me."
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6k4ntl | Why did some cultures develop written language and others didn't? | The first written language came from Mesopotamia thousands of years ago, but other societies in the New World and sub-Saharan Africa never did. Why is that? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Only 3-5 civilizations have ever invented a written language with absolutely zero input from anyone else - all other writing systems descend from or were inspired by one of these. Definitively, writing systems developed in the Middle East (Sumerian for sure, possibly Egyptian as well), China (Bronze Age glyphs), and Mesoamerica (Mayan). In all three cases, what you saw was urbanizations, meaning communities whose populations too big for a single individual or even a group of individuals to keep track of by memory. Additionally, these were also the cases where enough of the population was in the same area, and recieving the same influences and education, for any given \"code\" to become widely used and understood. All languages are, in a sense, a code - the sender and the recipient must both understand the code a message is in for that message to be useful. If you don't know the language, then the message is meaningless. Cities marked the first time you had enough of a population in one area to support a group of people who have the time and inclination to study \"codes\" to communicate or store data. It perpetuated because it was also easy to share this information across large distances, as well as pass information \"down\" to future generations who might need that knowledge. Most early writing systems were practical things - i.e. trade, family history, agricultural information, etc. Then, they expanded to things like stories and histories. In villages, tribes, and other smaller communities, people usually only needed to keep track of what was going on in their immediate area, a single herd of animals, a single giant farm (or a collection of smaller farms), etc. Meanwhile, stories or histories were preserved in oral tradition, which did require intense training and study, but preserved those stories and histories in someone's living memory, to be recited upon need or command. This was how information was preserved to pass \"down\" to future generations. If a community did not participate extensively in trade, they would've had little need to communicate over long distances, so a system of spreading knowledge or information without an actual person to \"carry\" it from Point A to Point B (whether those points are across time, distance, or both) would never have been needed. Writing is not the only way to store information without a living person to actually carry and distribute that information orally. There have been many, many artistic traditions that conveyed story and history without a word. Meanwhile, there have historically been other mechanisms of storing and sharing more practical, day-to-day information like quipus (\"talking knots\"). However, over time, writing systems proved to be the most efficient and versatile way to store and share knowledge and information, so most of these other methods died out over time. Even amongst writing systems, only a certain style really remains and prevails today, and that is the mechanism of using symbols to convey a *sound* (and thus stringing together several symbols to convey a word), rather than symbol conveying a *word* or concept. The only major language that still uses the latter system today is Chinese - and even this language is only partially logographic (\"pictures/symbols as words\"), and is also partially phonetic (characters or character alterations that convey sound, to combine with the logogram to convey the actual word or sentence correctly). And even now, Chinese is evolving somewhat phonetically - Simplified Chinese is a little more phonetic and less logographic than Traditional Chinese, and many places even in China are more apt to just use Western numerals than Chinese ones (though the Chinese numerals still prevail in the country).",
"Only about 3 civilizations in the whole world ever invented written language; it's *that* rare and extraordinary. All other civilizations got it by learning the idea from some other civilization that had it -- or didn't get it at all."
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6k5hmj | Why are Swedish and Norwegian considered two different languages but are completely mutually intelligible, while Cantonese and Mandarin are dialects of Chinese but are mutually unintelligible? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"It's a complicated one, but mostly it's to do with the fact that to communicate ideas, we humans try to put things into very neat categories, but real life is far more messy and complex. So in normal, everyday speech, we say that \"dialects\" are mutually intelligible and \"languages\" are not mutually intelligible; but that's not how things really are. For example, in the movie *Trainspotting*, the characters speak a Scottish dialect of English which is, in theory, mutually intelligible with standard dialects of English. But many British English speakers had difficulty with it, and for the North American market, the actors actually dubbed some of their lines into a \"softer\" version of the dialect. Does this mean that Scottish English and American English are mutually unintelligible? If so, are they different languages? But then, if Scottish English and English English are mutually intelligible, and English English and American English are also mutually intelligible, how do we categorize them all? German is another example of this. Start in Switzerland and work your way north village to village to Hamburg. You will never find a place where the people of one village can't understand the people of the next village, and yet by the time you reach Hamburg, the dialect spoken there is so different, they can't understand Swiss German at all -- Swiss German actually has to be subtitled on German TV. That's why linguists avoid making a distinction between \"dialect\" and \"language\". They speak of \"language varieties\" and -- when describing something like German -- \"dialect continua\". Such is the case with Danish, Norwegian and Swedish, which form a dialect continuum. The standard forms of those languages are *fairly* mutually intelligible. Norwegian has several different standard written forms, but no official standard spoken dialect. Norwegian dialects are grouped into northern, central, western and eastern varieties, and they can differ a great deal to the point that even native speakers have trouble with them. In Sweden, most people speak a standard form of Swedish, but some also speak a dialect which can be very difficult for an outsider to understand. The Chinese languages simply have even greater variation between the different varieties. Many of them are mutually unintelligible, and the differences between them are similar to the differences between, for example, the Romance languages -- French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese and so on.",
"Politics. The distinction between a language and a dialect is pretty arbitrary and the terms tend to reflect political rather than linguistic differences. There's a famous saying that \"a language is a dialect with an army and a navy.\" Northern and Southern China have been politically united for a very long time, but Norway and Sweden are independent of each other.",
"\"A language is a dialect with an army and navy\" - Max Weinreich (linguist) Among linguist it is common to refer to Chinese as a language family, rather than a language. One other thing to note is that while Cantonese and Mandarin are mutually unintelligible, they share a writing system. Write the same words out and there wouldn't be any difference. If a Cantonese speaker and Mandarin speaker read the same thing out loud, they would say different things, but get the same meaning. Sort of like a German and English speaker reading \"1+1=2\" This has been true since the Qin dynasty suppressed all other writing systems. Though in the 20th century Communist China started using simplified characters.",
"Chinese is a special case. The Qin emperor who originally unified China enforced a universal writing, counting and measuring system that quickly eclipsed the local variations. Because the grammatical structure of many of the local languages was very similar, it meant that a particular sound could be linked to a Mandarin character, and a written sentence would be intelligible in a local language even it it wasn't natural-sounding. Cantonese is still like this. Many Hong Kong songs, for example, are written and sung with a one-to-one sound-to-character mapping, even though that may not be how you would normally say the sentence in Cantonese (typically Cantonese speakers add extra syllables compared to mandarin). What impressed me about Chinese is how dense these variations are. Where I live in Jiangsu there are 5-6 unintelligible variations within a half-hour train ride.",
"I can't speak to Swedish and Norwegian, but while Cantonese and Mandarin are pronounced very differently, the written languages are, I am led to believe, effectively identical. This is thanks to the character-based nature of Chinese languages, which uncouples \" \"spelling\"/how a word looks from how it is pronounced. In a sense, that makes the chinese languages even closer than even very similar dialects."
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6k6ajs | What makes people like certain types of music but dislike others? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"The answer for this question is highly layered, there are possibly hundreds of different variables for one's preferences of music, or art in general, such as where one was reared, previous life experiences, perhaps even on a genetic level, so there can't be a true answer as it's basically one's opinion."
],
"score": [
3
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
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