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6k6vy1 | How did Japan develop this multifaceted culture; where on one hand it is steeped in the deepest of traditions dating back thousands of years; on the other it is a society in a continual state of rapid flux, with a very modern take on everyday problems? | tl;dr : A land known for both the exquisite craftsmanship of Katanas (Samurai swords) and Robots, just how? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"One thing I know is that the US influenced Japan culture quite a bit after WWII. As you should know, Japan was forbidden to have a military. That was Article 9. It offered Japan \"a way of retaining a positive sense of uniqueness in defeat\". Japan modernized quite a bit and at a rapid pace post-WWII. I don't remember the exact details as it was a long time ago. The book I learned this from in college was called \"Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wake of WWII\" by John Dower.",
"Japan had a strong centralized government that deliberately decided what aspects of the west to take in as required and which to reject - this happened very late, as they abruptly abandoned a feudal government in the mid and late 19th century. They had also never been conquered by outsiders, and had a long history of seclusion, leading to preservation of traditions. The two combined to make a very modern and industrious country with a strong sense of local culture and traditions."
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6k88nz | Why are we so afraid to look each other in the eye? | It seems like a lot of people have trouble maintaining eye contact in every day situations with strangers, and even friends and relatives. | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Eye contact is a confidence issue and also relates to dominance. Eye contact between people, depending on the situation, essentially is conveying I'm the dominant one, you will submit. Take a look at fighters neither one is willing to blink or break eye contact at the start of the fight as they are trying to mentally submit their opponent at the beginning of the fight. Looking away is a sign of submission."
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6k9fxc | How does an actor get an acting job? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"If you want to act in movies and on TV, your first step is to find an agent. They're the gatekeepers who control access to most auditions. To do this, you need to put together a demo reel from student films or self-shot footage and send that in along with a cover letter, headshot, and actor's resumé. Agents are sent breakdowns from casting directors (which are given to the casting directors by the production). These are little outlines of what characters are in the production. The agent decides who they think the best fits are from their roster and submits them to the casting director. If the casting director likes the agent's suggestion, they will call them in for an audition. They usually send the agent sides to pass along to the actor. Sides are little snippets from the script that the actor will perform in the audition room (where they will be taped by a cameraman). The casting director, director, and often one or more of the producers will look at the taped auditions and then pick who they think is the best fit. For smaller roles, it may be left up to the casting director alone. Actors without an agent can still sign up for websites like Casting Workbook to self-submit for breakdowns, but they won't have access to as many: most paying gigs are restricted to actors with agents (or union actors). Acting for theatre is a little easier. If you sign up for a local mailing list for auditions, you'll usually be pretty well-informed about what's going on in your city. Of course, bigger paying companies often have to prioritize actors in the theatre union, so if you're just starting out most of what you'll be seen for are small independent projects."
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6k9wzx | What would happen if the libertarian and or green party gained enough Senate seats that no party held a majority? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"It would be a three way discussion of \"what to do on such and such law\". Sorry were you expecting some dramatic shift or crisis? Because that isn't what would happen. If a third party gained enough seats to impact the Senate meaningfully, the Senate would then be a 3 way split that would require more discussion and compromise to do anything."
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6kan8g | Origins of Ouija board (not how they work, but how they came to be/history of them) | I don't want the "demons, magic" etc. type answers, but I'm curious as to how the Ouija board came to be--I understand that it was marketed as a toy, but what was the inspiration behind it/are there other Ouija type things throughout history that inspired it? Thank you so much! | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"The Ouija board as we know it was created in 1890, by Businessman Elijah Bond to make money over the spirtualism fad at the time. [He received a patent for it in 1891]( URL_0 ) You could argue it has it's origin as a [\"spirit writing\" Fuji]( URL_1 ). But really it's a late 19th century fidget spinner."
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6karxe | How did the Dalit (Untouchable caste of India) originate and were they always oppressed? | Had an Indian friend tell me that India's mistreatment of Dalit (Untouchable caste) was something the British empire enabled, how true is this? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"I don't think it's true. You can blame the British for a lot of the troubles in India (or just about any other country in the world lol) but the Caste system has existed in India for hundreds of years.",
"No, this is'nt true, the dalits were lowest caste in india, the ones who lived on the rough side of the landscape, the only job they were given were to clean dirt, at its dirtiest level. And they were not touched by any higher than a dalits class (there were 4 classes i guess with dalits the last one) And all the caste were managed by pandits (hindu saints) so religion was the reason for dalits and not Britishers.",
"URL_0 From the article: It has origins in ancient India, and was transformed by various ruling elites in medieval, early-modern, and, modern India, especially the Mughal Empire and the British Raj. The collapse of the Mughal era saw the rise of powerful men who associated themselves with kings, priests and ascetics, affirming the regal and martial form of the caste ideal, and it also reshaped many apparently casteless social groups into differentiated caste communities. The British Raj furthered this development, making rigid caste organisation a central mechanism of administration. Between 1860 and 1920, the British segregated Indians by caste, granting administrative jobs and senior appointments only to the upper castes.",
"The British may not have created the caste system, but they enforced it. Long story short, they placed themselves at a higher rank of societial importance simply for being British, some may argue for being white. This created rife when the country attempted to reach Independence."
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6kb9jv | Why does America oppose communism so strongly? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"There were a couple Red Scares based on the threat communist ideology posed to the existing order in the US. The modern animosity towards Communism was because it was the ideology of the Soviet Union, who was a rival to the US and its Allies after WW2. Due to the rivalry, the US played up the anti-freedom and anti-individual aspects of Communism and the USSR in order to indoctrinate its population against foreign infiltration. Additionally, as historians have studdied Russia and ther Communist nations, Communist revolutions have a nasty habit of involving a monstrous amount of mass murder and actual tyranny, which provides legitimate justification for sentiment thatwas seeded by what more or less amounted to propaganda.",
"For better or worse, American culture is very based upon individualism and a distrust of government. Since communism, at best, is based on collectivism and bowing to a central authority, there's an issue there.",
"It highly interferes with the capitalist idea of making the most of amount of money an individual can",
"For better or for worse, the American dream is built on the assumption that hard work will result in a better life (getting rich). Communism removes, according to that mindset, the incentive to work hard to improve your life.",
"Communism is theorically, the ideal society \"system\". Working then Sharing, this is the beauty of it. Of course, in reality, you will meet people lying on the floor, counting stars while others toil to feed the others. Basically communism is a big lie in the extent where it pre-believes in human's generosity and non-ambitious state of mind which is untrue of course. Even though Capitalism is far from great, at least it doesn't hide behind humongous lies.",
"History. Communism doesn't have the best track record when it is implemented in the real world. Communist states almost uniformly devolve into totalitarian dictatorships."
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6kb9xm | Does an orchestra really need a conductor? Shouldn't they already know how to play the songs? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"A small group can play together and stay together. A group of 80+ cannot. The physical space they take up from one side to the other means there will be lag in what people hear and they will not be playing together. The conductor dictates tempo changes, volume changes, style changes, when to take repeats (often you change this on the fly mid performance), signals when to come in or cut off. Etc. They are the touch stone and controller of the song, which has to exist otherwise no one will be playing together.",
"A huge part of a conductor's work is done before what you actually see in a performance. An Orchestra has 80+ musicians, who may have 80+ different visions of how a piece goes. Even if they agreed on the same basic tempo (speed) and had the same score in front of them, there's hundreds of little decisions made in the performance that matter in terms of phrasing and the like. Where does this long melodic passage build to? Just how connected (\"legato\") should the violins all be playing? The composer says to slow down here, but how much exactly should we be slowing down? If everybody is disagreeing on the little things, it leads to a muddle where their efforts cancel each other out. A big part of the conductor's job is to develop their interpretation in the piece, and guide the orchestra towards it. This is true both in rehearsal -- with a good enough orchestra you can trust the musicians to know the notes and focus on interpretation instead -- and performance, where the conductor can adjust things on the fly based on what he's hearing/what he wants to try.",
"Pick a song you know and sing along in your head. Then mute it for a minute. Chances are you'll be way off in your head when you turn the volume back on. It's not easy to match the pace, and it's much more difficult with lots of people. You need someone whose sole job is to listen and correct everyone, and he needs to be really good at it.",
"The conductor is the lead \"coach\" of an orchestra. The majority of their work is done before the actual performance/game by managing the arrangement of music for all the different players and instruments during the practice sessions, similar to the how coaches manage the plays and training for athletes. It is the conductor/coach's job to take individual players and form it into a orchestra/team. When the actual performance/game happens, they don't seem to do much besides directing through their conductor's wand similar to how coaches just make calls during a game."
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6kbgdr | Why aren't Bluefin Tuna more commonly bred? | I heard recently that a bluefin tuna sold in Japan for half a million dollars and some places sell a single sashimi piece of bluefin tuna for over $600. I've also read that the bluefin has become so overfished that it's thought to be near extinction or endangered at the very least. So why not breed/farm bluefin tuna? Not only for the salvation of the species but also you'd think people would be economically inclined to breed them considering one adult tuna could provide you with $500,000. Is there a factor that makes bluefin tuna more difficult farm or breed or a law preventing them from being in captivity? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"It's not as profitable as you would think. Bluefins require *massive* amounts of food per pound of weight gained. They also are 1000+ lbs so you need a huge amount of space and heavy duty equipment to do it. The land and equipment eats into that profit tremendously, but the big reason is that their diet of fish isn't cheap either - and pound for pound, they require ten times as much food as salmon. Still, there are plenty of people farming and breeding them."
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6kbovm | Motorway driving in England - what are the rules and rules of thumb? Everyone has different ideas and I'm terrified! | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"From my experience, the left lane is for normal driving. Use the others for overtaking (unless you have a nice car, or want to show off that new BMW, then you permanently use the right hand lane lol). But no hogging the middle lane. Always indicate when moving lanes and avoid braking, when there is congestion ease off the gas and use the gears to slow done. It's pretty much just like any country.",
"Stay in the left lane unless you are passing a slow lorry or something. That's about it really, and be aware of when your exit is coming up. However if you miss your exit, don't panic, you can go to the next one, take a right at the roundabout after the off ramp, then it will take you across (over or under) the motorway and you can take another right at the next roundabout and head back to your correct exit."
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6kctqa | What does it mean to be "humbled" in a context such as, "I'm humbled to be in the NBA" | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"When someone says they're \"humbled\" to be the company of greats, it means they're acknowledging that they never thought they were good enough to be there. People tend to like a person who is modest, so saying you're humbled is a way of signalling that even though others have judged you to be excellent, you're not letting it go to your head."
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6kcx32 | What the heck do orchestra conductors do? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Orchestral musician, composer and occasional conductor here: A lot. 1) Conductors lead the rehearsals. The players all do their thing but ultimately, they play how the conductor wants it played. This can lead to some resistance and arguments but in the end, the conductor is the one in the centre who has studied every part of the whole piece inside out. Their interpretation is to be followed. Why? Everyone interprets differently, so leaving everyone to their own devices would create a mishmash of differences. A conductor unifies the orchestra into one base interpretation. 2) During the piece itself, the conductor shapes the music. The waves are more than to just keep time. As an clarinettist myself, I can read an interpret a lot from good conductors' gestures. I know when they want me to play louder (or increase even more) than what I'm already doing, when they want broader, heavier notes or lighter notes (which often aren't written directly in the music - see point 1), or even if they're almost saying \"be free!\" 3) They act as a single point of reference. Any idea how difficult it is to get 50-80 odd people to clap together at exactly the same time? If we had no conductor, it'd be chaos to have 50 people try to sense each other. A conductor acts as our point of reference. If we lose where we are, a (good) conductor can cue us in. They control the tempo/speed - slow downs, speed ups, stops, starts etc. 4) They keep time. Yes, we can all count. Yes, we can read the music. When you're playing 2-3 hours of music, it's easy to misread or miscount the odd bar which throws everything off. It's also easy to rush or drag by just a hair. The conductor, like in point 3, acts as the main point of reference for us to latch onto. All in all, the waving isn't mainly to keep time. It's mainly to steer the music and shape it. It just so happens that the most efficient way is to do it whilst making shapes that correspond to different beats. EDIT: Spelling"
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6kf26d | Why must TV episodes all air back to back on a weekly basis? Why not air them once a month and keep people watching the show year round rather than make people wait a whole year for a new season? | I find the wait very frustrating and could totally live with a once a month release. | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"People dont want to wait long for a new episode. For a lot of people waiting a week is already too long, hence the popularity of being able to binge entire netflix show seasons in one go. Having said that; theres nothing preventing you from watching one episode a month."
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6kfj2j | Why does the way people act, change massively depending on who they're with? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Humans are social creatures. We constantly seek positive feedback from those around us. When that happens we try to do more of whatever made it happen. Similarly, when we get a negative response, we try to do less of whatever made it happen."
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6kfss8 | Why is happiness fleeting, but sadness is constant? Why do humans have to strive to achieve happiness but default to sadness? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Different cultures and people define what happiness and sadness is. Some people think always achieving more is happiness so they feel sad if they stop achieving things. They think sadness is losing things. There was a study of an isolated culture that were very happy because they didn't understand the idea of success equals happiness. To them being alive is happiness. Studies of the least happy countries often have stressful societies that tell them this life is key to happiness when it clearly isn't the case for everyone. In reality emotions can be triggered by sudden gains or losses but to continue that feeling is a choice. Let's say you lose something that is bad for you, society says loss is sadness. But that loss could be happiness. Emotions are just chemical reactions and our own preconceived ideas of what they are. Myself has chosen to not live in sadness or fear, so I try to find the positive in everything. Life will always have gains and losses, but that is life, and it should not control my emotions. I would also like to add anger because anger management is about realizing your anger at that moment and choosing not to engage in it. Part of controlling emotions and recognizing them and accepting them because everyone will experience a variety of emotions."
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6kfu7o | How do people generally go from very socially awkward/unaware to confident and understanding of social dynamics? | (Explained objectively/analytically) | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Fake it until it's not fake anymore. Practice is key and there really is no other secre to it than that",
"How do you get good at that game you've been playing? How do you solve that puzzle you've been working on? How do you get better at that job you can't seem to get right? ...Watch people. Get on Youtube, go out to busy areas, ask your confident friends, take risks and just, well, do it. Use the resources at your disposal (including being a bit of a creeper) to learn from those whom have already mastered it.",
"Get out of your comfort zone, as cliche as that sounds. 20 Seconds of shameless courage can change your life forever."
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6kgb99 | Why is coffee called "joe?" | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"One possible source for the nickname traces back to Joseph Daniels, Secretary of the (EDIT: US) Navy during WWI. When he assumed the position, he wanted to set the bar for morality in the navy and banned alcohol, which was rationed to sailors to make water consumable and palatable, but at this point was mere tradition. Stewarts then began requisitioning more coffee as a substitute. The slang \"Joe\" was, in a sense, almost spiteful, naming the substitution after him. Today, Joe refers to coffee as an \"every man's drink\" for your \"common or everyday Joe\" sort of thing."
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6kgmau | Why are 'The Troubles' and IRA never taught about in (English) History lessons? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"In English schools they don't attempt to teach students a broad overview of all of England's history. There's so much to cover you would only be able to teach them basic \"facts\" about each topic, and there wouldn't be time to get a deeper understanding. So instead schools pick a small number of history topics and teach them in depth. That teaches more transferable skills because students get the chance to analyse different sources, looking for bias, judge how reliable they are and so on. It teaches them to look at the issue from different points of view. That unfortunately means a lot of children won't learn about many important parts of England's history. The Troubles are an important topic, but so are lots of other things. I'm sure some children do learn about it though. It depends on what topics exam boards have available and which schools choose to teach."
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6kgs7z | Why did it become a tradition for the brides family to pay for the whole wedding? | I think this is mostly a tradition in the United States. | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"In the olden days the husbands family was responsible for sectioning off a portion of their land for him and helping them build a house to live in. Also, Men arent generally as concerned with the frills and fancy of the wedding itself. Typically its the woman who wants to play princess for the day.... The main reason for the brides parents paying for it though....Its more of a going away party than anything."
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6kgtl4 | Why is there no meaningful talk about managing population growth? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Because every time someone has screamed about an overpopulation apocalypse, they've been dead wrong. Developed countries are already at zero or negative population growth and developing countries will get there too eventually. Population is already expected to naturally level off later this century."
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6kgvkh | Why was salt so precious and expensive in ancient times when it can be made by evaporating sea water? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"In addition to what others said about time to dry salt and transport to non-coastal areas, salt was also an important preservative in days before refrigeration and was likely much more heavily used because they salt cured meats and fish to make them last longer. Takes a lot more salt to envelop a piece of beef to make it last months than it takes to season it for flavor",
"Trying to do so large-scale is difficult and costly, and sea water has a ton of other stuff in it that isn't very good to have mixed in with your salt. Raw salts have typically been more sought-after.",
"You also have to take into account that many communities/cities/towns were located pretty far from the sea, and transportation of salt inland could be a weeks or months-long process that added to its high price. I would suspect salt was a cheap commodity in coastal Greece but an expensive luxury in southern Poland.",
"It can be evaporated from seawater. You do not get a lot of it though, and the salt is contaminated with a lot of stuff so you have to sift/filter it. So this means that you spend a lot of energy collecting pure enough salt and that makes it valuable. Also not everyone lives near the sea. That means you have to trade for it with those that do live near the sea (or other sources).",
"Basically because was much more important and much more difficult to get in large quantities. Today, salt is basically a seasoning. It's in so much of our food and is so easy to come by, it's hard to forget that it's an absolutely essential nutrient. If fact, today, we've gone the other way where our biggest problem with salt in our diet is we consume too much of it...but we need it to control fluid balance in our bodies and our muscles and nervous system simply can't function without it. But in ancient times, it wasn't just used in food. Before refrigeration it was used as a preservative. It was also used as a disinfectant and cleaning agent. Also, while it's absolutely *not* true that salt was worth more than gold, because it was so useful and necessary...but also small, light and easy to carry, many cultures used it as a de-facto currency. ...and yes, you can make salt by evaporating seawater, but without industrial equipment, the amount of time and effort it took to evaporate sea water, gather the salt, clean it of contaminants, pack it and transport it...it wasn't exactly 'free'."
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6kgznn | What are sushi masters doing that is so masterful? | I know this is kind of an ignorant statement (this post is my attempt to combat that ignorance), but I watched documentary on a sushi master, and it looks like he takes a piece of raw fish, combines it with a clump of rice, and brushes it with a little sauce. And it apparently took him 30 years to master that, and he's still learning. What about that takes decades to develop, and how is it different from someone with less experience combining the same handful of simple ingredients would produce? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"it starts by the chef choosing which fish to buy from the market. is it a good fish? a great fish? what parts of the fish are good. what parts are great? once the fish gets to restaurant, how do you cut the fish? what angle do you cut it? what's the action of the knife cut? which parts of fish fit which dishes? alot of making sushi is in the making of the rice. what kind of rice are you using? how much water? what temperature? how long are you cooking? how much rice vinegar are you mixing in? how quickly are you cooling down? is the action that you're stirring in the rice making it more or less fluffy? sticky? chewy?",
"It's all about subtle improvements in quality. Anyone with intermediate cooking skills can take the ingredients and make a tolerable piece of sushi. But the rice is very hard to get exactly right, and cutting the fish perfectly (as opposed to decently) takes a lot of judgement. Doing this all at high speed in volume, without reducing quality, is even harder.",
"A lot of people here dont understand sushi. They think its some kind of pretentious bullshit and meant for rich snobs. Most people havent tasted good sushi by a legit japanese chef before. Almost everyone i know only tried cold sushi with horrendous rice made by chinese in all you can eat restaurants.",
"Sushi chefs also have to master 'nigiri' (along with other skills mentioned before) which involves the incorporation of air into the rice when they are 'squeezing' the rice into the ball. They have to use the right pressure for the appropriate length of time, and reproduce this consistently which I've heard takes a lot of time to master.",
"Was it Jiro Dreams of Sushi? I found it really interesting but I'm kind of in the same boat as you."
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6kkdm8 | why is the flag of the Netherlands the flag that's chosen to be for an open sign? | That may sound confusing but I'm looking across the street and there's a restaurant with a waving flag in front that is the flag of the Netherlands with the words open on it, I've seen this sort of thing before but why is it the Netherlands? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"The flag of the Netherlands does not say \"Open\" on it. So if it says that, then it is not the flag of the Netherlands. Rather, it is just red, white, and blue bunting, which says \"Open\", and which has a superficial resemblance to the flag of the Netherlands. We don't mean any offense to the Dutch, because we frankly don't even know who you are. Unless we do, in which case we do mean you offense. I mean, how dare you send all your anal-retentive ultra-conservative citizens to occupy west Michigan? I mean really, screw you."
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6kko7u | When oligarchs like the Koch brothers die, where is all that power gonna go? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Both of them have children. Whether the children can exercise the power is a thing yet to be seen. Just like it was not known at the time when Fred Chase kicked it which of his four sons would do what."
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6kkv4t | Why does Christianity have hundreds of denominations while religions like Islam only have a handful? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"There are plenty of \"denominations\" of Islam: URL_0 Thinking that there are only Sunni and Shia is sort of like thinking Christianity only has Catholic and Protestant."
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6kkwts | Why is it in some countries the word 'center' is spelt with 're' instead of 'er'? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"British spelling: centre US spelling: center That's pretty much it. Countries that spell it as \"centre\" simply follow British spelling. They're usually Commonwealth countries and ex-colonies.",
"Actually, it's \"centre\" in most countries; it's only \"center\" in the US and often Canada. The word originally comes from the Greek \"kentron\", which became the Latin \"centrum\", then French \"centre\". It came into English as \"centre\", but the spelling \"center\" was popular until Samuel Johnson published his famous dictionary in 1755, which listed it as \"centre\", and that's the spelling that became the \"correct\" form for the English language. In 1828, Noah Webster published his dictionary of American English. He preferred the spelling \"center\" -- contrary to popular belief, he didn't invent American spellings, he just chose spellings that were already in use and which seemed to him to be more logical. And so \"center\" became the \"correct\" spelling in American English. There are many other words like this: theatre/theater, colour/color, foetus/fetus. And while most versions of English distinguish between \"metre\" as a unit of length and \"meter\" as a measuring device, American English doesn't."
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6km5uz | Why does Russia promote an Anti-LGBT message? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"I have a russian friend, and it seems to be a general theme that they don't accommodate anything much outside of the typical. If you're atypical it's your problem to deal with and nobody else is interested in hearing about it or accommodating you. I think what's happened is that having generations and generations living in relative poverty there's very much a \"fend for yourself\" attitude. Don't accommodate others - you support you and your kin first and those who can't do that for themselves need to. And its rude to ask people to adapt to your needs and wants. You know how people get pissed off at vegetarians or vegans? (a) for mentioning it all the time and (b) asking people to cater for them at barbecues? It's a lot like that. Russians just get pissed off at gay people the same way again (a) for hearing about it all the time and (b) being asked to adapt for them. There's of course radicals who hate them to a much larger extent, but I get the impression that for the most part that - like veganism - if they never heard about it they'd not mention how irritated they are by it.",
"Why does the west promote a pro-LGBT message? People promote their own view. Russia is a conservative country, one that is increasingly religious. The views of the people are increasingly that it is not ok to be gay. They promote an anti-LGBT message, because they are anti-LGBT. NB this is a generalisation.",
"Morality and normality are relative. A society decides collectively what is right and wrong for themselves. Opposition may steer the moral compass at times. Eventually a \"better\" idea is thought up and floats around long enough to where that new idea is normal and the older generation becomes the oppisition. I mean, look at US history. There was a time when owning slaves was normal. in the 1900s, interratial marriages were being debated and were controversial much like same-sex marriage is today. Look at the Old Testament of the Bible. There are stories and old laws where rape was more acceptable. If you find a woman you want then you can rape her and then purchase her from her father. It boggles my mind at times that anyone could (or that some still do) view another human being as property.",
"So the question that was asked is \"why are people [in this country] bigoted?\" They're bigoted. That's the reason. It can be dressed up as something else, but that's what it is. Not saying that about the entire populace, in case that wasn't clear."
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6kq28g | What makes the Grenfell Tower fire (seemingly) more significant than other tragedies of relative scale? | I don't mean to sound insensitive, which is why the title is so awkward. | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"It came during the political shift period of the UK so it gave the parties something to fight over. That and the tragedy of Grenfell was a good excuse for people who don't like the Tory government to slam them."
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6kq8of | How is it that humans all over the world speak different languages, but there are still phrases that all humans know? | I don't really know how to word this, however phrases like yelling woo or ahh when excited? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"There are no phrases that all humans know. However, there are some primitive *sounds* that people can make that are not language. This includes things like a scream if in pain, or a sigh when relaxing. Since these are not language, you don't have to be taught them, just as you don't have to be taught to squint when the light is too bright."
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6kqhqi | Why do american front doors (On TV and movies) have a 2nd door attached to them that seems to close when one opens and vice versa? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
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"text": [
"are you talking about screen doors to keep bugs out when we have the door open for ventilation? or perhaps security doors meant to allow you to interact with people at the door without risking them shoving their way in?"
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6kqpwy | Why has my Chinese food never been messed up before, but my mcdonalds has a 30% chance of being wrong? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Most Chinese restaurants are small, family owned businesses. They take pride in what they do and they want your repeat business. They are dependant on customer satisfaction to keep their business running. Fast food chains pay people enough so they don't quit. In turn, the employees work just enough so they won't get fired. They have zero stake in the success of that restaurant chain, so the customer doesn't mean as much to them.",
"How many changes, extras, etc do you make when ordering Chinese vs McDonald's? I've found that those who refuse to eat off the menu, and make changes (like 'no onions', etc) when ordering, tend to have their orders wrong more often.",
"I am currently working at McDonalds, here's the reason mine usually gets things wrong 1. Work flow, you have to keep the line moving at all times. Order takers have to take the order correctly, kitchen has to work around it. If order takers mess up it usually because they are also doing other things while taking your order. If kitchen messes up its usually because of an edit at the back window (pay window) or lack of even knowing what you are ordering since they make your food before you even pay for it. 2. Quantity, we are basically a juggling act. When you are dealing with thousands of transactions in a day, somethings get lost along the way. 3. People, truely some people just do enough to get by. They'll see you have a Mcdouble, no pickle, and see a regular mcdouble. You get a regular mcdouble. I hope this helps",
"Food from Chinese restaurants is usually made to order, while McDonalds is assembled and left to sit until someone orders it."
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6kr5qi | Why do we enjoy watching other people play video games, when that time could be spent playing it ourselves? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"The same reason we watch basketball or football when we could watch the NBA or NFL, or porn for that matter. No matter how much I might enjoy the activity myself, watching a pro at it shows off a level of skill/experience that I'll never know.",
"I find my frustration level rises quickly when I am playing the games myself and it stops being fun. Watching someone else play it helps ease that frustration, and I enjoy it more. Plus other people play better than me and that's more fun to watch. I used to watch my ex play games and I'd keep an eye out for enemies or possible secret areas for him.",
"There are several reasons- If it's competitive, it's often at a skill you aren't. and you may not have the time/interest in developing that skill. It's enjoyable to see someone do something well. You also get to be pretty lazy. You can pause, or go get a drink, or have it open on a second monitor while you do something else. You never have to deal with the frustration of getting stuck, or lost etc. It allows a bit of human interaction. It's like watching your new friend down the block play like when we were kids, except you don't need to go and find someone to do that anymore. You might also just enjoy the Youtubers personality. Like another poster said, it's not that different than watching sports (or any other entertainment on TV). Hell, some people still listen to baseball/football on the radio, and you can't even see the game!"
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6ks9pr | Is tone of voice universally understood? Or are different tones conveyed differently in different languages? | For example, to signify one is asking a question in English, they often will raise their pitch slightly at the end of it. Is that the same in all languages? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"A rising tone is common in a lot of languages, but not all. In Korean, for example, the sentence 'You have a dog' and 'Do you have a dog?' are actually the same identical sentence (너는 개 있어 - you, dog, have) when written that changes from a statement into question when sㅔoken with a rising inflection. In Chinese, there are particles that can be placed at the end of a sentence to signify that a question is being asked. They are 呢 (ne) and 吗 (ma). The former is for general questions, whereas the latter is specifically used for yes/no questions. Chinese, as you may know, uses tones, but both 呢 and 吗 are actually toneless, so they have no rising inflection at all. Ma with a rising tone is 麻 which can mean marijuana, so that's not a mistake you want to make. Chinese is similar to Korean in that a statement and a question will be identical, but in Chinese 呢 and 吗 take the place of the rising inflection. These are the only two languages I speak other than English so I can't comment on anything else.",
"Linguistic Anthropologist here. To get technical, what you're talking about is intonation, which is a little different to tone in the world of linguistics. Nevertheless, outside that world, I'm pretty sure I get what you mean by 'tone' (not mentioning to be nit-picky, just informative). Intended meanings that go beyond the words you use, as well as emotion, can sometimes be accurately be identified cross-linguistically but I wouldn't recommend relying on it. For example, there is a linguistic community in Southern Africa (I'm terrible with anecdote details and have unfortunately forgotten the name) where speaking with a light, lilting tone conveys anger and power, whereas weaker members of the group tend to speak loudly and quickly. I hope that anecdote feels helpful/relevant! If you want to know more I can dig up my undergrad papers and try to give a couple more examples. Also, as someone else mentioned, in some languages it isn't necessarily a rising pitch but a particle which indicates a question, in which case no rising intonation is needed. And in some tonal languages, using a rising pitch can be misleading because it can suggest you're using a different letter, rather than trying to ask a question.",
"Kind of. It's usually possible to determine a few strong emotions in tone cross culturally (anger etc.), but that's really about the extent. Many other languages are tonal languages, where the different tones carry phonetic meaning. Just as we have a difference in the sounds with the words 'bit' and 'bat', another language may distinguish two words by having different tone."
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6ksyjp | On a movie set, usually what is the director doing and what is the producer doing? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"The director is head of all creative decisions on set. The department heads, such as the director of photography (camera dept) and the production designer (art dept), work with the director to create a look for the film. The director directs the main actors. The producer is the business head of a production. They are usually many different types of producers. Their main focus is to get the film made and financed. They hire the necessary crew (including the director), make deals, handle business between the creatives and the business (legal, accounting, marketing).The executive producer is a term that has different meanings in film vs television. The EP on a film is usually the main financier. On a TV set, EPs actually help make decisions about the project and have creative input. Producers and directors work as a team, but directors usually have to defer to the producer. To make things even more confusing, an assistant director (AD) is actually the producer's main rep on-set. ADs assist the director by making sure he/she operates within the production schedule and by handling production logistics. ADs direct extras (background) and are the main safety manager on a set. ADs either stay ADs or become producers. I'm a nonunion AD moving into producing.",
"The director sets up the scene, gives everyone instructions for what to do, then judges whether or not everything went right or if they need another try. The producer is not generally on set. The producer cuts checks, hires contractors / services, and makes sure things a on schedule and on budget."
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6kt3dc | What exactly did President Roosevelt mean by his quote "Behind the ostensible government sits enthroned an invisible government..." | Here is the full quote: > Behind the ostensible government sits enthroned an invisible government, owing no allegiance and acknowledging no responsibility to the people. To destroy this invisible government, to dissolve the unholy alliance between corrupt business and corrupt politics is the first task of the statesmanship of the day.” | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"What he's saying is that when the nation was formed, we said okay, the government will consist of a senate, a house of representatives, a president, etc, all elected in this branch and that, then appointing secretaries, and they'll work for the people, motivated by the desire to win public approval and be re-elected; and they have this limitation on their power, and that limitation, and this part of government will act as a check and balance against that part, and so on. It won't be perfect, but it'll be pretty damn good, and unlike all the governments out there that derive from kings and emperors and so on, this government will be as open and transparent as it can be, and work for the people, because everyone knows they can lose elections. And we'll guarantee freedom of the press, so that the press can report on all their misdeeds and scandals and problems and dig out the dirt on shady politicians, without leaders shutting them down or silencing them -- and all of this stuff combined should make us a very free and fair country. But now, he says, there are people who have a huge influence over the country's policy *without* being elected or beholden to the people, people who have a ton of power but who can't simply lose elections and be out on the street. So these people have no responsibility to ordinary citizens, they can just pursue whatever policies help them best. This is the 'unholy alliance between corrupt business and corrupt politics' -- ie, very wealthy businessmen or businesses who can fund the campaigns of politicians and support them in exchange for politicians enacting the policies they want. It turns out it takes a lot of money to be elected, and that if you spend a lot of money on campaigning and PR, you can beat people who are fairer, more responsible, more committed to the citizens, etc than you. In Roosevelt's day, this would likely have referred to things like businesses that financed the campaigns of politicians, sheriffs, etc who promised to suppress or break up the unions. There was a very intense period of business vs worker's-union struggle around that time that often involved outright violence, military being called in, police arresting and opening fire on strikers, etc."
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6kttcg | Why are possessive apostrophes dropped from place names? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"The US Board on Geographic Names oversees this, and makes up rules to keep spellings consistent. For example, it was this agency which decreed that all the various place names ending in -borough and -burgh should all instead be spelled -boro (with Pittsburgh being the honourable exception): that way, nobody gets confused as to whether the infamous hardline religious community that pickets soldiers' funerals is in \"Westburgh\" or \"Westborough\" or even, for that matter, \"Westbury\": it's the \"Westboro Baptist Church\". Similarly with the apostrophe. Is it \"Pikes Peak\", \"Pike's Peak\" or even (if there was more than one Pike) \"Pikes' Peak\"? No matter: the BGN decreed that no place name should have punctuation marks in it, and so it's \"Pikes Peak\". (Incidentially, in the UK there is a place called Westward Ho!, which I believe is the only English-language place name with an exclamation mark in its name. The UK doesn't have a Board on Geographic Names to rule on it.)"
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6kttgv | Is there a particular reason why the verb "to be" is conjugated irregularly in a lot of the European languages (Spanish, English, French, German, Italian)? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Yes! Irregular verbs are almost always some of the *oldest* verbs in a language. As a language evolves, it will pick up other forms, either from absorbing other similar words, or picking up new verbs from other languages or new uses for old ones, etc. You end up standardizing those verb forms as more people use them, according to the very common, very obvious rules in the language. For a modern example to demonstrate this, take the verb \"to google\", meaning to look something up on the internet. That's a very modern verb, only showing up in the last decade or so for obvious reasons ( URL_0 didn't exist before then). So if I give you nothing but \"to google\" you instinctively know how to conjugate that: * I googled * I have googled * He is googling It follows the rules pretty well. \"To google\" is replacing a verb, though: \"to search\". It's easy to replace \"to search\" with \"to google\" culturally, and in fact some people use \"to google\" outside of the internet, as in \"let me google my shoes and I'll be ready to go.\" You can't do that with very common words, though. The verb \"to be\" is one that you use *every single day*, all the time. You probably use \"to search\" often enough, but...you may not actually use it every day. You can replace \"to search\" but you can't replace \"to be\" because it's such an integral part of the language. It's really an integral part of *any* language (or at least, any language that has it - Russian doesn't). In English especially, it's used as modals for other verb forms: \"I will **be** searching for a new car soon\". That makes \"to be\" very hard to standardize because everyone already knows from a very young age exactly how \"to be\" is conjugated. It doesn't matter that it's weird - it's been weird for centuries, it's not going to change any time soon. If you introduce a new word to someone, they're likely to listen to you to pick up on how to conjugate it, and it's probably going to get conjugated normally. But if it's a word they already know, a word they use all the time, they're going to keep doing it the way they've always done it, right? How it got to be weird, though, follows the same patterns of absorbing new verb forms. Let's take the word \"to go\" since I actually know how that one happened off the top of my head. You might think \"How did 'I go' turn into 'I went'?\" Well, there used to be another verb \"to wend\", which has become more or less obsolete. You might recognize it as a distant relative of \"wander\", but it's mostly no longer a part of our lexicon. \"To wend\" meant something very similar to \"to go\" and people used them interchangeably more often than not. Eventually, the past tense of \"to wend\" (ie: went) replaced the past tense of \"go\" and stuck there. Since it was something everyone used all the time, it never had an opportunity to get fixed. Likewise, \"to be\" picked up different verb forms to become \"am\" and \"are\" and \"is\" and never got fixed because everyone already knows how to conjugate \"to be\". In fact, its weirdness helps stick it even harder in the lexicon, like the plural form \"oxen\". *Everyone* knows that the plural of ox is \"oxen\" even though that's literally the only word in English that does that, *because* it's the only word in English that does that. And our irregular verbs stick in our memory because they're irregular. That also keeps them in the lexicon longer. You can replace a word you don't use all the time, making the older one obsolete. You can't replace words that you have to use every day, though, because everyone else is also using that same word and you won't be understood. For that reason, irregular verbs are *old*. They're kind of irregular *because* they are old, usually some of the oldest verbs in a language. English is pretty bad about picking up irregular verbs, because we're really good at absorbing words from other languages. How that works is another ELI5 entirely. But other languages still have irregular verbs for the same reasons English does. In Spanish, ser is irregular because, again, it's *old* and, like in English, you're going to be saying \"to be\" a lot. The same goes for the other Spanish irregular verbs: haber (to have), tener (to have), ir (to go), estar (to be)... You'll find in any language, the irregular verbs are almost always going to be very common, everyday verbs, and they're going to be some of the oldest words in a language.",
"Not a direct answer, but... Keep in mind when learning and learning about other languages that rules are created after the fact to explain a language, not to create it. This is the reason there are so many exceptions to every rule, and the reason the exceptions are usually found in the most common words/phrases.",
"It is typical for very commonly used words to be irregular, because they change more often to what sounds better and is more natural in speech."
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6ktuin | The rampet Anti-Semitism that was felt during the early half of the last century(1900 - 1950 obviously speaking directly around WWII ) not just in Germany but around the world. | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Not sure about most of the world, other than people want scapegoats for their problems, and the Jews were an easy target. As for Germany, Hitler blamed the Jews for every problem Germany had. Failing economy? The Jews fault. Lost WW1? Jews fault. Horrible armistice that left Germany in an inhuman amount of poverty? The Jews fault. He hated the Jews, obviously, and he dehumanized them to the rest of Germany, which is why so many Germans hated Jews during the nazi years. Also, if you didn't hate Jews, you could end up in a camp yourself, so there's that."
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6ku5kh | Why do Blue Laws still exist? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Many people are still religious and support such laws, so they remain. It is legal to make a religiously motivated law, just not to establish mandatory religion.",
"Because people are used to them and no one is chomping at the bit to get them repealed. They are a minor inconvenience that a small minority supports strongly, and everyone else opposes weakly. Politicians who want to repeal blue laws will only lose votes by doing so. On top of that, the businesses affected by blue laws typically oppose them and lobby against them. They like having that day off, and a car isn't an impulse buy, they'll get your business even if you have to wait until Monday."
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6kxa6q | how did people get jobs before reading and writing were commonplace? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Before reading and writing were commonplace, almost no jobs required reading or writing. You would have developed some skill at something working with your family, or you would be taken on as an apprentice for some sort of specialized career. Otherwise, you'd just ask around for jobs. Back then, there was really no such thing as \"submitting a résumé\".",
"It depends on the exact time and place but usually you just took up whatever profession your father had. If your father knew a craft he would teach you all he knew and maybe send you around to some to some of his colleagues to learn from them, before taking up the family business. If your family owned some land or or similar your job would be to take care of that in the next generation. Since slavery and serfdom and similar forms of servitude were common throughout history many people never really got to worry about getting a job, work was assigned to them and they did it or else. There are plenty of places around today were literacy is low and where people get jobs, mostly involving unskilled labor or whatever they learned from family."
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6kxpnk | What is meant by the phrase "Nice guys finish last"? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"It's a cynical statement that you can't win by playing by the rules, you have to have some kind of advantage, or be willing to bend rules (or outright cheat) to get by in whatever situation they're talking about. It is used in different situations from career to romance.",
"Here is an example of how this logic works. You get to the door first at a store selling a limited number of something. You see a crowd behind you and decide you will hold the door for them. You let everyone else through and buy up all the limited stock even though you got there first your kindness made you miss out.",
"It is another way of saying \"being overly nice and caring may hold you back from progressing\" in said situation. It describes the idea that people who are always bending over backwards for others and sacrificing their own priorities in attempt to please those people will usually be unable to get what they want, because achieving one's goals may require you to put yourself first.",
"A cynical view that being selfless and respectful of certain rules will allow selfish people to win. It's used by people who feel that they did everything ethically correct and aren't any better for it when compared to others. It's also used by people who try and rationalize their own selfishness and disregard for rules. It's also taken on another form by guys who feel that being a decent human being means they should get more woman. When they realize that paying for a drink and opening a couple of doors for a woman doesn't equal her wanting to have sex with them, rather than looking inward at their own shortcomings, they come to the conclusion that an asshole would have had much more success getting laid. They then mutter to themselves, \"She only likes guys that treat her like shit. Why do nice guys always finish last?\"",
"Look, I'm playing shortstop, my mother's running from second base to score on a base hit. Everybody's watching the ball. I kinda trip my mother as she goes by. Now I love my mother, but she doesn't she doesn't score the run. So, I'm not a nice guy. Nice guys finish last. --- with apologies for the rough paraphrase from memory - to Leo Durocher",
"It's a fairly cynical statement that generally boils down to the idea that if you play strictly by the rules and being caring to others that you won't get as far as head as someone only looking out for themselves. In the simplest terms, in a race if you stop to help someone who tripped, you're going to lose to someone of equal skill who kept running. In another example, if you're working on a project, if you offer someone help instead of just working forward on your own, you could lose to the person you helped, instead of taking advantage of their falling behind."
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6kyco6 | Why is it considered grammatically incorrect to use 'ain't'? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"I ain't saying that you're wrong, but I ain't saying you're right either. It's not grammatically incorrect to use ain't, it's just informal. In any formal writing, \"am not\" is much preferred. Funnily enough the word \"amn't\" which actually makes my spell check say it isn't a word is also defined, and is also therefore grammatically correct, but is again informal. Tl;Dr it's informal, not incorrect",
"Bigotry toward the poor, specifically Cockneys. URL_0 It is actually fully grammatically correct to use as a word and has been for centuries. It is just associated with \"common folk\" of poor social standing and so was something frowned upon by teachers and professors who catered primarily to the upper classes. By the time education was opened up to all citizens it was established as bad grammar."
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6kytlp | Not sure if this is the right sub, but how come some people are naturally energetic and lively and give out a positive vibe. | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"This is an incredibly profound question, but I'm going to attempt to tone it down to a layman-level explanation. **Introverts vs. Extroverts** The terms intro- and extrovert come from Latin roots meaning \"to turn inwards\" (introvert) or \"to turn outwards\" (extrovert). We use these terms in psychology to describe how a person prefers to gain and expend *mental energy*. Introverts feel naturally energized when they are doing things by themselves. They feel \"recharged\" when they're alone. Being alone does not cost them any mental energy, and in fact refills their \"battery\" so to speak. However, when interacting with other people, especially large groups, they have to \"spend\" this mental energy in order to keep doing it. Depending on how much of this energy they have saved up, social situations can quickly become exhausting for an introvert and make them extremely unhappy or stressed. Extroverts are the opposite. They are most comfortable around other people, and this actually makes them feel recharged. Social interactions *give* extroverts mental energy. But being alone is equally draining for a true extrovert. When left alone, extroverts will eventually become exhausted, anxious, unhappy, or stressed. After a while, they will try to seek out social situations in order to refill their mental energy. Introversion/extroversion is more or less a basic personality trait. It rarely changes for most people. But what *does* change is how wisely they balance the way they \"spend\" their mental energy. For example, introverts can learn to be much more energetic in conversation by taking some time to \"recharge\" before big social events, so that they have a lot of energy to draw on and use. Often, when people seem \"negative\" or have a \"bad vibe\" it's simply because they have run out of mental energy and are unhappy, which affects their social interactions. With all of that explained, now we can see why certain people may be more naturally energetic. Since extroverts have, essentially, unlimited mental energy when around other people (because they're actively \"recharging\") they are often much happier and enthusiastic. This can make conversations with extroverts much more enjoyable. However, as I pointed out, there are a great many things that introverts can do to develop enthusiasm, energy, and excitement in social situations. This explanation is already pretty long, and I feel I may have grossly oversimplified some things, but I hope this answers and explains your question. ^_^"
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6kz06o | Why is Jackson Pollock so important in art? What makes his work so great? | Just to clarify I love his work, but I'm not sure I understand the meaning or effect of his art. | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Jackson Pollock was applauded by critics for creating a 'new medium' of art - the fact he created artwork when it was horizontal on the ground and used gravity and loose gestures to produce the marks was an entirely new method at the time. He is important because it started a new wave of artwork which played with 'opticality' - how your eyes look at and perceive the work, and how the artwork relates to the canvas or supporting medium. He was also a character, part of the 'macho' wave of artists who formed the abstract impressionist movement in New York at the time.",
"For the record, abstract expressionism isn't about a degree of skill it takes to produce. Saying \"my 2 year old can do that\" is equivalent to \"if my grandmother had wheels, she'd be a wagon\". It's pointless to think about because it misses the point. Pollock was a volatile alcoholic that struggled with depression and anger. His work reflected the chaos in his life. People found that interesting. And his style of doing so was radically different - it challenged the art world at the time and forced the industry to reconsider what *is* art. To me, the catalog is more interesting from a design perspective. And while design and art are related - they are different concepts. Just because something is interesting to look at or take inspiration from doesn't indicate it needs a story to have meaning to *you*. This world is deeply personal, afterall. If you like the work - you like it. Don't be forced to like it because a snob told you it's important."
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6kzeud | TV and Ipad play the same show, but at different times? Why? | [Serious]I am watching tv in my living room and then have togo into the kitchen. I put my Ipad on my cable app and it is about 30 seconds behind the regular tv? It is never in snyc....why? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"The video stream has to be recoded for internet transmission, that takes a little time. The Internet isn't a straight path, that takes more time. The mobile player buffers a bit before starting playback to cope for a little bottlenecking, that takes some time too."
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6l0bq8 | Why is the Wilhelm scream used in so many movies and TV shows? | It seems like it would be very easy to simply record a new scream from one of the actors (or even some extra if the actor was not available) and use that, so why would you use something that is so recognizable and common? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Using stock footage is always easier than recording. It's cheaper and faster. Movie studios have libraries with thousands of stock footage for filmmakers to use. The Wilhelm Scream gained fame thanks to Ben Burtt, the sound designer for Lucasfilm. Burtt had a liking for the Wilhelm Scream, a stock scream he found in some old movie. He decided to use it in every possible film (including all Star Wars and Indiana Jones films). Sometime later on people realized this scream was very common, and it became an inside joke in the movie industry - sound designers would go out their way to try to incorporate the scream in any movie they can (for example in Twilight, the Wilhelm Scream is heard when the characters are watching a movie).",
"It's a running in-joke, basically. \"Where's Wilhelm\" is the sound effect world's answer to \"Where's Waldo\".",
"At first because it was a useful stock sound of a good scream. It is far cheaper to use a stock sound that you pay for once to get in a bundle of stock sound than it is to pay for an actor or extra to scream repeatedly till you get a take you like. After a while many film makers started using it as a kind of game. They would put it in and try and hide it."
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6l1qwu | Why does everyone think people from Canada are nice? | I went to Montreal a few weeks ago and everyone was kind of dicks. Even a homeless man wouldn't take our money when he found out we were from the US. | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"To be fair most of Canada thinks people from Montreal (and other parts of Quebec) are dicks. Now... the fact that the homeless guy was rude to you when he found out you were from the USA may have more to do with the fact that you are from the USA than the fact that he is in Canada. Some people don't agree with American policy world wide. Some people don't like American arrogance (my husband is American and he can be very arrogant at times). Generally speaking though, Canadians are more chill than Americans, and tend to be more polite (which is akin to being nice). Canadians tend to hold doors open for others (although to be fair this is not as common as it used to be) and to apologize to others even for the slightest of wrong doings. I am in my 50's and will say that over all Canadians now are less nice than they used to be but I attribute that to the general growing population, and more stress. Small town Canadians are still super friendly and nice.",
"Probably because you're english and American... I'm from Ontario and I speak both French and English. I went to Montreal once and decided to speak English and they were total assholes. Went back the next day speaking French and BAM I won their love. Also they hate Canadians... they don't sell Molson Canadian and everywhere in Canada they have a cigarette brand called \" Canadian classics\" but meanwhile in Quebec there called \" Quebec classic\".... I tried getting the Canadians kind and she corrected me rudely.. never go to Quebec.",
"Travel the world, then go to Canada. You'll understand immediately. People wait in line for the bus when it's freezing outside. The streets are clean. People are respectful and polite. I suppose they have a culture of respect that permeates enough of society to become a stereotype.",
"Cultural variances. Being nice and being polite aren't the same thing. Some cultures value being polite (abiding by perceived social norms to avoid conflict), some value being honest even if it is abrasive and \"not nice\". A polite person won't tell you you're being an idiot to your face. A nice person will help you avoid looking like an idiot in future interactions with other people. Polite people may talk about you behind your back to their friends and the greater community saying you're an idiot even if they tolerate you on the surface. That's where the insidious aspect of being \"polite\" comes into play. Just because someone is polite doesn't mean they like you. People confuse being \"polite\" and being \"nice\". There are some cultures where if you do something that makes you stand out, people will tell you about it bluntly. That's considered \"not nice\" but in many ways people learn from the experience faster than cultures that promote social cohesion (nice) over corrective communication. To each his own.",
"I think it's a stereotype from TV and movies. There's good and bad from any country. Most folks from rural or suburban areas of BC have been very friendly but the bulk of people from Vancouver city limits I've encountered over the years were vain and rude.",
"I took a trip from Anchorage Alaska to Jasper and pretty much everybody we encountered through Yukon, B.C., and Alberta were super friendly.",
"Quebecer here. People from Montreal and other big cities (Toronto, Vancouver) are usually being very individualistic and tend to ignore other people. This is pretty different in small towns, but rural areas tend to be more conservative. On top of that, most french speaking people don't like other canadians (and they might assumed you were one) because of what happened in the past (conquest, english domination, disrespect to the culture, abuse, lake meech accord, '95 refenrendum shenanigans, etc.). Overall, people in Canada aren't that nice and that stereotype is just one big lie."
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6l215q | Why did humans start shaving? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"I think at the very beginning stands hygiene: You can easily get rid of lice by shaving, this \"cleaning\" aspect is especially true if you are in an area with little water so washing is hard. Starting from that you have \"fashion\", which is responsible for all kinds of odd behaviour you cannot explain. As soon as you have a society where you show that you do not have to spend your day working for life but have time for other things (you are \"rich\" or \"noble\" or whatever it is in the current society called) tending after your body (muscles, cleanlyness, clothing and of course hair, makeup, ..., and beard) becomes a thing you can do to \"show off\" and what you can \"afford\". Again, fashion does hit and also embraces beards. There are many signs of a higher social status, as brighter skin (not working outside all day), soft hands (not working at all), fancy clothing, fancy hair, etc... beards (in general or the lack of one) are just part of that. The above is also true for soldiers etc, as others have stated. Discipline is, even in modern armies, tied to how soldiers tend to their body. That is first true to keep up the fighting ability, but also discipline and self-image. I read a theory that the modern view on \"super clean shaven\" of the modern man started both with the industrialised cheap razor, so everyone could afford it, as well as with the first World War, where people liked to be *very* cleanly shaven so the gas mask would sit as tight as possible.",
"That's impossible to say for certain, it's been millennia since we started shaving. The ancient Greeks and Romans did it for combat as a measure against opponents grabbing their hair. The Egyptians copied their behaviour. But I doubt that was the first time people shaved. I guess the very first person to shave did it for the aesthetics, but since it's not even known when this was it's unlikely it'll ever be known why that person did it.",
"The Epic of Gilgamesh, which is probably the oldest known written book, refers to shaving as a way in which humans distinguish themselves from beasts. I would guess that the EOG is probably sniffing at the right historical tree and that for early man shaving was a spiritual exercise."
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6l41nl | Why do people join music-, art-, or fashion-based subcultures? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"95% of human history is pre-agriculture, so, evolutionarily speaking, we're used to juggling relationships based on close-knit family ties and ritual practices. Subcultures allow people to conduct ritual practices (music making, photography, etc) while acting as a part of a subculture. You might think you really like punk rock, or photography, or street wear, but what you really like is the same as everyone else: authentic human connection. I think it's interesting that you phrase it as \"join...[a] subculture,\" given the way this website is structured. Subreddits/subcultures are called \"communities,\" which you can join/leave with a button click. R/streetwear, r/futurefunk, r/makingvaporwave, etc. If you asked a punk on the side of the road in 1983 how you could \"join the punks,\" she'd probably laugh and walk away!"
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6l69yu | Why is xenophobia from non-white Americans often ignored or even defended? | For some background, I'm a Brazilian-American of Japanese and German descent. When I moved to America, I encountered my fair share of Americans who didn't like either people of Asian descent or people from Latin countries. However, I've also encountered quite a bit of outright racism from people who would be considered "African-American" (especially due to my partial Asian looks). I would have thought that a group which has onrgo doubt had an uneasy history in America might be more sympathetic to other people, but this hasn't always been the case. Many of my friends who are fully Asian have also encountered xenophobic attitudes from certain groups, even more so than whites. A few years ago, there was an incident in which African-American students targeted Asian (primarily children of first-generation immigrants). Why do we rarely hear about this in the mainstream media? And why are there people who defend this sort of thing? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"I work with 95% migrant non-white people. They say what they think to me. Many of them are racist towards other minorities. Some times it is inter-ethnicity feuds, sometimes they have a racial hierarchy in their head with some other group ranking below them and some times they just don't like that other ethnicity. Racial hierarchies can vary between ethnicities. An Indian into rankings may have a different view of where ethnicities slot in to a Japanese person who sees it differently. And some ethnicities are very proud and believe themselves superior to any other ethnicity, including white people. This is not commonly reported on. White is not universally accepted as tops. Not every non-white group takes on the notion of being not number one, so to speak. Many have a 'white trash' view of white people. To sum it up though in ELI5 speak: Anyone can be racist. It is not discussed a lot as a lot of the media in the West is white run and they are wary of stepping on that landmine or just don't know enough about it to write about it. And non-white media figures don't seem interested in the topic. And some people outside the media may defend it as they believe minorities are hard done by and then can have a free pass on this stuff. White racism is often more serious as it more often involves systems of power, like prisons/college/employment so it gets more attention. I agree it was strange for me, as a white person, to hear a non-white person come out with a stream of racist abuse about some other non-white group. I am used to it now. But I still haven't figured out what group believes in what rankings. I cannot yet keep up with what each group tends to think of other groups. I don't have 10 individual leaderboards in my head to keep track. But I have figured out - anyone can be racist.",
"Same reason racism exists - it uses fewer mental resources to generalise things. Generalising a race as simply *bad* requires almost no mental resources, and has large negative effects. Generalising **racism** as whites-only requires slightly more, though still few, mental resources and has slightly less large negative effects. Treating those two options as the ***only*** options requires very few mental resources. So, someone with almost no mental resources to spend will default to the easiest. Someone with *some* to spend, but not many, will go for the marginally more complicated choice; saying racism is a bad thing that whities do to others, and *that's it*.",
"I can't give you a definitive answer but generally it's thought that the discrimination is passed on from group to group within the social hierarchy. Poor white people for example take out their frustrations on the next class below them, African Americans who then may pass that to the next community. Remember that throughout American history various groups have been discriminated, including Irish and Italians even though they were \"white.\" I'm sorry for your experience. Unfortunately there is racism everywhere, for example I remember my Spanish teacher talking about the appalling attitudes spaniards have towards some groups. America just has one of the most diverse populations so there is a lot of visible strife you may not encounter as much in a more homogenous culture like many European countries."
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6l6emq | If artists can draw realistic drawing and paintings, how come there's no good realistic drawings of people from the past? | People from ancient times especially | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"More often than not, they didn't want to. It wasn't important to them. They wanted to represent other things. Don't you think that if the ancient greek were able to create a bronze sculpture of a god like [this one]( URL_0 ) 2500 years ago they wouldn't have been able to draw him \"realistically\" as well? Edit to include the paleolithic (because I realised your \"ancient times\" might refer to that): I don't know about you, but I can't draw [horses]( URL_2 ) nor [bulls]( URL_1 ) so well.",
"Most artists nowadays learn about musculature and other superficial human structures. As the knowledge of medicine increased, the level of detail increased. Art is not always \"see and copy\", it's more like \"see, understand, and replicate\". This is the reason da Vinci is considered a pioneer is because he studied the human form in incredible details (for his time), among other things as well. Edit: referring to knowledge of anatomy within a culture. Also, sculptures like Michelangelo's David came near anatomical detail only because of anatomical studies by the artists on their own."
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6l7v73 | if I click on the United States Wikipedia page, under ethnic groups it only lists white, black, Hispanic, etc. But if I click on a European countries Wikipedia it will list things like russian, Ukrainian, pole, jew, etc? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Ethnic breakdowns generally come from governmental censuses, and each government chooses what ethnic choices to put as options on the census form. There are a lot of reasons, some cultural, many political, that determine what choices each country's government makes. For instance, the UK ethnic breakdowns include \"White - British\", \"White - Irish\", and \"White - Other\" as the three subcategories of white, which isn't a distinction you'd likely find anywhere but the British Isles, but is important here given the politics and history of the UK.",
"The concept of categorizing people by race or ethnicity is an arbitrary social construct. Biologically speaking *races* don't exist as taxonomy with any scientific significance. Pooling any group of people with common lineage will yield genetic similarities, but the variation within groups outweighs variation between groups. Tracking by country will be pretty meaningless in a few generations too given impact of immigration/globalization."
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6l82hr | How can Scotland Yard function without guns, while police in the U.S. rely solely guns? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Scotland Yard is the HQ of the Metropolitan police, the force responsible for policing most of London. The metropolitan police do have guns. Not every officer, but they do have armed units which can be called out when necessary, or when needed to patrol high risk areas. The average officer doing routine patrols is unlikely to need a gun. Guns are heavily restricted in Great Britain, so it's unlikely they will be facing a criminal with one. And if they do, they can call for backup and get armed units sent in. Of course you might say that criminals don't follow the law, therefore might have a gun despite them being illegal. That's true to some extent, but it's generally hard to get hold of a gun and simply having one is a serious crime. So usually only the most hardened career criminals will have one. And the police are unlikely to run into a situation with them on a routine patrol. If they're doing a planned raid they will bring guns if they think they might need them. Also the more petty criminals might not feel the need to have a gun anyway, since they're not expecting police or random civilians to start shooting at them. By the way, I've been saying \"guns are illegal\", but that's not strictly true. Handguns are illegal, but some other types of guns such as rifles and shotguns are allowed in some cases, but heavily licenced.",
"Partly it is because things like murder are just that much more rare in the UK compared to the US. The countrywide murder rate in the US is 5 times higher than in the UK. ( 4.8 per 100,000 people in the US and only 0.9 in the UK) London itself has a homicide rate of about 1 per 100,000 which is pretty low for a big city. Cities in the US with high crime rates can have a rate as high as 44.6 (Detroit), 45.2 (New Orleans), 51.1 (Baltimore) and 60 (St. Louis). Even relatively peaceful large cities in the US still have a far higher murder rate than London. So generally weapons to exert lethal force with are far less needed when the average person you meet on the street is much less likely to be a killer. The fact that guns are much less common in the UK even among career criminals, means that as a cop walking or driving the beat the fear of getting shot at is far more diminished. [Wikipedia]( URL_0 ) has a list of British cops who died while on duty and actively trying to prevent a crime or pursue a criminal (excluding those who suffered regular workplace accidents and also during war or in paramilitary situations). It is a surprisingly short list and being shot appears about as often as collapsing dead while trying to run down a suspect on foot. Stabbings are a more serious risk and reportedly stab-prood west are more sought after than bullet proof vests. It probably helps that the geography of England makes calling for backup to get professional help an easier thing than in a large and thinly settled country like the US. If shooting needs to be done they can call in those who are actually trained to handle guns rather than do it themselves. All those however could be argue are just symptoms. The root cause is perhaps found in the cultural difference. You can broadly separate societies along a spectrum of cultures of honour vs cultures of law. In cultures of law the authorities have a much more firm grip on the monopoly of violence while the societies that focus more on honour over law will have people seeking redress in case of being wronged personally. Cultures of Honour tend to be more violent as a result. This goes on large scales like Europe vs the Americas and inside countries like North vs south in the US, but also in subcultures inside of societies like the inner cities with their gang violence in the US or insufficiently integrated immigrants almost everywhere. If you don't trust the police to protect and help you and deal with you fairly, you will seek out you other means of keeping yourself safe. In the US people will regularly own guns for the sake of protection while such a thing is mostly illegal in the UK. Gangs don't shoot at each other much in Britain and despite reports of no-go zones there generally are no place where the police won't go at all. The people trust the police more in England and thus the police can trust the people more to not be out to violently murder them. Even criminals usually don't see the need to escalate things to levels of violence that would require guns to solve. With the average person on the street far less likely to be armed with a gun and in a mood to kill a cop. Cops in Britain are far less concerned with being armed with guns themselves. It is a crazy situation from an American perspective but it works. Also to the guy who wondered if a five year old would know what Scotland yard is: When I was a kid many, many years ago I knew Scotland Yard as sort of the place where all the inspectors were from in all those crime and mystery stories set in Britain. \"Inspector X of the Yard\" used to be a very common trope in all sorts of murder mystery stories, so the whole idea of Scotland Yard being where all inspectors are from was something embedded in public consciousness. Most people especially kids probably had misconceptions about what agency and jurisdiction are associated with the building, but it was and to a degree is still very famous. I even remember a board game named after Scotland Yard that involved hunting a criminal throughout London in cooperative play across a map of public transportation of they city. I guess the whole thing may have become too much of a cliche and not bee as familiar for modern youths, but it should still be well enough known today especially as the 5 year old of this subreddit is not supposed to be literal one.",
"Because gun ownership is extremely high in the US -- 112.6 guns per 100 people -- and very low in the UK -- 6.6 guns per 100 people. [[source]( URL_0 )] Also, because of much more strict gun control regulation in the UK compared to the US, it's likely a greater proportion of those guns that *are* owned by UK citizens are less-easily-concealed hunting rifles, not handguns. In short, cops don't need to be able to shoot people when people aren't able to shoot cops.",
"Scotland Yard do have guns - specialist armed response units made up of offices with advanced tactical and firearms training. They also have a UK version of SWAT called SFO, Specialist Firearms Officers. Armed officers in the UK are very, very skilled and have often undergone extremely high level training with special forced units like the SAS. In counter terrorism roles they'll have contact with the security services too. If you're in the middle of an armed heist and you face armed cops in the UK it's not going to be beat cops with pistols. It'll be more like taking on a special forces team. Usually that doesn't last very long.",
"I work in an company that advises / sells software to U.K. police forces, a large number of the other staff (not myself) are ex police of some kind. A few weeks ago I had a very similar discussion with one of our guys who had been a firearms trained officer (which in it's self is quite a big deal) before leaving the force and joining us, but when policing the street always preferred to be unarmed, especially in situations involving volatile drunk crowds. The example he gave was to imagine you are 2 on 1 or 2 on 2 with a couple of drunk blokes who need a stay in the drunk tank. You are going to end up on the floor with these guys to cuff and arrest them, but if you are armed you simply cant. The risk of you firearm being taken off you is too high, so you have to draw your gun instead to try and get them to comply... but they are drunk so they don't. How do you escalate now? When the run either at you or away from you, does that justify lethal force? No. Where as with a baton or even spray, it's non lethal and you can still muck in and risk approaching without the risk of arming the target with your own gun. It's what he described as 'real' policing.",
"Solely? US police officers have batons, pepper spray, tasers and rubber bullets.",
"Police in the UK *do* have armed units, but mainly they don't need as many guns because the populace is largely unarmed. Furthermore, the populace has been unarmed for a pretty long time, even before the majority of the gun bans, and what few guns they are allowed to have are essentially restricted to rural areas. Finally, given that they're an island nation, it's easy to keep the amount of guns within the population very low, unlike the rest of Europe which has a massive black market for surplus military weapons from the former Yugoslavia and USSR. Meanwhile in the US, the population is heavily armed, and has essentially always been heavily armed due to a mix of cultural momentum and a genuine need to remain armed. Thus, the police need to be armed in order to do their jobs and protect themselves.",
"U.S. guy here. I don't think U.S. police rely \"solely\" on guns. In the few interactions I have had with U.S. police they didn't shoot me or anybody else.",
"I'm getting conflicted responses from Google to the incidence of gun crime and the amount of non-gun and gun-related violence, so I will say this: a huge amount of people in the US own and can own guns legally and illegally. It's a matter of gun prevalence in the population.",
"> while police in the U.S. rely solely guns? It's a common misconception among the public, that US Police *regularly* use their weapon. Only about 27% of police EVER fire their weapon. And among a survey with a small sample, almost 40% reported they were not shooting at a person when they discharged their weapon.",
"Because Scotland Yard gets the concept of protect and serve, unlike the mafia dressed in blue over here",
"Guns are controlled, but the police do have access to guns for when they are most needed. Truth be told, America scares me, the thought of everyone packing would just make me mad paranoid."
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6l9va2 | What is the purpose of feeling embarrassed? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"There is no such thing as \"purpose\" behind biological features of humans or any other natural organism because we were not designed, only functions which such features perform and impact our rate of survival. Embarrassment is a feeling of discomfort which tends to cause us to seek the acceptance of the community and social group in which we reside. This is very important to our survival because we are social creatures which are heavily reliant upon others in order to thrive. Being a social outcast would not only greatly reduce or remove the ability to reproduce successfully but would often actually result in the death of the individual. Ultimately then embarrassment exists for the same reason pain exists, as a prod to avoid harmful and life-threatening behaviors.",
"Humans are social animals, by psychology and biology. We function better around others. Embarrassment, shame, and similar emotions are ways to indicate to yourself and others that you've done something potentially harmful to the group, violating the social contract, etc."
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6lakqo | When referring to the colors of the American flag, why did it become normal to say the colors in the order of red, white, and blue instead of a different order? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"\"Why\" appears to be an unknown, \"when\" is... also appearing to be an unknown. Somewhere between 1777 and 1843 at the absolute latest; the first being documents agreed on the date that we now in the US celebrate as Flag Day and when the colors were listed in that order, the later being when the popular song *Columbia, the Gem of the Ocean* was written. While the same order is currently used in reference to the UK flag, it wasn't originally worded that way and I can't pin down any indication as to when that happened. Interestingly, it's not listed in the same order for the French flag. This is probably a better question for /r/AskHistorians, and while I suspect the answer is going to be \"we don't know\" (or, in the case of that sub, \"deleted deleted deleted\") I'd be interested to see a source stating otherwise.",
"Maybe something to do with ablaut reduplication. In english there is a little known but universally understood vowel order for a series of words. Zig zag is correct but zag zig just sounds wrong. The vowels always go in the same order. Maybe it applys here?"
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6lalzb | Why is 4:4 time the "standard" time in western music? | Are other beats like 2:4 and 3:4 more common in other cultures or parts of the world? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"I'm assuming you're referring to pop music in Europe and North America and not classical music as it developed in the western world. I'd imagine part of it comes from rock and pop having its roots in blues which uses 4:4 time. In addition, gospel and southern spirituals and folk music which were also influences probably used a lot of 4:4 time. In other parts of the world, the local folk music grew out of different traditions based on dances and ceremonial tunes that might range from 3:4, 2:4, 5:4 and even 7:8. Oddly enough, the Pink Floyd song \"Money\" starts off in 7:4 time.",
"Long story short: hundreds of years of post-Renaissance where 3 was the norm (because of the Trinity) led to 4:4 being used a lot. So much, that I was a common signature and so you write C for Common Time.",
"This is tricky to really answer, as it takes us down a rabbit hole that leaves you with more questions than answers. 2/4 isn't actually uncommon in certain genres of 'western' music. Country music tends to *feel* much more like 2/4, even if it's often written in 4/4. Reggae/ska have a much more duple-time feel to it as well, but is also often written in/as 4/4. 3/4 has a crossover territory with 2/4 and also 4/4 if you start dabbling with compound time. If you subdivide each beat into 3, then 2/4 becomes 6/8 (think: I'm With You - Avril Lavigne). That has a triple-time sound/feel, but is very much duple time as far as music theory goes. 4/4 is overwhelmingly dominant in our current time as a result of the genres that are popular, as well as their origins. It's several textbooks' worth of evolution from when music evolves beyond what musicologists consider the 'beginning of contemporary music', so I don't want to get into that. Basically, 4/4 is overwhelmingly popular now because the genres that are popular ARE 4/4 time based genres. This is NOT an all-encompassing answer. Other answers posted in this thread contribute greatly to answering your question as well, but I really wanted to provide additional context and an alternate view of the situation as well."
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6laweu | Why do British judges wear big, curly, white wigs? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Short answer: Tradition. Longer answer: because the look established a standard appearance for the various types of official (barristers have one particular wig/robe set, different levels of courts have different appearances, and up until relatively recently judges had in some cases 5 sets of robes/wigs for different events). This has a lot of benefits, not the least of which arises when judges generally didn't bathe regularly. Even without that, it makes clear at a distance who is important, but at the same time grants them a degree of anonymity outside the court room. It also reduces bias in trial induced by the appearance of one barrister or another. That's essentially the main argument for maintaining them. But the longer term history is simply because something similar was fashionable in the 17th and 18th centuries (and earlier, though multicoloured before the death of Charles II), so it's what everyone at the time wore. When it started to become unfashionable (into the 18th century) it became a rule, presumably because older lawyers and judges didn't want to give up the practice. Even today it's still a rule, and even today lots of people in commonwealth systems don't want to give up the practice or don't want to give it up everywhere. Courts in the US until the 1840's or 50's basically had the same style of dress, but then Chief Justice Marshall got rid of the idea. Even to present day states have various formal dress codes, not necessarily with the horse hair wig, but robes/sashes/etc. that are all legacies of some past court dress. I suppose the closest to correct but less useful answer is that it clings to life because unlike the US there's no single person in the Commonwealth who can say 'we're not doing it anymore', because one of them would have done so in the last 150 years or so, and once it's gone no one is likely to bring it back. The UK has a professional body that decides this, and the various countries and sub national entities (provinces/states/territories) that all adopted the same style only bother to change when someone really kicks up a fuss over it. The US though, the chief justice of the United States pretty much sets the standard for US federal courts, and if s/he says it's gone, it's gone, and every lower tier that may not be directly set by the chief justice will follow along."
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6laxk3 | Why does "He was a tall thin man" sound fine but "He was a thin tall man" sounds awkward? | I mean you can use "He was a thin and tall man" to make it slightly less awkward but still does sound awkward. It's weird that it doesn't work because why should two different adjectives care where they should be regarding English syntax? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Because there is an order to adjectives to the order of quantity, quality, size, age, shape, color, Proper adjective, and finally purpose, or qualifier. So one would say the two great big old tall black African Americans. Because African, big, tall, old, black, great, two men sounds weird. Source: URL_0 Edit: Actually both of these are under size, but theres probably even more structure lying underneath. Edit 2: thank you u/mason11987. Thin is indeed shape so OP is correct. The first edit is invalid.",
"The rule is that multiple adjectives are always ranked accordingly: opinion, size, age, shape, colour, origin, material, purpose. Unlike many laws of grammar or syntax, this one is virtually inviolable, even in informal speech."
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6ldkvl | why can't countries like North-Korea and Iran make, own or test nuclear missiles without facing repercussions while other countries like the US can? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"In 3 words, The United Nations. For North Korea, they are technically still at war with South Korea and the US, but are currently under what is basically a cease-fire. This is why there is the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) in between North and South Korea. North Korea having nukes would lead to massive paranoia for both South Korea and Japan and likewise, Russia and China are not exactly keen on having North Korea invite war right next door either. And because all those countries and more are part of the UN, no one wants North Korea having nukes. Same deal for Iran, but that one was slightly more complicated back before 9/11 as some of the resistance to them getting nukes has to deal with the Israeli state. Nowadays, it mainly has to do with the fact that terrorism would escalate on a huge scale if enriched uranium and so forth were readily available for people in the middle east to mess with and perhaps share and dish out. [UNODA]( URL_1 ) appears to be the specific council that handles resolutions in regards to nuclear weapons, but the UN [Security Council]( URL_0 ) is the one that handles voting on sanctions in regards to the nukes. The US, China, France, the UK and Russia are the 5 permanent members of the group and I'm very sure none of them will be voting for lifting those resolutions anytime soon.",
"Most countries have signbed the Nuclear NonProliferation Treaty in which they promised to not make nukes in exchange for certain promises from the nuclear-armed countries (including that they would eventually disarm their nukes) However while North Korea exercised the option to withdraw from the NPT (which is allowed by the NPT itself) Iran has not only continued to be in compliance with the NPT **and** voluntarily accepted even more restrictions on its nuclear program than the NPT requires. The entire \"Iranian nuclear threat\" was just bullshit hype intended to justify a policy of imposing regime-change there You have to realize that more than 40 countries could make nukes right now if they wanted to, the reason they don't is not because of \"repercussions\" but simply because nukes are actually useless weapons and the idea that all countries would make nukes if they could is false (many countries that had nuke programs gave them up, including Sweden) URL_1 URL_0 Also, there was never any evidence that Iran ever even sought nukes, Iran's nuclear energy program was actually always quite legal and no proof of any weapons program was ever found URL_3 URL_2"
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6ldyr7 | Why are video game communities very largely male dominated? Why do less females play games? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"What you're asking isn't true for gaming communities as a whole. It really only is limited to the triple A big blockbuster gaming community. Which mainly thrives on consoles. Yet consoles form the smallest gaming market, with PC in second place and mobile gaming being the largest. Studies that I read in the past (don't have a source for them anymore sadly) found that women and men, in general, tend to play for different reasons. Women are more likely to be interested in the social aspect and cooperative play. Which is why MMORPG's like World of Warcraft have very large female player bases. And mobile gaming is incredibly popular among women. While the big blockbuster games are more catered towards male power-fantasies. So men are more likely to purchase and build communities around those games.",
"In fact, many women actually play video-games. Of course it's not representative of the general population, but I'd say at least one in ten women play occasionally. It's by far not as bad as it appears. Women also tend to stay in the background much more, because otherwise we'd get sexist comments all the time in the manner of *\"make me a sandwich\"* or *\"come here and s*\\*\\*\\* *my d*\\*\\*\\**\"*... We're barely left alone if we talk. Videogames are also much more in the male realm of interest. Topics like war, cars or football/soccer just aren't that popular amongst women than they are amongst men. If anything, we're more likely to play games that are more based on exploration and story such as Skyrim.",
"Life long female gamer here. I mostly stick to solo games. I like story driven rpg's like mass effect, legend of Zelda, elder scrolls etc. I grew up with console gaming on the mega drive, snes, right through to the current gen. I never got into pc gaming. The main reason being I work a lot with computers at work, the last thing I want to do is sit at a computer when I'm not at work. Console gaming, for me, is simple and easy to pick up and put down. You put the disc in, and it works. No messing around with graphics drivers or having to replace your graphics cards and add ram and buy a new CPU.. I've never been into online shooters, there's just not enough going on to keep me interested. I get they're intense and take a long time to master but, after a long day of work, I want to relax and go exploring, solve puzzles, level a character, get new armour all that stuff. I don't want to listen to shrill voiced 14 year old American boys using racial slurs while running around in circles on a handful of maps... I prefer slower paced gaming usually although, I do play street fighter occasionally, more for nostalgia than anything",
"Actually girls are fast becoming gamers, however biodiversity appears to be driving guys to play more reflex based, action packed adrenaline games whereas girls seem to favour puzzle and problem solving games. Boys are only slightly more likely to play than girls. Boys tend to spend longer playing, though."
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6lev9g | Why is Latin a 'dead' language? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"You can learn and speak it. It's \"dead\" because there are no native speakers in it anymore. No country or culture speaks it as a native language, teaching it to their young as a native first-language.",
"A dead language simply means no one speaks it natively anymore. I'm sure if you have any kids that went to Catholic school they learned how to speak Latin. It maybe possible that your coworker was referring to us not know how latin words were specifically pronounced, which doesn't really hold a lot of merit as it's very similar to Italian, French, Spanish etc so we have a good idea how they said words.",
"There are no longer any native speakers of Latin. The language changed and grew into the Romance languages of today. You could certainly learn to speak it, but you would likely just be talking to yourself."
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6levy8 | How did 4chan become so heavily affiliated with/occupied by members of the alt-right? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Many internet forums such as 4chan serve as a home for the counter-culture and contrarian opinions and personalities. Alt-right seems to be a backlash to a culture that is moving left and, in their opinion, seeks to accommodate and \"baby\" the general citizenry at the expense of individual freedoms. It is a counter-culture and contrarian movement that fits with the personalities and opinions that find a home in such internet forums.",
"As a user of several 4chan boards, I reject the premise of the question. Crazy I know, but allow me to explain. 4chan is likely not significantly more conservative than other social media platforms, The right are more vocal than the left, or at least they are recently. 4chan gives equal footing to all posts, where on reddit and Facebook there is an echo chamber effect, meaning if you're not a trump supporter, you're generally less likely to see pro trump posts. /pol/ is the alt right board of 4chan, and they have a tendency to post political posts on other boards such as /trv/, making them seem more numerous than they really are. If you want to see more left oriented discussions, check out /news/. I'll also point out here that the lack of an echo chamber means the alt right is challenged on their beliefs on 4chan, where on reddit and Facebook they spend their time constructing strawmen. In short, 4chan makes it easier to make more noise as one person, but demographically, 4chan is likely not much different than reddit.",
"It's an extreme example of [GIFT (Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory)]( URL_0 ). 4chan provides an ever greater level of anonymity than typical internet usage, and therefore the \"edgy\" troll posts and extremist viewpoints are posted there due to the absolute lack of repercussions.",
"I've been a semi-regular 4chan poster for about 10 years now and it really hasn't changed all that much in that time. There are ever more boards, but /b/ is still /b/ and /v/ is still /v/ and so on. Some people come and go, however, the general place stays the same. When the whole \"Anonymous\" hacker thing happened nothing changed on 4chan. It was still the same groups of people hanging out there that had always been there. With the creation of a collective name though it gave a small sub-set of people an easy way to coalesce. Suddenly 4chan hacker \"Anonymous\" became a thing everywhere even though it was no more or less of a thing on the site than it had been before. The only thing that has changed on 4chan is the creation of the term \"alt-right\". Now all the little bigots have a common name to collect themselves around. With a name, cause, and rules they seem like a bigger group to outsiders. To those of us who have been there a long time it is the same group as always. No more. No less. Honestly, if somebody came up with a name for it you could just as easily make 4chan out to be the home of an open progressive sexuality movement. An active /lgbt/ board, /soc/'s nebulous sexuality, and /b/ & /v/ love of transporn would make the perfect examples. Just give it a good name to gather around and watch it take off as the next group defining 4chan.",
"4Chan provides absolute anonymity, and therefore no accountability for what you say. This means you can say literally anything, and not only will it disappear in a few days (or a few hours on fast-paced boards) but you can never be tied back to something horrible you've said. This means the the entire culture is based around the most stripped back and primal thoughts and interactions with no filter. On Reddit, you might think about what you're saying, you might research your point, or you might be kind to an \"opponent\" because what you say and do is tied to your user name, and your \"karma\" pool, if you're into that sort of thing. On 4Chan, you can say or do literally anything you want, and it can never have a negative impact on your experience, except for a couple of very egregious acts that can earn you a ban. This leads, over time, to an INCREDIBLY toxic horrifying atmosphere that attracts people who feel like they can't express their emotions and feelings and ideas on \"hugbox liberal fag fest\" places (like Reddit). Over time, spending hours and hours there, day in and day out, week after week, transforms people into that sort of thinking, and continues to attract the people who are drawn to that environment. Alt-Right people tend to feel attacked and held down by \"PC culture\" and seek a place where they can \"Tell it like it is\" and express their feelings without repercussions. Non-alt right people tend to want to avoid that sort of atmosphere as it becomes filled with more and more insanity, so it slowly empties of rational fun conversation, and refills with the dregs.",
"Another poster is a long the right track. Any forum that is more open and accepting of different opinions and views and behaviors typically trends towards right sided political beliefs(not going to call it alt right for many reasons, primarily the name and birth of the name being stupid). You may think that reddit is this way but it is far from it. Everyone hates subs like r/the_donald but what if I told you reddit's ceo modified comments of users then mentioned those modified comments to a news organization. Imagine I take your words, change them without any evidence, then bring them up as something you said. That's damn terrible, but nobody cares because that part of reddit is so \"awful\". That's before I mention their top posts being downvoted from thousands straight to zero and other shady things to keep it from getting exposure on people's feeds or r/all. The_donald has a strong presence here so it is to hard to leave (even though the admins would want it). But 4chan, Pol specifically, is more free to do as they please and the two are quite similar. People with right sided beliefs don't have a place in a censored state, they aren't accepted, and left sided beliefs are circlejerked to death. The leftward leaning leaders of forums like this one remove anyone who doesn't agree with them and it is somewhat..ironic. So to prove my point you'll see I'll get downvoted to oblivion because I'm not anti-trump. This place is bombarded with one sided beliefs and promotes it's own agenda so much that having a different opinion is almost criminal. Edit: do you see my point now op? I've been called stupid several times in the thread, nobody is giving any evidence as to why I am a homophobic racist but for some reason I am, as is anyone who voted for trump. The only \"evidence\" so far is people saying names over and over \"Gorsuch! Pence! Trump!\" without any articles or evidence of what they did either.",
"It mostly has to do with /pol/, the \"politically incorrect\" board that with time came to be almost exclusively populated with people with \"alt-right\" opinions. There's also a positive feedback loop, as the media reporting on the alt-right and using 4chan (in general) as an example meant that more people with similar opinions went to the site. But as always for the site (and pretty much all imageboards), one has to remember that a lot of it is mere shitposting. There's certainly some true believers, but a lot of it is just people taking the piss. 8chan, the offshoot an competitor of 4chan (there was a migration for Internet drama reasons I won't expand here) also hosts a /leftypol/ board, which equally has a mix of genuine left-wing opinions and edgy memes.",
"Not sure if this is what you're getting at, but it's because 4chan actually has free speech. This is a common internet effect, anywhere there is free speech without moderation will inherently lean right with the way politics are right now. Let's be honest, no matter what side of things you're on, the left & left media has become insanely inaccurate in modern times. To participate in an argument about whether leftist media claims are correct, you basically have to censor facts, have moderators take out \"offensive\" ideas etc. In an open debate, there is zero ways that leftist media would ever be perceived as \"true\" or fair. If there's freedom of speech, and ultimate argument of ideas, which there definitely is in 4chan, things will lean right for now. Also, even your usage of alt-right wrong, if that term really deserves to exist as a consideration in this convo to begin with. Part of 4chan is that people do not filter themselves through other peoples labels, especially ones designed to progress the term, become less offensive etc. Alt right is a negative label, a product of media creating an easy way to group people together, attack & dismiss them. There's nothing that could possibly tell you 4chan leans alt-right specifically, just expressing conservative values or beliefs doesn't really fall into determinable alt-right territory by any means. I love how a convention of maybe < 100 \"alt-rightists\" has immediately made the rest of anyone expressing conservative ideas part of that group. 50 people calling themselves alt-right at a single convention do not represent a movement, and they certainly don't represent a fraction of people who voted for Trump, that's just silly. If you can't immediately distinguish for me what makes someone alt right versus traditional right, you are just prescribing to a made up label. If you want to consider the origin/ proper terminology of alt right, it actually comes from the idea that so many libertarian and left leaning people have aligned with the right currently because the left is such a damn mess, causing an influx of people who hold beliefs and values usually wouldn't be considered right, hence alternative right. Lastly an example of a progressive term, and why that doesn't work on 4chan. Leftists have made the term \"illegal alien\" a bad term, immediately ridiculing and insulting anyone who uses it to describe someone who immigrated here illegally. This is a filtering of language that 4chan doesn't allow. You will be laughed out of the argument if you try to critique someones use of illegal alien, or divert attention from the argument to their non politically correct term. On a site like this, an overwhelming amount of upvoted comments stating that illegal alien is a derogatory term might suppress that persons post, or even detract so hard from the original debate it becomes impossible to present their side. An excuse to dismiss them without debating, \"oh well you said illegal alien so you're just some stupid alt rightist, I don't need to hear anymore I already know your sides wrong\" < - actual reddit post type I've encountered endless times. The example is an exaggeration, but that attitude absolutely isn't. The entire purpose of the label \"alt-right\" is so you can dismiss their ideas. It clearly worked. The entire purpose of new terminology, 50 genders, etc, is to make people who use the \"traditional\" terms seem antiquated, and make them easier to slap labels on. It's a form of censorship, to call people out for not using \"progressive\" terms. Wanting girl to mean girl and illegal alien to not mean something insulting is considered \"conservative\", these new terms are invented to make you seem bigoted for not prescribing to them. Illegal aliens been the phrase for decades, but only in 2010+ the left decided it's incredibly offensive? This is a form of censorship itself. Then, when you're caught using conservative phrases, wrong insulting/non pc terminology etc, you're easier to label and attack. It is no different from a woman making a compelling argument but she uses the phrase \"wage gap\" and an idiot yells out \"wage gap has been disproven, all feminists are irrational boooo\" without actual consideration of the merit of their statement or an attempt to debate the ideas. That's all the term \"alt-right\" is. The HRC campaign tried it with \"Bernie Bros\" too, maybe some of you remember. It's very hard to fight with just labels on 4ch. You have no history, you have no identifying statements, you have no comment history to check popularity. There's no such thing as identity politics, there are no posts begin with \"As a trans black woman\"- 4chan reduces everyone to anon. If you make a claim, you better know all the ins and outs of the argument. You cannot dismiss someone for being white, you can't qualify your phrase \"well my experience as a _____\". You must be able to defend your statements and argue for them using world examples, statistics, evidence, and convincing writing style that applies to everyone. Your argument will not get bonus points because you are x race or y gender. There's no talking over someone because one identity's experience is valued more than another- if you can't make an argument that applies to all, you can't make an argument. You will not be sided with because you are more popular with karma, nor due to the harshness of tone or how rude your opponent is. Nothing other than the exact merit of your claims, and how well you can justify them.",
"4-Chan has always been a counter-culture. In the waves of patriotism following 9/11 and the beginning of the WoT it wasn't ok to be unpatriotic. It wasn't OK to criticize the government. The culture started to shift. Now it's not ok to support President Donald J. Trump. Look at the cesspool /r/politics has become. It used to lean left (as most of reddit does) but since the election it's gone into full retard mode where any positive news story about president Trump is slammed & downvoted and the most meaningless speculative bullshit is thrust forward as long as it paints President Trump negatively. Look at the media, who again are traditionally leftists. I mean certain Fake News Networks (CNN) are running stories that they admit are [\"Mostly Bullshit\"]( URL_1 ) because it gets them ratings. So now that the mainstream culture is left and anti-Trump it makes sense the 4chan which has always been a counter-culture would swing to the right. _____________________________________ It also helps that 4chan is (for the most part) completely unmoderated. This means that no views are shut out. You *could* go there & post ShareBlue (Read DNC Propaganda). Nothing is stopping you. Where as on reddit, I posted [This comic]( URL_0 ) in one thread, as a joke, and got banned from 6 subreddits within an hour, 5 of which I never posted on, or even looked at. I contacted the mods of the base subreddit, apologized, I said it was a joke, that I wouldn't do it again, and that I'd accept a temporary ban. I was informed that the ban is permanent & non-negotiable. I had **NO** prior offenses. So when any views get shut up by moderators, it doesn't get rid of those views, the posters just find somewhere else to go. I mean look, /r/The_Donald is (iirc) the #2 or 3 most active subreddit. Behind only Askreddit (again iirc). Some people say \"Oh it's all bots\" no, no it isn't. I'm sure there are some, but when you go around banning people for minor offenses, they will go somewhere their \"offenses\" are not. And that place, where all is fair game, is 4chan. So when snowflake gets triggered, and big brother moderator shuts a poster up, the poster goes somewhere they can say something many would find offensive, and not be shut up for saying it.",
"Like, ten years ago, 4chan was a novelty because of you could make any dumb post you wanted and never worry about it again. This was the genesis of modern shitposting. On the /b/ forum, which famously has no rules except \"Don't post anything illegal,\" ironically posting racist shit became a fun thing to do, but even on /b/, at the time, far-right bullcrap was the subject of mockery. See also their raid on white supremacist talk show host Hal Turner. The original owner of 4chan, created /n/, a board for discussing news and current events. Stormfront, a racist website that /b/ would often raid at the time, moved in and started posting unironically. The board was closed, and eventually reopened as /pol/ and /int/ - Politically Incorrect and International. Stormfront returned and continued to be awful. This time they weren't stopped, because it was funny, at first, to see white supremacists from the previous generation being all \"HOW DO YOU DO FELLOW KIDS, THE BLACKS SURE ARE UPPITY AREN'T THEY HA HA HA.\" It became less funny when they snared angry young people that were better able to fit in and spread their toxic beliefs to other popular, loosely-moderated boards like /v/. This eventually resulted in shenanigans like gamergate. tl;dr Any community that gets its laughs by pretending to be idiots will eventually be flooded by actual idiots who mistakenly believe that they're in good company.",
"tl;dr: People who hold taboo beliefs gravitate to anonymous forums where they can express themselves honestly without the usual consequences. I would say it's because these days, racism, sexism, and so on are taboo. They're not things you can say in public without consequence. They're not things you can express at most workplaces without fear of being fired. They're not things you can express at school without, at best, risking peer ostracism or, at worst, official disciplinary action. The political rise of the alt-right notwithstanding, racism and sexism are what homosexuality, or racial minority assertion, religious minority status, or other things like that used to be: a thing not tolerated in polite society. Most people just conform to polite society in public, but this doesn't mean they agree with the cultural hegemon. They go along to get along, with their actual beliefs hidden away, expressed only in absolute confidence. The only people who express the minority position in public are those who have nothing to lose. The taboo belief becomes associated with people of low class... but they're just the only ones openly expressing it. Enter the anonymous forum. Here, people can express their actual opinions without consequence. They can be as weird, or as awful, as they wish to be without consequence. As a result, these places attract people who wish to express what cannot be expressed in public. The population of the anonymous forum is not representative of the population at large... but neither is what people are willing to say in public, either.",
"I wouldn't say 4chan is right winged. I would say a lot of their political beliefs are just about right in the middle of the spectrum. The thing is, though, that 4chan does something few other places do. They allow dissenting opinions. 4chan may seem like it is right sided but that's mainly because they have nowhere else to post their opinions without being called certain buzzwords (racist, sexist, homophobic, etc). Say women aren't oppressed on Reddit? You're most likely going to be downvoted to oblivion and called sexist. Say police violence is a war on poverty and not a war on blacks? Downvoted AND racist. Say Hillary would be just as bad as trump? You're a racist, sexist, homophobic, uneducated redneck. 4chan has no voting system and is completely anonymous. It's a way to discuss things that left-heavy sites would never allow. The day Trump was elected, /pol/ had a thread that I thought was very interesting. 'Why did you fucktards vote for trump?' The most common reason? People were tired of being accused of being all these horrible things simply because they didn't follow 100% of the liberal agenda. There are a lot of people on 4chan who share that experience and have nowhere else to really go. This is what makes it seem more right winged than it actually is.",
"Two points that I would make... 1. 4chan has always wanted to be the \"unrepresented\" voice. In recent years, we have seen a huge increase in censorship in the media and sites like Reddit. This censorship has been mostly targeted at any opinions that go against the left. So 4chan is kind of a natural home for them. All of the people that feel slighted or censored start to seek a place where they won't be silenced. And 4chan is that platform. 2. The term \"alt right\" has taken on an entirely new meaning and people are very loose with this label. Initially \"alt right\" referred to white supremecists and bigots. But now it is commonly used to define anyone that is very vocal against the left. So when you widen that definition, and you go from a more leftist and censored site like Reddit to a site like 4chan where it's essentially the wild west, it is naturally going to *feel* more \"right\". And I think that pushes people on the left away and they seek out sites like Reddit. Then a very broad label of \"at right\" is slapped on 4chan.",
"Okay, some people are throwing words around however not knowing quite how to use them correctly. First of all it needs to be established that, despite what people say, 4chan is heavily liberal. That's a fact. However where it gets confusing is in defining Liberal. 4chan subscribes to classical liberalism, which is essentially freedom above all else. And that is 4chans main driving force (or was, some say it became to moderated so 8chan became a thing, but that's besides the point). However done confuse that with being altright. There is a large socially right wing faction on 4chan (different to economically right), which opposes socially progressive. As to how this happened, it is partially due to simple politics. To understand 4chan you must understand it's antithesis, Tumblr. Tumblr represents the far left side of the internet (socially speaking) where as 4chan are the far right. This is largley why 4chan and Tumblr are what they are, they stand tonoppsoe each other. That is not to say that they could not exist without each other, however they both grow due to their reactions with each other, and both attract people who oppose what the other site believes."
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6lfk4g | Why does every person seem to say, "please excuse the mess"? As a former delivery driver, I've seen into houses ranging from spotless to hoarder and they all say the same thing. | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Mainly because mostly everyone in the world, whether they admit it or not, are totally self-conscious of what other people think of them."
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6lfyeg | What was the reason for the Vietnam war? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Capitalists wanted to help other capitalists fight off communists. It failed short term, but succeeded long term."
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6lh4s7 | Why is the U.S. so outraged that N.K. continues to test missiles? | I assume that the U.S. has frequently tested missiles that are capable of much more devastation than N.K.'s missiles. I understand that N.K. is dangerous and unpredictable, but doesn't N.K. think the same thing about the U.S.? What makes N.K.'s tests more deserving of sanctions and punishment? Is it not hypocritical on some level? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"North Korea is run by an almost totally opaque and hyper-paranoid military cult that routinely kidnaps foreign nationals, attacks its neighbors, and threatens mass murder over twitter insults. The other nuclear powers are not nearly on that same level of crazy. Just because you have a gun does not make it hypocritical to be concerned when the crazy guy down the street is on his front lawn, waving a rifle and screaming at a fire hydrant.",
"You might not be aware that North Korea as specifically entered into agreement where they accepted US aid in exchange for specifically not developing weapons programs. Continued development is a violation of those agreements.",
"Answer me this: Why do the police yell at me when I fire guns into the sky? The police fire guns all the time. What makes my gun firing more deserving of punishment than the police and the firing of their guns? The cops think I'm dangerous, but I think the police are dangerous. Isn't it hypocritical?",
"The best answers have been said but NK isn't JUST testing to make sure they don't have duds for missles. They want to be able to reach countries like the US for not so happy reasons. Sure every capable country wants their icbm's or w.e. to have great distance...just in case but this guy is always seeing red. Also, they're tests are more than just tests they're showing off/sending warnings. They don't play well with others nor do they want to. You can argue all you want about how awful trump is but Kim is next level. For arguments sake let's say you want to be a hunter. You talk about hunting a lot then you go buy a rifle and you practice at a range to get better accuracy. But you also know someone who is batshit crazy and he talks about wanting to kill people. Do You want him buying a gun and stand next to you at the range getting better with his rifle? No. Of course not."
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6lh81e | Why is the sinking of the Titanic such a big deal in pop culture? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"It was the biggest, most luxurious ship ever built at the time, was billed as unsinkable, and then it literally sunk in its maiden voyage. So the prominence of the ship, the hubris of its builders (didn't even have enough life boats, because why would unsinkable ship need them?), the size of the victim count as well as the famous/wealthy on board because of the prominence of ship on its first voyage.",
"1.) It wasn't that long ago that it happened. Up until a few years ago there were survivors still alive. 2.) While being built, Titanic got A LOT of press about how big and luxurious it was, and that it was unsinkable. 3.) Several members of the British Aristocracy, as well as America's business elite were onboard. Many died. This would be similar to an accident killing Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, and Elon Musk simultaneously. 4.) It's a story of the American Dream gone wrong for many of the 3rd class passengers. They tried to do what countless others did, and got unlucky. It shares some parallels with the Donnor Party in this regard. 5.) The way they died was rather gruesome, and the dilemmas presented with not enough lifeboats, and decisions about who gets to live and die providing rather morbid fascination for many even today. 6.) The Press in the United States and Britain were already covering the maiden voyage extensively. When the ship sank, that coverage got kicked into overdrive(news agencies love a tragedy, even today) 7.) Hollywood made several movies about the disaster across the decades, culminating with James Cameron's blockbuster in 97 that is one of the highest grossing films ever made when adjusted for inflation.",
"It's the largest naval disaster of all time. 1500 people died. That's half a 9/11. Not to mention the titanic was the largest ship in the world at the time. And then James Cameron made a movie about it, which was the highest grossing movie of all time until Avatar came out."
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6lhsl4 | Why is America so known for slavery and racial inequality, while England (from where America originally came), is not? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"The United States has a substantially different story behind its development and rise than does England and Europe in general, and slavery is a key component of that unique origin story. America, and that's not just the US but the entire new world, required a lot of labor because of the economic necessities of sustaining a new land of colonies. In general the new colonies were heavily sustained by growing and exporting various agricultural products that were in high demand back in Europe. This meant that there was a lot of farming and labor work to be done, and slave labor was a very useful source, especially in an area of the world where there was not a ton of excess labor capability just laying around. So, they found a solution in the slave trade. Europe was in an entirely different place economically than America, and really didn't require slave labor to meet the demands of their economy. That's not to say they didn't participate in the slave trade at all, but just that it was a different place with different needs at the time. But anyway, obviously that impacted the social situation between slaves and slave owners down the line, culminating in the Civil War, and we still feel the effects of those social strainings here in 2017 to one extent or another.",
"I love that I ask a serous question that I'm sure I'm not the only one asking... and I get down voted into oblivion because who the fuck knows.",
"There are not many countries in the 19th century that had such a high number of minorities as in the Americas (North and South), back them most people tended to stay in their own country. The amount of black or Indian or any other race living in the UK was very low compared to that of the Americas. The problem comes from having a large number of people from a different race that is not represented in the government, and this happened big time in the Americas.",
"One aspect is how it got resolved. In the UK it was \"Hmmm, slavery is bad. We shouldn't be able to own slaves.\" \"Yeah ok, lets stop owning slaves.\" America had a whole civil war over it. Another aspect is simply the ratios. Blacks make up about 3% of the uk, closer to 15% of the US. Even if there are similar per capita rates of racism it is going to be a much more visible problem in the US. The UK also has a longer history in total. Black slavery represents a smaller portion of it, so when we are talking what a country is known for that has to be taken into account. There's probably a heap more reasons, and nothing anyone else has commented is wrong. Take your pick.",
"The end of the slavery was less about moral awakening and more about the industrial revolution making slavery economically obsolete. The industrial revolution came a little later to the US than the UK, especially in the south, and was still used after it had become unfashionable in Europe. That staid, the UK didn't abolish slavery until 1833. Another reason is that the UK effectively exported its slavery to its colonies, where indigenous people produced labor intensive raw materials often in slave-like conditions."
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6lizsn | Among criminals, why does it seem to be more acceptable to murder each other than to snitch? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"It's not like the movies where people are always afraid to snitch. For most criminals, if you put a 50 to life sentence in front of them, they will most likely give useful information in exchange for a plea deal",
"Trust. A killer can be watched and you can trust them to be such, where as a snitch cannot be trusted with anything."
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6lj822 | Why do we call bosses in video game bosses. | Mainly what I'm asking is, when and why did that terminology get used and become popular? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"because they are typically the evil entity in charge of all the other evil entities. Like Bowser in Mario, old school bosses were literally in charge of the minions you had fought through to get to them.",
"It seems based on my rather quick research that people just don't know about the answer to this one. This is some guy on the internet's theory (about as credible as me) so take it with a grain of salt. > The earliest source I found is from a 1980 arcade operating manual > of Space Panic, mentioning bosses. Another enemy in that game is a > 'don'. > > In early 1980's Japan, \"bosu\" (loanword from English) had a > derogatory connotation to do with Mafia. Translating \"bosu\" would > give you \"boss\", but in English the negative meaning is not present. > > Old Kung Fu films use this term for mobsters too (Bruce Lee in The > Big Boss). And I found a story -This one is repeated a lot, and might be a bit more credible- about the first video game boss: > There were other Dungeons and Dragons type games on Plato. A > player started on the outside of the dungeon and went in was > attacked by monsters. If you got out of the dungeon, you kept the > gold you had accumulated. Your player was saved from one day to > the next, from one week to the next. If you died, then you lost > everything. The dungeons had a finite size, and people would play > the game for hours (which suprised us) and sooner or later would > go into every corner of the dungeon. The character got stronger > by gathering magic swords, etc. At some point, the character > would be so strong that he could kill everything, at which point > the player would lose interest in the game and quit. > > We noticed that people created characters and spent time naming > them and getting \"attached\" to them, and kind of treated them > like a person. So, we asked something like, \"Suppose that the > character is real. Why would a real person keep going into the > same dungeon over and over again?\" And, then the answer was > simple: To bring out something really spectacular. > So, then we said, \"Hey, what if the player had to 'bring out an > orb'?\" And then we said, \"Yeah, but if the orb is worth anything, > then something really neat has to defend it.\" So, we put the orb > into a \"treasure room\" and decided to stack a bunch of smaller > monsters on top of a really big monster in the treasure room > directly in front of \"the orb\". The character had to defeat 30 > smaller monsters before confronting the \"Golden Dragon\"--a > monster with probably 1,000,000 hit points. If he defeated the > Golden Dragon, then he got the orb. He would then have to fight > his way out of the dungeon. > > In retrospect, what we did was create a video game that was a > story. It had a beginning (the character initially enters the > dungeon and builds up strenght), a middle (the character explores > the dungeon), a climax (he finds the orb and battles the > monsters, before confronting the Golden Dragon), a denoument > (the character, weakened by the battle, staggers back through > the dungeon, avoiding monsters and finally to safety), and an end > (the charcter after leaving the dungeon with the orb is enshrined > in a hall of fame). We did this in 1974-1975. > Plato -- or \"Programmed Logic for Automated Teaching > Operations\" -- was a mainframe computing environment whose > users often exchanged games illicitly to run on the side. Being > from the 70s, this would predate all but the earliest video games - > - and really, the Pong/Pacman/Asteroids generation was barely > sophisticated enough to support stories, let alone something as > complex as a final boss. Considering the unofficial/underground > nature of the \"video game industry\" of the time, this is probably > the best origin story you'll get. > Of course, the idea of a hero confronting progressively stronger > foes until a climactic battle with the primary villain is about as old > as fiction itself. Maybe Gilgamesh... though I'm sure there were > plenty of long-forgotten \"hero's journey\" epics that were traded > back and forth long before that. ;)",
"It comes from kung fu movies. The hero would have to fight his way through a bunch of weak minions on his way to battle the big boss who was the strongest warrior of all the bad guys."
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6lkkz1 | How did Americans lose their British accent? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"After the colonies were founded, language evolution continued on both sides of the Atlantic. Since the two populations of speakers were isolated enough that changes didn't cross over well from one population to the other, *they both developed new features the other didn't*. American English has arguably been the more conservative of the two and is in some respects more similar to the English of the 1700s than modern British English is.",
"Americans didn't lose their British accent. All accents today evolved from prior ones. Neither today's 'British accent' (any of them) nor today's 'American accent' (any of them) is the accent of peoples from hundreds of years ago."
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6lkpe0 | Why is passive voice almost universally looked down on? (no pun intended) | Pretty much the title. | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"It depends on the style of writing. Passive voice is the norm in many types of technical writing. However, passive voice is generally frowned upon in writing intended to entertain (such as fiction or journalism) because it has a distancing effect for the audience. You end up with a bland chronicling of activity rather than being thrust in the middle of the action."
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6llfuw | How does "Arbiet macht frei" mean "work sets you free"? What german grammatical or literary rule is happening there to make "macht" which normally means power instead mean "sets you" | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"You are mistaken in the point that macht in the sentence means power. There are two very similar words: \"Macht(capitalized)\" is a noun and means power \"macht\" in this case is a verb and the third person singular of the base word \"machen\" which means to do/to make, so macht means he/she/it makes. So basically it's Arbeit (Work) macht (it makes/makes you) frei (free), getting to the meaning work makes you free/work sets you free.",
"Macht is the third-person singular conjugated form of the verb machen, which means \"to make\". It's a totally different word than die Macht (power), it just happens to be spelled similarly.",
"I see where you're coming from. There's *\"die Macht\"* which translates to *\"the power\"*. Meanwhile there's also *\"machen\"*, which means *\"makes\"*, *\"creates\"*, and a few others of that sort. Here the latter is used, which is *\"macht\"* in its 3^rd person singular *(form of he/she/it)*. So it means *\"work makes free\"* if translated literally.",
"The noun that means *power* \"Macht\" coincidentally looks the same as the third person singular conjugated form of the verb \"machen\" which means *make*, *do* or in this case, *set*."
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6llnna | Why is the campaign to free Tibet so much more popular than the Tamil push for independence from the Buddhist majority in Sri Lanka that has claimed more than 100,000 lives? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"The kindly old man Dalai Lama is a much better PR face than Tamil Tiger suicide bombers. The fact that Tibet is fighting global economic power China instead of an island nation many people couldn't find on a map helps visibility too."
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6lm909 | What is the "Dove Foundation", and why do they endorse awful kids movies? | I often see a lot of knock off animated movies that have a Dove " Family Friendly" logo, why do they ALWAYS have this logo? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"The Dove Foundation is one of those groups that review movies/media for \"family friendliness\" (which really means \"adherence to conservative Christian morality\"). Few mainstream movies usually hit these groups' ideal for \"perfect\" family friendliness, so the ones that DO (and get the seal) are usually ones made and marketed directly towards that market: smaller markets, smaller budgets, specifically targeted market = \"awful\" movie.",
"They equate \"family friendliness\" with \"conforms to our narrow view of Christian values\", and at the same time aren't really concerned if the movie is any good. There is a segment of society who think seeing people in swimsuits and hearing the word \"dammit\" is too risque. That means there is a market for tepid, cheaply made movies, and the Family Friendly logo makes it easier to find them."
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6lmfih | Why would allowing companies to extend their intellectual property rights as long as they were using the property be a bad thing? | I've been pondering this for a while and I get the argument for the public domain but with the protections that fan created art and fiction get under fair use laws why would it be bad for Disney or any other corporation to try and retain the rights to their core IP so long as they were using it? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"The original concept of Intellectual Property was to grant TEMPORARY protections on an idea, with the understanding that it would eventually enter the public domain so that society could benefit from it outside of a profit-generation center. Disney obviously wants to protect how people can use Mickey, and wants to continue making money off of things it created. Eventually it should enter the public domain, but people are having trouble defining when that should be. Is it more important for the public to use things creatively? Or is it more important to protect initial investments in expensive IP for as long as it's deemed useful by the investors?"
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6lmiq4 | Given it's importance and potential benefits, why isn't it common practice by the government to teach people how to raise children right? | School can often only do so much if the parents have no idea what they're doing. I'm not talking totalitarian indoctrination, but basic civil values, e.g. how a few chores can go a long way or how to love a kid without spoiling it. Seems like it would be a huge step towards a future with fewer idiots and assholes. | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Because: A) Noone objectively knows the best way to raise a particular child. You can make lose generalizations based on statistical averages, but there are still huge variences. B) You can claim it will not be political indoctrination, but I can guarantee you someone will attempt to use it for that, and there will be appropriate skepticism of that sort of effort by politicians, a notoriously corrupt subset of the general population. C) Even a good-faith effort by the government will run into beurocratic and constitutional issues that would prevent the efficiency of such a program, such as searching a kid's bag for homework/candy/drugs on mere suspicion. A parent can do that because they are a partent and not the State.",
"Governments around the world have a large say in how children are raised. In the US there are a number of agencies whose sole mission is to help families raise children \"right\". Now what is viewed as the \"right\" way to raise a child can differ wildly between families, individual children, religious practices, and political beliefs. However, there are laws and general best practices that the United States has deemed \"right\" for everyone and every child. Laws have been created to help children in the areas of child abuse, child abandonment, genital mutilation, child support, vaccination (only applicable legally in public schools), sex trafficking, age of consent, statutory rape, etc. The above listed are to combat the extreme baseline of what is definitely not \"right\" and these laws usually are associated with stiff punishments and social outcasting if broken. There are government programs at all levels (county, state, federal) that are designed to help families and children in other ways besides legal as well. Some examples are, the food pyramid, school lunch programs, food stamps, daycare assistance, health and wellness education, rec centers with childhood programs. I realize your question is mainly aimed at the little things in an average household that can be done to slowly alter a child's personality and worldview. The government does not have the time, nor does it want to spend the resources on programs designed to reduce the amount of idiots and assholes. They are more concerned with making sure those idiots and assholes grow up without severe mental or physical trauma and are properly fed, cared for, and do not die of an easily treatable/vaccinated disease.",
"There is no singular way to raise children right. Particularly in a society that values liberty and freedom.",
"So you think in the current political climate that it is a good idea to let the government \"help\" raise a child? I'm sure that would go over fantastically and there would be no ill effects.",
"Who determines what is \"right?\" I suspect my neighbors and I would disagree on how to raise our kids. Also, some localities and states so have parenting classes for adults to cover basics.",
"In the USA, there is a major attitude among many voters to reduce government intrusion in private lives. While I personally agree with you and have even had the same idea, I imagine such an initiative would be used by politicians as inflammatory talking points in order to reduce attention on major issues like corporate deregulation, for example. I wonder if such classes, booklets or other publications are available at public health services and if so, how to reach a wider public.",
"As someone else mentioned, there are certainly a lot of readily available resources out there for parents that are designed to help with raising children, from punishment escalation to having the \"difficult\" conversations about life, and when to do what. The issue is that there are vast cultural differences that are deeply ingrained in many of us from childhood, and child rearing techniques are included in that. Even if a parent or potential parent were to go to a class on how to be a good parent, they will likely dismiss anything that conflicts with the things they learned from their parents/grandparents/family about how to handle certain situations. If you were raised that children exist to serve at their parents behest (a ton of household chores, etc), it's unlikely that someone teacher is going to convince you that maybe you should give less chores to your child and let them socialize with their peers a little more. And that's just one example. But let's say that the pros outweigh the cons, how do you get people to take this course? Is it part of the high school curriculum? If it isn't, even something government sponsored is unlikely to reach any more people than the resources we already have available. Those who don't use the resources already available either think they have enough of a handle on it, or don't have the time to go somewhere to learn.",
"In some countries, it is. Just not yours. (You may choose to be happy or sad about this...)",
"I think you are underestimating how contentious the issue of how to raise children is. Just answering a basic question like \"should you hit your kids, yes/no/maybe\" will literally have some group of people pulling their kids out of school because the answer the school gave was wrong no matter which answer they gave. (and I am aware this post will be get 500 replies of people throwing in their two cents that whatever answer they like is the one true answer)"
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6lor75 | The Tea Party in American Politics | Coming from the UK, I don't know much about American politics. I do, however, understand it's pretty much a two-party thing (realistically anyway). What, then, is the tea party, and why do they have a seemingly bad reputation. Is that yellow snake flag associated with them? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"The Tea Party was a conservative movement that arose after the 2008 election, whose basic argument was that the GOP had lost touch with its base by not being right-wing enough. While it is perceived as a reaction against Obama, I would suggest instead that it was more of a reaction to John McCain. In 2008, McCain ran a very centrist, moderate, \"The Democrats are great guys and I can work with them\" kind of campaign. To many hardline conservatives who were already dispirited after GWB, this was pretty much the final nail in the coffin for the GOP Establishment. Partly the disagreement was ideological, as the Tea Partiers felt that the GOP Establishment had \"sold out\" to the Democrats, media, and DC elites. Partly it was simply a question of popular appeal; an old man in a suit reading from an Establishment script was simply not attractive to grass-roots conservatives. But it was also based on the idea that politics was now very tribal, and any attempt to cosy up to the opposite side was seen as weakness and not strength. Tea Partiers believed that McCain, and to an extent Romney in 2012, allowed the Democrats to bully them into adopting left-leaning positions and throw their own supporters under the bus. They also believed that McCain and Romney didn't do anywhere near enough to \"fight back\" against what they perceive as a biased, Republican-hating media narrative. The Tea Partiers believe in the \"culture war\", and felt the GOP Establishment was rolling over and conceding defeat. In this context, the election of Trump can be seen as the culmination of what the Tea Party wanted: a populist, aggressive, anti-Establishment conservative. His election demonstrates (for better or worse) that a more hardline conservative who appeals directly to the grassroots and completely bypasses the DC/media machine, can engage the Republican base and ride that wave to an election win."
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6lr57m | Why are some court cases allowed to be filmed, but others aren't? | For example, the Hulk Hogan and OJ trials have tons of footage, but from what I recall the Michael Jackson trial was reenacted based on the transcripts for TV. | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"In the U.S., it very much depends on the state and the individual judges. Some states have bans on recording with cell phones, some allow them with permission of judges. You would have to look up the individual state for the rules. Here: URL_0"
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6lsj7x | Why in the wealthiest countries, like Japan, population is declining, while in the poor countries, like Bangladesh, population is exploding? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Besides what other commenters said: Historically, very poor countries had a very high infant mortality rate, much more women dying during childbirth, and also a general lower life expectancy. So they started having children early in their lives and had many - it ends up part of the culture. With the (even modest) advance of medicine, healthcare, and people migrating to cities, you have a quick drop in infant mortality, an increase in general fertility, and longer fertile life. These factors, with the same \"high yield\" boosts the population growth. Whenever I see ads for humanitarian aid to miserable countries, most focusing in helping with healthcare and child care, I wonder if they also put enough parallel effort in birth control, because simply making sure a population grows way beyond the people's and country's capabilities to maintain it just perpetuates extreme poverty.",
"In poorer countries like Bangladesh, the people tend to live very traditional lifestyles - which means you get married when you're old enough and have a family because this is what people do. If this is was what you were planning on doing all along, having a large family instead of a very small one doesn't seem like a very big deal - especially if that means there are extra hands to help out with the work. In the wealthiest countries, people are encouraged from a very young age to basically be free and do whatever you want, and that often means that the young adults who might otherwise be having babies instead don't want to interrupt their careers and other goals to raise kids. Eventually some of them do have kids, but often later in life and fewer - partly because they're still not wanting to interrupt their other goals TOO much, and also partly because it's harder to have kids when you're older.",
"Countries like Bangladesh are in the process of demographic transition - largely the result of industrialisation. [Kurzgesagt has a great video about it here]( URL_0 ). Industrialisation brings with it, among other things, lower infant mortality, higher standards of living for more people, more people getting access to education etc. All these things also lead to other important stuff which I will not go into. Before the industrial revolution and the advent of modern medicine, parents would have to get a lot of children to expect have 2-3 of them survive to adulthood. Something like 3/4 children under the age of 5 died in the 1700s in London. A mere century later, that number was 1/3. So over time, the would-be parents realises that if they want 2 children, they don't need to produce 5 or 6, or more. On a personal note, my great grandmother had 7 sibilings growing up (she was born 1916, and it still wasn't unusal to have more than 8 children at that time). Herself had 4 children. My grandfather had 2, and my father had 2. So over the course of 4 generations, my familiy ended up on 2 children, which is pretty much the average for most industrialised nations.",
"A lot of undeveloped nations have rural villages where families are expected to have large families. This has to do with the fact that household tasks require the labor of the children. The children grow up have a bunch of kids, rinse and repeat. As you can imagine as a nation becomes more developed and urban the cost for additional children increases.",
"Children are the only way to have a pension and someone that, hopefully, cares for you in 3rd world nations. Here the government and insurances will take care, hence no need for 12 kids Oh and no access to birth control, bad education, nothing to do but have sex to enjoy life at least a bit",
"Educated people tend to have less children. First, because they aren't expecting to use children as support, and second, are more able to understand the bigger implications and difficulties of having a child. Finally, because they are more aware of contraceptive use and benefits, mostly because poorer and less educated people are more religious.",
"I'm a Geography major. Here is the 411: A lot of what was said is correct. The two major factors though are: 1. - how can I ever buy shit? 2. - How can I retire? In DEVELOPED nations (i.e most of North America, Europe, some Asia), people are highly educated (this does not mean smart), and know that the more children they have, the more expensive life will get. Companies or places of work have set retirement plans, there is some sort of health care. Life goal pretty much is have kids (for most), send them through a school until they be 18, and then fend for themselves. Therefore, it's counterproductive to have kids+1 if you want to say travel, buy a seconds home, have many cars, live \"the normal life\" In DEVELOPING nations, where industries tend to be agriculture favored, the more children you have, the more employees you have. Also, as the children grow they will earn more money. When you get old and are bed ridden or living on some mountain, your children will look after you. This is a general trend in developing nations. Your retirement fund is hopefully better educated children looking out for you. It sadly is what keeps poverty poor. Finally, the cherry on top, most developing nations are highly religious, which keeps them from practicing some sort of birth control.",
"I think a lot of people are missing that fact that having children in a developed country is a more complicated and expensive process than in the developing world. There are a lot of bells a whistles when it comes to raising kids in the developed world (I mean, look at something like car seats and strollers, items that are considered a basic necessity involved in raising a child, they cost hundreds or even thousands of dollars apiece and are something you rarely see kids in the developing world needing or using). Daycare is something that is also considered essential and costs a boatload. Then there's the fact that it's also considered a necessity for kids in the developed world to get increasingly higher education levels resulting in parents shelling out not just money for college but also tutors and mental enrichment games and activities. Everyone needs to have a baby Einstein. Having kids is a pretty basic thing but the more advanced a country gets it seems the more intricate having a kid gets and the added cost, complication and stress means a lot of people can really only handle 1-3.",
"As mentioned, culture plays a big part. If you're a poor farming family, you depend on as many hands as possible to help, so more children = more work done. That being said, it is also about education and resources as a well. People in wealthier countries have access to better education that allows them to make decisions about things like contraception and population control/impact, whereas a poor person in a community that isn't connected to much outside of their own village won't have that kind of knowledge. You also need to think about religious views on contraception. There has been an increasing amount of pressure in recent years for the Pope to have a more open view about Catholics using contraception if necessary. Why? Because catholics in wealthier countries like France and the UK were sensible enough to either override this \"rule\" with common sense, but catholics in poorer countries, such as those in India and Malaysia, were interpreting this negative view on contraception as \"god wants me to have unprotected sex and every child is a gift from god, so I shouldn't prevent this\". This meant that the latter would have a family with about 8 children, which they couldn't support to a good standard because they couldn't afford food, healthcare or education."
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6lu2ls | The riots in Hamburg (G20-summit) | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Well, it's been going on since 1999, I think Seattle was the first big protest against World Trade Organization. It's basically rich guys setting global prices and the people think they should have a say in those closed door meetings. G20 is a little different (these are countries' leaders not corporations) but it's a protest against globalization without representation.",
"This is a very complicated issue since it's 20+ leaders of different countries around the world. The G20 summit is almost always protested in some fashion by people who are anti-establishment and anti-capitalism. Politics, in general, make people angry in an unlimited amount of ways. As an American, I can pretty safely assume that the presence of people like Donald Trump (President of the United States of America), Vladmir Putin (President of Russia), and Recep Tayyip Erdoğan (President of Turkey) is creating a lot of people to be angry and lash out. A majority of Americans at least find these 3 to be some of the worst political leaders. I can only assume people in Germany and nearby European nations feel similar about these 3 politicians and even others that Americans aren't as knowledgeable about. As for riots themselves, it only takes a handful of bad people to make a group of peaceful protestors look like a giant angry mob. There are also reports that these G20 protests are typical grounds for anarchists to be violent."
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6luchl | What will happen after the 14th Dalai Lama dies? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Well actually the successor to the Dalai Lama is called the Panchen Lama. One of the jobs of the Panchen Lama is to go out into the world to find the Dalai Lama's re-incarnated soul. Basically, the two switch roles as the spiritual head of Tibetan Buddhism and part of their jobs is to continually find each others' re-incarnated souls. The problem is the current Dalai Lama already found the next Panchen Lama - Gedhun Choekyi Nyima - and he has been missing since age 6, since 1995. It is suspected that the Chinese kidnapped him to put in their own Panchen Lama (who will probably pick a Dalai Lama who is sympathetic to the Chinese). Gedhun Choekyi Nyima is the official Panchen Lama as he was appointed by the current Dalai Lama. However, with him no where to be found, China looks to instate Gyaincain Norbu (the Chinese appointed Panchen Lama) as the actual Panchen Lama. It is culturally significant to have two Panchen Lamas as it deals with the Tibetan occupation by China. China wants control of the Tibetan area, so they look to control the spiritual leadership in order to assimilate Tibet into China. This is hugely infuriating to the Tibetans as it is seen, to them, as a Chinese plot to kidnap and murder their next president, to replace him with a Chinese puppet \"Panchem Lama\", and a spite on Buddhism by disobeying the tradition to gain political power and natural resources in Tibet. When the Dalai Lama dies, there will probably be a war or massive fights/riots in Tibet over this Panchen Lama appointment."
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6lun0e | Why is the Washington monument not a statue of George Washington? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"There was a competition to decide the design. The winning design was a hugely tall stone obelisk topped with a statue of Washington, oddly enough. However it was deemed too expensive ($1,000,000 in 1845!), and so the design was cut down to the obelisk only."
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6luvix | Why are suicide rates so high wealthy western countries, but in places like Africa, where people are starving and live in terrible conditions, the rates are low? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"The suicide rate is not accurate in most developing countries so it's hard to know. Some countries also deliberately understate the numbers. Also there are forms of disguised suicide where a person will take extreme risks that may lead to fatal injury - for example a teen who join an armed militia, it may be driven by a death wish-",
"A number of reasons: * developed countries take a greater interest in tracking these things, even if they reflect badly on society, which can gives the impression they happen more frequently...they often report more domestic violence and sexual assaults as well * many less developed countries have outdated notions of mental illness and take greater efforts to conceal suicides when they occur * it is often difficult to tell if a death was a suicide or something else, and when you live somewhere that untimely death is common, even more so * the same underlying mental illness that leads to suicide can cause death in other ways...a subsistence farmer too depressed to work might starve before their depressing is bad enough to commit suicide"
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6lvfs8 | Why are some 'covered' songs not considered covers while others are? | I'm thinking of a lot of Frank Sinatra songs that he didn't write or originally perform that aren't considered covers of other artists from the ratpack era. Is that because those artist's renditions are viewed more like orchestras playing a symphony where they aren't expected to write tier own music? More confusing to me is why some songs, for example 'Hurt' by Johnny Cash, are considered covers (or at least commonly called a cover) whilst 'A Boy named Sue' isn't. Any method to the madness there? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Frank Sinatra and his fellow crooners sang 'American Standards'. From the wiki: The Great American Songbook, also known as \"American Standards\", is the canon of the most important and influential American popular songs and jazz standards from the early 20th century. Although several collections of music have been published under the title, it does not refer to any actual book or specific list of songs, but to a loosely defined set including the most popular and enduring songs from the 1920s to the 1950s that were created for Broadway theatre, musical theatre, and Hollywood musical film. read more here: URL_0"
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6lxcrj | How did the ice cream truck come to be? And how do they stay in business if they only sell product in the summertime? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"text": [
"There are tons of seasonal companies out there. They typically only hire the bulk of their staff in the summer months and let them go when the season is over. Labor costs are by and large the biggest expense that company has. They don't keep inventory over the winter, so costs during the down season are minimal. As to how it came to be, well street vending wasn't invented with ice cream. Carts sold lots of things prior to ice cream. When portable refrigeration became possible someone simply decided to sell it off a 'cart' too."
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6lxxuo | Why is it inappropriate to "speak ill of the dead" even if the person who has died wasn't a very good person? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"text": [
"The dead cannot defend themselves. In most ethical systems, a person has the right to confront their accuser and attempt to defend themselves, or choose a person to defend them. The dead obviously cannot do this, so it's generally considered impolite to attack them. This idea has been around for centuries.",
"IMHO because it's counterproductive. There are some practical reasons to speak ill of people and to shame them. Shame (and fear of it) is likely to influence behavior of people - but the dead people won't change. Describing the evil deeds of someone warns others from trusting them and protects potential future victims - but the dead people don't threaten anyone anymore. If there's no benefit from this, there are practical reasons to avoid speaking ill of people - for *live* people the benefits may outweigh these costs, but for dead people they don't. Holding grudges and harboring bad thoughts hurts your own wellbeing and health. It's better *for you* to let go and forgive. Make peace with what you can't change, and you definitely can't change dead people. Also, gossip, speaking ill and rumormongering harms social cohesion and makes the group weaker. It may well be that the bad things are a lie, and the blame is on someone else - but the dead can't protect themselves. It may well be that the bad things are true, but they look like you're pushing the blame on someone who won't protest. So this also is an argument against doing so - even for live people, speaking ill of someone often casts a bad light on the speaker themselves.",
"1) Cultural superstitions about calling evil to focus on you from the world of the dead. Even if the superstition is not current it has hold over influence on societal behaviors. 2) The cultural standard that it is wrong to talk bad about someone behind their back. Someone who is dead cannot defend themselves or confront someone accusing them of wrong doing. 3) The cultural standard of not saying things that will upset the grieving friends and family during their time of mourning."
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6lzhds | Why is rolling your eyes a universal sign of being annoyed? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"text": [
"It isn't a universal expression of annoyance, though. In fact only since the 1930s or 40s did it start to have that connotation in the U.S. Watch old movies, and you'll see it was an expression of wry amusement. (Look at even older movies and it was a \"come hither\" gesture!) It evolved from amusement to the dismissive \"oh, brother\" or \"oh, please\" around WWII. From dismissive to contemptuous was a short step. The meaning of the gesture is purely cultural. There aren't many studies specifically on it, but eye-rolling is not an automatic gesture. It's consciously done. Many cultures do use looking-away gestures to indicate dismissiveness or rejection. But not all involve the eye roll. The homogenizing influence of mass media is starting to spread this one, though.",
"Probably because if the iron bonds of politeness are restraining you (from leaving the room, making a face, punching your opponent, leaping up and hurling your own dung, whatever expresses your actual mood) then only your eyes are free to turn away. It can be deliberate, but is just as likely to be subconscious.",
"I'm not an expert in this type of thing but I have a crack at this. In every culture I'm aware of, eye contact during conversation is the biggest way to show interest. Rolling eyes is like a big f u to that because you actively show that you don't want to engage."
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6lzpzp | Why was Uber's culture a big deal? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"text": [
"> Customers didn't care one bit. So honestly what was the problem? Some customers did care. I personally started using Lyft more often and now prefer their services. The company culture also drives innovation. Companies with a strong culture and work environment are more productive. You can retain the best and brightest employees and those working for you are more dedicated to the mission of the product and the company. And when your public persona is that of a difficult company to work for the best talent looks elsewhere when applying for work."
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6lzqth | Why are people against mandatory background checks before buying a gun? | I'm not trying to start a fight, although sure this will cause one. I'm not American so I honestly want to understand why anyone is against background checks before gun purchases to stop criminals or mentally disturbed people getting guns. | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"In the US, there's already a [mandatory background check]( URL_0 ) to buy a gun in a retail setting (if you buy a new or used gun from a store, you will have a background check). Further, because the federal government can regulate sales of things that cross state lines, it's illegal for two people to sell a gun privately without involving a retail store (and thus a background check) if they don't reside in the same state. There isn't a background check on private sales within most states. So when someone says, we want mandatory background checks on all gun sales, they mean they want them on private, in state gun sales. The opposition points out that we enforce the background checks on retail sales by [very strictly controlling the inventory of retailers]( URL_1 ) (they must keep a log book of every single gun that goes through their store). Gun owners are exceedingly concerned that a similar registration of the guns they own gives the state a tool that's much too useful should it ever wish to seize the guns (since it would know where every single gun in the nation is). This is why there's opposition, the current background checks cover almost all gun sales, and there's too little trust that the means of enforcing private background checks would eventually be the means to facilitate a seizure of private guns.",
"Most people that are against them aren't against them entirely for the most part people are ok with the current system of if you buy a gun at a store you get a background check. The debate is usually around whether or not the should be required for personal gun sales/transfers. So if i sell you a gun that i own I would be responsible for making sure you are legally able to own a gun. People dont want that responsibility placed on them they feel it could end up hurting them",
"Many people see it as a slippery slope situation, and they are not wrong, either. There is an element of the gun control crowd that wants to ban all guns. That's not politically tenable right now, so they want to do it in little steps. First background checks, then broaden the prohibited categories until the background check becomes prove to us you really need a gun. So even when a gun control proposal seems reasonable, the pro-gun people will oppose it, because they have no faith it will stop at \"reasonable\".",
"Some see it as an infringement, and thus unconstitutional. Some say the constitution entitles all citizens to guns, not just those who can pass some kind of background check. Some feel if you give an inch on the gun issue, even a reasonable inch, the people they feel are \"anti-gun\" will push the issue down the slippery slope towards total gun confiscation.",
"Personally I can agree with having background checks in private sales in theory. However were ultimately talking about a mountain out of a molehill argument. So few gun sales would be affected by a law of this nature that it appears to me and many others to be nothing more than a power grab. As it stands you can't legally buy a firearm in any store or gunshow without a background check. I encourage you to YouTube any of the videos of ppl going undercover to try and get a gun at gun show without a check(this is where supporters of laws like to act like a loophole exists. Hint: it doesn't exist). The only firearm sales that would be affected would be private sales or transfers between citizens who are not dealers which makes up a very very small minority of gun sales. Because of how little a law mandating universal checks would actually change things, it is better to oppose what amounts to be a power grab, to prevent further grabs, than to allow the law to go through. It would be a lot better to come up with ways to help treat and prevent a mentally ill person from obtaining a firearm, or to end the root causes of most gun crime aka the war on drugs. As far as the mentally ill are concerned, no background check in the world will ever screen them out because of our medical privacy laws. There are a lot of effective ideas that can be attempted if common ground could be found but it's not likely to happen any time soon. BTW the same amount of ppl are killed yearly from drunk drivers when compared to homicides. That's not including just regular old traffic accident fatalities. And yet we give 16yo kids the ability to drive alone in most states after barely needing to prove any proficiency behind the wheel. Even ISIS has begun to realize that all they need is an automobile to inflict a mass casualty incident. That should scare everyone whole lot more. You will get into a car accident in your life, most will never hear a gun shot fired in anger and many more will never hear a gun shot at all in their lives. Let's solve problems that are real threats to the majority of ppls lives instead of focusing on red herrings given to us by those in political parties. That's just my 2cents on the matter.",
"We already *have* background checks for purchasing guns. The issue surrounds private sales between individual citizens. You'll also notice that most gun owners have no issue with said background checks, but they'd like to do it themselves and have access to NICS (which is the system used to perform the background check). If individual citizens can get access to NICS, there's no record of the sale, which is what we're interested in; having a third party (which would invariably have to be the government) do it means there *is* a record of the sale, which would invariably have to involve the name of the buyer and the seller. That is, essentially, a gun registry, which is a big concern among gun owners.",
"The background check system in Australia varies a little from state to state. But **ALL** states check for *criminal history, mental health and domestic violence*. Some also have *other* listed, as well as *addiction, residential and physical*. What they mean by those last ones, I don't know. I believe the first two are the most important. But we also have tighter laws here than the USA. For instance, even if you are fully licenced for a particular gun, you **CAN NOT** just sell that gun to another fully licenced person privately. **ALL** transactions **MUST** be done through a licenced dealer. **ALL firearms MUST be registered**, and the dealer is the one that supplies and files the paperwork with the government body.",
"They are mandatory when buying from a retailer. Private sales in some states require background checks on private sales as well The big argument is that it will lead to a national gun registry, making future gun bans a possibility. They'll know who has what, and how many. The problem with increased regulations, is that they never know when to stop."
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6m2qj4 | Why do we lie to children about Santa Claus & the Easter Bunny? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"It provides them a sense of wonder and magic. It is the same reason we tell them fairy tales and fantasy stories.",
"So they will behave. We teach them Santa will not bring presents if they do not behave and we also teach them he is always watching year round, giving them motivation to not only do good things but preventing them from doing bad things. As for the Easter Bunny, children seem to like it because it leaves them magical eggs with goodies inside, so people perpetuate something that makes a holiday more fun for the child's imagination. I think a majority of kids don't care as much for the Easter Bunny, though. If Santa did not bring them presents for their good behavior then they would more than likely be afraid of him. An old man watches them all year round and then breaks into their house for no reason? They probably would not be sitting up all night if he wasn't represented as a jolly man with presents and would probably be running to their parent's room to sleep with them instead. How many children would enjoy Halloween if there was no candy? I'd imagine people just started associating holidays where children are rewarded with different make believe creatures, especially ones where they're going to be giving their kids a gift. This includes little happenings like losing a tooth then the Tooth Fairy brings them money. Santa is a perfect way to make a child behave while exercising their imagination, sense of wonder, and over time their critical thinking skills.",
"Because it's an enjoyable lie There's no reason behind it other than people like to believe it's true"
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6m345v | What are the arguments for lobbying? | Lobbying as a concept seems absolutely absurd to me. In practice, it has become even more insane. For a class assignment, we have been spending a lot of time on URL_0 , which lists all the campaign donations representatives receive. It is so disgusting to see lawmakers and politicians completely pivoting on issues after receiving a campaign donation from an industry or corporation. What are the arguments for lobbying? It must serve some purpose, but I cannot see it. If politicians are meant to represent the people, how can the constitution allow such a practice that so clearly makes politicians favor their donors' interests far over their constituents'? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"text": [
"Because lobbying is a really broad field. If you have ever contacted your representative, you are lobbying. If a charity contacts a senator hoping for more attention for the particular problem they are fighting, they are lobbying. If you are part of a teacher's union and you know the government is thinking about certain changes that you feel would make it hard for students to learn and you contact them about that, again, you are lobbying. Any attempt to influence how law makers will vote / proceed essentially falls under lobbying. There are definitely arguments for getting money out of lobbying and limiting donations and the like. But unless you want to create a situation where you as an individual can never ever speak to the people you elect, you can't stamp out lobbying entirely.",
"Lobbying is the way for any group of constituents to get their opinions and ideas in front of legislators. If the AARP gives feedback about proposed changes to Social Security, that's lobbying. If doctors recommend mandating that a particular preventative test be covered by health insurance and govt medical programs, that's lobbying. If you write a letter to your congressman expressing your opinion, that's lobbying. Certainly there are areas where lobbying produces benefits for a small constituency (like a company or industry) to the detriment of everybody else, and this is a problem, say the current debate about Net Neutrality. It's also an issue when lobbying groups basically write legislation to their benefit and get congressmen to submit it as bills, rather than creating well thought out bills that take all sides of the issue into consideration.",
"Lobbying is not donating, lobbying is speech. Lobbying is explicitly protected by the First Amendment. Only individuals can donate to federal campaigns, and only up to $2700. Corporations cannot donate *at all*. Anyone can engage in political speech, and can facilitate that speech with money - that's not a donation.",
"Even the smartest, most well informed person in the world doesn't know about every subject in the world. One day, they are making legislation regarding fishing rights off the coast of Alaska. The next, they are discussing radio frequency distribution. And so on and so on. In order to become informed about these subjects, they rely on experts, who happen to be lobbyists."
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6m480b | Why did the Greeks not just climb Mount Olympus to see what was up? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"djyw8oi",
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"text": [
"Imagine you are a Greek. You ignore the warnings from the priests telling you how the gods will strike you down, and decide to climb the 10,00 foot mountain anyways. Well, once you get to a certain point, the air thins out. It becomes cold, even downright freezing, and all of the trees have vanished. At that point, you would probably turn back, taking it as a sign that you shouldn't be there. Even if you didn't, with no climbing equipment, and no trails set up, you would likely fall to your death, get stuck and starve, or just succumb to the elements.",
"Two reasons, and reason one reinforces reason two. First, mountain climbing is damn difficult, even in modern times. At 10,000 feet, its no mount Everest, but its still a tough climb. Second, the culture considered it sacred, and would have highly discouraged anyone from trying. You can imagine how easy it would have been to point to a couple of dead bodies on the mountain and say that they upset the gods."
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6m491y | Why does English not have a formal 'you' unlike other languages descended from Latin, like Italian? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"djyrio9",
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"text": [
"“You” *is* formal, as well as plural. What modern English lost was the familiar/singular “thou.” There's a line ~~in one of Shakespeare's plays where one character says to another~~ about Sir Walter Raleigh “I thou thee, thou traitor!” The use of “thou” in this implies that the speaker thinks so little of his listener that he refuses to use the formal pronoun. Besides that, English is a Germanic language. Not a Romance language. It simply has a *lot* of words and influence from Latin, French, and Greek, especially in law and science.",
"English is not descended from Latin. It is a Germanic Language, though it was influenced by Latin. But it did use to have a formal and informal \"you\". \"You\" was the formal, and \"Thou\" was the informal. We lost the informal over time. It is similar to how we lost the plural \"Ye\" over time."
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6m4vz2 | How did people not question all of the words Shakespeare came up with? | How did so many of Shakespeare's words catch on? Now adays if someone made up a bunch of words we would say "wait what?! Those aren't words!" So how did Shakespearean words like "blushing, impede, mimic, torture, etc." take root and become normal in English language? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"djywtkf",
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"text": [
"It is unlikely that Shakespeare made up words out of nowhere. He recorded words known at the time, invented basic words by combining others in ways that would be easily understood. What he did invent was *phrases*, and those could be understood in context because they were metaphors or were parts of the play",
"People are still making up a bunch of words today too, and we don't go 'that isn't a word!!' because those words are related to already known words or easily understood from the context. The words selfie or upvote or reblog also didn't used to exist, but they easily caught on because it is clear what they mean. The words Shakespeare came up with are most contractions of already known words or words where it is very easy to guess from the context of the scene what is meant, or things like turning a noun into an adjective. That sort of playing with language is really easy for people to accept.",
"Surely you're joking. NSFW, ROFLOL, airball, up-fake, five-hole, malware, botnet, bingewatch, truther, alt-right, Obamacare, Trumpcare, ....."
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6m52r3 | the popularity of "power levels" in Japanese cartoons. | I haven't watched many, so it may be possible that I happened to watch the only two shows that have phrases like, "I am exactly 8 times stronger than the last time we met. Now you are only third-best" | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
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"text": [
"It's an easy way to quantify certain characters strengths, and create drama. You can easily say that the main character has a power level of X, and then introduce a villain who has a power level of X+some number, and you've created an underdog fight. You can establish quickly and easily who's stronger than who, while trimming down on exposition. Basically, in series where a lot of the drama is going to be tied up in fights, having a way to quickly and easily say who's stronger, and which fights will be tougher is beneficial.",
"It's mostly because of the influence of Dragon Ball Z. Toriyama wanted a way to compare the strengths of the characters, so he quantified them as power levels to show how badass the Saiyans were. Using the \"farmer with a shotgun\" as a reference point with a power level of 5, you could see just how much stronger all the other characters were. On top of that, you can see the characters' progression, with Goku going from a couple hundred to OVER NINE THOUSAND and later into the millions. Now, of course, the numbers don't actually mean jack shit in a fight. Anyways, a bunch of other shonens borrowed that idea from DBZ and now it's pretty widespread."
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6m5xt6 | Why are nosebleeds so common and normal? If we started bleeding from anywhere else it would be concerning, but nosebleeds are "just nosebleeds." | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"djz5z8o"
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"text": [
"The blood vessels in your nose are very close to the surface of the skin, some more so than others, and it is fairly easy to damage the thin layer of skin covering the vessels (picking/scratching your nose, impact to the nose, dry/cracked/chapped skin, rubbing your nose aggressively) without noticing until it is already bleeding. Unless you have a medical condition such as slow clotting or the bleeding was caused by a head injury not directly on the nose (in which case the bleeding could be coming from elsewhere, such as the brain) then they are harmless and will stop within a few seconds to minutes."
],
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6m5znr | Where does "zzz" come from and why do we use it as onomatopoeia for sleep? Is it used in languages other than English? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"djz69rp",
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"text": [
"The two answers I came across are that snoring noises sound similar to a 'zzzzzz' noise. Also, the letter Z is similar to an electrical wave.",
"On the second part of your question, I don't know how many languages use \"zzzz\", but plenty of other languages do not. Italian for instance: \"ron-fi\" (i guess Italians are snorers?)"
],
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6m7gzd | if we all know about the De Beers diamond marketing plan and the shadiness of their business, why we don't just boycott them and stop buying diamond rings for marriage? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"djzg9qm"
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"text": [
"> if we all know Plenty of people *don't* know. Then even if you do know logically, lots of people do not buy things based on logic. Marketing is all about trying to make us make irrational decisions (not that our brain really needs the help there). If you've build up diamonds to have a certain image of being 'THE one thing you get the person you love / you receive from the person you love', something that you see in every piece of media, people can still want a stone even if they might know (but again, many people don't) that they are overpaying."
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|
6m7ih4 | why do we relisten albums more frequently than we rewatch movies? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"djzgsdu"
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"text": [
"It's much easier to passively listen to music than it is to passively watch a movie. When watching a movie, you have to pay attention to it. But only few people actively pay attention to the music when listening to it, it's much more common to passively listen to it while actually doing something else. That's the reason why we listen more to music than we watch movies, and because we listen more to music, we also relisten more music than we rewatch movies."
],
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4
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6m7k2r | How Islam spread so quickly after it started? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"djzh6aq",
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"text": [
"* When a bunch of people conquer your town and say you have to pay taxes if you want to worship some other faith, it has a way of making you want to abandon your old faith. * When that bunch of people say \"Hey god said to conquer the huge entrenched empire your town had been a part of for hundreds of years\" and then they actually do it, it makes a pretty compelling case that they might be on to something. As far as how they were able to conquer so much of the Byzantine and Sassanian empires was due to a combination of having good military leaders, luck (the Sassinians had been devastated by a plague shortly before the Muslim conquest), and the fact that the Byzantines and Sassanians had been constantly fighting one another.",
"Conquest. Years of warfare between the neighboring Byzantines and Persians had left a both sides weak enough in Arabia and Persia that the Caliphs were able to just sweep through. But while the Islamic empire spread very quickly, the religion of Islam didn't; most of the conquered peoples kept their religions, usually Christianity or Zoroastrianism. Over time lots of people converted as a means to better their social standing; the region wouldn't become fully \"Islamicized\" until many centuries later.",
"In addition to military conquest, many Muslims back in the day were traders. If we take a look at countries like Indonesia, Malaysia, etc. we can see the effects of Muslim traders coming to those current day countries."
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] |
Subsets and Splits
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