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6m7r33 | In gender-based languages like Spanish and French, how was it decided which nouns were masculine and feminine? | Especially for things that don't normally have a related/common gender bias (e.g. cup, sunlight, water, etc). Was some of this intentional vs random, and how was the decision actually made during the early formation of the language(s)? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"I think there's no a direct way they decided the genre of the words, in most of the cases. I know there're some languages with genres that is easily to associate with the words, and others (like mine, Spanish) that are special. In general, words that is clearly associated to a man o a woman (or an animal that is masculine o feminine) is really clear how to associate the genre (example in Spanish): el guapo - la guapa; the first is masculine because references a man, and the second to a woman. Other things, that you ask too, is objects that they don't have an inherent genre, like cup, window, etc., the genre probably (I think) is associated with the article that sounds better with the word (article is the word used to make emphasis in the genre of the word, eg.: el from the above example). For example, sounds good to say \"el avión\" instead of \"la avión\" (the plane) or \"el teclado\" instead of \"la teclado\" (the keyboard). As an extra, in Spanish, at least, we referee a group of something with the masculine article always if the word can have both genres, for example \"el/la violinista\" (the violinist) have both genres, depending of the sex of the person, but if you use plural, \"los violinistas\" (plural masculine article) doesn't imply that the group is all of men, could have women too; but \"las violinistas\" (plural feminine article) implies that the group is all women. That is my explanation as a Spanish person, maybe a linguist could explain with a better or more generic explanation :)"
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6m7t9c | Why do politicians get away with so much? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"The vast majority of politicians are lawyers. The vast majority of politicians are wealthy. The politicians write the laws. It's a stacked deck in their favor."
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6m8a3b | Why do we (humans) stop drinking our own milk and drink cow milk? Why is it considered bizarre to drink human milk when we grow up? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Human women, by and large, don't feel like being milked all their lives, especially not on an industrial scale.",
"Cows are kinda magic. They turn undigestable grass into milk and meat. But humans? They have to use HUMAN food to make milk. In the conversion process of Sandwich- > Human Milk, you will lose calories. So in an energy standpoint, a society that consumes Cow milk is better off, and a society that consumes human milk past infancy is worse off.",
"First of all, female humans can lactate as long as the physical reflex is being stimulated. In short, as long as you keep drinking from your mother (from birth) she will keep on lactating for as long as (she allows) the kid (to) drink. If the father of the child DIRECTLY follows up on the kid (say, the kid is two years old now)she will keep lactaction reflex for as long as dad drinks it, and the actual amount of production will eventually meet demand. So for as long as the reflex is stimulated, mama will keep her production. That being said, the actual answer to your question is dead simple: taboo. There are actually known (and still newly discovered every year) tribes that use some women for their milk, even after YEARS of giving birth. There are recordings done by western conquerors that found tribes worldwide who do such, and use that milk for ailment of wounds, mosquitobites and even preparation of foods and drinks, aswell as even producing it to _some_ form of yoghurt. So again, the answer is dead simple in 1 word: taboo."
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6maoqk | Why is it that a lot of what we hear on the radio is censored while television seems to have more flexibility in which words are allowed/not allowed? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Radio is a public broadcast, and is [therefore subject to a federal ban on \"obscene, indecent, or profane\" broadcasts.]( URL_0 ) Cable, satellite, or internet TV isn't public and therefore isn't subject to the ban. Broadcast television is."
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6may2z | Why Is the Confederate flag still flown today by many Americans, and why are decisions to demolish Confederate monuments faced with much criticism? | I thought when the Union won the civil war, the whole Confederate group was disbanded, and America was one nation, under one flag, again. I've seen many movements to get rid of confederate monuments and flags, which makes sense to me, but there seems to be a lot of push back and against getting rid of confederate symbols. Also, why is it still used even though it represented the side of the civil war that wanted slavery? Isn't America nowadays pretty "pc" and hate that stuff? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"The Lost Cause Mythology After the war, a number of ex-Confederate officers made an extensive effort to essentially rewrite the history books to romanticize antebellum Southern society, build up the careers of their heroes (such as Lee and Jackson) and smear those of their opponents (such as Grant and Sherman), and muddy the waters so the Confederate cause was about \"states' rights\" and \"resistance to Northern tyranny\" rather than the preservation of a system of race-based chattel slavery. This interpretation caught on around the country during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. You can see just its cultural impact during that time in films like *Birth of a Nation* and *Gone With The Wind*. It acted as a means to reconcile Northern and Southern whites but in the process sacrificed the freedoms of African-Americans. [Relevant AskHistorians thread]( URL_0 )",
"First of all, the people who are into the PC stuff are not the same people who fly confederate flags. The confederate flag is generally seen by its supporters as a symbol of the south and the fight for states rights. Whether that is an accurate interpretation of history is hotly debated(and in my view, that interpretation isn't accurate), but that is generally how it's viewed by supporters. It's also deeply personal for a lot of people because they have family members who fought for the confederacy in the civil war. In their view, their ancestors were men who fought and died for what they believed and that should be honored. So if you're taking down a monument to the confederacy, you're taking away some of the acknowledgment of that sacrifice.",
"I've lived in the rural South my entire life. What your saying is few and far between. I have family that fought for the South during the civil war. When I was younger I saw the Confederate flag as a symbol of my rebellion nothing more. Now that I've grown up I can understand why it as seen with the hate it is. It represents a terrible part of our nation's history, but I don't believe it is something that should be forgotten. \"Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it.\"",
"Living in the south, I've really only seen the Confederate flag as a symbol of the south. u/sablemint seems to think that most southerners want slavery to be a thing again, and that's the most idiotic comment I've seen today. Basically, think of the south as its own little region, and think of the confederate flag as the flag of that region. I think it's safe to say that for the majority of southerners, it's nothing more than that.",
"First off. America should preserve its history and explain things. The confederate flag is also called the rebel flag. People fly it to show that they will not be bullied into a false agenda. While I agree that it can represent racism to a degree, it is simply to be rebellious in most cases. Destroying the monuments is an absolutely ridiculous practice that should stop immediately. It would be like all European countries destroying every castle that was ever built. Kings had slaves and treated peasants like shit, but it is part of the country's history and is respected and taught. The same should be done in America, however, our political parties try to change and obscure or minds with agenda driven education and mass media propaganda. America is following in the agenda of the USSR and trying to always have their people bow down to the leaders.",
"I feel it's a freedom of speech thing. The people that support pc movements allow the government to censor them because they self censor, but the people that fly the Confederate flag have a lot of attachment towards it and will fight tooth and nail for the freedom to fly whatever they want. Aside from that, the fight against destruction of Confederate monuments is a history preservation issue.",
"It depends on who you ask. Some see the confederate flag as a symbol of southern racism, and confederate monuments as glorifying people who were literally traitors. They want those monuments torn down because they are a shameful reminder of our racist past AND because the descendants of former slaves should not have to see the people who helped keep their ancestors enslaved being venerated in public places or at government buildings. Others say that there is nothing racist about the confederate flag and that flying it only expresses Southern pride. The same people also say that taking down monuments of confederate traitors is destroying history, because their traitorous actions and the Civil War it led to were part of our history. Some people think that these people are full of shit, and that they are making excuses for the racism that they secretly support."
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6mc23b | Why does science denialism appear to be on such an upswing lately? | Climate change denial, vaccine effectiveness denial, flat earth theory, and most recently a HUGE upsurge in the amount of comments I'm seeing on literally every NASA post claiming that it's all a hoax and we've never been to space. I know people thinking the moon landing is fake is an old thing, but lately, it seems like there's a MASSIVE upswing in the amount of people that just want to swear literally every branch of science is complete hogwash, and that any and all accomplishments are 100% fake. Anyone got any light to shed on why that is, other than just assuming that all these people are trolling, or idiots? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Some of this has to do with time, and some are about unexamined assumptions, but there's a third component. First, time. When we discovered vaccines, the world was a very different place. It was not unusual for most children to die from disease. Whole generations might be decimated by disease. This happened only 100 years ago, I'm not talking about the Middle Ages. So when we invented vaccination, it saved a whole generation. It was treated as a miracle drug. For the generations who grew up with disease, the prospect of raising the next generation without it was...its impossible to overstate how *important* it was to the folks who grew up with disease to make sure their children were vaccinated. But those people weren't *smarter* than us. They (by and large) did not *understand* how vaccines work. They just believed the doctors, and they could see the results. But it's not like these people were somehow smarter or wiser than us. The next couple of generations were still able to talk to the parents, and then eventually grandparents who grew up without vaccines. So there was this generational knowledge that vaccines were hugely important. Again, these later generations did not *understand* herd immunity, or how vaccines work, but the world before vaccines was still part of living memory. So they listen to their parents, and grandparents, and vaccinate their kids. But now there's almost no one left from that last generation that grew up without vaccines. So now we have still widespread ignorance about how vaccines work, that's not new, but we also have no one left alive who paid the price of living without vaccines. No grandparents who can just say, \"shut up and vaccinate your kids.\" So to this new generation, the whole idea of vaccination is essentially no different from superstition. And there's a deep distrust running through America towards doctors and science but will get to that after the unexamined assumptions. Second, unexamined assumptions. Most Americans living today, grew up during times of unparalleled prosperity. Especially if you have parents or grandparents who were alive in the 50s and 60s, where America was the only industrial power left in the world. Literally every other industrial center in the world, outside America, has been bombed during World War II. So Americans were crazy rich compared to other countries. Even normal middle-class people could afford cars, gas was cheap, everything was cheap. Now starting around the 1970s the oil companies started to realize that they were having a profound, negative, and therefore dangerous effects on the environment. But, doing anything about it would've been hideously expensive. So they just cover it all up. You know, none of them are going to live long enough to see the results of pouring sulfur and carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. So whatever. Time passes and it starts to be obvious there's a problem, but the scope of it is not obvious. We have smog, so we create the EPA in the 1970s (thanks Nixon!) and actually the smog problem is nowhere near as bad as it used to be. So that's a problem solved right? In the 1980s, we discover there's a hole in the ozone layer. You haven't heard about that a while? Well that's because we banned Chlorofluorocarbons and replaced them with hydrochlorofluorocarbons. And that basically solved the problem! We should be proud of these things, they show how the federal government is able to affect change. And many of the state governments! Los Angeles had the worst smog in America, so California enacted the most strict emissions policies. But the point is if we work together we can solve these problems. However, none of these things really required people to do anything different. It's just required some corporations to spend a little more money than they normally spend. Most of the stuff happened without most people knowing about it! It was perfectly plausible to live through the 1980s and never hear about the hole in the ozone layer, never know what a CFC is how it's different from an HCFC. Toward the end of the 1980s, it started to become obvious that there was a problem with the global temperature. I remember this because I was in college in the late 1980s and I did a report on global warning. Almost 30 years ago we were talking about this. James Burke, a BBC science reporter did a whole special called After the Warming in like 1989 about what the future was going to look like if we didn't do something. So this isn't a new problem. 'Climate change' is a new term that people invented in attempt to cover up how bad the problem is. Everything getting hotter is obviously bad. But everything merely changing? Well doesn't the climate do that anyway? The problem with this is, doing something about it it's going to be hugely expensive. It's gonna be expensive on the scale the likes of which no one has ever dealt with before. And it's going to force people to change their lifestyles. They're going to have much less access to things like not just Gasoline, but like plastics. All plastics come from petroleum. Part of the solution to this is going to be getting people to be mindful of how they consume things. But we've now had several generations of Americans who did not have to worry about being mindful about consumption. And these people do not like the idea that the thing they've been doing for several generations, is actually bad. They've lived with this unexamined assumption: it's ok to consume as much of anything as we want, and waste as much as we want. And they do not want to examine that assumption now, for fear it will turn out to have been wrong! And, like vaccines, the climate is a big complex thing that most people do not understand. They do not understand the problem. So they hear other people saying \"there's a problem with the climate, you need to change how you behave,\" all they hear is one group of people trying to control another group of people. And that's not a fantasy, human beings have been doing that to each other throughout all of human history. The question isn't \"do people do that?\" The question is are these climate change fanatics actually trying to control how people behave? So finally, and then I think we get some good news, we have this basic problem that Americans have never liked science. Isaac Asimov wrote back in the 40s that there's a deep deep anti-intellectual streak running through America. There's a great Frank Zappa quote about how Americans fundamentally distrust anything that doesn't have obvious practical value. This includes distrusting science and art. We love technology! Technology is something you put your hand on and see how it solves problems. We love knowing how much movies make! We know that money has practical value, so that's what most of our artistic discourse is about. But very rarely do you ever hear anyone in the news talking about a painting for the sake of the painting. You only ever hear people talking about paintings, when they sell at auction for a lot of money. There was a thing in Europe called the Enlightenment, where Europeans were discovering science and it seemed as though science was gonna save the world. But some Europeans, especially a group called the Puritans in England, really did not like the enlightenment and left England to come to America where they could live a simpler, godly life. They came to America seeking a life that was much less pluralistic. So they didn't have to share a country with, for instance, Catholics. The Puritans believed the simple life was good. They believed that suffering was good! To the Puritans, disease was sent by God to punish people for wickedness! This is an archetype that we don't really have in America. We tend to view our Puritan ancestors as noble and enterprising. But that's because we are the descendants of those Puritans! If you watch, for instance, Blackadder from the BBC, they show a much more comical and derisive view of the Puritans. This is the way the people the Puritans left behind thought of them. So Americans are essentially a nation founded by rich white guys, but settled by religious nutjobs. The Puritans were OK with technology, technology would do things like increase crop yield, and that is obviously good. They were not super comfortable with science, and as a result of Americans are still deeply distrustful of science. There have been times in our history when that was less obvious than it is now! Because we confuse technology and science. They are related, but they are not the same thing. During the space race two whole generations of American kids grew up idolizing astronauts, and wanting to be engineers. Engineers, very practical. But actual scientists? Hmmm...not sure what those guys do, exactly. So I don't think it's accurate to say we are now, mysteriously, more distrustful of science. We have always been distrustful of science. When it comes to climate change the good news is that Americans are still affected by what the pope says. Which is kind of amazing for country founded by Puritans, but there you are. And the pope is actually smart dude who went to college and worked as a chemist. So when the pope recently came out and said, climate change is real, it's going to screw almost everyone, and it's really really going to screw poor people way way worse than rich people , Americans actually listened. The tide of opinion is changing. It's one of the reasons Donald Trump was gobsmacked by the reaction he got to pulling out of the Paris accord. He actually expected a lot of people in America to be very happy with him. He thought he was doing with those people wanted. What he did not realize, is that public opinion has changed.",
"The internet. Prior to the internet, in order to spew your ~~stupid~~ unscientific ideas about the geometry of the Earth to an audience you'd need to go through a university publication, scientific journal, newspaper, magazine or go through an aggressive self publishing campaign. During any one of these processes there are peers, editors, technical writers, fact checkers going over your work and saying \"you're an idiot, get out of my office\" and that's that. It used to be much more difficult to publish unsubstantiated garbage, not to say that it wasn't published. While the barriers to publishing your ideas and being heard is lower than ever, it's has some negative externalities we didn't anticipate as a society. [Yellow Journalism]( URL_0 ) did, of course, happen in your tabloid rags, but the public view on these were similar to the views we have of tabloids today. They're great kindling, but that's about it. Occasionally you have an older person that subscribes to the tabloids, but there was never much mainstream push behind it. With the internet we have two problems... Firstly, everything is 'equal'. Consider this Google search of \"[NASA approval rating]( URL_5 )\". One of these is *not* like the others. Part of this is due to how advertising priorities have changed. Tabloid newspapers weren't terribly popular among the wealthy and educated, an advertisement in them didn't go very far, even if the people reading it would believe what you're selling, so advertisers stuck to more popular mainstream news outlets. Today, those motivators don't exist on the internet. Advertisers care less about the kind of people viewing their ads and instead are more focused on raw numbers and clicks; engagement. They don't care from whom or from where, so to advertisers Breitbart and the Wall Street Journal might as well be the same. Equality extends to appearances as well, tabloids have gotten much better at legitimizing themselves online and appearing more mainstream. [The New York Times]( URL_3 ) has won 122 Pulitzer Prizes and is a 165 year old journalistic institution. [The New York Post]( URL_1 ) is tabloid. Telling between the two is somewhat difficult if you aren't up to snuff on the history and credibility of journalistic institutions. This leads quite well into the second problem. *Human beings aren't very good at evaluating objective facts.* To begin with, we have [cognitive biases]( URL_4 ), like confirmation bias. Someone with more objectivity and were less attached to Flat Earth theory they might google 'is the Earth flat?', while someone more invested in Flat Earth theory might google 'Flat Earth proof'. Google is *fantastic* for someone who wants to confirm things they already believe. Our emotional investment into our beliefs and facts makes us resistant to things that disagree with our world view and more receptive to things that enforce our world view. This isn't a partisan thing, this is a *human* thing. So you have given creatures that are emotionally, psychologically, sometimes financially, invested in their believes a tool that allows them to find information that confirms their ideas and other people that *also* believe their ideas. Being surrounded by a homogeneous group is an *INCREDIBLY* powerful way to condition people to behave/believe along with the group. Human beings are, at their most fundamental level, social creatures that feel compelled to be liked and included in groups, and disagreeing with the group is very difficult for a social creature. This is how you can condition perfectly normal Germans to genocide millions of Jews. This is how you get a normal person to [shock someone to death in the name of science]( URL_2 ). Well, we gave people a tool to find and create whatever communities they like, and they behaved exactly how our psychological models expected them to.",
"It may not be that it is on the upswing, but may that they have a bigger platform. Think vaccines are satan's serum? There is a FB group for that with 1,000 other people agreeing and posting bogus crap to support your idea. Social media has now given everyone a voice and niche to belong to, so this may be more of an issue of a loud voice now versus an actual rise in incidence. Either that orrrrr I could hypothesis there is a disconnect and distrust between the scientific community and the general public. News outlets bastardizing scientific work may be a giant issue, since most average people won't take hours of their life to read and sift through the jargon of a scientific journal of actual publications, and will believe a 5 word headline explain a complex study and then 12 more deny that initial study. Example: \"Chocolate causes cancer\" and then three weeks later \"Chocolate, in moderation, prevents cancer\". Just some ideas from my experience, I am finishing up degrees in psych and biomedical microbiology and have focused a lot on ethics and the communication of science to the public and these are main points that come up a lot when it comes to denialism.",
"I think there's always been those kinds of people, but the information age has given them a loud voice",
"I'm not sure where your claims that it's on the rise come from in the first place. Climate change is more accepted than ever before, anti vaxx numbers are dwindling, and only a few crazies ACTUALLY believe flat earth the rest are just trolls who like to mess around",
"It's a complicated issue that has shifted over decades. For some it's just an argument from ignorance. They don't know anything about the subject, but don't want to admit to being ignorant or wrong, so they very quickly come to know everything about it. Two main things that have shifted it is that everyone is carrying cameras now, so the old 'sightings' of things have trailed off. This led to a shift in focus for believers to new conspiracies supported by groups. There has also been an increase in news gaslighting, outlined in a Nixon paper that led to [Roger Ailes]( URL_1 ) creating Fox News to support the Republicans, plus related tabloids and then later online sources like Breitbart popping up. URL_2 This article mentions how the best way to fight it is not to try and prove the issue, but to simply educate people about the tactics used to mislead them. In effect, train them to be skeptics. > In short, the more we explain the techniques of science denial and misinformation, the more people will become inoculated against them. When we’re exposed to examples of people using cherrypicking or fake experts or false balance to mislead the public, it becomes easier to recognize those techniques, and we’re less likely to fall for them in the future. URL_0 This article does a good job of outlining the basics, particularly mentioning that these are all issues without immediate threats. Climate Change happens on the scale of decades and centuries. Vaccines are so effective that most modern people don't know disease. Space? Never been.",
"those who actually dont deny, wont shout out their lungs out like the people who deny on the internet. so you hear a lot about science denialism than those people who support science.",
"One more explanation: The world changes faster than most non-subject matter expert humans can adapt to it. One coping mechanism is to deny that the change is happening. Prior to the Renaissance, every farmer farmed the way his father taught him. The world changed slowly if at all. A example of the world changing too fast: most scholars concur that Copernicus completed his book on the heliocentric theory of the solar system *[On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres]( URL_1 )* around 1530. However Copernicus waited until just before his death (1543) to publish it. Why? Because Copernicus thought it would not be accepted and he didn't want to face the resulting sh#t storm from the Catholic Church. Similarly, Albert Einstein never fully accepted the probabilistic nature of Quantum Mechanics. \"A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it.\" [Max Plank]( URL_0 )"
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6mc2tz | when and why did people decide that pink is a 'girlish' color? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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6mcmb8 | Lawyers are required to retake the bar exam if they move to a new state. Why is that not a violation of the constitution's Full Faith and Credit clause? | I was under the impression the clause required states to honor all certifications even if they were earned in a different state. | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Because the laws and procedures vary enough from state to state enough for this to be considered reasonable. Each time you pass the bar, it is specific to the courts of that state. On a technical level they do actually recognise the certificate. If you pass the Californian bar exam and move to Ohio, Ohio would recognise that certificate and you would be allowed to practise **Californian** law, just not Ohio law. Particularly in corporate law, but also in a lot of other fields, it is not uncommon for attorneys to hold multiple practising certificates.",
"Different states have different laws, different statutes for common laws, different punishments for crimes, and other intricacies associated with the legal system. All of these issues require new certification, especially between extremely different states (CA and TX for example). I mean, imagine being represented by someone who doesn't understand the local legal system. That just wouldn't go over very well."
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6me5wp | Why are American cities so 'Manhattanised'? | Hi, I've been wondering this for a while. Cities like Boston, Cincinnati have big, beautiful skylines with high rises and skyscrapers. These cities hover around the 500,000 population mark, give or take quite a bit. But cities like Sheffield in the UK, which have a similar population, have absolutely no skyline. Even Birmingham, a city of 2 million people, has a comparatively low and uninteresting skyline. Why do these cities in America seem so big, bustling and important, yet have low populations? Thanks! | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"While the population of those two cities (and many other examples) seems on the smaller size on paper, that's because you're looking at the population of only the municipality proper. This is usually a smallish area that consists of the downtown/CBD and then older neighbourhoods around it, while not accounting for the continuous urban areas directly bordering it that all function as the same city. When you take that metropolitan area into account then the population of Boston is really 4.8 million and the population of Cincinnati is 2.1 million. Birmingham is the same way- the city itself is 1.1 million, the urban population is 2.4 million, and the metro population is 3.6 million. So these seemingly small cities with large skylines really aren't that small. The second thing to consider is the age of the cities. US cities developed later than cities in the UK- when the post war boom occurred, blocks and blocks of 50-75 year old buildings were levelled to build parking lots, office towers, and highways. The buildings that were demolished weren't considered historic enough to preserve and the skyscraper and automobile were the way of the future. Looking back now, demolishing all of those older buildings was a disaster as they provided a rich urban environment with active frontages, a diversity of uses, pedestrian friendly scale, etc. The UK's city centres are still mostly filled with that type of structure as they were considered old and historic enough to keep around in the post war era, and the allure of the automobile did not have quite as large of an impact (although it still left its mark in many ways, such as all of the Beeching cuts to railways in the 1960s). That brings me to my final point. While from far away mid-sized US cities may look bigger and more impressive than similarly sized UK and European counterparts, there is no question that in general they are not nearly as urban and vibrant. Those few blocks of office towers usually give way to very low density rather quickly, and are often surrounded by areas of parking lots, sports stadiums, and highway ramps. The office districts are busy during the day, but after 5 pm everyone goes home to the suburbs and downtowns become ghost towns. Certainly nowhere close to bustling. Mid-sized European cities are usually more consistently built up, just with lower buildings. There you will be find people at all hours of the day, working, shopping, living. This is slowly changing in the US as of late, but the planning ideals of building huge buildings in mid sized cities surrounded by a lot of nothing is something that severely impacted urban life in many places. Edit: a word",
"In addition to the other answers, I'd also add that the UK has the [\"right to light\"]( URL_0 ) law that can prevent skyscrapers from going up if they'd illegally block someone's light. America doesn't have a similar law in place (so far as I know), or at least, if we do, it would likely have to be on a more local level as that's a bit too granular for a federal law. Assuming that not every state/county/municipality has enacted such a law, things are a bit more freeform here.",
"Those American cities are, in practical terms, a lot bigger than you think. Simply put: you're confusing/disregarding the distinction between the population within city limits and the population of the entire metropolitan area. So, for instance, the population within Boston's city limits is only about 620,000, but the Boston *metro area* is more like 4.7 million. Cincinnati is about 300,000 within city limits but 2.1 million in the metro area. Similarly, the population within Philadelphia's city limits is about 1.5 million, but the metro area is about 6.1 million. By contrast, the population within Sheffield's city limits is about 575,000, but the entire metro area only boasts about 640,000. . . just slightly larger than Boston's city population and about 14% the size of its metro area. And you've made a mistake with Birmingham's population figure. That 2 million figure is the entire metro area. The city limits are only about 1.1 million. All of which to say that Boston, Cincinnati, etc., are on par with or quite a bit bigger than most UK cities if one compares metropolitan areas, not just city limits. So it just stands to reason that more US cities would have impressive skylines than most UK cities: US cities are, on average, just *bigger*. Minneapolis-St. Paul is the [sixteenth-largest metro area in the US]( URL_1 ), but it would be second only to London on the list of [UK metro areas]( URL_3 ). Second, consider the following proverb: \"In America, one hundred years is a long time. But in Europe, one hundred miles is a long way.\" In other words, the United States really isn't all that old, all things considered, but it's *huge* by the standards of any single European country. By contrast, European society is *old*--by almost any standard--even though individual European countries may not be all that much bigger than individual US states. . . or even individual US *cities* if the right comparisons are made. For instance, [Dallas-Ft. Worth]( URL_2 ) is bigger than [Luxembourg]( URL_0 ) by just about every available measure. Still, the first permanent settlement in Dallas was only founded in AD 1841. There is archaeological evidence of human habitation in what is now Luxembourg dating back *thousands* of years, and the current state of affairs can be traced back to at *least* the tenth century AD, if not before. Why does this matter? Well, because once buildings are constructed, people are usually resistant to tearing them down. This is why the street map of most cities can be relatively stable for hundreds, even *thousands* of years. Outlines of the current street plan of Paris are evident in maps dating back a very, *very* long time. This has two major effects. On one hand, because of the preference for not tearing down existing buildings, an older city is going to be a lower city. Skyscrapers did not come into existence until the early twentieth century. So a city that had been largely built by then wasn't going to see much in the way of skyscraper construction. *Particularly* in European cities, where land ownership is so often caught up in exceptionally complicated issues of aristocracy that can even today affect title to real property. In the US, where a hundred years really is a long time, there tended to be much, much less resistance to tearing things down and starting new buildings. But there was also just a lot more space to *put* new buildings, particularly in the Midwest, South, and West. And sure, Dallas has been around for a while, but it only crossed 100,000 people around 1915, half a million around 1950, and 1 million around 1990. *Most* of the city was built *very* recently, by historical standards. Second, and related to the first, because *street* plans are at least as politically difficult to redraw as individual buildings are to deliberately demolish, there are a lot of places in very central parts of European cities that aren't *big* enough to put skyscrapers. A lot of the really tall buildings you see in the US take up significant chunks of entire city blocks. The very largest ones can take up entire blocks, sometimes even *multiple* blocks. That's a lot easier to make happen when there's not a lot of stuff there to begin with, and if the stuff that's there hasn't been around for more than a few decades, at best.",
"Many parts of Europe were developed long before the rise of skyscrapers, and many cities have laws against building higher than the churches or other laws to preserve the character of the cities. American cities grew at a time that corresponded with changes in technology to allow for vertical heights... Chicago went from about 30k people in the 1850 to over a million by 1890! New York's population skyrocketed with the influx of immigrants. Cities couldn't build out (roads, subway, electricity, sewers, etc) fast enough, so they built up. Once that began, ego of going higher and taller took hold in both architects, real estate developers, corporate CEOs...",
"Developing later in the 19th and 20th centuries meant these cities could really grow and build skyscrapers from the get-go. So if you own a downtown lot you might prefer to just hold out and keep things vacant until it makes sense to build a really tall skyscraper. Meanwhile in the UK where you have cities being located where they are since medieval or roman times you have a situation where things are dense just because the city was built because most people had to walk everywhere to get where they're going. Another administrative thing is that US metro regions can be much bigger than the actual city limits of the main city. The Cincinnati metro area has around 2MM people. UK cities and metropolitan areas tend to track more closely.",
"Many US cities were built relatively recently, when the technology for industrial production of steel suitable for construction was available. UK cities are much older, and thus did not have the construction steel available that make skyscrapers possible, thus forcing more, shorter buildings."
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6med5q | Why do we euthanize wild animals who attack humans? | I just read a story about a camp counselor almost dragged away by a bear, though there was no food or anything that would have attracted the bear. The wildlife officers intend to trap and kill any bears, in the search for the offending bear. Euthanization of wild animals who attack humans seems overall common. But why? Isn't that what happens when wild animals see food in the wild? Shouldn't we just be grateful he got away? Obviously, this is different than a wild cougar in the streets of L.A. | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"It means the animals no longer fear humans and might even see us as a source of food (ie our food and/or our flesh). Once it's learned that, it's likely to attack again.",
"Like previous commenters said, it has to do with protecting people, since animals who attack people(in certain circumstances)are more likely to do so again. Simply look at the policies regarding brown bears in Alaska. If a person gets too close to a brown bear's cub and is killed, the bear was acting naturally, and not killed. However, if a brown bear stalks a human(This happened recently, as well) then kills them, it has added humans as its prey and is likely to continue doing so.",
"There is a reason humans are rarely attacked by wild animals; we've spent many thousands of years killing anything which attacks humans. Most predator species learn what prey to go after from their parent(s), so if an animal starts targeting humans we tend to kill it before it has offspring and teaches them to also hunt humans.",
"The same reason why we track down fellow human beings and arrest them for committing a crime. Do it once and they will likely to do it again with no fear since some managed to get away with it or done it before might as well do it again. Same logic applies to animals.",
"There are lots of reasons. Some of them are understandable. In some places they have policies of killing any animal that attacks a human to see if it has rabies. Maybe not necessary all the time, but understandable, especially in a place where that's been a real problem. Others have less meaningful reasons. Sometimes they do it because they worry it might happen again. Or they worry that it'll teach the behavior to offspring. And sometimes its just the simple fact that killing one animal won't do much to hurt their population, and its easier to do that then take any risks or deal with outraged parents or bad media reports."
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6mf5n9 | The tipping situation in the US. | In my country, tipping is a privilege a server earns through good service. Why do I see many people complain when a person doesn't tip for bad service? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"In the US, tipping is the customer paying the server most of their pay. In most of the US, servers earn a fraction of the minimum wage ($2.13 is the legal minimum in most states for tipped employees), with tips intended to make up 70-90% of their actual pay. Service at a basic level is still supposed to a basic tip, good service more, and excellent service even more.",
"In many places in the US (although not all), employers are allowed to count tips towards their wage. So even though federal minimum wage is $7.25/hr, many employees in positions that expect tips only get paid $2.13/hr and are expected to get the rest of their income through tips. Employers are supposed to cover the difference if an employee doesn't get to minimum wage through tips, but trying to call your employer out on that is pretty likely to result in the server getting fired. And regardless, minimum wage isn't really sufficient to live in any US city and tips are the only way servers can ever expect to make above minimum wage."
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6mfdu3 | How did the justice system work before photo/video/DNA evidence when sentencing criminals? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"I'm assuming by \"sentencing\" you mean in determining whether or not someone committed the crime, not what sentence they should get. Even today, the majority of criminal cases (especially minor ones) don't involve video or forensic evidence: they involve witnesses coming in and explaining what they saw or heard. And of course since cameras and forensic evidence didn't exist, jurors and judges would already be comfortable making decisions without relying on them."
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6mfwql | The difference between different types of schools in the UK (Comprehensives, Academy, Independent, Grammar etc.) | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"OK, this will get a bit complicated. Sit down before reading! Also, this only applies to England & Wales: Scotland and Northern Ireland both have different educational systems which I'm not sufficiently knowledgable about to answer. As in most countries, there are two major divisions in pre-university education in England: privately-funded education and government-funded education. We'll start with the private schools, because they're the simplest to classify. There are two main names for private schools in England: those which are called private schools and those which, confusingly, are called public schools. Public schools are generally the \"creme de la creme\" of private schools -- old schools aimed at providing the very best education money can buy for the children of the wealthiest members of society. Collectively, both types of private school often call themselves independent schools (because they are independent of local or national government funding or decision-making in the way they are run). So, now for public-funded education. The complexity here is because over the last 70 years or so various governments have brought in new ways for these schools to be funded but have allowed schools to adopt these new methods only if they choose. So the English public-funded school system is now actually about half a dozen different systems all brought in at different times by different governments. The oldest system still in use is the grammar school system. Grammar schools are free for pupils to attend, but the schools have the right to select which pupils they admit on the basis of academic tests. In other words, if you live in an area with grammar schools, you take an exam at the age of 11 to determine how clever you are: if you pass the exam you go to the grammar school, where you will likely get an education similar to that at some of the best private schools. In the 1960s this was thought to be elitist and unfair (because middle class parents could pay for tutors to ensure their kids passed the exam), and leads to children being classified as failures as young as 11 years old. So most local authorities abandoned the grammar school system and introduced comprehensive schools. As their name suggests, comprehensives aimed to teach pupils of all abilities, from the least able to the cleverest. In practice, due to funding issues, some comprehensives became centres of under-achievement, although many others have been hugely successful. The next big change was in the late 1990s, when the concept of academy schools was introduced. If a school chooses to become an academy, the main official difference is that it gets its funding directly from central government, rather from local government. This means that local government no longer has a say in how the school is run, given much greater independence to the senior teaching staff. Most controversially, business, charities, and religious groups are allowed to sponsor an academy. Academy schools still have to follow the government-set national curriculum, but are also allowed to pursue an \"ethos\" as proposed by the sponsoring organisation. Collectively, all publicly-funded schools, regardless of their other status, are know as state schools (because their money comes from the state, i.e. the government).",
"So there's 2 types of schools: state (free) and private (fee paying). But there's various subtypes. State schools: - comprehensive - just a normal state school - grammar - you need to pass a test to get in. This used to be very common but now only a few areas in England are allowed to have them, and you aren't allowed to create any new ones so they're quite rare. I think there are only around 200 of them. - academy - schools set up under a new system in the 00s where, unlike comprehensives, schools are independent from local education authorities and are instead run by a private consortium or charity in accordance with a contract they draw up with the government directly - free school - an academy where the initiative to set it up didn't come from the government but from the private consortium or charity Private schools: - independent schools - any private school is an independent school and vice verca - public schools - for historical reasons very old and traditional (and thus usually expensive) private schools are known as public schools. This is because back in the day there were two types of schools: public schools and church schools and the church schools tended to be for poor people. Those are the main types of schools, then there's other overlapping categories: - boarding schools - these are schools that people live at and sleep in at night during term time (think Hogwarts). Not all pupils have to, you get some people called \"day boarders\" who only come during the day. There are, I think, only a handful of state boarding schools in the UK and almost all of them are grammar schools. The vast majority of boarding schools are private - same sex schools - like it says these are boys schools or girls schools. Most state schools are mixed so same sex schools will tend to be private but again there are some (mostly grammar, not all) same sex state schools - faith schools - schools that have an ethos of a particular religion and are allowed to discriminate a bit (not completely) to ensure most (not all) pupils are of that religion. Faith schools can be state or private and there are a shedload of them. Most are C of E/Co of S but there's a fair number of Catholic ones and a tiny number of Jewish, Hindu, Sikh and Muslim ones. I think with the academy and free school system some of the more exotic kinds of Protestants have got in on the act too."
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6mgb35 | Why do some vegetarians sight morals reasons for not eating meat/animals when animals eating other animals has persisted throughout history? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Animals rape each other in the wild, does that justify rape? Basing your morality off of what wild animals do isn't sound logic.",
"Ethics specifically deals with the fact that humanity is sapient, and can reason before making choices. What other animals do really doesn't have an impact on ethics, because as far as we know, none of them can make a conscious decision to act differently.",
"Animals in the wild are not intelligent like humans, not capable of morality like humans, and most of all don't really have a choice... predators are built by evolution to kill and eat, and in an environment where that's their only survival option. Humans, however, are omnivores and capable of eating a wide variety of things to survive. Furthermore, we've constructed a huge society that makes getting access to tons and tons of different food options pretty easy. Tigers don't have a choice, Humans do, and ergo humans **choose** to eat meat.",
"Lots of valid points here, but it's also worth noting that we are the only species that does factory farming. If you're a deer and get eaten by a wolf, you've probably lived your life with a lot of freedom but just died pretty brutally. If you're a chicken and get eaten by a human, your life was very likely spent in a tiny environment with a huge amount of other chickens eating food laden with supplements to force more growth and so on. This is why many vegans will argue that being vegetarian isn't enough, a chicken that lays eggs or a cow that produces milk will have the same poor quality of life up until their death whether or not they get eaten at the end of it. While I'm a meat eater myself, I'm strongly of the belief that the debate needs to move on from \"are we ethically **eating** meat\" to \"are we ethically **farming** meat\".",
"Because what other animals do is irrelevant. We typically don't base the ethics of our behavior and actions on that of other animals, and for good reasons: we would find ourselves in societies where it was perfectly fine for a man to kill another man for hitting on his girlfriend; societies where a mother would be justified in killing and eating her own baby."
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6mgd1v | Free speech laws in the UK and the differences between the UK and American Free speech | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"**Freedom of speech is protected under the European Convention of Human rights, enshrined in U.K. law in the 1998 Human Rights act.** URL_2 Specifically, articles 9, 10, and 11 are most relevant. Article 9 Freedom of thought, conscience and religion * Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief, in worship, teaching, practice and observance. * Freedom to manifest one’s religion or beliefs shall be subject only to such limitations as are prescribed by law and are necessary in a democratic society in the interests of public safety, for the protection of public order, health or morals, or for the protection of the rights and freedoms of others. Article 10 Freedom of expression * Everyone has the right to freedom of expression. This right shall include freedom to hold opinions and to receive and impart information and ideas without interference by public authority and regardless of frontiers. This Article shall not prevent States from requiring the licensing of broadcasting, television or cinema enterprises. * The exercise of these freedoms, since it carries with it duties and responsibilities, may be subject to such formalities, conditions, restrictions or penalties as are prescribed by law and are necessary in a democratic society, in the interests of national security, territorial integrity or public safety, for the prevention of disorder or crime, for the protection of health or morals, for the protection of the reputation or rights of others, for preventing the disclosure of information received in confidence, or for maintaining the authority and impartiality of the judiciary. Article 11 Freedom of assembly and association * Everyone has the right to freedom of peaceful assembly and to freedom of association with others, including the right to form and to join trade unions for the protection of his interests. * No restrictions shall be placed on the exercise of these rights other than such as are prescribed by law and are necessary in a democratic society in the interests of national security or public safety, for the prevention of disorder or crime, for the protection of health or morals or for the protection of the rights and freedoms of others. This Article shall not prevent the imposition of lawful restrictions on the exercise of these rights by members of the armed forces, of the police or of the administration of the State. **In the U.S., the most important article is the First Amendment:** Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances. **The more modern law is substantially more complicated and nuanced due to its attempts to eliminate ambiguity.** The U.K. also has law empowering police officers to take action against those who are motivated by racism, sexism, some kind of extremism or other dangerous ideologies. (Crime and Disorder Act 1998) The The Criminal Justice Act 2003 also allows other crimes to be 'aggravated' by racial/religious/ethnic/whatever hatred, and those crimes will typically carry a heavier sentence as a result. URL_3 **Across both countries, there is a lot of overlap regarding which speech acts are not protected, such as:** * Libel * Slander * Defamation * Advocacy of Illegal Action * Fighting Words * Obscenity URL_1 **Exceptions are present in both Criminal and Civil law** In practice, the general thrust of the law in both countries seems to be that you can say what you like as long as it doesn't intentionally or recklessly harm others, mislead, or otherwise cause disruption. I think you could probably say that British law places more emphasis on the impact on the victim than on the act itself, hence judgements like this one: URL_0 I can't imagine that happening in the U.S.A., although I'm only really clued in on UK Criminal law because I'm studying it at the moment."
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6mii8f | what is the difference between the different forms of Chinese? (Mandarin, Cantonese, Simplified, Traditional) | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Mandarin and Cantonese are often refered to as dialects. However this doesn't really doesn't show how different they are from each other. For example American English and British English are considered dialects of the English Language, but they can understand each other. This is not true with the Chinese Dialects. A person who speaks only Mandarin will be unable to understand the speech of someone speaking in Cantonese and vice versa. Sort of like an Italian and French speaker, there are some similarities, but not enough to get a more complex point across. It is common among linguists to refer to Mandarin and Cantonese as being two Languages in the Chinese Language Family. Also there are many just as mutually unintelligiable dialects other than those two. Mandarin was the dialect adopted by the Capital and spread through much of the country as a second dialect. Cantonese is a common dialect around Hong Kong. Hainanese is from the island of Hainan. Shanghainese is from around Shanghai. The Hokkien is another common dialect from the South. People often forget that China is around the size of Europe and with more people. What's different is that back in the ancient history of China, Emperor Qin Shi Huang managed to conquer all of China and unified the writing systems. All the dialects shared the same pictogram writing system. Sort of like how if read out loud, a German, an Italian and an Englishman would all read out 3+3=6 differently, but all agree on it's meaning. This system mutated much slower than alphabetic systems, but eventually evolved into Traditional Chinese Characters. However this system was in many areas needlessly complex. Using more strokes than is needed to tell even the most obscure characters apart. There have been several attempts to simplify the writing. However, when the Communist party took over, they had the power to actually implement one. As a result, Mainland China uses Simplified Chinese Characters, Singapore does too. Hong Kong, Taiwan and many of the Chinese Overseas still use Traditional Chinese characters. Simplified Chinese replaces certain characters in Traditional Chinese with a simpler for. The names and the meanings don't change, just how you write it. Essentially it's like changing the font on a typed alphabetic language. To give an example of the change consider the traditional character for fly: 飛 this requires many penstrokes to write. It's ok if the word fly is only ever used in poetry, but if in the modern era, if you are running an airport and everything has something to do with flying you can see why people might want to speed it up a bit. So they changed the character from 飛 to飞. Every time you would write the first character you instead write the second one. Chinese characters are also made up of sub-components called radicals. Simplified Chinese simplified some radicals. Consider the Traditional character for say and poetry 說 and 詩, notice how the entire left side is the same. In Simplified they are 说 and 诗",
"Mandarin & Cantonese are dialects - different pronunciations of 'Chinese'. Mandarin is the official language adopted by Beijing while Cantonese is spoken more so in the South of China. Simplified & Traditional Chinese refer to the written characters. Simplified is literally simplified from Traditional Chinese to make it easier to write. There is a simplified Chinese character for every traditional Chinese character, some look very similar or may be the same while others can be quite different. Simplified Chinese was introduced by the current government of China. Both Mandarin & Cantonese use the same written Characters although Mandarin usually writes using simplified Chinese while Cantonese usually writes using Traditional Chinese."
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6mj0qv | Why are there so many sub genres of music that are never heard of or talked about? | Such as Christian Contemporary, Christian EDM, Country Rap, Deep house etc... | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Everything ever has way more depth than you would expect. There's enthusiasts for everything that can talk for hours about a small aspect that you never gave a second thought to. Like favorite text editor, wine vintage, or metallurgic composition of a knife.",
"A lot of it is very culturally based. Deep house, for example, is actually very popular in some places and is pretty big in lots of club scenes. It depends on the cliques you're a part of and whether or not it's a genre that has widespread popularity. If something isn't top 40/billboard 100 type stuff (i.e. hip hop, rap, R & B, pop, certain EDM tunes, country, soft rock, etc. etc.) it's not expected that EVERY group of people will know about it. Then it breaks down into wider genres. You've got your rock, your metal, your edm, hip hop, etc. And those break down into further subdivisions of style. Trap music, for example is both an electronic genre and a rap style. They both share similar stylistic elements and have been gaining considerable popularity in recent years and many people don't even know what they're listening to. Most divisions in musical genre are made for stylistic purposes. To define a genre separate from another it needs to have one or more stylistic differences whether it's in drum patterns, content, feel, etc. Generally, these differences in style and content cause them to be more outside of the common popular styles. It's easy, for example, to make a pop song everybody can relate to. Basic 4 chord melody, simple drum pattern, relatable lyrics, and often catchy tunes make it so that it's really accessible. Black metal isn't for everybody because it's offensive to some and just not what everybody wants in their life. Because of this you may never know anybody who likes black metal and because of that you may never know it even EXISTS. Same with electronic music to many people. Think about all the older folk who call ALL EDM the same thing. Whether it's electronic or techno or dubstep they generalize with one term because they don't get/care about the nuance between the genres because it's just not their their cuppa tea. The same happens for people who know of but aren't big fans of certain musical genres. If you kinda like rap you might know certain styles but probably just call everything rap. If you're a huge fan and care about that type of stuff, the styles and genres are important enough that you'll know about them and use the terms in discussion. Therefore, if you associate with people who do you'll pick up on the terms. I could, for example, talk for days about the nuance between melodic bass and future bass music as well as trap and dubstep and hybrid and delineate between them. I can identify deep house vs dutch house vs electro house. I couldn't, however tell you any different metal except screamo and not screamo. I think the biggest reason is exposure. And music that is more nuanced just has fewer fans and therefore has a lesser spread of exposure across many people. If you're a part of a community that would listen to Christian EDM you might know whatever the heck that entails. If you're part of a community that listens to nordic death metal (real genre? idk) you'll know the differences and nuances. Sorry for the rambling xD"
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6mj5px | Why are debits instantaneous, but refunds take several days to show up? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Debits are not instantaneous. A hold for that money is put on your account immediately, but the vendor doesn't see that money for a day or two. Similarly, it takes a day or two for them to send it back to you.",
"guess how quickly the funds disappear out of the vendor's account? instant! and how many days does it take to reach your account? a few days!"
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6mk2d8 | Why do so many doors have the same rectangle rectangle square lay out? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"text": [
"Do you mean a six-panel door [like this]( URL_0 )? They were invented by carpenters because making a door out of a single giant slab of wood was heavy and tended to warp. So a heavy frame with lighter panels inset works better. One cross bar is set at doorknob height usually. The other cross bar is set to make an equal size of panels for aesthetic reasons. This requires the third set to be shorter unless the room is tall."
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6mkah8 | How do athletes/celebrities/etc. get paid to post on Instagram despite not advertising anything? | Saw that LeBron makes $120,000 per post on IG even though most of his posts don't advertising anything. Who pays people like him and why? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"He only makes that money on posts that are sponsored. The 95% that aren't sponsored don't earn him anything. What you should have read was \"Lebron makes 120,000 per post if wearing sponsored clothing\". The rest of his posts earn him as much as your posts earn you."
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6mlizb | Why are there so many different species of animals, yet we as humans are all one species? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"There have been many different species of \"humans\" that did coexist at times. This site has a list of some of our relatives that died out along the way, with approximate times of extinction so you can compare and see which ones lived alongside each other, if you like. URL_1 Exactly why our line is the only one left is up in the air, but most likely includes the same list of reasons other species die out - someone better comes along and wipes you out, you don't adapt to changing environmental conditions, etc. There's evidence that Neandethals didn't necessarily die off, but merged with homo sapiens at some point as their DNA can be found in modern Europeans and Asians ( URL_0 ).",
"I don't understand the question. If you single out a specific species, there's only going to be one of it as well.",
"It hasn't always been this way. There used to be other humans (ex, Neanderthals). There's debate about why exactly we're the only ones left, but the common theme is that there's really only room for one species in our particular niche. We could have assimilated others through interbreeding, outcompeted them directly, survived hardships more often, etc.",
"there used to be other kinds of humans like the neanderthals and the denisova human, but (jury is still out on that as far as i understand) we eather superseded them in our competition for their habitats, or they are integrated into the homo sapiens sapiens (modern human) because of interbreeding.",
"You misunderstand the term species. All dogs are part of the same species, even though they vary wildy in size, appearance and behavior. A chihuahua and a great dane are still both dogs, thus part of the same *species*, even if we categorize them into different *sub-species*, or breeds. We also do that with humans - Caucasian, African, Hispanic, Arab, Asian etc - all those groups are part of the homo sapiens species but just like with dog breeds we categorize them into different races. It's considered taboo and unethical to highlight differences between the human races so it's not done to the same extent as with animals.",
"The human race's intelligence far surpasses any other animal. This gives us the ability to alter our environment rather than our environment altering us. We see an animal with a nice warm coat, and we say we will have it off them. This is how we spread as a species rather than going through speciation. Edit: spelling"
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6mny9a | Why is Gerrymandering still a practice in the U.S.? | Why have we not outlawed this practice as it seems to be one of the dirtiest political tricks possible? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"1. It's actually quite hard to phrase a law that would ban it. The district boundaries have to get drawn somehow. You'd either need to change the US voting system to get rid of districts entirely or legislate a specific mathematical algorithm to pick the boundaries. 2. The people who could ban it are the people who benefit from it. Even if they did understand the math that they'd be voting on to replace the \"let's draw them ourselves\" process, why would they do so?",
"Both parties benefit from these abuses, and that leaves nobody to advocate for a change. If you partition the state and there are less minorities elected to Congress, you will have a civil rights lawsuit for suppressing minorities. It's very hard to win here. Look at the long and drawn out arguments over elementary school districts, and they are much smaller.",
"The answer is that it's really tough to do in practice. You have to draw districts in order for our election system to work. The people who draw those districts are _supposed_ to do it in a way that promotes fair representation. The problem is that there is no objective measure of what \"fair\" representation looks like, so in practice people draw the districts in a way that is beneficial to them. There are some rules in place - if you are caught drawing districts in a way that discriminates against minorities or other protected classes, the courts may force you to redraw your districts. There is a case going before our SCOTUS that will decide if drawing them for partisan reasons is legal or not. That all said, there will still be gerrymandering, because the people who benefit from the districts will always be the ones drawing them.",
"* it isn't always clear what gerrymandering is and is not...there are a lots of reasonable ways to draw voting districts, and some will favor a certain party * they is some value in putting similar demographic in the same district to ensure they are properly represented...this can lead to unusual boundaries * when a district is gained or lost, instead of starting over from scratch, states try to tweak existing districts to maintain continuity, this again leads to weird boundaries * individual politicians often don't oppose gerrymandering, as it can make it easier for them to get reelected, even if it harms their party * various court rulings require districts to be constructed in a certain way to ensure proper minority representation What all this means is just because you see weird boundaries, that doesn't mean gerrymandering. And even if it is, the party can these reason as excuses to deny it. It practice, this makes it very difficult to come up with an objection definition of gerrymandering."
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6mohct | why do many primary schools make students walk in single file/sit with their legs crossed? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"It was usually to keep 200 kids from running into each other and causing \"traffic jams\" in the halls. We always walked single file on the right side so it didn't take too long to get to class. Crossed legs leave a smaller footprint. You don't want to trip people or sit sprawled out because it takes up an unnecessary amount of room.",
"Kids have a lot of energy and are quick to run off and do their own things. These are techniques for keeping a large number of kids under control.",
"Crossed legs promotes better posture. Single file actually can improve traffic flow. Imagine two rows of people walking, row left and row right. People in the right row want to turn left. They have to wait for a gap causing their row of traffic to come to a halt to cross the moving left row of traffic, or push in the the left queue to make their turn both of which causes backups of traffic. Now imagine that people in the left row of traffic want to turn right, whilst people in the right queue want to turn right. You just end up with a big bottleneck. Then imagine the same with rows of traffic running in opposite directions."
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6mow43 | Why do some countries have traffic on the right side while others have it on the left? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"text": [
"Everything used to be on the left, as that was common in days when people would ride horses. This allowed you to defend yourself if necessary from someone coming the opposite direction (based on being a right handed weapon holder). As agriculture started becoming a much bigger deal, and you had teams of animals to pull wagons (whether horses, oxen, whatevs), the animals were 2-wide, and the drivers of these teams would sit on a left side horse (at least they did in France). So if you are in a country that is England, or an English colony/holding (like Australia and India), you're still on the left. Countries that were influenced by the French moved to the right. The majority of the world is on the right. There are a lot of people who are on the left, but the bulk of that is India."
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6mpalx | Why do prostitutes have "pimps"? | I guess I don't know what a pimp really does. And why prostitutes have them and or need them? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Because it's illegal. If a client beats the shit out of them and doesn't pay they can't go to the cops without getting arrested. The pimp is their protection, and they pay him for this. In places where prostitution is legal they don't have pimps - they work for a company or independently. Generally. I'm gonna edit this - this is generally the argument for legalizing prostitution. It's pretty much illegal because of religion and conservative attitudes. If you eliminate that bullshit then what's wrong with being paid for sex? Many would argue that the legalization of it would encourage more misogyny, human trafficking, spread of disease, etc - but the fact is, all that happens now. Legalizing it would give them legal recourse, independence, potentially health care (america's current situation with that is uhm, to be ignored for now), and just simply put - a legitimate job. It's something to consider in a serious manner.",
"Pimps usually have two main functions: Protect the prostitues and find clients for them. Why protection? Because other prostitutes may want to prostitute themselves in the same location, but aren't willing to share their clients, so a lot of conflict usually happens. Thats where the pimp comes in and does his thing to protect both the prostitutes physical integrity and their \"commercial area\". In exchange for protection and client-bringing, prostitutes pay their pimps a portion of their earnings.",
"When an economist studied this, [he found]( URL_0 ): > Prostitutes who ply their trade under the management of a pimp typically earn higher hourly wages. In other words, even after paying the pimp a commission, the prostitute takes home more income per hour.",
"*Not all prostitutes have or need pimps. The assumption that all prostitutes have pimps is false. *Once upon a time that girl wasn't a prostitute and needed to learn the lingo/streets/tricks/ways to avoid arrest/ways to ensure 'safety'. *Sometimes prostitutes get arrested and need a pimp to bond them out. *Sometimes prostitutes get hurt or snatched. Pimps are there to prevent this from happening/hold people accountable. *A lot prostitutes don't have valid identification and therefore can't obtain a hotel on their own. *Some prostitutes don't have transport to their outcalls. Better pimps often have a driver or two. *Pimps keep their girls motivated to make money (aka if the girls don't make enough money there are consequences). If a pimp has multiple girls under his care, inevitably one of them reaches the title of \"bottom bitch\". Bottom is the girl who brings in the most money. Bottom gets extra attention, and this causes a competitive atmosphere. This is why some studies show that girls with pimps make more money despite steep pimp tax. EDIT: to build on what u/krystar78 said, often times pimps also take on the role of mentor. These girls often feel alone in the world, and may struggle with addiction/financial/behavioral problems that leave them vulnerable. This is why a lot of prostitutes are sexually active with their pimp."
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6mq8eo | The conflict in Northern Ireland. | I understand there's been a long conflict between the Protestants and the Catholics, but why has it been going on for so long and why is it so violent? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Irish Catholics (republicans) traditionally don't want to be British or part of the UK. Irish Protestants (loyalists) Want Ireland in the union. We at present have \"2 Ireland's\" Not a united Ireland, because the island of Ireland is split in two. The [ROI]( URL_1 ) and [NI]( URL_0 ) Basically way back when, before the empire was on the up and up we wanted to control the whole of the British isles. The English decided after some failed military occupations to do a sort of reverse insurgency where they paid folks (English protestants) to move to Ireland, gave them land and set them up. So now we have a \"native\" population that wants to remain, and a native pop that wants us to feck off. That's essentially the religion and the age/length of the issue, as for the violence, well they literally had a few wars over it. The last \"war\" being the war of independence, but there have been conflicts and such since. > The Irish War of Independence (Irish: Cogadh na Saoirse)[4] or Anglo-Irish War or the Tan War was a guerrilla war fought from 1919 to 1921 between the Irish Republican Army (IRA, the army of the Irish Republic) and the British security forces in Ireland. It was an escalation of the Irish revolutionary period into armed conflict. This resulted in the creation of the Irish free state, that being the current ROI not including Northern Ireland, hence why there is still an issue for a united Ireland free from British rule. * **If I'm wrong, oversimplified things or just being stupid let me know but this was just a quick ELI5 to the best extent of what I know**",
"Britain, or more properly the Normans invaded Ireland in the 12th Century, and displaced the Irish authorities by the middle of the 16th Century. About that same time Britain broke away from the Catholic Church, which resulted in decades of strife and civil war over whether the Crown would be Catholic and Protestant. The Protestants eventually won, and passed laws to keep Catholics from power, some of which remained in effect as late as 2011. Ireland itself as pretty much in an on again off again state of revolt the whole time. Britain tried to make them less Irish by suppressing their language, culture, and religion, that just made them revolt more. So they took land from troublemakers and gave it to non-Irish settlers. Which also made the Irish revolt more. Fast forward to just after World War I. Britain, weary from the war, decided it had had enough and wanted to end \"The Irish Problem\" once and for all by granting Ireland independence. The only problem is that all those English, Scottish, and Welsh settlers had been there for generations, and weren't terribly interested in being thrown to the often hostile Irish Catholics. So Britain \"solved\" this problem by breaking Ireland into two parts, and keeping the northeastern bit. Which also made the Irish revolt more. In fact, it led to a civil war within Ireland, between the Nationalists, who wanted to take the deal, and the Republicans, who wanted all of Ireland to be independent. While they were fighting, the UK quiet drew a border favoring those who wanted to stay (the Unionists), which happened to contain a lot of ethnic Irish as well. By the time the Irish Republicans prevailed, facts were on the ground and Britain considered it a done deal. This lead to a lot of hard feelings, and rioting among the ethnic Irish in Northern Ireland, supported be Ireland proper. This, in turn, let to very repressive, often anti-Catholic laws that allowed the authorities to crack down on troublemakers, often brutally. This boiled over in the late 1960s, leading to organized armed violence, gueriella warfare and acts of terrorism by both Republicans and Unionists. The violence lasted for about 30 years, ending with the Good Friday Accords of 1998."
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6mqpyg | Why does the Vietnamese language have latin letters? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"text": [
"They did not have an alphabet until people of Portuguese origin brought one over. Prior to that, they used Chinese symbols. URL_0"
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6mqrcq | When did the "Germanic tribes" transition from tribal form to its current form and how did it happen? Can Germans even trace their tribal affiliations anymore? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"The Germanic tribes adopted Christianity (giving them permanent links to Rome and to other European groups) adopted writing, and transitioned into being feudal kingdoms. Feudalism started as little more than warlords pledging their loyalty to stronger warlords, with the various warlords controlling/protecting the peasants under them. The Migration Period, around the time the Roman Empire fell, was a time of huge disarray in Europe, as the Huns pushed in from the East, displacing Slavic tribes, who displaced Germanic tribes, causing the latter to migrate and establish kingdoms all around Europe, some working as mercenaries for the Romans and some eventually conquering Rome itself. The Germanic tribes then turned into feudal kingdoms. What is now Germany was part of the Holy Roman Empire (which was ruled by Germanic kings) for most of its history. But r/history or r/askhistorians could give you a much better and more detailed answer.",
"No, germans don't track tribal affiliations. There is no such thing as a tribal affiliation to track. When Bismark unified Germany in 1871 he didn't unify \"tribes\", he unified little regions with their own little governments that had already been working together, trading and culturally linked for centuries. It's as if there were now a huge European unification of all european countries (if all countries spoke roughly the same language). You would remember the region where you came from, but is not a tribe. They all spoke the same language (with many regional dialects, that exist to this day) since Luther unified the german language 500 years ago. They ceased being \"tribes\" under [Charlemagne]( URL_0 ), probably. That's over 1 200 years ago.",
"For a more detailed answer, I'm going to suggest you ask at r/AskHistorians. You might get a better quality answer there than here.",
"There was also the unification of Germany into a more modern form in 1871, which was (roughly) composed of Germany as we know it today, along with Prussia and other parts of the former Prussian Empire. Look up Otto von Bismarck's \"Blood and Iron\" speech for an idea of the German political aspect of it.",
"Some tribes like the Francs transitioned when they were conquered by Rome and took up Roman customs. Others transitioned naturally due to trading with the Romans, and some transitioned after Rome fell and they started mixing with former Roman people's.",
"No, we can't. The antique tribes mixed a lot, long before the Roman Empire ruled over parts of Germania. The transition didn't just begin with the Migration Period 375–568 a.D. suddenly. \"Let's all pack and move tonight!\" - \"Guten Tag, Celtic scum! Surprise! We are zhe Saxons und your island ist ours now!\" – That's a little oversimplified. People were likely migrating around even more, before that period. But historians have by far better sources of what happened since the raise of the Roman Empire. The Dark Ages happened and the Black Death. I found every trace of my ancestry vanishing when the Thirty Years' War (1618-1648) of the Early Modern Period burned everything down. Fear me! I'm an Ingwaeon Viking!"
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6muaom | What changed about modern wars so that we no longer have household names like The Red Baron, The White Death, and Alvin York? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"The world wars happened. Pre first world war people had a romantic idea of how war worked, what it was for and such. This meant that war heroes were idols. Most famous paintings, carvings, tapestries etc are about the glory of war. They celebrated it. Each hero was the embodiment of their nation. A fighting god. The first, and then second world war broke Europe. Completely broke it. War went from White glove wearing heroes striding into battle with a foe, to hundreds of thousands of people torn apart by machine gun fire. Britain, France and Germany had to endure it's father's, sons and grandsons returning without arms and legs, with horrific scars, missing eyes and terrible psychology disorders. And those were the ones lucky enough to not be shredded, gassed, torn up or drowned in mud. War has always been horrible. But in olden times, you had a battle that lasted a few hours, maybe a day tops. And then it's over. Sure a city might get wrecked, or you may have to flee into the mountains. But war was only horrible for the individual, and most importantly, for the loser. Now wars last for years and are horrible for the entire society. Modern war is terrible even when you win. The allies lost millions of men. Britain lost its empire and the vast majority of it's money. Everyone suffered. TLDR: war got so bad, even our heroes are villans.",
"We still do. Chris Kyle had a nickname given to him by the insurgents. Shaitan Ar-Ramadi (English: \"The Devil of Ramadi\") Carlos Hatchcock was White Feather",
"Have you ever seen Enemy at the Gate? It's a great movie about a Russian sniper who they basically turn into a celebrity to raise the public's moral and motivation to continue the war. The names you list off all come from WWI, times in which we were waging an all out war. These things need a lot of public support to get new recruits, keep people producing and willing to sacrifice for the war effort. Making celebrities out of war heroes goes way back in history as a way to either demoralize the enemy or improve moral on your own side. Modern wars, even including Vietnam & Korea did not require the same sacrifice from the public in terms of rationing and the Iraq/Iran wars didn't even require a draft so there's less value in getting the public fully behind the war. There's probably several other reasons, including us becoming more civilized and how many military forces emphasize the unit not the individual too. I would wager it mostly comes down to the lessened need for propaganda."
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6mug4g | Why do most people resort to talking about the weather in conversation? | Not sure if there is a scientific explanation here, but I feel like the weather seems to be such a boring topic that people jump to when they don't know what else to say. Would love to know if there is more behind this. | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"My brother, who works in customer service, said something I thought was really insightful about this: \"People make fun of talking about the weather, but it's really the best small-talk topic. It's a great equalizer because it affects everyone no matter who they are. You might be a CEO and I might just be serving you coffee, but if it's raining today we probably both got wet.\"",
"> I feel like the weather seems to be such a boring topic that people jump to when they don't know what else to say. I mean you hit the nail right on the head. It's an easy common ground for when someone wants to talk but doesn't have any other sure fire subject they know the other person will know about."
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6mv89r | What are GCSE's? | I am from the US and when I hear someone British talking about having a certain number of GCSE's, what does that mean? And how many GCSE's are considered a "good number" (i.e. intelligent)? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"GCSEs are qualifications, generally the lowest level that is formally examined, and most often studied for between the ages of 14 and 16. Most students will take around twelve of them, though only Mathematics, English Language, and two in science are compulsory nationwide (but schools often require students to take certain others as well). Within a school, there is usually not much variation in how many GCSEs students take. However, while a G or above is technically a pass (the fail-grade is U), most people care about those for which the student got grades A* to C (A* being a grade above A). Most things that state their qualification-requirements at GCSE level require 5 at grades A*-C, and possibly specify that one must be in a certain subject. This letter-grading scheme is being replaced with numbers, with 1 being the lowest passing grade and 9 the highest, starting with qualifications awarded this year. Beyond a certain level of attainment or entry requirement, though, nobody cares about GCSEs, preferring instead to look at A-levels (the next level, studied usually at ages 16-18; most people take between 3 and 5) or their equivalents (such as the International Baccalaureate). Edit: there is some disagreement with my claim that grades D to G are passes at GCSE, but [according to OfQual]( URL_0 ) (who *define* the National Qualifications Framework, and thus get the final say on the matter) A GCSE at grades D to G is a Level 1 qualification. Yes, grades A* to C count as Level 2, and are thus more useful, but if you get a qualification out of grades D to G at *all*, you must have *passed*.",
"Everyone is telling you what they are but no one has told you what GCSE stands for: General Certificate of Secondary Education.",
"In the UK secondary education consists of two parts, the lowers years of 7-11 (ages 11-16) and the upper years of 12-13 (ages 17-18). In the last 2 years of lower school you are able to chose what subjects to study. Many schools require you to do the basics of maths, English and science then allow you to pick the rest. Most require you do one or more humanity, then fill the rest with other subjects (my school also required you to do a language but not all schools do). Most people do roughly 11 subjects. At the end of year 11 these subjects are tested in national exams and give you a grade. These grades are used for application to the upper years of school. In terms of intelligence it would be seen as better to get 10 A* grades than to get 13 B grades in poorer subjects. In the upper years it is similar but you only do 3-4 subjects over the two years (I did maths, chemistry and biology for example) you then do nation wide test on the subjects at the end of year 13 and use these grades to apply for your university course. Unlike the American system the grade is based almost entirely on the exam with very little coursework, most subjects have multiple 2 hour long exams to cover all subject matter.",
"To relate it to the American system; a GCSE is your final exam in a given subject during freshman and sophomore year of high school. An \"A-level\" is the final exam of a given subject in your junior and senior year of high school. To get into very good college programs, you need to have scored very well on the corresponding GCSE/A-level test. For example, if you want to get into a good mathematics program at MIT, you need to have A+ scores in mathematics, physics and the like, but your English and Theatre score isn't all that important. The number of GCSE's a person has is not a relevant indicator of intelligence, although the scores of those GCSE's might be.",
"So u/DaraelDraconis is right but just to be specific: Most schools do 9-12 (I did 10.5 6A* 3A 1B half a C - amazed I still remember that). Some (not all) schools will allow you to drop out of subjects you're really failing in but at my school (a shit comprehensive) this was pretty rare and so if you get any fewer GCSEs than your school offers then that's really not a good sign. 5 A* to Cs is generally speaking the normal measure of \"the school hasn't totally failed you/you're not a complete moron\". Usually you need about that to get into a 6th form college (ie to get into a school between the ages of 16 and 18 to do your A levels). Once you've got your A levels no one really cares about GCSEs any more, except that most people will have to apply to University before they get their A levels. That means they apply on the basis of their predicted A levels, and this tends to be based on GCSEs. There's no hard and fast rule about how to do this but roughly speaking GCSE average grade across 7 or so subjects = A level average grade across 3 or so subjects. You probably need at least CCC to get into Uni and AAB to get into a top Uni."
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6mvi7d | When did Politics become about money and fucking over other parties, instead of representing the people? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Since ancient Athens. Yes, the history of the first democracy is full of examples of corruption and fucking over rivals and rival factions. These things are inherent in democracies, and probably in all other forms of government too. Winston Churchill once said, \"Democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.\" I think that sums it up pretty well.",
"This is a pretty hard question to answer succinctly, but I expect in the fullness of history, politics has *always* been about wealth and winning, with rare bouts of conscience and \"the right thing to do.\""
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6mvr2w | How is it that the '!' and the '?' sign are seemingly universal across most languages? | I saw some Japanese signs with a '?' behind it and wondered how this has happened and where this universal understanding comes from. | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"It isn't. The punctuation symbols you mentioned spread as European influence. They're adopted into the language. Historic Japanese and Chinese writing does not use inquiry or exclamation punctuation marks. The Asian marks used differ from European marks. Sentence stop is an open circle, comma is left to right, and a middle dot is used for indicating transliteration",
"Languages that use click sounds employ those symbols like we use letters, so not universal."
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6n99pp | Why are men's pant sizes in measurements and women's pant sizes in generalized numbers? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Women's sizes basically mean nothing anymore. They were suppose to be a ratio of bust, waist, and hip and were meant to show a smaller number because it made women feel better about their body. Smaller number is just more appealing than something like inches. They don't seem to be standard at all anymore. Women just wing it at the store, I think. I guess it kind of forces women to look around more to find the size that fits them in each brand too... probably helps sell more clothes. Men's size is supposed to be waist and inseam. Unfortunately it's not even accurate anymore. I have bought 4 pair of pants recently. All Jeans, all the same manufacturer, all the same cut, all different colors. All 34x32. Two pair are exact 34x32. Two are 32x31. There is no reason...",
"Because clothing manufacturers think that women don't want to know, or be reminded, of how many inches around their waist/bust/hips are. It's called [vanity sizing]( URL_0 ), it's completely arbitrary, and idiotic.",
"Men's clothes aren't safe either. URL_0 Women's sizes, at one point, were inches minus twenty. So if you had a 28 inch waist, you were a size 8. It's a much bigger mess these days and varies wildly from brand to brand.",
"While nowhere near as bad as women's clothes, even men's clothes have the same problem. I have three pairs of 34\" waist pants, and they measure from 33\" to 37\"! Even the same brand can have drastically different measurements. I once bought the same pair of pants I already owned (favorite jeans were getting a bit destroyed), and the replacement pair were almost 2\" smaller!",
"I wanted to know about this too. I found that some women's pant sizes correspond to the waist measurement in inches minus 10 or 20. So a size 14 could actually be 34 inches around the waist and a size 8 might be 28 inches. I figured this out by directly comparing a size 14 women's jeans with a men's size 34 and also some other sizes. This doesn't explain all the different standards for different pieces of clothing but I know for at least some pants this works. Source: Am a fitting room sales associate at a clothing store.",
"What confuses me more is why there are certain other things like \"slim fit\" and such that further add to sizes like that. I've had 32 waist pants that fit me perfectly, and 34 waist pants that are painfully tight. Just seems needlessly complicated.",
"Some stores/clothing lines use waist numbers but still use short, long, etc for length. I wish companies would stop the vanity sizing because I hate trying on so many damn jeans to find one that sorta fits. I think that's also why jeggings are so popular."
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6naeo7 | Why are some days of the week named after Norse Gods, and some days named after Roman ones? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"There is only one day of the week that is truly of Latin origin: Saturday, named after the Roman god Saturn. This is because the Germanic peoples took the Roman days of the week and, as best they could, found the equivalent Norse god to name it after -- this matching of Norse gods to Roman gods was called \"interpretatio germanico\", \"the Germanic interpretation\". For example, the Latin dies Martis was named after Mars, the god of war. The Germanic people had a god called Týr (Tiw in English) who was the god of heroic glory and combat -- and so we got Tiwsdæg. However, there is no Norse god that corresponds to Saturn, so dies Saturni became Sæturnesdæg. Not all Germanic languages kept Saturn, though. In the Scandinavian languages it is \"Lördag\" (or similar), which literally means \"washing day\"; in southern German dialects it's \"Samstag\" which originally comes from \"Sabbath\" (even though it doesn't look like it), while in northern German dialects it's \"Sonnabend\" which literally means \"Sunday Eve\".",
"That's due to English having a complicated history, from its Germanic origins and the Roman influence that came into the language while they were occupying and invading all over Europe. Several of the English days of the week come from the names of Norse gods - Tuesday is Tyr's Day, Wednesday is the day of Wotan/Wodin/Odin (the name has some variance), Thursday is Thor's Day, Friday is Frigga's or Freya's, depending on who you ask. Sunday and Monday were named for the Sun and Moon. So the only Roman named day is Saturday - named for Saturn. Of course, if you look at several of the Romance languages, you can see that they kept lots of the Roman names. The French mardi, mercredi, jeudi, the Spanish Martes, Miercoles, Jueves, Viernes, etc."
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6nb191 | It seems like the most common and ubiquitous sense of humor in anime tends to be having a character or character act perverted. How did this specific joke become the go to humor across eras and genres of anime? | Edit: character or characters* | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Are you referring to characters going through their daily life and then by some strange turn of fate end up falling on top of a girl/copping a feel or getting a panty shot followed swiftly by said girl beating the shit out of him for his intended or accidental transgression? If so, slapstick humour is not a new invention nor even japanese by origin. It's quite prevalent in the west with loony tunes being a prime example. This type of humour requires little effort from the creator and is an easy way to throw in fanservice as well. A combination of these two factors is probably why it's so prevalent in shounen manga/anime which is primarily targeted at teenaged boys."
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6ndono | Why are employees expected to give a two week notice prior to leaving their job, whereas employers are able to terminate employees without notice? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Future employers are more likely to consider the bad feelings of a previous employer when considering a hiring decision rather than prospective employees being warned off by previous employees let go without notice. Power is not balanced in the relationship between employers and employees. The two weeks is purely customary.",
"Employees are free to quit when they want without notice. This is known as at-will employment, which is the default unless you have a contract with the company. 2-weeks notice is to be nice to your department so they can lower the amount of time that people will be working extra to cover for the loss of your labor. At the company where I work, if you don't give 2 weeks notice, you are never eligible for re-hire should you want to come back in the future.",
"In an at-will employment jurisdiction, both parties can end employment at any time for any reason (minus certain protected reasons, such as race, gender etc). It's expected by courtesy that both the employee and employer give some notice if a job is going to be eliminated. Employers typically provide some notice if they are going to lay off members of their workforce.",
"Employees can quit on the spot, and unless serious misbehavior is involved, employers typically do try to give employees notice they are being laid off, or more commonly, severance pay. Sometimes circumstances prevent notice from being given. Sometimes people or companies are jerks."
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6nfm29 | As a social race that enjoys and benefits out of interactions with other humans, why do we like to be better than them? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Humans, like other primates, are hierarchical by nature, meaning that we are driven by instinct to want to fit into a social role and compete for position. Humans, unlike gorillas, say, are also able to form coalitions to keep any one person from becoming too dominant. You can see this in how people use gossip and humor to take people in their social circle down a notch or in how a group of senators stabbed Julius Caesar to death. Beyond that basic level, people who feel insecure in their relationships with others often feel driven to have their superiority displayed in their social interactions, such as always needing to be right in all arguments (which is something I've definitely been guilty of) or displaying their material wealth."
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6ngknp | Why is a bakers dozen 13 and not 12? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"It comes from a medieval law regulating the price and weight of bread. Bakers would be penalised for selling under-weight loaves, so they would add a bit extra to be sure that customers received the weight they paid for. A customer who paid for a dozen loaves might receive a \"baker's dozen\" of 13 loaves, so the baker could be confident that he had supplied at least 12 loaves-worth of bread."
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6nkkr5 | Why are the question mark, exclamation mark, and period nearly universal in foreign languages? | I noticed this as I was studying Chinese. Chinese has its own traditional exclamation mark, '了', but still you'll sometimes see the exclamation mark in place of '了', or even both together like so: "了!". Why is this? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"One thing to keep in mind is that for a long time putting spaces between words wasn't a thing. Punctuation developed during a period of time that the transmission of technology was pretty active. People were moving all over the place in ships and their were trade routes connecting europe to asia and such. It was standardized in the later 1400s when printing became a thing. Everybody went \"cool, that seems like a good idea\", and started using it. [The wiki covers it in better detail]( URL_0 )"
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6nl1jm | Why is the northeast region of the United States more developed than any other region? | The northeast region is considered one of the most economically developed, densely populated, culturally diverse regions of the United States. What led to the success of this particular region over the other parts of America? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"I'm sorry if this isn't what you're looking for but i took this question in a historical context rather than seeking to provide modern day reasons. As you know, some of the northeastern-most states were contained within the original 13 colonies, thus giving it much more time to develop than other states. Along with that, the vast majority of immigrants passed through Ellis Island in New York to come to America, hence the diversity. People wouldn't want to travel too far after arriving for the most part before starting their lives (aside from basically the mormons) leading to a large influx of cheap labor and densely populated cities. In the industrial era of America, the North had a huge advantage over the South in the fact that their economy was largely factory-based while the south was reliant on slave labor and indentured servitude for most of the 19th century.",
"California is actually more economically developed and more populated than any other state in the country. Likely due to the various gold rushes, combined with its easy shipping routes from Asia and the very nice weather all year round. As far as cultural diversity, the northeast definitely has it beat. New England especially, due to the various parts of history in which we've \"imported\" a large variety of various ethnic groups to fuel labor industry growth.",
"Basically, that's where everyone settled. It's at the coast, which is most easily accessible. That's why the West Coast is so developed too. But the East is where the first towns were, has been civilised by America for the longest, and it's where the US was basically born. The midwest was mostly white farmers looking for land; ergo, the midwest is predominantly white. The advantage of a coast is also that it's easier for shipping, as well."
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6nmcq6 | Why we are so concerned with other people's music interest? | Seems like if you say you don't like an artist that is popular people look at you stupid. Or old older people think you don't know a song because you're also not old. Or if you say you don't really listen to The Beatles all that much. Seems like music is a touchy subject for a lot of people when it really doesn't matter at all what so ever. | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"People will naturally want to be able to relate to others, whether this is consciously or unconsciously. So if they ask someone if they like a popular artist, and this person says no, it comes off as a threat, and as a result they become defensive."
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6nmffr | Why are some rock bands called 'alternative' and some 'indie'? What makes an alternative band not indie? | I know how blurred the lines are between indie and alternative music, but certain bands fall into 'indie rock' but under the umbrella term of alternative music, and others just 'alternative rock' which you wouldn't think of calling indie. I used to think 'alternative' was the US name given to these kinds of bands and 'indie' was more associated with British music, but Radiohead (UK) is referred to as alternative rock while The Strokes (US) is considered indie. Why would the likes of Radiohead, Oasis (and other Britpop bands), Nirvana, Muse, Chillis etc usually not referred to as indie bands yet Arctic Monkeys, Arcade Fire, The Smiths etc. are? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"The simple definition is that \"indie\" is short for independent and means that the band is (or was) signed to an independent record label (or the \"independent\" subsidiary label of a major record label). Alternative stems from an older generation of music. Back in the 80s there mainstream popular rock music that was one of either three traditions, a cartoon-y hair metal, the more generally more dance-y new wave bands or the resurgence of \"traditional american rock\" like Tom Petty or Billy Joel. Alternative was the stuff in the underground that wasn't that, and in that time period wasn't very popular. Then, in the early 90's Nirvana blew up bringing tons of alternative bands into the mainstream. So lots of random bands got signed to major label record deals. Unfortunately, this gets complicated by \"indie\" music hitting the mainstream sometime in the mid 2000s (arguably with the wild success of Arcade Fire) and a lot of Indie bands got signed to major label contracts and thus couldn't technically be \"indie\" but kept getting called that. So, that eventually meant that the label of \"indie\" could refer to a certain ethos, or sound style not just the status of the bands record label. So the reason Radiohead is alternative is because they were signed to a major record label starting back in the early 90s post Nirvana grab-bag. The same is true of Muse (and The Chili Peppers, though I actually think they may have had a major label deal before Nirvana hit the mainstream). The Strokes were \"indie\" because they were signed to Rough Trade (I think?) when they became successful. Arcade Fire used to be on Merge (an indie record label) but is now on Columbia (a major). The Smiths were on Rough Trade and the Arctic Monkeys were on Domino (an indie label) before signing to a major.",
"I realize that most people who answer on ELI5 tend to have worked in the field for a while but Ill tell you my observations. I think that both terms \"indie\" and \"alternative\" have been bastardized and no longer used correctly. \"Indie\" music, short for independent used to imply that the particular artist was not signed to a record label and released their music independently. However, as more and more of these artists have been signed to record labels the term feels like it is just used to describe \"hipster music\". On the other hand \"alternative\" music came about in the late 80's as a term to describe music that was different than most of the music coming out at the time but as other artists imitating their style or with a similar sound also got popular their style got their own names (ie Grunge). Because of this most new genres of the past 30 years could have been called \"alt\" at some point, and it feels like a term iTunes and other music distribution services use to describe music that they don't know what to call it."
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6nn0wa | Why do certain sports have an odd scoring system? | For example: American football has 7 point increments for touchdowns, Tennis has increments of 15, etc.. EDIT: Football has 6 points per touchdown. I'm American and don't watch football. | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"It sounds like nobody is really 100% sure where [tennis' system]( URL_0 ) comes from, but one explanation is that clock faces were used for keeping score at one point, and the hands were moved in increments of 15 minutes. As for American football, I would point out that it's not necessarily 7 points for a touchdown, it's only 6 points. Which is key because it's double the points of a field goal (3 points). Because there are multiple different ways to score points in American football as opposed to soccer, hockey, baseball, etc., different point values have to be assigned, ostensibly based on the effort involved in achieving each method. It's a lot more difficult to actually get the ball into the end zone than it is to get within ~30 yards of it and just kick it through the uprights. The extra point after a touchdown is just further incentive to try for the touchdown rather than settling for kicking a bunch of field goals. It also adds an extra layer of strategy with the option to try for a 2-point conversion instead of the 1-point, which again is illustrated by a doubling of the points for a more difficult method of scoring."
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6noqn7 | Why did so many once-popular berries suddenly disappear from modern (US) consumption. Boysenberry, gooseberry, mulberry, etc. | My grandparents talk about all these crazy berries they used to love as kids, and I've never even heard of them. Why do we only really eat blueberries and strawberries now? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"These berries are still available. But these days most Americans get their food from huge corporations that transport food hundreds or thousands of miles before selling it. They don't like to sell tender, delicate fruits, because they get squished in transportation, and don't last long on the shelf if not bought quickly. URL_1 URL_0 You're free to bypass this nonsense by buying from local farmers' markets, or by growing your own of course.",
"You can go to knots Berry farm for your boysenberry fix. I heard the guy who started knots first grew the boysenberry and named it after his neighbor.",
"Those berries are not grown in a wide range of regions, some are not native to the US (gooseberry, mulberry) and so have to be selected to be grown by a farm or imported, and some are very finicky hybrids that are difficult to grow and maintain strain purity (Boysenberry). Strawberries, Blueberries, Raspberries, are more widely consumed and so easier to sell to food companies and stores so more farms raise them. Many are also native to the US and so easier to grow here.",
"Gooseberries can host and spread a fungal disease called white pine blister rust. To prevent the spread of the fungus to pine trees, some parts of the US actually forbid gooseberry cultivation. Sometimes this rule even extends to currants, which are related to gooseberries and can also spread the fungus. URL_0 Gooseberries and currants are like little bags of juice on plants. If I remember correctly gooseberries have a little bit more flesh to them. But they don't store or travel well in the form of fresh fruit, so as was already mentioned the big agricultural corporations aren't really interested in them. If they're not legal to grow where you are, they might only be available as dried or canned/preserved fruit in specialty shops."
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6npa3y | Why were serieal killer more widespread during the 20th century? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"We don't really know if that is true. It could be there have always been serial killers in the past, its just that various murders were not linked together the way they can be today and even if they were then the public was not made as aware of it as we are now. Jack the Ripper was an exception mainly because his crimes were very similar in nature and confined to one area. He also received publicity when he appeared to taunt the police with a letter (although that probably wasn't him). But there may have been many other murders taking place that were never identified as being by a single person.",
"They were not. Serial killers have existed since Rome, at least. But only during the Renaissance Era was information shared enough to connect disparate murders together. Someone kept a file on Jack the Ripper because it was their job and connected the dots. Previously it was the job of the constable to club down anyone who got disorderly in public and if no culprit could be found a murder was just unsolved. This practice of 'keeping files' spread gradually until society became obsessed with the serial murders of the day - the 1960's or so. These serial killers weren't new, they were just newly in the public newspapers. As technology evolved the tracking became so efficient that very few serial murders went unsolved - they now simply query the database and it tells them whose cell phone was next to the murder victim's after she dissapeared, or they run a DNA check on the entire country based on the dirt under the victim's fingernails, or they look up who in the area was searching for \"how to commit a murder\" on Google. So serial killers are no longer as successful, so they don't get as much press. The attention has now turned to mass murders - terrorists and 'terrorists' and 'postal workers' and the like. These are the modern day serial killers who may simply realize they can't get away with regular killings so they go all out at once."
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6npbz9 | why aren't new religions being created ? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"The mormons and Scientology would like a word with you as would a great many Islamic and Christian sects. You must take time into account. Religions develop over centuries.",
"Since Islam and Christianity rule most of the world(this is a really really new thing in the history of society) most 'new religions' start as re-inventions of Islam and Christianity. These get recognized in smaller numbers than Catholicism or Islam as a whole.",
"There are new religions being created, Pastafarianism is one of them, although it seems to be largely satirical it's still labeled a religion and has devoted followers that claim to believe in it's doctrine. Kopimism is also new and seems like less of a joke."
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6npmet | Where did the social expectation of only girls wearing dresses come from? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"About three thousand years ago, when the fashion was robes (because technology) men who were going into the field to work, or going to battle would \"gird up their loins\" by taking the hems of their robes, and tying them up around their legs like pants. This continued for quite a while, the styles started to change, robes became dresses over time, and pants became the norm for those that went out to work and fight. Being that peasant women stayed on the homestead for a majority of their lifetimes, there was no need for pants.",
"Basically, in the past pants were more expensive than dresses, cause sewing wise, dresses are extremely simple (not modern ones), while pants are more complex. So you used pants only if needed and usually they were useful for the \"manly\" works, while all the women stuff was easily doable also with dresses, so there wasn't need for expensive, more complex and so more prone to breaking pants. From that, it stemmed the conception that dresses aren't manly, so the style evolved with that."
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6nprx0 | How did religion start, why did the earliest humans think there was/is a god, how did it branch off into over 4,200 different types of religions? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"The early religions generally trace back to elemental spirits. These weren't spirits that controlled the elements, they *were* the elements. Gaia was literally the earth, but she was also able to walk upon it. Ancient people were trying to provide reason and logic to a natural world that they could not understand or predict. Why did the harvest suck this year? Why did the next village over get flooded? Why has there been so little rain? All of those are very difficult to answer as a primitive people, but if someone in the village killed the cool deer he saw and then a drought starts, wellllll maybe you shouldn't do that next time. Sacrifice your best bull and then the rains start? Well clearly the rain spirits like bull sacrifices, keep that in mind for next season! Most religions trace their gods back to elementals, they all had different names but everyone had a spirit for rain and fertility and earth and the sea(if they were coastal). As the religions evolved to create gods who had power over these elements, instead of being the elements, they were grouped differently resulting in different religions. Many religions in a region share a lot of similarities because people would move around bringing stories from their homeland and integrate it into the stories of their new land. There are hundreds of different religions, yet there are remarkably similar stories that exist with all of them."
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6nqe1a | How come the US lost the Vietnam war if it was much more powerful? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"You could write a book to answer this question, and many people have done exactly that. ELI5 Version: You can't build a country with bombs The South Vietnamese government lacked local legitimacy. Eventually propping up the South Vietnamese government/military to the tune of billions of dollars and thousands of American dead every year became politically unsustainable. There was no longer any scenario where the US could \"win\" the war, so the US withdrew.",
"The Vietnam War was actually resolved in the same way as the Korean War: the United States forced the enemy to the negotiation table and required them to accept a partition solution. However, after the Korean War, the United States continued to support the South Koreans so the North Koreans weren't able to start up hostilities again after the United States forces left. After Vietnam, domestic political issues dominated the concerns of America, so the South Vietnamese were cut adrift without support while the Soviet Union poured military aid into North Vietnam to help them rebuild their army. So when you say the U.S. 'lost' the Vietnam War, it's important to recognize that the U.S. scored a crushing military victory that crippled the North Vietnamese military for years - and then proceeded to 'lose the peace' by abandoning the region.",
"A great modern analogue to your question is the situation in Iraq. In that war the US *did* sweep through and take a lot of military objectives. They won the war. Awesome. Like others here are saying, 'what did that achieve'? There was an ongoing insurgency and the US was unable to reach the goals they went to war to achieve. Vietnam was essentially the same, except without the initial military total victory."
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6nruw4 | American judges' roles in a trial/sentencing | So, by looking at a whole bunch of YouTube videos of trials and sentences being read out to defendants for both petty crimes and very serious crimes, there are some things I really struggle to grasp: 1. Judges almost always seem to include their own, personal opinions and give a "moral lecture" to the defendent. The judge takes up a lot of "space" with his or her own personality, so to speak. 2. They seem to be able to "make up" punishments to some extent, e.g. sentencing the defendent to carry a sign with a humiliating message on it. Is this actually the case? Are these punishments explicitly defined in the law, or does the law in these cases give judges the freedom to come up with "appropriate" punishments? 3. Judges sometimes seem to subjectively change the sentence depending on what they feel like, e.g. someone being disruptive or insulting the judge: add 6 months of prison. A judge having a good day: remove (part of) a fine, or shorten a prison sentence. Is this actually the case? What's the reasoning behind all of this? How much of it is accurtate? Does it differ a lot by state? The reason I'm asking is because in Sweden, the judge has a much more passive and low-key role. While they of course still are the head of the court and responsible for the process and the order in the court, there is A LOT less focus on the judge. | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"At trial: There are two types of trials, jury trials and bench trials. There are two types of questions - questions of law and questions of fact. In a jury trial, the jury is the factfinder. They get to determine whether the defendant is guilty or innocent by determining whether the defendant did what he was charged with based on the evidence. In a bench trial, the judge determines guilt or innocence. In either case, the judge also determines questions of law. They get to see whether legally, a certain piece of evidence can be introduced, certain questions can be asked, or certain witnesses are called. In sentencing - the judge determines the sentences based on statutory guidelines. Sometimes there are mandatory minimums - for certain crimes (generally repeat offenders), the judge HAS to give at least the minimum sentence. In cases without mandatory minimums, the judge has discretion to reduce (or increase) the sentence due to mitigating or aggravating circumstances. Of course, they have to generally follow the guideline of no cruel and unusual punishment, so they cant impose a 10 year sentence for shoplifting a shirt. For your questions: 1. Judges generally want to give justice. In many cases, they will talk to the defendant and lecture them. But in sentencing, judges can explain why they sentenced the way they did. On top of lecturing the defendant, this is all recorded as part of the court record. That way on appeal, the judge's reasoning is nicely laid out in the transcript. If the appeal's standard is, \"did the judge abuse their discretion,\" having all the reasons laid out on record about why the punishment was given helps them not get overturned. 2. These cases are VERY rare. These cases are also not explicitly defined in the law. But they arent unlawful, per se, as long as they arent cruel and unusual. If someone decided to appeal the conviction based on the sentence and actually get it overturned because the punishment was cruel and unusual, then future judges wont/cant/shouldnt impose these sentences. But most people would rather hold up a sign for a couple hours than pay thousands of dollars in fines (plus hire a lawyer for an appeal, which can take years) or spend time in jail. 3. Its possible. If the defendant is being disruptive or insulting the judge, the judge might impose a higher sentence. But their reasoning will never be, \"because they insulted me.\" They will say, \"the defendant showed little remose and didnt respect the justice system.\" Whether the judge is being petty or not is probably unknowable. But on the flip side, a lot of judges are willing to find mitigating factors as well - if the person is remoseful, checked into rehab, apologized or paid back the victim or whatever, the judge will often reduce the sentence, or sometimes throw out the case altogether for some of the pettier stuff. _____________________________ As for why the difference - Sweden is a Civil Law system, where only Legislative Acts are law. The United States is a Common Law system based on a principle called \"stare decisis\" - meaning that judges create precedent for future judges to follow. Neither system is better than the other, just different. For example, take the crime of Conspiracy. Conspiracy is generally defined as, \"two or more people agree to commit a crime and take a step in trying to commit the crime.\" Lets pretend both the US and Sweden have this law. Say we have a drug buy. One person sells, one person buys. Technically the selling and buying of drugs can fit under \"Conspiracy\". However, both systems realize that this isnt the type of crime that the \"Conspiracy\" law was meant to tackle - its not conspiracy if the crime necessarily needs at least 2 people to be committed. In the US, a judge can say that in their opinion. Their case changes the current law of Conspiracy to not include these types of drug buys. In a Civil System, the Legislature needs to come forward and make this part of the law, which can take up more time. But on the flipside, they also get less abuse of power, and finding the current law is a lot easier (in the US, you might have conflicting legislation and judge-made precedent, so you might go go digging to find the most recent law and determine how much power the most recent law has). From what I understand, Judges take a more active role in Civil Law systems for factfinding (calling witnesses, asking questions, presenting evidence) but less in sentencing. In the US Common Law system, the Judges rarely ask questions or present evidence. The lawyers are the ones to present all the evidence, and the Judges are there to make sure the evidence is legit. EDIT - I should add that most (like 90-95%) cases are resolved with a plea bargain. There are very few guidelines for a plea except for other sentences imposed by the judges before you, and judges often subvert mandatory sentences by accepting a plea. Also, accepting a plea is considered to be a mitigating factor to reduce sentences - since youre willing to accept responsibility for the crime (which in practice is a lot more complicated, but thats a different problem), the judge takes that into consideration. And the word \"sentences\" can mean many different things that isnt jailtime. There have been a huge history of ways to give shorter/less severe sentences for crimes - things like suspended sentences. For example, a possible sentence is \"1 year suspended for 2 years.\" That means you have 1 year of jailtime, but you dont actually go to jail. You go on probation for 2 years, and if you make it through probation, you dont have to spend that year in jail. If you screw up on probation, you go to jail for the full year. \\",
"It depends. Sometimes the law forces the judge to impose a certain sentence, these are usually called mandatory minimums. For the most part, though, the judge has the power to decide the sentencing (except for the death penalty, that usually has to go through) the jury. Also, the federal court system has sentencing guidelines that aim to standardize the process and take away some of the judge's discretion. A few states have guidelines too.",
"> They seem to be able to \"make up\" punishments to some extent, e.g. sentencing the defendent to carry a sign with a humiliating message on it. Is this actually the case? They can't sentence them to hold up a sign as the punishment for the crime. They can however offer it as a condition of probation. Strictly speaking, they can offer almost anything except torture as a condition of probation. \"No computer use for 4 years\" is a fine deal if the alternative is a 10 year prison sentence, even though it's borderline impossible to survive without a computer (and this has been ordered often in hacking cases). The key there is that the convicted person agrees to wear a clown wig rather than take the standard sentence. They don't have to agree, in which case they'll get the standard sentence, which in America at least is usually very draconian."
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6nssrj | How do comedians come up with unique new material? And when they come up with a joke, how do they know somebody years ago hasn't already made the same one? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"I don't do stand up so I can't speak to content development. However, comedians, unsurprisingly, tend to be rather large fans of comedy and the history of comedy. It's not uncommon to hear stand ups talk about throwing out bits that are too similar to something someone else is currently doing, or has done. Often times they can get around sharing a similar premise (current events for example) by spinning it in a way that reflects their voice or stage character. Bill Burr talking about Trump is going to be different than Patton Oswalt talking about him, even if they're talking about the same exact thing. From what I've observed too, it's a far lesser crime to use similar material when it isn't part of a special or formal release. So to stay with Burr and Patton, if one does a bit on the late Saturday show that is almost identical to what the other did across the country at the Cellar or something, no big deal. The same bit on both albums would be frowned upon to the point where there's no chance it would happen.",
"How did you come up with that question? Did you think of it yourself or did you copy it from someone who had already made it? How do you know if this question hasn't been asked before already? How does a writer know that the novel he's writing hasn't been written already? How does a poet know that the poem he's writing hasn't been written already? etc. Answer: the brain does that. It creates jokes. It creates haikus. It creates novels."
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6ntdvr | Why do Men around the Word nod to acknowledge each other? I have not seen woman do that.. But I have seen it in various countries and cultures all over the world. | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"It's basically a sign of acknowledgement. It's the simplest sign of acknowledgement and women do do it too.",
"Men communicate differently than women. We don't use nearly as many words but we're processing a lot of information about the world around us silently. When encountering a stranger men are both brothers, rivals, AND a potential threat to one another. Making eye contact and nodding acknowledges the other persons presence and the type of eye contact reflects how threatened they or you feel by the other's presence. In a glance it says \"I'm afraid of you\" or \"your not welcome here\" or \"hello friend\" and I know where I stand in that moment. In a scenario of low trust It also shows the other person that \"I'm watching you, your not anonymous now so don't try any shit\"...but that's just my opinion and others might also have a good and different perspective.",
"If I make eye contact with an unknown woman, I nod slightly and smile slightly. I don't do it with a man because it is sometimes misinterpreted."
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6nvn4u | Does celibacy contribute to increased proficiency and productivity? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"ELI5 rules dictate that I can't just reply with \"no\" but if I could, I would. Yes, there were some notoriously brilliant people who were celibate, but there are millions of people out there in the world right now who are celibate (either by choice, or because nobody will have sex with them) with absolutely no great abilities or advantages, and there have been thousand of noted brilliant people who led very normal sex lives. Consider: Certain mental disorders cause a person to be very very brilliant at a specific subject, and very very remedial in other areas of their lives. It's much more statistically likely that Tesla and Newton had mental abnormalities that made them fantastic at math and science, but caused them to have very poor social skills, or no interest in sexual activity. There are studies that suggest that for a man, going a few days without an orgasm can have a minor impact on some hormones in your system, notably testosterone, but there aren't any studies or stats suggesting that this has any meaningful impact on your mental clarity or abilities, and after a short while (7-10 days) things go back to normal as your body adjusts."
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6nvvux | Why is that tan "khaki" color the go to for business uniforms? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Because of World War II. Millions of men got used to wearing cotton khaki uniform pants overseas, and then came back and started buying houses in the suburbs and joining the middle class. When they wanted to look casual (i.e. not wearing a suit) they wore the khaki-colored style of pants they'd worn in the army, because it reminded them of when they were younger, and it was the pants they associated with \"getting stuff done.\" Over the years, things got less formal all over. People stopped wearing suits to work as often, and people started wearing jeans for casual wear. So khakis really had nowhere to go, and clothing companies started marketing them as \"business casual.\" Everyone was pretty comfortable with them in general, because they'd been around for decades, and they felt a little dressier than jeans, but a lot more casual than suits, so they caught on. Since they're so easy to find and look fairly nice, a lot of places adopted it as sortof a uniform.",
"Because khaki looks clean and stuff and you can go several days without washing it and you can't really tell unless you smell the person wearing said khaki"
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6nvyvg | Why nearly a quarter of Nobel Prize winners are Jewish | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"The Jewish people have had a culture which stresses education and intellectualism for centuries. This is mostly because of their depressingly long history of persecution and minority status. In order to keep their heads above the water and succeed in societies which looked down on and oppressed them they adopted an outlook that praised knowledge, wisdom, and intellect as means to get ahead in a world that was against them from the start. They also have a strong scholarly tradition dating back to BCE. Obviously, any culture that prides education for millennia will create a huge amount more innovators and geniuses than others that don't - or at least, not to the same extent. Similarly, because Jewish homes, land, and valuables where often forcably taken from them, they learned to keeep their wealth mobile and honed their financial skills who save as much of their wealth as possible, just in case. This lead them to often end up working in banks, and that's the origin of the Jewish banker stereotypes as well...",
"Everything is about culture. In the last 30 years, the NBA MVP award has gone to an African American 27 times. In the last 30 years, the NHL MVP award has not gone to a single African American."
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6nwzg1 | Why are MLB stadiums/fields different sizes? | Why is it that different MLB fields are different sizes and even different shapes? Why aren't they regulated so all home runs/outfield distances are the same? Doesn't this give an advantage to players and teams with a home stadium that has shorter distances to the outfield wall? And why are even the walls different heights, allowing some players in certain stadiums to attempt to rob a homerun while others physically can't? Also, let's say a team has a shorter right field wall distance. Is there any correlation between those teams seeking left-handed sluggers? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"The short answer is that when a lot of baseball stadiums were first built, they had to fit in weird-sized lots, so they were built differently. Fans and players like the differences, so there's not a whole lot of pressure to change it. Fenway Park (home of the Boston Red Sox) is a good example - they had to build a short left field as the stadium is built right up against Lansdowne Street, so they built a really tall wall (the Green Monster) to compensate. Nowadays though, there's not nearly as much variation, and newer stadiums (with the luxury of modern budgets and planning) tend to be a bit more regular. And [if you look at it, the variance isn't all that big]( URL_0 ). Older parks get to keep their shapes/sizes due to grandfather rules. But you are absolutely right - there are hitter parks (closer walls, or tricky foul corners that give offense an advantage) and pitcher parks (the opposite - better for defenders). Teams will totally consider that when building their roster - for example, Fenway in Boston due to its weird shape, small amount of foul territory, and giant wall gives out a higher-than average number of extra-base hits. Power hitters have a great time there, like Manny Ramirez and David Ortiz during their time with the Sox.",
"> Doesn't this give an advantage to players and teams with a home stadium that has shorter distances to the outfield wall? Nope, both teams play on the same field on the same day. However, if what you are asking is \"Does this make a difference in team performance?\" the answer is Yes! Different parks can have more or less offense, more or less defense, or even by left/right handed batter/pitcher friendly. > Is there any correlation between those teams seeking left-handed sluggers? There should be. Never researched this, but I don't see why not. This is probably one of the sources of home field advantage in baseball. I recall that the classic New York Yankees domination (20's - 70's) took advantage of Yankee Stadium very well."
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6nx4mf | Why are "Moscow Mules" always served in a copper mug - what is special about the mug? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"The reasoning that the mug gets cold is obviously a good thing, but that implies that copper has a very high exchange rate of temperature. It does, that's why they use copper for computer heatsinks. Very good at heat transfer. Which is bad. Your drink will get warmer faster and your body heat will transfer to the drink faster than a glass. If you drink it fast, great, if you spend more than a few minutes, nope. Basic physics.",
"The salesman John G. Martin traveled around the country selling Smirnoff vodka and created promotional photos with bartenders using a specialty copper mug. The copper mug serving vessel remained popular from that.",
"The story goes that the people who invented it worked for Smirnoff Vodka and went around getting pictures at different bars with a copper mug - the mug was a part of the marketing and [became instantly connected with the drink]( URL_0 ). Another version of the story I've seen floating around is that three guys were drinking together when they first mixed up the cocktail - the owner of Smirnoff, the owner of C & B Ginger Beer, and a guy who sold copper wares. So they put it all together and made a killing!",
"Was a bartender for a decade. It's honestly just a bullshit marketing thing. Anyone saying otherwise is being fed a line. That's basically the story I've heard from liquor reps. It's aesthetically pleasing and easily identifiable.",
"Bartender here, it's always been explained to me that with a \"proper\" Moscow Mule, it's about the reaction between the copper mug and the acidity of the fresh lime juice. I state the \"proper\" bit because in many bars, the extreme cost of full copper mugs compared with much cheaper stainless steel mugs with just an outer copper coating, means that many bars go with the latter given how easily these mugs tend to \"walk off\" as it is. The aesthetic is right and very few people know (as you've just asked) why they're in a copper mug in the 1st place.",
"\"It can be definitely stated that the main reason to serve Moscow Mule in copper mugs, is the presentation. Like any other well prepared drink, when it was prepared for the first time, Moscow Mule also needed a distinctive look. So the inventors served the drink in specially made copper mugs, and circulated photographs of celebrities drinking them to increase the popularity of the drink.\" URL_0",
"^(originally because of coincidence, a woman named Sophie Berezinsk who was trying to sell her father's copper mugs tried to sell them to John G. Martin-- the inventor of the moscow mule. he saw the marketing opportunity of a unique image/gimmick to serve his new drink in a mug that kept it cold. it took off from there.)",
"The mug was marketing. Jack Morgan of the Cock n' Bull Tavern was involved with a woman who made copper mugs. The drink and its signature vessel provided a convenient way to sell his ginger beer, the as-yet not popular exotic Russian Vodka, and his ladyfriend's crafts.",
"URL_0 Because the guy who came up with the drink had a girlfriend that dealt with copper products. It is a gimmick. The copper is flashy and people think it does something to the drink."
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6nxhhr | Why is it that when you ask someone to guess a number there's a high possibility it will be 7? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"This is an interesting quirk of human psychology. Humans don't pick things at random, but they will try to. You end up with a weird situation when they pick the most 'random looking' number. Here's the general thought process: * Pick a number at random between 1 and 10 * 1 is out, that's the lowest it's not random * 10 is out, that's the highest it's not random * 2 is out, and so are all the even numbers, they don't look random enough * 5 is out, that's exactly half way, definitely not random * 9 is out, it's three times three, totally not random * 3 is out, it divides 9 exactly, not random enough * 7 is most random. It's not even, it's not exactly half way, neither the biggest nor the smallest and isn't related to 9 or 3 in any way. [Here's a poll that backs up that seven is the most random.]( URL_0 )"
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6nxxli | How do people in India identify people from other castes? | Are there any ethnic signs or anything? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Think about your own society (or mine, since I'm American). Can I tell white trash from old money from new money? With a little bit of generalizing, yes: it's easy to tell, by their behavior patterns, by the way their family of origin interacts, by the way they celebrate holidays, by the way they dress, by their professions, by their accents, even by their names. Could an old money prepster from Connecticut pass as white trash if he dressed a certain way and maybe spoke a bit differently? Sure. It's not really an ethnic thing. This is intuitively similar to how caste works in India, although I'm sure someone will downvote me for taking a complex subject and distilling it so simply.",
"The caste system is no longer so prevalent in India(as compared to older days) and so there might not be a immediate discerning difference that you might be able to see. However, I'm pointing out the fact that I live in an upper middle class area and so my answer will reflect my understanding and observations of this question, as compared to answering your entire question definitely. As all societies, class is relatively easily distinguished between. The area you live in, the way you speak, dress and behave all act as identifying factors. With caste, it's not so simple. There are thousands of castes in India, I'm not sure of the exact number. Now, with the progression of society, many of the lower castes have risen up to make a decent living for themselves and can be indistinguishable from the general public. Of course, you could recognise the caste of people based on the general area and general physical features but you can never surely identify someone based on this. The last names of people usually can be an identifying factor of their caste, as people of the same caste share a set of last names. This is not true in all cases as the ancestors of certain lower caste members changed their surnames to something that was not associated with their caste in order to prevent discrimination from people from \"upper castes\" In today's day, I would say it's hard to identify someone's caste off hand but it's really not required day to day. Almost no one uses the old caste system, so it doesn't really matter what caste you belong to. I doubt anyone apart from people living in extremely rural areas still maintain the practice of using a person's caste to judge their worth. Although one major fact that should be known is the governments current view on castes. Government institutions especially colleges and universities have reserved seats for SC/ST(Scheduled Castes/Scheduled Tribes) so that they are not at a disadvantage in gaining seats for a course because of their background. While this does help people from less priveleged backgrounds get good education, it also causes a lot of people to take unfair advantage of the system. A lot of people who are well off and have a good education and living condition get to use the reserved quota system for their benefit even though they don't need it. This reservation system also causes a whole lot of problem for the general category of people(which is a lot of people) to get seats in university because barely any seats are left for them because of the reserved seats. Sorry if I expanded a bit too much, but I hope I answered your question. Here's a link if you want to read more about it. URL_0",
"I am from India and you literally have NO idea just how much castes play an important role in the Indian politics. It is atrocious. Absolutely ATROCIOUS. I mean the caste system was invented at the time of Aryans. I am sure google can tell you more about Aryans than me. But they created this caste system so they can manage and/or administer the people in the society efficiently. And it would come as surprise that the caste system has NOT been completely abolished 'til this date & age and now the system is merely seen as a POLITICAL TOOL here. And I also think that it is the Aryans to blame for the current state of Indian politics, if you go down the rabbit hole deep enough, you'll understand what I am saying. TL;DR - I just hope the caste system gets COMPLETELY ABOLISHED in the near future. Best wishes, Kushagra."
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6o0zkj | Why do we say "Bless you" everytime someone sneezes? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Pretty confident it's to do with the black death plague. The \"Bless you\" is a short prayer. During the plague of AD 590, Pope Gregory I ordered unceasing prayer for divine intercession. Part of his command was that anyone sneezing be blessed immediately (\"God bless you\"), since sneezing was often the first sign that someone was falling ill with the plague. By AD 750, it became customary to say \"God bless you\" as a response to one sneezing.",
"\"when you sneeze, that's your soul trying to escape. saying god bless you crams it back it.\" - Milhouse"
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6o1s0p | Who owns a lot of the undeveloped land? Can someone just go off into the mountains, build a home off the grid with no repercussions? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"All land (in the US) is owned by someone. Most of the undeveloped land like you described is owned by the government. Interestingly most of this land the government will sell you for dirt cheap. So you could purchase it and live off the grid, but that is a very hard way to live.",
"govt owns everything that isnt owned by an individual. Some protected as parks and such, other is up for grabs, some you can even have for free provided you establish residence and pay property tax. I believe its typically called homestead claims or something of that sort if you want to google more info. This land is *super* out there, no practical value, would be hard to get utility hookups ect.",
"Land in the US is owned by private citizens, companies, City governments, County Governments, State Governments, and the Federal Government. The land you talk about is most likely to be owned by the Federal Government or State Government. It is illegal for you to build on it without buying it, but if the land is not a part of a State or National Park odds are that you can buy it and then live off the grid.",
"I think every bit of land in all 50 states is owned by someone. Either private owners, the federal government, or state or local governments. Is there a lot of undeveloped land? Yes. Could you go far enough away from civilization that no one would care? Probably. If the owner found you living on his land illegally, would he care? Maybe yes, maybe no. No way to tell. But it would suck to go to the back woods of Montana, build yourself a nice farm, log cabin, and all that, then one day you come back from hunting elk or whatever and some bulldozer from a logging company has bashed it all down to make a logging road. What would you do then? You'd be stuck in the middle of nowhere with no food, or shelter, communications or transportation. You'd end up dead probably, and that's REALLY no fun.",
"This depends a lot on the legislation. If nobody else have claims on a land then the government have ownership over it. There are of course a lot of cases in Europe where land rights are determined by a lot of documents that may predate most of the laws. In these cases who \"owns\" it is a strange question as ownership does not apply in the modern sense of the word. In addition a lot of land is owned by farmers, investors and nobles. If you were to go off into the mountains and build a home then you would need permission from the owner. Which in the case it is a set of legal documents might be difficult. You might also need permission from the local government. There are various planning commissions and laws about preserving nature and the view so you might not be allowed to set up a house anywhere you want. And even if you are able to build a house and go off grid you still have to follow the law which does include several obligations. If the law say you need to send your kids to school then you need to send your kids to school. If the law say you need a birth certificate for your kids then you need a birth certificate for your kids. If the law say you need to pay taxes then you need to pay taxes. Even if you grow your own food and create your own electricity then that may or may not be taxable. So in the end it is very hard to go completely off the grid. However you can go pretty far in some places and may only talk to someone else once a year or so.",
"Un-developed land is most often owned by a government. Which government owns it depends on where you are and how local vs. country government is organized in your particular country. For instance, in my state, the county owns some undeveloped land, the state owns some undeveloped land, and the federal government owns some undeveloped land. Some cities may also lay claim to undeveloped land within their boundaries, though I'm not sure how legal that would be. In the mountains is most likely federal land in the US, unless it's a state park. There may be no repercussions, but it depends on who owns the land and why- aforementioned state (and also federal) park land are more likely to be patrolled enough that a park ranger would find you and you would be arrested. Finding a place far enough off the beaten path and outside of park and reserve areas and you can probably get by with zero repercussions- especially considering squatter laws that basically say you own the land you have been living on if you can live on it unmolested long enough. But, again, it depends on which specific land you are on and what governments' laws apply to your situation.",
"Yes, you'll have to buy it. You will want to have an attorney set up a trust so you can purchase the land without your name appearing on property search records. Otherwise, they will find you.",
"There is a very large amount of land that is owned by counties because of tax forfeiture. Previous owner died with no heirs, or abandoned property (failed to pay property taxes), or land given up by corporations. Most of it is land the county would rather somebody else owns, so they can tax it again. Some will sell to the state or federal land units nearby, or to companies (e.g. lumber). Citizen Joe could also bid on these properties and get them for cheap."
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6o265l | In the US, whats the role of the judge compared to the jury? | Re guilty vs innocent, and punishment. Is it that the jury decides guilty or innocent and the judge rules the punishment? Is that gnerally seen as a good system? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"The judicial system, both civil and criminal, works around \"causes of action\" (civil) or \"charges\" (criminal). A \"cause of action\"/\"charge\" would be something like \"fraud,\" \"breach of contract,\" \"attempted murder,\" etc. Each cause of action/charge is made up of \"factual elements.\" The factual elements for fraud, for example, are: > (1) a representation > (2) that is false > (3) that is material (i.e., important) > (4) that the speaker knows is false > (5) that the speaker intends the recipient to rely on > (6) that the recipient doesn't know is false > (7) that the recipient actually does rely on > (8) and that the recipient is damaged by relying on To prove fraud, in a criminal or civil case, you need to prove that each of these factual elements are satisfied. The person(s) determining whether the factual elements are satisfied are known as the \"finders of fact.\" In a criminal case, for felonies or serious misdemeanors, the defendant is entitled to have a jury of his peers act as the \"finders of fact.\" In a civil case, depending on the cause of action in play, you may have the right to choose to have a jury act as the \"finder of fact,\" or the judge. Juries are not, however, equipped or trained to address questions of *law*. Questions of law are things like, \"Does this party have standing to bring this case?\"; \"Is the thing the defendant is accused of even a crime or unlawful, even if all the facts alleged are correct?\"; \"Did the complaint and papers get properly served?\"; \"Are the pleadings in the proper format?\"; \"Has the statute of limitations run on these allegations?\"; \"Is this the right courtroom to bring this case?\"; \"What evidence is each side entitled to request from the other?\"; \"Does this court have jurisdiction over this case?\"; \"What evidence are we allowed to put before the finder of fact?\"; etc. All these questions of law have to be hashed out before the questions of guilt are put before the finders of fact, and the judge is the arbiter of all of these legal questions. The years and years of a court case are basically all about hashing out the parameters of the trial -- the couple-week process in front of the jury/judge asking the fact questions -- figuring out what causes of action were properly plead and have any factual support, where the trial should take place, how the causes of action will be phrased and instructions given to the jury, what evidence will be allowed in, etc. Once the trial starts, the judge will also be the referee for legal questions that pop up during the trial. After the trial, the judge is usually the final arbiter on the sentence, but he can only punish based on facts found by the \"finder of fact,\" either him/her or the jury. So if it's a jury trial, the jury will find facts authorizing up to a particular set of punishment, and the judge will set punishment at his discretion based on the range supported by the jury's findings.",
"Think of the judge as a referee. His job is to make sure the lawyers are following all the rules properly. He settles any dispute between them. Instructs the jury to ignore certain things. And explains the law to the jury when necessary. The jury decides guilt or innocence. They may also weigh in on aspects of sentencing (death penalty or no, etc)...but the judge sets the final penalty(calls the match).",
"'Twas oft asked here. Ye may enjoy these: 1. [ELI5: During a case where the jury decides the verdict, what is the purpose of the judge? ]( URL_2 ) 1. [ELI5:What role does a judge play in a jury trial in a criminal case. ]( URL_4 ) 1. [ELI5: What is the point of a judge in countries where a jury decides if a prisoner is guilty or not? ]( URL_3 ) 1. [ELI5 what is the theory behind juries? Why can't judges just make all the decisions? ]( URL_0 ) 1. [ELI5: Jury trial ]( URL_1 ) 1. [ELI5:When and how is a jury used vs. a judge to make court decisions? ]( URL_5 ) 1. [ELI5: What is the point of a judge if the decision is up to the jurors? And how are the jurors selected? ]( URL_6 )"
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6o2ldp | Where do last names come from? and how come unrelated people share the same last name | always been curious, title explains it all | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"'Twas oft asked here. Ye may enjoy these: 1. [ELI5: Where does the concept of having a first and a last name come from? ]( URL_4 ) 1. [ELI5:How were last names created? When did this start and how did we get our last names ]( URL_6 ) 1. [ELI5: Where did surnames come from? ]( URL_5 ) 1. [ELI5: How did everyone in the world come to get last names? ]( URL_0 ) 1. [ELI5: How did last names come about? ]( URL_2 ) 1. [ELI5: Where do all the thousands of last names come from? Every day, I hear hundreds of new and odd last names. And some peoples' are the same, but they aren't related by blood. How does all this work? ]( URL_3 ) 1. [ELI5: Where did all the last names come from? ]( URL_1 )",
"Surnames used to come from a person's profession. Smith (blacksmith), Cooper (barrel maker), Fletcher (arrow maker). Etc. Later, surnames indicated a person's parents Johnson (John's son)...",
"Different cultures used different naming conventions. Many western last names are simply locations, family relations, or occupations. Raul Guzmán's ancestors came from the village of Guzmán. John Smith's ancestor was a blacksmith. Katie Johnson's ancestor was John's son. Eventually the names became inherited rather than given to better distinguish family lineages, but that also leaves you with tons of unrelated Guzmans and Smiths and Johnsons."
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6o3bs5 | When and how did "like" turn into meaning "similar to"? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"According to the [Online Etymology Dictionary]( URL_0 ), the \"similar to\" meaning came before the \"pleasing\" meaning. As for how the \"pleasing\" meaning came about, \"The sense development is unclear; perhaps 'to be like' (see like (adj.)), thus, 'to be suitable.'\"",
"URL_0 Around 1200 AD. It had this definition before it gained the one of you finding something pleasing in the 1500s."
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6o5bbt | How did black pepper become the most ubiquitous spice? | It's good, but is it *that* good? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"The Romans liked it, and our whole civilization is about trying to be like the Romans, but more so.",
"I think we credit King Louis (which one escapes me... the 8th?) with insisting on his food being seasoned only with salt and pepper, from which the trend spread to French and then English nobility and has persisted since. AFAIK.",
"'Twas oft asked here. Ye may enjoy these: 1. [ELI5- Why is it that salt and pepper are the only two prevalent spices to be found on the dinner table? ]( URL_1 ) 1. [ELI5 just why salt and pepper are added to so many recipes. ]( URL_2 ) 1. [ELI5: Why in so many parts of the world are salt and pepper the ultimate and preferred condiment and seasoning? ]( URL_3 ) 1. [ELI5: Why is black pepper a staple seasoning along with salt? ]( URL_0 ) 1. [ELI5: How did salt and pepper become the default spices for everything? ]( URL_5 ) 1. [Why are salt and pepper the two spices on every table? Why not other spices? ]( URL_4 )"
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6o5nsf | How come organ music (like works of Bach) has become associated with Halloween? | I'm a huge Bach fan. Recently I was sorting through some music on Spotify, looking for obscure versions of some of Bachs organ works and I noticed a lot of them came from Halloween themed albums. There are "spooky" versions of Toccata in D, and Little Fugue in G-, and more. How did this come to be? I just don't see the connection between Bach and Halloween | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Many of these works are written in a minor key or have sections that go through minor progressions, and that is considered \"dark\" vs a \"bright\" major key. The primary \"dark\" holiday is Halloween. Check Out Edvard Greig for more minor tone stuff that's really good.",
"Tocccata & Fugue in D minor was used in a lot of early horror films (Jekyll & Hyde, The Black Cat), to the point that it's almost *the* musical motif for villainy. Wikipedia suggests this trope even precedes sound films. My guess is it was a piece a lot of theater organists had in their repertoires, and brought it out when they needed something dramatic in a minor key."
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6o5zib | In the Ancient Greek Myth of Prometheus and specifically his punishment. How did they know that the liver was the only organ that could regenerate? | URL_0 | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Prometheus was immortal, so *any* of his organs would have regenerated daily. The fact that this time they actually specified an organ that really does regenerate in us mortals (though certainly not in a single day) is just a result of it happening to be the story where that occurs. There are lots of stories of deities regenerating various parts. One of them was bound to be the liver. > First, the Greek gods were said to enjoy an immortal vitality. They could be wounded, weakened, tortured, imprisoned, put to sleep, even consumed by another god, but they could not be killed. Moreover, their immortality was often extended to their bodily parts. Take, for instance, the story of Dionysus who (according to the Orphic cult) was torn to pieces and eaten by the Titans. Fortunately, the goddess Athena rescued his heart and from it grew a whole new Dionysus. Greek mythology abounds in marvellous tales of regeneration. Viewed in this light, there is nothing remarkable about Prometheus’ liver being able to regrow. > Second, there are many ways to explain why the Greek myth-makers singled out Prometheus’ liver for abuse. Scholars have been arguing about this for centuries, and the most plausible explanations they have come up with do not rely on the idea that the Greeks knew anything about liver regeneration. Some claim that the Greeks considered the liver to be the seat of life, a privilege they would later transfer to the heart. In that case, Zeus sent an eagle to feast on Prometheus’ liver because he wanted to strike at the very core of his enemy’s being. Others claim that the myth-makers regarded the liver as the seat, not of life, but of the passions. On this interpretation, when Prometheus defied Zeus, he committed a crime of passion, and his poetic punishment targeted the bodily source of his impulsive behaviour"
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6o785v | Why is baltimore such a violent city? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Same thing that drives violence in other cities, since Baltimore isn't the most violent city. A lot of single parent families, drug addiction, alcohol abuse, poverty, people who are poor decision makers due to poor schools and poor parental role models, police use of excessive force, high rates of incarceration being training grounds for violent crime, etc. If it were up to me to change one thing, I'd offer a stipend to all teenagers who had government paid for implanted birth control until they were 21. I think teenagers having babies continues the cycle of poverty and is at the root of a lot of social ills.",
"Economist here: Income inequality, which is pretty much the answer to why is X so violent 70% of the time. The Baltimore area has the highest percentage of college graduates in the US and some of the highest paying jobs, yet some of the highest percentage of people living below the poverty line. For example some neighborhoods in Baltimore have a 50% unemployment rate and a 34% high school graduation rate, or lower. So combine some of the richest people in the world, with some of the poorest within feet and you will have a very bad time anywhere in the world."
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6o8340 | Why do movie credits include information like the catering company and truck driver's name, while other works of art (eg theatre, novels) don't? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Doing that on novels would cost extra printed pages, on each reader's copy, millions of pages wasted! Doing it on theatre would require someone standing there reading it out while people don't care and start leaving.. just like on the cinema.. awkward.. On a movie it doesn't cost much, the movie theatre will probably be empty 30 min before the next movie starts anyway. So it's more worth to credit people left and right there, perhaps some will even work for less pay or even for free if they got their at name credited at the end of the movie. On TV though, they usually speed up that bullshit, start introducing the next show, or show advertisement in the side, because it's wasted time, viewers may even start zapping to a competing channel if the get bored by the credits!",
"The various unions and guilds that the actors and technicians belong to require it. It helps to make sure everyone is properly payed for their work. Novels aren't typically written under union contracts. Theatre varies by the size of the company and the region. Broadway shows have rules about how cast members and technicians are credited in the program/playbill. Local community theater doesn't.",
"Good unions. Back in the day, even a huge movie had short credits. Over time, more and more positions were acknowledged. This is partly due to union demands for recognition of the roles people fill, and partly a way for studios to concede something that doesn't cost them money. Work for peanuts, get your name on the big screen! In a weird way, this system works for everybody. Novels are the result of maybe one or two writers, an editor, a copy editor, and a graphic designer. That's about it. Movies are a team effort by hundreds of people."
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6o8a29 | Why do we eat 3 meals per day? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"We don't. Most people in the world do not eat 3 meals a day. The UK for example has the tradition of Elevenses (before lunch) or of High Tea, which is basically a small meal before supper. If you are from some countries, It's beacause that's when kitchens serve meals. Your daily schedule is not isolated. It relies on other people's schedules too, including cooks. It would be very inefficient if everybody had a mealtime whenever they wanted. In the culinary world and for the historical family unit it takes time to prepare your meal. About the time that breakfast is all put away, it's time to start cooking lunch. By the time that lunch is all cleaned up, it is time to begin preparing dinner. Cooking takes time and must be on a schedule. A traditional routine of 3 meals is a reasonable schedule for a restaurant or your mom to cook. Most nutritionists recommend several smaller meals all day long is most healthy and how our bodies evolved to function best. This plan worked great when we were hunter-gatherers. But that's a tough standard to hold to when our time is not spent foraging for food 12 hours a day."
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6o90xx | Why do the USA still use electoral vote instead of popular vote? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Originally the President was supposed to elected by the College with no real oversight by the people. These days, the Electoral College acts as a balancing mechanism giving power to low populated states in relation to states with enormous populations. This is a kind of compromise that is very important in American politics. This concept of states vs. population is the reason we have a bicameral legislature. The issue with something like direct democracy is that vast regions of the U.S. would essentially lose any choice in the Presidential election, something that could be destabilizing to national cohesion. I'm not dismissing a direct vote, but it is prudent to consider the pros and cons.",
"Say you have 50 buildings in a neighborhood. Forty Five of them are single family homes, with families ranging from 2 to 5 people. So about 160 people. Then you got five buildings that are frat houses with 40 people each, so 200 people. All houses in the neighborhood are the same size, but since there are five properties that have a majority of the neighborhood population, the can ban together and make all the rules. Does that sound fair to you?",
"Because the US federal government is a government of states, not of people, and it has always been that way.",
"Abolishing the electoral college would require a constitutional amendment, which is very difficult to do. There are also many people who don't *want* to get rid of it, as it favors them. One of the reasons some people are frustrated with the electoral college is it allows a president to win despite losing the popular vote, but of course that means the party less likely to win the popular vote due to being a political minority would rather keep it around.",
"We are a federation of States and it is the States that vote for their leader, the President of the United States. The States in turn use the popular vote of their citizens to determine who to vote for. The issue with direct voting is that all the power goes to 4-5 cities.",
"There are coherent arguments for and against the Electoral College in the context of the American political system. Without it, less populous areas of the country would have little say in national issues. With it, the interests of those living in cities are deliberately underrepresented and under-served as far as national issues. However, I see a LOT of people on here equating the move away from an Electoral College system with \"mob rule\" and that's just ludicrous. There are plenty of other ways to fairly allocate votes/influence in use in lots of places we think of as nice places to live and they don't show up in the capitol with pitchforks and bonfires every election year. Don't pretend there aren't viable alternatives just 'cause it may not favor your preferred political party.",
"The original colonies feared the super populated colonies would rule the new nation. By spreading the electoral votes, it now matters WHERE the votes come from, not just HOW MANY. Today, this is still important. Taken by population alone, NINE states have 51% of the population. Does it seem like a good idea that NINE states can pick the President, and the other 41 states (and Wash DC) are not needed at all? Yes, California has 55 electoral votes (because it also has the largest population) but you can't do \"five times as well as the last election\" and get 275 votes (crossing the 270 needed) with California alone. If you want the full 270, you MUST make some promises to all the \"fly over\" states like Kansas, Nebraska, Kentucky . . . And if you expect to get reelected (or get your party reelected) next time, you need to KEEP at least a good portion of the promises made to the fly-over states. Many complain that during the last election, the person that won \"didn't win the majority of the popular vote\". But, they won the \"popular vote\" in THIRTY states . . . would it make more sense to give the election to the candidate that only won TWENTY states? Simply because they have larger populations? No matter which extreme you're at politically, it seems like a bad idea to let a small number of heavily populated states, rule the nation. So the Founders created the Electoral College/system. And . . . for all the same reasons, it's still needed today.",
"Because the constitution says so. Article II, section 1, clause 2: > Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors, equal to the whole Number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress: but no Senator or Representative, or Person holding an Office of Trust or Profit under the United States, shall be appointed an Elector. This is the framework that says \"you will use an electoral college.\" To change away from the electoral college process, a constitutional amendment would be required, which needs a supermajority (2/3) in both houses of Congress to pass. It isn't a large enough issue to enough congresspeople to push for an amendment.",
"The USA uses both. It uses the electoral vote because that is how the country was designed and there hasn't been really any pressure to change that. How the states award electoral votes is up to them, and all of them have decided to use a popular vote system. The popular vote determines the award of electoral votes."
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6o9uo4 | Why are Americans so strict about things like drugs, alcohol, sex, and gambling compared to other western nations? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Most of the people who came to America at the beginning did so for religious freedom, specifically Protestant Christians. I suppose because of this many Americans believe in Christian values very seriously and all of these things are looked down in Christianity.",
"Are we so strict? Marijuana is illegal in England & most European countries. Marijuana is legal in almost 10 states & most states have decriminalized it. Legal drinking age in Europe is 18. America is 21. That's a minor difference. Sex? America has gay marriage. Gambling? Vegas baby! Every gas station on my street has video slots & poker."
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6oa4iw | How does "People of Walmart" not qualify as cyber bullying? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Bullying is specifically directed at a person - the abuse, intimidation, or demoralization of someone. For that to happen, abusive behavior has to be directed at them, and they have to be aware of it. Stuff like People of Walmart isn't generally bullying, because it's not specifically directed like that. It's certainly *not very nice,* but it's impersonal and the \"victim\" isn't being identified and will likely never know that their picture is up. Now, if that person does find out that they've been pictured like that, or people who know them do, or if they get identified, and people start making fun of them? If they start to feel hurt or affected by that? I'd say at that point, cyber bullying is happening. But we take laughs at anonymous people all the time without it being too harmful. Think of the average stand-up comedian's routine: they're going to have bits about their dumb friend, an awkward waiter, something embarrassing about their spouse or their kids, whatever. As long as the person isn't affected negatively by that attention, we can't really call it bullying."
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6od5cm | What made "big balls" become associated with courage/bravery? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Testicles produce testosterone, which is the primary hormone responsible for men becoming masculine in adolescence and throughout adulthood. And since courage/bravery is a stereotypically masculine trait, big balls = big manliness."
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6odwz4 | ; how is intersectional feminism different to the feminism I grew up with? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"To understand Intersectional Feminism better, we must first understand what intersectionality is. Intersectionality is simply the theory that there are different areas of disadvantage that 'intersect' in any disadvantaged individual. For example, let us consider two women. There's Cory, who's a rich white woman living in California, and there's Anjali, who's an Indian immigrant , who converted to Islam when she was 21, and suffered from poverty all her life. Without understanding intersectionality, it is easy to say that traditional feminism fights for the rights of all women, when in reality, there are different areas of disadvantage that are equally important to one's identity, and white upper-class western women like Cory, while no doubt fighting a noble battle, might be fighting for something very far from what people like Anjali can relate to or even understand. Intersectional feminism understands this, and understands that that not all people come from the same place. It can be contrasted with white-feminism, which is mainly concerned with the interests of people like Cory, while disregarding the experiences of people like Anjali. Intersectional feminism is, for the first time, spreading this knowledge among the masses, and will hopefully take us to a brighter future where people of all backgrounds can stand together as one people.",
"Intersectional feminism recognizes that there are different types of sexism experienced by people in different situations. Lesbians experience different issues than straight women. Able-bodied women experience different issues than disabled women. Black women experience different issues than Hispanic or white women. And those issues are not just the two aspects combined. There can be different variants, and there can be gestalts -- some of these are more than the sum of their parts. Generally, intersectional feminists are also concerned with all the issues that contribute to those gestalts, though obviously each person will have somewhat different priorities."
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6oe5z6 | Can a sitting US President lose the party nomination during a presidential election? If so, what happens? Does the sitting president become a lame duck president? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Yes. In normal years, the incumbent president usually faces no serious challenger from within the party, and so wins the nomination without need for a primary campaign. In addition to tradition, having no challenger helps the party to save resources for the general election and limits potentially damaging infighting. It also reflects the fact that presidents usually have tremendous power within the party, and are able to ensure that no potential challenger would have the support needed to win. But, there are abnormal years. In 1968, for example, Democrats were so unhappy with LBJ that Bobby Kennedy announced that he would challenge the sitting president for the nomination. (I think that some other prominent dems did the same). LBJ was so concerned about the potential humiliation of losing the nomination that he withdrew from consideration, forfeiting the chance to be reelected in 68."
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6ofdhn | Why do British criminals typically not use firearms in their criminal activity like their American counterparts. Is there not a black market for firearms? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Much harder to obtain firearms, very rare to have them in the criminal side of things as well. There's far more guns in the countryside due to farmers ... And farmers mum's.",
"A lot of speculation and assumption even from brits. I won't self incriminate but I use to be quite deep down the rabbit hole a time ago in regards to crime and a bad crowd. Guns are rife, the majority of crimes are impulse driven and most people don't carry firearms typically but a huge amount of people possess guns \"just in case\" and some do carry them. Gun use is glamorised in more mainstream rap / grime within the UK however the people Ive known that would kill /killed have always favored using their hands instead, the largest single reason for not using firearms in the UK is not how hard it is to acquire them, but rather most things can be settled with a knife here, so why use one?",
"There are a bunch of reasons for it. First, guns aren't readily available. You could certainly find them if you wanted to, but it takes some amount of effort. In the US, it's relatively trivial to get your hands on a gun, so many shady characters just pick one up at some point and have it if they ever want one. Most criminals aren't making elaborate plans for intricate criminal enterprises, they're just people who are trying to make a quick buck, and if they don't already have a gun, they're not going to spend much effort trying to get one. Second, they're not really necessary. If you're a common thief, you're unlikely to encounter a gun in the course of your criminal activity, whether in the hands of a civilian, another criminal, or a police officer, so you're in fine shape if you don't have one. Third, guns are highly, obviously illegal. This sounds like a dumb consideration if you're already committing a crime, but not all criminal activity is equally risky, and criminals know it. If a cop stops you and finds some drugs or stolen goods, you can try to explain it away and maybe you end up doing some jail time or maybe you end up with some community service or even get off. If a cop stops you and finds a gun, you've got no reasonable defense and you're going to be going to jail for a long time. Even if you have a gun, carrying it around in public increases your risk of negative consequences a lot. So, carrying a gun takes some extra effort, carries a lot of risk, and brings with it a comparatively low benefit."
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6ofspl | why do cities in Germany have so much graffiti ? | I visited several German cities and graffiti is so common place even on occupied buildings. In Canada where I live they would be cleaner up immediately, especially if it is a public institution like a school. Do most people just give up on cleaning graffiti in Germany ? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Occupants have been a big part of recent German history. They often used graffiti to mark territories, political agendas or the like. This has spread to grafitti being very common now. A thing I noticed in Berlin especially was that a lot of the graffiti is really well made, because they are allowed to work at it in select spaces. Of course tagging and the like is as ugly as everywhere else, but the huge murals are more art than they are anything else"
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6ogp3x | What's the deal with the Greece, Macedonia and FYROM name dispute? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"The ancient region of Macedonia covers both the modern day country of Macedonia (FYROM) and part of Greece. The modern day Greek part is a region also called Macedonia. Both Greece and FYROM claim the history and cultural heritage of ancient Macedonia. Macedonia was the kingdom of Alexander the Great, so it has a lot of significance. Greece claims that ancient Macedonia was culturally Greek, and spoke Greek, therefore the it's part of their heritage. FYROM claims that even though they speak a slavic language now, they are still the descendants of the ancient Macedonians, so it's part of their heritage. So essentially Greece doesn't think it's right that the country Macedonia should use that name by itself, because it implies it is *the* Macedonia when Greece's Macedonia is also legitimately part of the historic Macedonia region. Hence they refuse to call the country \"Macedonia\" and instead call it the \"Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia\"."
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6oha7a | Why do some english professions have variations for both genders such as "Actor/Actress" but most don't? | Actor/Actress; Steward/Stewardess Doctor; Nurse; Teacher; Driver; etc. I tried looking up origins for doctor and actor but both come from latin. Does it have to do something with the fact that females weren't, for instance, doctors in past? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"The \"-ess\" in \"actress\" and \"stewardess\" comes from French, as does the related \"-ette\" (as in \"usherette\"), while \"-trix\" (as in \"executrix\") comes from Latin -- although that one has mostly fallen out of use except in \"dominatrix\". Mostly, it was words of French or Latin origin that had these endings for the feminine version, but this practice is now falling out of favour in our more egalitarian times. There used to be far more of them: [\"doctoress\" was listed in the 1913 edition of Webster's Dictionary]( URL_0 ), for example. Words of Germanic origin tended not to have feminine version: the \"-er\" ending was simply added to an activity or a thing to denote a person who did that activity or made that thing, whether male or female. \"Stewardess\" is an exception. The word \"steward\" is Germanic, and is about 1,000 years old. The word \"stewardess\" isn't recorded until the 17th century: for some reason, it was felt necessary to stick a French ending onto a Germanic word, creating something of a Frankenstein's monster. This actually happened quite a lot, but the practice died out and many of the \"Frankenstein's monster\" creations disappeared, although some survive."
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6oic02 | Does it count as copyright infringement if someone were to take an entire book and translate it into another language, or is it a whole new book because it has all different words? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"A translation would be considered a derivative work, which is covered under copyright. Even though it's an all new book, with completely new words (aside from probably proper nouns remaining the same) every word in the new book has been derived from the original would through translation. While it is not completely deterministic (colloquialisms and jokes may receive special treatment to retain meaning, or be directly translated, for instance) you can basically expect that any person's translation of a work will be at least 95% identical to any other person's translation. The purpose of copyright is to promote and preserve creative endeavor, and the creativity is clearly found almost entirely in the original author, not in the translator."
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6oiy0u | Why are restaurants/movie theaters often uncomfortably cold, even in the summer when it shouldn't be cost effective to have the AC so low? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"They have to turn the air down extremely low because when those places fill up with people, it's impossible to cool it down. They're preparing for their busy hours. It would be unbearably hot if they didn't do that and the business got busy.",
"Large numbers of warm bodies tend to warm the place up, so they are over-compensating in advance. Also, in the past when AC at home was uncommon, people would go to the movies *specifically because* they were well air conditioned.",
"Different people prefer different temperatures. It's easy enough to bring a sweatshirt or jacket to keep warmer when the temperature is lower than you prefer, but there isn't much you can do if the temperature is too high. Also, people that are too hot are more easily agitated than people who are too cold, so if you are going to err on one end or the other, they prefer to be on the cold side.",
"There is also a correlation to emotions and temperature. Jails, for example, are maintained fairly cool around 65 degrees Fahrenheit, as the cooler temps reduce angry outbursts. URL_0 In addition, I would assume it feels cold because you're stationary. If you were the waitstaff, up and moving around, I'm sure the air would feel more comfortable.",
"It is mostly that the people actually setting the temperature aka the people that work there are constantly moving. This means that they are warmer than the rest of us who aren't moving at all",
"Once had a Waffle House waitress tell me that they have to keep it on because the kitchen is open so if they turned it off it would get really humid and the windows would fog up."
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6ojhf9 | Why do/did French names sometimes have prepositions in them? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"d', de, du are \"of\" in French. Jeanne \"of\" Arc.i.e. she was from a town called Arc. If you didn't have one of those names like Smith or Taylor that represented what your family profession was, you would take the place name as your last name. I am Steve... of... uh... Steve of Philidelphia. _en francais s'il vous plait!_ Je suis Steve de Phili.... which over time would just become dePhili.",
"It's pretty common for surnames to include prepositions in relation to the location the person is from or their parents. Surnames were basically add-on names to distinguish between the Robert that worked at the bakery, the Robert that worked at the blacksmith, or the cabage farmer Robert, or the Robert that grew up in Bismark. O'Malley, Mc'Beth, van Beethoven, bin Laden are some other examples from mostly unrelated languages.",
"Most languages have a naming convention where the last name is \"of\" or \"from\" a specific location. Examples in other languages are \"Von\" in German, \"Van\" in Dutch, \"De\" in Spanish."
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6okwxk | How do steakhouse restaurants cook so many steaks at the same time to varying degrees of done-ness and get them all relatively correctly cooked for each customer? | Edit: you guys are blowing my mind with your answers. I wish I could give you all golds, seriously, for some reason I find this fascinating. | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Okay, I was a grill cook in everything from pub to steak house and even a Grillardin in a fine dining restaurant. Steak grills are sloped and higher at the top, lower at the bottom (this is adjustable). Then the cook adjusts the level of heat for each burner (anywhere from 2 to 6) so he has a range of heat levels, usually from right to left. They usually make the lower right corner the hottest and the upper left the coolest on average. There is some variation due to size of the gas outlets and how clean they are. All steaks start on the right side for their initial sear then moved to an appropriate area when they get their first turn (what makes the diamond pattern) The more well done the steak the ***slower*** you cook it or ***it drys out*** (so many people and cooks don't know this). So well done are moved towards the left upper corner and are started soonest. Then you use the most well done steak of the order to take your timing for starting the other steaks from. Most steaks (not blue rare) are turned when you first see the fluid start to appear on the surface. Let too much of it appear and it burns up when you flip the steak and you again end up with a dry steak. You can tell when a steak is done by pressing on it and ***should never cut it*** to check because it lets out the liquid. Cooking tightens the fibers so a well done has more resistance than a rare when you press on it. [This is how you learn how it feels like.]( URL_0 ) After your second turn on the other side you keep checking its state and moving it on the grill so that all the steaks on the order start reaching the level you want together. Meat also needs a resting state to allow juices to redistribute and the longer it's been cooking the longer this needs to be. So well done often go to a warming rack or what I did, put it on top of a rarer cooking steak. When this is done the steak is pretty much no longer cooking and will stay at it's level from that point on unless it receives too much heat again (why most cooks ***hate*** heat lamps) After that it's all about timing. Knowing how fast your grill is running because the more or less you have on the grill the more this changes. Noting which steak is which and sometimes substituting one steak for an order for anothers if necessary (no steak has a customer's name on it till it's plated). Knowing what else is with the order, and most importantly communicating with all the other cooks. Because depending on volume the grill cooks responsibility can range a lot. After that it's pure hustle and memory. Most people don't know how hard being a good restaurant cook is. It's pretty much not worth what you make, that and the stress (has one of the highest incidents of substance abuse of any career) is why I quit doing it. Edited to add: To give you an idea how much resting a steak helps with timing, there's been times, rare, but still times where I would have two steaks on top of a steak of the same order. Only ever did three a couple of times when I was swamped or had a big table.",
"When I was a cook, I had to get to know the grill. There are different hot-spots and cooler spots on most grills. I would have 10-15 cuts of meat during busy periods. You really just have to keep track of each one. There are no shortcuts in this tbh. A few tricks I learned while managing everything..If blood is sweating from the top-uncooked side, its ready to flip for medium/well to well. In the trash for a rare/medium rare if that happened. For medium/rare use the hot spot of the grill to sear then move to a cooler section to cook a little more. Also, with a knife, cut a tiny slit in the thickest part an pry the meat open to check before plating. It really is a skill (I have mostly lost) that you acquire.",
"Please bear in mind one fact: If I'm your grill cook, cooking 15 steaks (on average) to medium rare or medium, then I have a little give, don't I? Behold: 1.) 3 orders come in for medium well, 5 for medium, and 7 for medium rare. 2.) Grill 'em all. 3.) REST ALL THE STEAKS. See, this is where the wiggle room comes in. When you order your steak, a ticket rings into the kitchen telling me to start cooking the steak. Even with a well-done steak, if you have a salad or an appetizer, I've bought myself about 30 minutes to get that steak cooked and then rested (vital for proper cooking of meat). 4.) Oops. This one I THOUGHT was a medium was a little over (by \"poke testing\" it or using a cake tester - more info available upon request). I'll move that over to the \"medium well\" pile, and this one over here... well, I can use that as medium. Perfect! 5.) When it's time to bring your entrees to the table, the grill cook will flash the meat on a grill (getting the surface ripping hot - the meat inside should not have cooled terribly). 6.) Slice (possibly) and serve! So in other words, what /u/gearhed said is totally spot on. But to add to his/her point, I get a little insurance, because I don't take the meat directly off the grill and put it on your plate, or else when the plate comes to your table, it is just a puddle of meat juice with a steak on top. Resting is key! And during that resting period, I can quality check and correct if needed. Also, I can't emphasize this enough, cake testers.",
"Although I've not cooked in a steak house, I've managed a few, 2 large corporations, actually. Both these gentlemen are correct. The surface area of the grill has a variation of heat ranges, and the Grill Cook will continually rearrange the cuts depending upon: volume/size/mass, the type of cut ( leaner cooks faster, like a piece of shit filet vs a deliciously marbled Kansas City Strip), whether the cut has a bone in it or not, and the serving temperature, or doneness, requested by the guest. In Chicago, I once had the pleasure of working with a gentleman who, on a busy Friday night, grilled over 500 different cuts, without a Single re-fire...( meaning: every steak, chop or filet he grilled, was served at the desired temperature to the guest that ordered it, no one said that their steak was over or under-cooked) And, if you really value a correctly grilled cut of meat: give some Fucking Respect to the Cooks!!",
"Back when I was doing it, organization, practice and minithins (pseudoephedrine). Different areas of the grill run different temps, and different doneness needs different heat and cook times. Well done goes on first at medium heat, everything down to medium is the same but timed out accordingly. Medium rare needs a good sear but not a lot of cooking and rare even more so, so you put those on late on hotter parts of the grill. You also keep a warming section just in case you mess up the timing a little bit and need to slow something down so the others can catch up. It's remarkably stressful during a rush, especially considering the $5.20/hr I was being paid to do it.",
"A lot have gone to sous vide baths so the steaks are all maintained at a perfect rare awaiting grilling to final doneness.",
"Everyone here has all these overly complicated methods at the restaurant but I just sit at home and run my Sous Vides....",
"Long time cook here. First you need to know the grill, where it's hot/where it's cooler. Second you need an experienced cook. Lot's of people think because they can BBQ 4 steaks on the weekend theyknow what theyre doing. In my 10 year career I've probably cooked more steak that most people in their whole lives will. Third is you need to be organized, the top comment here talks about how you start a steak here and move it there blah blah blah but it all depends on the cooks preference and grill. Constantly touching and checking the doneness of the steak then pull it off when it's finished cooking. If a big party was in and let's say 20 steaks were ordered I would throw them all on and just start cookong to rare. Check the ticket and pull off all the ones that become rare first I pull off what I need. Then just keep moving up the temperatures with medium rare and medium etc. For me I would rest them in an order so I wouldn't lose track, rare closest to me then progress out to well done (but that's just my preference). Then before plating fire them in the salamander to blast them with heat quick before sending them out. Some people can use sous vide and cook all the steaks to rare or medium rare then just bring them up to higher temps after. But that defeats the purpose of sous vide. It's a great tool but still has limitations It might seem crazy but the biggest reason all those steaks come out perfect isnt some tool or machine...it's entirely based on the skill of the cook. I can proudly say I can count all the steaks I've had come back to me on one hand. For all the too cocky chefs out there who say they never mess up, yeah it happens get over it. Although in my defense 1 out of the 3 was perfect the costomer just didnt like it. Practice makes perfect. Not everybody is some grill master right off the bat. Knowledge is power.",
"Chef here. It's practice, practice, and practice. Running a busy grill is difficult and takes a lot of skill. However, that skill can be learned slowly. Line cooks usually rotate around and cross train during slow times. Once you've cooked a couple thousand steaks you just gain a feel for it.",
"I worked at Texas Roadhouse for 7 years as a broiler through college. Most of what everyone has said is true so I will not further contribute to the explanation. However this post has given me PTSD of an overflowing Epson printer, 25 minute ticket times, and a too serious manager trying to fix the bottlenecks by screaming profanity at employees instead of physically helping."
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6om4xb | Why are video game final enemies always called 'the boss' | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Video game bad guys generally are all part of the same organization. So when you reach the final bad guy he is usually the one who has been organizing all the other bad guys. So that would make him their boss. So in games where you're fighting an organization or maybe an army, the final boss is literally \"the boss\" of all your enemies. That particular plot is pretty common so it just became common to call the bigger bad guys \"bosses\"",
"because the final enemy is usually the one in charge of whatever type of evil organization you have to fight",
"Early arcade games, particularly Contra, Double Dragon and Kung Fu literally called them \"the boss\" in the game and in the instruction manual. After that it stuck. Another tid bit: when you \"flipped the game\" this was when you literally beat all the levels so now you had to do it backwards in the reverse or \"flipped.\"",
"Video games are often structured in a common way, where you fight your way through legions of enemies and at key points have a prolonged battle with one particularly strong enemy. Within the context of the game, they might be a special forces commando or the elder vampire or the master ninja, but generically they are referred to as \"bosses\"."
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6om7w8 | Why is it generally regarded as a bad idea to date within the workplace / date a colleague? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"While you first start dating, things are typically a little awkward, and having to see one another at work can make it hard to sort out your feelings. Hard to reflect on whether to ask for a second date when you have to see that person tomorrow. When a dating relationship has been established, relationship drama can interfere with workplace drama. You didn't support my idea at work, so now you are sleeping on the couch. Also, you can lose the respect of your other colleagues, the only reason you supported my idea was that I am sleeping with you. Finally, when a relationship ends, there are often hard feelings, and having to see that person makes it difficult to heal. I also can be difficult to keep those feelings out of the working relationship.",
"Best case scenario, thing go great but there's an obvious conflict of interest if either of you have a position of authority, where you favor your partner over everyone else. Worst case, things go bad and the awkward situation causes unnecessary problems that wouldn't have existed otherwise.",
"Because in the event that you two break up, either one of you is going to quit the job, or both of you deal with the awkwardness of a breakup. Or if you have arguments, then you still have to work with them regardless. Just a lot of messy things that would involve there being tension in the workplace. Not to mention other coworkers would pick up on it, and you might make them uncomfortable as well."
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6oqe67 | Why do customer's in restaurants sometimes clap when a server breaks some dishes? Do they not see that it is a dick move? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Breaking dishes can be very embarrassing and can bring all the talk in a restaurant environment to a weird awkward silence for everyone. Celebrating can break the silence and also say basically that it is OK that something broke. It's like laughing about something rather than frowning at it.",
"As an ex-busboy and waiter, in my experience it's usually because one of the server's co-workers has begun the clapping for the purpose of putting their coworker on blast. Just friendly ribbing.",
"I've only seen the happen one and it was at a really cheap chain restaurant where there were a lot of drunk people. Drunk people don't care, they'll clap because they think it's funny.",
"Whether or not each person clapping actually realises it is a dick move or not would be hard to tell. I assume the applause is a sarcastic \"well done\" so, more than likely, they do realise it is a dick move (and more than likely they have been on the recieving end of said dick move at some point). In Australia we just yell TAXI becasue we assume everyone is drunk and needs a lift home."
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6oqz9x | Why colonize the moon or Mars instead of inhospitable Earth locations? | There is more and more talk about colonizing the moon or Mars. I get it, it would be great to explore space. And maybe we need to be prepared for the worst-case scenario should our planet become completely inhospitable. But it seems to me that Earth would have to be really, really bad for Mars or the moon to be a better option. If we "colonized" the Sahara desert or the north pole, it would be way, way more comfortable than Mars. With the oxygen and all. And if we were to settle in places like that, it would be a very long time before we ran out of room. So why seek to settle on another planet? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"> So why seek to settle on another planet? Because it's there. To explore space. To develop and refine the technology of off-Earth living. To give the human race a lifeboat. Why colonize the Sahara or Antarctica? We aren't running out of room in more livable places.",
"Colonization isn't really a matter of space - we have plenty of space. If we were really running out of room, I wouldn't be driving past big, undeveloped, unused fields on the way to work. The entire human race could fit into a pretty small area if we all lived as densely as they do in cities like New York or Tokyo. Colonization is really just providing for the worst-case scenarios: **Man-Made:** Climate change, pollution, nuclear war, a mad scientist who invents an earthquake beam.... there's all kinds of things that could conceivably make this planet uninhabitable if they went to their potential extremes. **Natural Disasters:** One big meteor, one supervolcano, or one nasty ice age could conceivably wipe out most or all of humanity. And we have no real way of handing those things at the moment. So the only way to guarantee survival of the species in those cases is to spread out - a meteor probably won't hit Earth and Mars. It's about eliminating the big, huge, catastrophic risks. And eventually our sun will expand into a red giant and take Earth and Mars with it, so we need the practice of settling close by now so that we can expand more distantly in thousands to millions of years, whenever people can hit that level without wiping themselves off the map.",
"We'll have to, eventually. The sun will literally engulf the Earth in ~4 billion years. But during that process, in about 1 billion years, the Sun will become so radiant that it will literally evaporate all of Earths oceans. As a species, our time on Earth is limited. Granted, that's in 1 billion years, which is a loong way away. So we have time. But it's inevitable that we need another planet to live on if we're to survive as a species.",
"One of the primary functions of the International Space Station is research, and the first colonies on other planets will serve this function as well. The problem with doing a lot of these experiments on Earth is stupidly simple - everywhere on Earth has Earth-like conditions. Finding out how well food crops grow with different gravity is vitally important for human survival both on-world and off. Understanding how pathogens might adapt to reduced-gravity conditions is as well. We don't have anti-gravity technology, so any type of research into these fields will be a close simulation at best if done on Earth, and a lot of those studies have already happened."
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6orlp2 | How did we come to agree that working 8 hours a day for 5 days a week is the norm? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"That's all thanks to unions - before people started unionizing, there weren't really rules on workers' rights - people could be worked until they collapsed, every day... or maybe with Sunday off for church. Once industrial workers started unionizing, they had enough pull to work out a deal that's mostly held up ever since: two days of rest, 8 hour days. The 8 hour days because things could be easily split: 8 hours work, 8 hours sleep, 8 hours for whatever else you want to do.",
"You can thank unions for that. Before they stepped in, we worked 7 days a week with no cut-offs or OT.",
"Yer not alone in askin', and kind strangers have explained: 1. [ELI5: Why is \"40 hours a week\" considered a full time job? ]( URL_4 ) 1. [ELI5:Why do we work 5 days per week? ]( URL_0 ) 1. [ELI5: Who decides how many days we work per week ? If everyone (I mean everyone) worked 3 days a week, what would be different ? Is the number of work days and hours a natural process ? ]( URL_3 ) 1. [ELI5: Why do most people work 9-5, 8 hours a day? ]( URL_1 ) 1. [ELI5: Who decided that 8hours a day should be the norm for a normal working day, and why? When did it come about? ]( URL_2 )",
"Eight hours of sleep, eight hours of work, and eight hours of whatever, it was the most fair."
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6orvej | Why are there different types of food for breakfast, lunch and dinner? What makes the different food types more suitable for each meal? Such as cereal for breakfast, a sandwich for lunch? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Traditionally breakfast was a large, hot, easy to prepare meal with lots of fat and carbs to give the energy you need to get through a day of physical labor. Lunch was a smaller, cold meal eaten during a short break. Supper was a meal eaten at leisure after a full day of work. Dinner was a large, elaborate hot meal that took the place of lunch or supper, depending on when it was eaten. It sometimes marked a special occasion, like having a guest over. Based on these different purposes, different foods were served. Even though the meals no longer serve these purpose in much of the world, the foods have been engrained in our culture.",
"Lots of the meals are customarily related to the degree of preparation required in pre-refrigeration society: Eggs get collected at the crack of dawn Oats and fruit require little preparation relative to alternatives Cured meats are easily available (i.e. slices of ham) Bread topped with freshly churned butter - look at how butter is made from the morning's milk Pasta prepared all morning with fresh eggs Pizza dough rises all day and cooked at night Stews simmering under a watchful eye",
"Yer not alone in askin', and kind strangers have explained: 1. [ELI5: Why are certain foods considered breakfast foods? ]( URL_5 ) 1. [ELI5: Why do we prefer breakfast foods in the morning as opposed to dinner foods (which most would find gross to eat in the morning)? ]( URL_1 ) 1. [Why are some foods considered breakfast foods or lunch foods? ]( URL_2 ) 1. [ELI5: Why are some food considered 'breakfast' food? And some only considered lunch...etc, as a norm? ]( URL_0 ) 1. [ELI5: Why are some foods like eggs or pancakes considered breakfast foods in the US? ]( URL_4 ) 1. [ELI5: How did breakfast become a morning dessert? ]( URL_3 )"
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6oschq | How is saying "person of color" different from "colored person"? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Generally, it's because one describes a trait of a person and the other makes the trait the predominant focus. It's a little easier to understand if you ignore skin color and imagine someone who is blind. If you introduce someone as \"This is Rebecca, my blind friend\" the attention is drawn to the fact that the person is blind. If you say \"This is Rebecca, my friend who is blind\" it draws first attention to the fact that she's your friend.",
"It's really not. When you have a word/phrase that refers to a negative, you tend to up with what is termed a 'euphemism treadmill' where you periodically replace the old negative words with new negative words that mean the same thing. However, because it still means something negative, eventually your new word will be replaced with something newer. Note that it doesn't require the underlying concept to be objectively negative for this to occur. All it requires is for the people *driving* the change to believe the underlying concept is negative. Most people simply get stuck into whatever words they used when they were growing up without attaching any particular negative or positive connotation to them beyond what any normal person would think. For example, if you were to call a retired black person a \"colored person\", they probably wouldn't care. To *them*, it's not pejorative - it's merely descriptive. Because they grew up during an earlier part of the treadmill, they never really got the memo that the old words were now 'bad' while the new words are 'good'. Note also that 'person of color' isn't strictly on the treadmill because it's also often used to mean 'not white' - including people like Indians and East Asians. Still, most older black people would look at you a bit strangely if you referred to them as a 'person of color'.",
"Words are objective but connotations are subjective. Knowing the difference is cultural fluency.",
"I'm black and I find \"person of color\" and \"colored person\" deeply offensive. Please notify the PC Police and have them change the rules again.",
"\"Colored people\" was made for and by white people to differentiate the \"other\". It was a phrase of subjugation and violence and targeted non-white people, but especially black people, for harm. \"Person of Color\" is a term made by a black sociologist to unite the ways in which non-white people in white dominated countries are impacted by racism. One is uniting and one is excluding, and one is made by a member of the group. It does have its limitations, as it can be used to incorrectly (ex: Hidden Figures is a movie about strong black women, not strong women of color), and it does not mean all non-white people. A Chinese person in China is not a person of color. But it serves its purpose.",
"Well, you can argue that \"person of color\" emphasis \"person\" while \"colored person\" emphasis the color. But the most important part is that \"person of color\" came from and is adopted by minorities or PC culture or whatever. Language isn't a robotic thing, social connotations matter. A phrased used historically to demean will be viewed differently than a phrase used historically to empower, even if they are effectively the same phrase, because of the history."
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6osnwk | Why are humans attracted to the foreign? | My football team, based in a non-native English-speaking country, had a loan exchange with an English club. One of their players joined us on loan, and one of our players joined that English player's original team. When we went out on weekends, girls flocked this English guy as if they had never seen a guy before. It was very fascinating to see somebody giving zero effort and still succeed. Simultaneously, our player on loan in England claimed that he had the same situation where we was. Why is this the case? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Biologically, animals are attracted to members outside their clan to increase their gene diversity. It decreases the odds that your children would be born with 2 recessive genes for any trait. If humans didn't keep records or strong family ties, and you just met the cute girl down the street that looks similar to you, how would you be sure she wasn't your second cousin?",
"In my situation, I am attracted to things I normally don't come across often. I know for a fact if I came across a woman with an English accent at a bar, or during class, I would be totally attracted to her. I think accents are pretty sexy and unique, especially living in SoCal and having to grow up with everybody sounding the same (which you don't pay much attention to, as you grow accustomed to it)"
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6ot8od | “Professor Perri 6 is a noted British social scientist. He changed his name from David Ashworth to Perri 6 [...] he said he was amused by the notion of "6, P" appearing in academic papers.” What’s the joke? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"The six P' s of anything. Goes a little something like this. \"Proper planning prevents piss poor performance."
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6ov3x3 | The guitar and piano seem like the two most widely-used instruments. Is that because of their resonance? Or range? You tell me. | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"It's because they are polyphonic instruments, as compared to most instruments which can only play one note. They can play chords, a pianist can play a chord and a melody. Much more versatility. If you are a bass player, sax player, drummer, it is a lot of fun, but to really do anything, you need a band to play with. Keyboard or guitar can play solo or with a group. As a professional drummer, if I had to do it over again, I would have picked up piano.",
"They both allow you to play chords, not just one note at a time, so you don't need another player to harmonize with. Guitars are cheaper and portable, whereas pianos are easier to compose on, are more clearly laid out, and are easier on the fingers. Accordions and 'squeeze-boxes' also used to be very popular, being cheap, portable versions of the piano, but they ~~became associated with ethnic music and~~ fell out of favor. Edit: 'Ethnic Music' is a poor label, as all music is ethnic, or multi-ethnic. In my mind, I associate accordions, illogically and unfairly, with polka music and caricatures of late 19th century organ grinding immigrants with trained monkeys. Not that I dislike accordion music - Weird Al, Zydeco and They Might Be Giants are all amazing-- it's just accordions seem humorous to me for reasons I don't fully understand. I have no idea why they fell out of favor, and if any one does know, I'd be be very interested.",
"Range is a reason, especially piano. Other reasons have to do with the evolution of western music, its pedagogy and social and musical trends throughout the (relatively short) history of these instruments that have meant that these instruments are now so popular. I am not an expert on this, just a music graduate, but I hope these make sense and help. I gather you're talking about their use in popular music, not 'classical' music, but I think they're both linked! 1. As other people have said, one of the big reasons for these two being so popular has to do with the fact that you can sing while playing. Obviously in contemporary music culture this is really prevalent but it is just as important to social norms surrounding music in previous centuries. I'm thinking in terms of parlour music in the 18th and 19th centuries, where it was really popular in middle class houses to learn to play and sing songs for entertainment (think Mary Bennett in Pride and Prejudice if you've read or seen it). Guitars and their related musical instruments ([lutes]( URL_0 ), [ouds]( URL_1 ), [citterns]( URL_2 )) are much much older than keyboard instruments. Instruments like these were favoured by medieval minstrels for a couple of hundred years, partly because they were very portable, but also probably because they meant a musician could accompany themselves when they were singing their compositions. The one-man-show singer-songwriter style of music has been popular for a long time. 2. Piano in particular has been a really stock-standard instrument for musicians for a long time. Many famous composers were extremely competent at the piano, because of the emphasis placed on learning the instrument in their musical education. This has to do with the piano's ability to play harmony and chords. In an era when 'classical' music had lots of harmonic rules that determined what was good composition and what was bad, boring or theoretically incorrect composition it was often important for a composer to be able to demonstrate their understanding at a harmonic instrument like the piano (with a big range, like you said) in short compositional exercises that they could play themselves, or by improvising. Mozart, Beethoven and Liszt are examples of composers who were said to be prodigious piano improvisors. The prevalence of composers who were amazing at piano also means it has a huge amount of great repertoire that pianists of lots of different skill levels can learn. Being able to play harmony and chords on the piano make it a great instrument for beginners. It also has a much greater visual element to it than something like the violin or clarinet, as you can see every note in front of you and can count the relationship between notes of a chord and correlate that to harmonic theory. The guitar is sort of similar, as modern guitars are fretted in semitones, or half steps, and you can easily see the relationship between placing a finger down and the note going up or down. Therefore, piano and guitar are both widely taught instruments and it makes sense that people who perform and write music know how to play them- maybe they started out on them, or maybe they picked it up as an 'easy' accompaniment instrument (in lots of popular music contexts). These are just a couple of reasons why the popularity of guitar and piano has developed from a long history of both popular and art music traditions. I hope this answer isn't overkill!",
"Suppose it's 1850, you're hanging out with friends and family, and you want to hear some music. Of course, you can sing, but you'd like to have some accompaniment. The piano and guitar are ideally suited to this situation. They can play complete songs with many parts or simple chord accompaniment, and they don't keep you from singing along. And in addition to that, they have a low learning curve — it's relatively easy for a novice to learn the piano well enough to provide simple accompaniment at an amateur level compared to, say, a flute or a bassoon (or even a violin). In a time before radio or phonographs, the piano was a fixture in countless middle-class households. The guitar has the added advantage of portability — it's no coincidence that the guitar is the foundation of modern popular music. The fiddle (violin) is less ubiquitous because it's tougher to start learning and you can't sing while playing, but it's very portable, *very* versatile, and capable of playing two or even three notes at once. This last feature is of critical importance for folk fiddlers. And while you can't sing while playing, you can alternate with ease. The whistle (e.g. Irish tin whistle) is pretty common as well. It has a low learning curve and it's cheap and portable. Like the violin, you can switch off playing and singing. These instruments, along with the drums, form the backbone of folk music around the world, and most music is folk music.",
"The other responses in this thread are great, but I'd like to also emphasize on the difficulty in playing these instruments. When you press on a key in piano, a note comes out the other end perfectly in tune (ideally). It's easy for somebody to see how going left/right on the keyboard translates to going up and down a scale. Compare it to a trumpet, where even if you press the correct valves, there is no guarantee that you'll even play the correct note let alone in tune or in tone without proper embouchure technique. On top of that, the fingering for trumpet may be confusing for beginners to grasp as they do not predictably follow any scale like in piano. Guitar, like piano is easy to learn. The frets on a guitar will perfectly tune (again, ideally) any note even if your finger placement is not super precise. Strumming a guitar is easy for beginners to grasp and will almost always produce your desired sound assuming you have the correct finger placement. Compare it to violin, which has no frets and relies almost entirely on precision hearing and finger placement to play in tune. Good bow technique can make the difference between beautifully singing notes and the sound of pigs being slaughtered. Both piano and guitar let people play relatively nice sounding music at a very low level especially with the abundance of online tutorials. With a lot of other instruments, they are hard to learn, and hard to master and some of those instruments, even at a master level still need another instrument to accompany them in order to play a full song.",
"Professional touring keyboardist/guitarist here. There are lots of reasons. One is polyphony, or the ability to play more than one note simultaneously, which allows for an undefinable array of styles and genres. Also the piano is traditionally a household staple. Before radio or records, the upper middle class and higher would likely have had a piano in their home. How else would you be able to enjoy some music? I grew up in a house in the 90s where all the kids were forced to take piano lessons, which is not uncommon (I hated it, but obviously I'm grateful to my parents now). The piano also has the advantage of being a full-range instrument, which means it can cover almost the entire frequency spectrum that humans can hear. For example, are you recording or performing a song that seems to be missing something in a narrow range? A piano-based instrument can almost certainly fill that gap one way or another. The guitar has the advantage of quick and easy basics. Just about anyone can pick up a guitar for the first time and within a half-hour be able to play at least one, but probably two, open chords. Learn two more, add a capo and you have the ability to play those four chords in just about any key, which is great if the song is say too high or too low for the singer. Many famous and talented singer/songwriters never learn much beyond that (and that's cool!). The electric guitar also defines rock and roll, which is totally and completely badass. There's also a heavy pop culture element. Again, rock and roll makes everyone want to play a Gibson SG like Angus Young or slam the piano like Bob Seger. Now go get yourself an instrument and kick ass. [inspiration]( URL_0 )",
"I asked a music teacher what he recommended for a beginner, and he said guitar, drums, or piano because it allowed the student to also sing. I'd also add that these instruments are easy to play (And hard to play well), so early frustration is avoided. I don't play instruments, but have these three for practicing.",
"First of all, they are both \"western\" (as in \"European\") instruments. Western European instruments in general are spread throughout the world much more than other musical cultures largely due to Christian missionaries and economic imperialism. So, why are the guitar and piano the most popular \"western\" instruments? It has to do with their \"jobs\"... Each instrument in \"western\" music has a specific \"job\" that it is designed for. The violin, for example, is designed to play melodies (the part people usually sing). The violin is capable of doing other roles (playing chords, being a percussive instrument, etc), but it truly excels at being a melody instrument. Since the violin effectively does the same job as the human voice, it is not as \"essential\" as instruments that can do things the human voice cannot do. Pretty much all \"monophonic\" instruments like strings, horns, and winds fit into this category. The \"job\" of the guitar is actually very simple; it is designed to play major chords to support singers. Learning a few basic chords and to sing along on the guitar is relatively easy, easy enough for a \"non-specialist\" to learn to do. Guitars are highly portable and affordable which make them ideal for traveling (their smaller cousins; ukuleles, charangos, tres, and Quattro) are even better for this! The guitar does something the human voice cannot, it can play multiple notes (chords) so it will take prominence over a \"melody\" instrument. True, the guitar is capable of doing A LOT more than just chords but its popularity is due to its simplicity and its effectiveness at providing accompaniement for singers. The \"job\" of the piano is a bit more complicated.... Keyboard instruments in general were designed for primarily as a tool for composers and accompaniests to work with \"multiple voices\" or \"polyphony\". The way polyphony is used in western music is rather unique and the keyboard is one of the few instruments where one can relatively easily play two separate melodies at the same time; this was VERY important for composers who wrote choral music for the church (which was the main source of employment for composers before Mozart). The guitar is capable of counterpoint but it is much easier to do on a keyboard. The piano is perhaps the most versatile western instrument but it also require more training to use than the guitar and it's size, price, and time it takes to learn it means that it won't be as widely spread out at the guitar is. Tl:dr: every instrument has a job function. Most instruments jobs are to emulate singers so they are somewhat redundant. The Guitar and Piano have job roles that a single singer cannot do; the job they do is more essential to the creation of the western musical experience.",
"It's actually both of these reasons, as well as a few others. Some of these have already been mentioned, but here are the ones I think are particularly significant: - Both are incredibly versatile, having a somewhat 'neutral' sound that can be easily altered to give something more specific (i.e. electric guitar/keyboard) - Both are polyphonic instruments that are equally well suited to playing single-line melody and multiple-line accompaniment. - Both can be sung over by the player. - Both can sound good in the hands of a mediocre musician. This is not the case with most instruments! - When played, both produce a note that begins at its loudest and gradually tapers off. This means that they can both be played in a way that emphasises a strong beat, which makes them well suited to most modern Western music (especially the guitar). It's much harder to emphasise a beat in the same way if you're playing a bowed strings or woodwind! EDIT: missing words",
"On top of their popularity, polyphony and ability to sing while playing like the other comments have said, they also have the advantage of having a low barrier for entry in terms of skill. With no prior knowledge, it's easier to get something vaguely musical sounding from trial and error than it is with instruments like violin which sound awful in the hands of amateurs, I know this, I am a terrible violinist myself. It's easier for someone who's never played any instrument to sit at a piano and start pushing the white keys to get something fairly nice, whereas it takes more study to begin something like the flute, where you have to practice breathing and fluidly switching fingerings of various notes before you can get anything even remotely tuneful. I think getting that \"this isn't half bad\" feeling early on in picking up an instrument encourages more people to stick at it for longer, because it feels more rewarding and makes new players want to keep coming back to it.",
"To echo two points and raise a third: 1. Versatility. Piano and guitar can be used to write for other instruments, while most other instruments make that harder to do. You can sing while playing both, making then popular accompanying instruments. Also the ability to play either melodies or chords. 2. Ease. I used to tell my students that guitar is the easiest instrument to learn and the hardest to master. With a few weeks practice, I can teach you how to play 90% of all rock songs ever recorded. It's usually just the same chord form moved up and down the neck. Super accessible. Piano's slightly harder but only very slightly. 3. History. The electric guitar showed up at the perfect time to complement this new fad called rock n roll. Guitar had been a staple of bluegrass, country, blues, etc. But rock elevated the electrified version. It was one of the first instruments you could plug directly into a loudspeaker, so if you wanted to fucking *rock*, guitar was it. Throw in some Buddy Hollys, Eric Claptons, and Jimi Hendrixes along the way and it's a recipe for some idolization. Today it remains a cheap, easy way to be loud, which isn't as cool as it used to be, but is still pretty cool.",
"There're several reasons why, I'm going to try to tackle some that haven't been brought up. Mind you, someone else perhaps will provide a more thorough response, this is based on what I've known, noticed and learned throughout the years! Not only are they extremely versatile, but they're the perfect instruments to introduce musicians to music theory, especially piano. This is why in most conservatories and at a University level functional piano tends to be a must for most musicians and music majors alike. For the uninitiated, functional piano is in a nutshell piano for beginners. While you don't learn the intricacies of the instrument, you're taught concepts to have a general grasp of how the instrument, basic melody conduction and harmonization work. Having white and black keys also allow the student to easily understand the concept of a scale, intervals, chords and different octaves far more easily compared to other instruments. Although, naturally performers of monophonic instruments such as violinists are taught harmonization, they can only harmonize when playing in a band with other performers. Think of monophonic instruments as one voice, while polyphonic ones have the ability of playing several different voices. When you have 3 voices playing at the same time, you have a chord, e.g. C major, a chord made of 3 voices, C, E and G. Alas violinists and, say, cellists can't do this, granted they can play 2 notes at the same time and there're indeed unusual techniques that allow you to bypass some of the limitations of those instruments. In any case, with piano and guitar, you can play more than 3 voices at the same time! This also means that we get chance to harmonize on our own without the need of playing with someone else. Regardless of your musical background, that's extremely appealing! Another factor that makes them quite ubiquitous is the range of the instruments. Most vocal ranges fit right in the guitar's range and naturally the piano's is so broad that is easy to see why we gravitate towards both instruments. Remember the most primal instrument has always been the human voice, we tend to hum what we hear, what we wanna play and what we've played, the fact we can mimic that on an instrument where our range also lies is a huge contributor to the popularity of these instruments. Now let's get to the historical reasons, the development of piano was ushered after the harpsichord was at its peak. For centuries we've associated musical keyboards such as the organ, harpsichord and the piano with utterly talented musicians (and rightfully so.) While composers such as Beethoven praised the guitar as an all in one orchestra. There's also the fact that guitar is a very practical instrument, it's easy to carry around and there're a plethora of them. All of these reasons made guitar and piano well-known instruments! Plus don't forget about the impact guitar made in the 20th century through pop and rock music. Several genres thrust guitar into the limelight as an instrument for everyone, even people who felt they weren't skilled enough to play. I guess we gotta thank Chuck Berry for this! A myriad of rock artists became legends and so plenty of kids since the 50s have been absolutely mesmerized by what a guitar can do. Finally, I'd like to add from a personal standpoint, it's really cool what you can do with a guitar. [Even though, we can't be as rhythmically versatile as a drummer, there's a lot we can do.]( URL_0 ) Edit: Words",
"The guitar has a long ancestry, going back thousands of years. It is portable, relatively easy to make, easy to learn some basic chords, and leaves the mouth free for singing. In other words, for a small investment in time and money a single person can become a moderately successful entertainer. Of course, mastery requires a much larger investment, but for most, mastery is not the goal. Pianos are versatile. Most of what people think of as \"classical\" music was written using the aid of a piano, even when that music was eventually supposed to be played by an entire symphony. A piano can play several octaves, soft or loud, and can play short or long notes, and a single person can play up to ten different notes at once (even more if you allow the notes to sustain themselves while you play others). When Beethoven was writing his symphonies, he would play it out on the piano, then assign different parts to different instruments (this is called arranging the music). In other words, a Beethoven symphony can be played by an entire orchestra (dozens of players), or on a single piano. There are differences, of course, but the versatility of the piano is light years ahead of other classical instruments.",
"Musician and music major here! While a lot of answers give pieces, I know this one in-depth (because we had to pass a music history class on it). Before we continue though, we have to make one distinction: the original Keys were called Pianofortes, because they had the ability to be played both loud {Forte} by plucking the hammer across a string with a dampening hammer, or quietly {Piano, terms still used in music today} by displacing the rail so only the hammer struck the string, and had two pedals instead of the modern three. In fact, the Pianoforte sounds more like a Harpsichord vs the Piano we know. This is important. Simply put, the reason the Pianoforte proliferated was a combo of a few factors, but mainly the industrial revolution of Europe; prior to the ease of modern-day copy-pasta, instruments still had to be made by hand, slaved over and made of the finest materials, making them wildly expensive - they still *do* today, although we get closer to perfecting that thru automation. Anyway, pile on top of this changing views on monarchies, a few social revolutions, capitalism becoming more prolific to redistribute wealth. Having a Piano was a status symbol for the common man; although richer families continued the practice, capitalism didn't afford most to hire a musician and keep him living with you on retainer as in the days of royal dignitaries and dukes. Specifically behind the closed doors of their private chambers at whatever volume they choose, compared to a Pianoforte which could be played quietly so as not to wake everyone in the smaller house (and eventually the Piano, which was manufactured to be even quieter by removing the plucking mechanism in favor of softer hammers). But they weren't exactly cheap, either. So having a Pianoforte in your house was much more of a social status symbol. If you had one it showed wealth, culture, intelligence to guests you hosted, and compared to non-equally-tempered instruments had a much easier learning curve. This isn't necessarily true of guitars, but we can still thank ease of cheap manufacturing for its growth compared to a lute or harp or instrument that again take hours to perfect. See, the guitar and piano/forte have one thing in common: they are what we call equally tempered. All of the notes are equidistant at a half-step or 50 cents apart, compared to a cello or violin that's fretless and requires infinitely more practice; it's much harder to find, remember and execute where a note is across a blank fretboard vs when someone chops them up into perfect equal little bits with dots or black and white paint jobs, so to speak. But classically trained musicians know full well that music isn't equally tempered. If you get the chance to see a live orchestra or choir, you'll notice that sheer volume (amplitude) aside, many chords have a shimmering ring to them that you can't produce on equally tempered chords (and why many piano synths sound kinda terrible in Midi). Trained and practiced musicians need to constantly listen to *each other* and adjust the notes to form a locking chord, and many times that means playing a few cents sharper/flatter (higher/lower) instead of equal temperament that approaches music from the math and pattern aspect rather than listening through a trained ear. However, I will say it's *much* easier to teach concepts, music theory and compose on equally tempered instruments. Edit: clarity",
"I'm going a different direction then the bulk of the comments. Yes these instruments are polyphonic but both the piano and guitar have a low cost to entry and a low barrier for a beginner. Digital pianos or guitars can be bought for around $200. Someone can walk away from either of these instruments playing a little melody after a first lesson. This is not the same for a violin or clarinet. These can take years before the little riff is actually bearable. Additionally both can be played digitally with headphones so they don't really disturb neighbors or parents. Everyone knows the horrific sound of a first year horn player in a neighboring apartment.",
"One overlooked thing about the piano - it's the most graphic representation of the western musical scale. It makes it easier to learn the theory behind what you're doing. The guitar is much more difficult to grasp initial theory with - the same note can be played on several places, it's not a very linear way to look at the musical scale, and so on. Wind instruments have their own oddities for sounding notes based on valve combination (take the trumpet/cornet, which has only three keys and notes are chosen by the depth you press combinations of three keys). The piano is basically a visual reference to how the scale works, and it's laid out right under your eyes and hands as you play. I don't think you could come up with a better system for learning music.",
"Easy to 'start' playing. Most people want to casually pick up a guitar or piano, play a few chords and then impress friends or girls/guys. Something like a clarinet is harder to start with and definitely harder to 'sound' good with. Beginners on clarinet/violin/trumpet/etc sound awful, whereas a beginner hitting chords on guitar or piano sounds alright. However they are greatly mistaken, mastering the piano and guitar is extremely difficult, and im quite certain that in late game, the piano is the hardest instrument to play well. Guitar is really difficult too. This explains why you might see a lot of people say they play the piano or guitar, then give it up a few years later. TL;DR Guitar and piano are the easiest to just jump into.",
"Both are able to play chords - multiple notes in harmony at the same time - which makes them much more capable of standing alone when compared to single note instruments like a trumpet.",
"Polyphony (more than one note at once) and easy of learning. You don't need great practice to have good TONE on these instruments, you virtually just press a button. After that, it's dexterity and technique to become more technical with them. You can learn a few simple things that allow you to compose or do folk songs (which is what they were largely for). You don't necessarily have to read music, but back when the piano was in every home, reading music was a big thing. Before recordings, you played the music yourself. If you saw a concert, or knew a composer you liked, you could buy their published copies and learn it at home. Friends would come play for eachother. Jolly good time. Also, you can sing and play these at the same time. I don't know why anyone would do this, I hate words in my music.",
"There are a ton of great responses about why they are so popular in modern music, but there is something else that alot of these answers miss: why have they risen to the top of all other western instruments? Western music is in equal temperament. Equal temperament is when all notes are at zero cents. Nothing in nature that sings or makes noise tends to follow that system, pretty much every bird song, dog howl and cricket sing is in Just Intonation. Most noticeably the major 3rd is -14 cents and minor 3rd is +16 cents off zero, with the 5th at +2. It sounds 'nicer' in that all the notes for together like puzzle pieces. In equal temperament you can switch keys easily and effectively. In just intonation, you have one key you will have all notes available and as you move further away from the root on the circle of fifths, the less notes available. Sorry to bring theory into this, but music theory is basically the science and study of how sound waves interact with each other.",
"That plus the added advantage of portability — it's no coincidence that the most important part of it.",
"1. Piano is easiest to learn \"music theory\" on because of it's linear layout 2. Guitar is so popular because it's considered 'cool' by so many people.",
"That you can sound good as a beginner / with little training is a really big part of it. Especially intonation really isn't an issue with either. I'm sure this accounts for at least 50% of their prevalence.",
"When you are learning and understanding music, the piano seems almost essential, even though you do not intend on playing the piano. It's an extremely good way to understand music in general, because the way tones are displayed on a piano. It makes it easy to understand both visually and audiotive.",
"Along with the ability to play chords and make your own solo music, making an initial sound on piano and guitar is MUCH more pleasant. A beginner piano or guitar player can still produce a good tone the first time. It's not professional, but still enjoyable. The first time someone plays oboe, trumpet, or violin, their tone quality (sound) is horrendous.",
"It is actually strange that guitar is such a popular instrument because, from a perspective of technique, it is not an easy instrument to approach. When someone picks up a guitar, they have the greatest difficulty in fingering and playing the simplest chord progressions, even at a very slow tempo. It takes them a great deal of practice to do this fluidly. In comparison, almost anyone can begin to play a chord progression on a piano within minutes, or at the most, hours of practice. Someone made a point about polyphony, and I think that is a highly valid point. Both instruments can be played in isolation and sound \"complete.\" I think one reason for the guitar's popularity is its versatility. A saxophone will not sound appropriate in all settings. A guitar, depending on whether it is electric, acoustic, or classical, can fit almost anywhere.",
"Piano was a dominant parlour instrument made in the hundreds of thousands or millions during the first half of the 20th century. A central piece of furniture and entertainment before radio, before TV, before movies. Sheet music was sold and made publishers very rich. The guitar was popular but not as loud as piano until the 1950s - where the rise of television brought guitar slinging icons into the home and popularized the guitar as a sexy instrument The Beatles sealed the deal and the mid sixties saw the electric guitar rise into dominance Guitar and piano are very democratic. Anyone can learn to play either. The piano is initially easier to learn, but the guitar is more portable Etc Prior to the lead electric guitar, saxophone and trumpet were the dominant Oslo instruments after the violin, as music of the 20th century moved from classical to jazz",
"It's because it's easy to entertain an audience with a single instrument like a guitar or a piano. You can quite literally imitate an entire orchestra with a piano, and you need only be at a high intermediate level or so to be able to do this. If you just want to accompany a singer or something, you can probably practice for a few months and do it, even if you've never tried piano before. On the other hand, while other instruments *can* also play solo, you need virtuosity and many many years of practice. Here's a violin solo: URL_0 That being said, I don't recommend playing the piano or the guitar if you're hoping to enrich your cultural life by participating in musical activities. My piano teacher once told me that the only way to get even an audition for the piano park in an orchestra is to hope that the pianist dies, and bands rarely need guitar because everyone and their brothers and sisters and neighbours play the guitar (String instruments such as violin, viola, or cello are the way to go)",
"I think perspective is important because you could argue virtual instruments and synths are the most widely-used instruments these days. Honorable mention should be given to drums as well since there are plenty of ~~useless rhythmless meatbags~~ drummers out there too. Anyhow, I'm a guitar player of twenty years so here is my brief ELI5: For **guitar** specifically - Rock and guitar driven music reigned supreme for almost forty years in the not-so-distant past. Rock icons, legends, and Gods were available and they had a spotlight. Because of this proximity, guitar playing was considered cool until relatively recently. Prior to internet/video gaming/on-demand entertainment, picking up an instrument was a good way to stimulate your brain. Couple all of these factors plus the relatively low cost-of-entry -- guitar was a hit. Of course other variables matter, but I think this is the meat and potatoes of it. For **piano** specifically - Its timeless, has a place in just about any genre, and many music-curious students are encouraged to first learn on a piano because the theory and practices learned here can be transposed to just about any instrument.",
"The guitar is an instrument that has a lot of benefits: It's relatively easy to learn (because there's a lot of material for noobs and also because it's very \"user friendly\"), not that expensive (a basic acoustic guitar for beginners), light weight, easy to carry around and with little knowledge you can play and sing your favorite songs. That, and the fantasy of soloing like the greats were the reasons why I started learning to play it when I was little, and the motivation for many to start playing, IMO. The piano on the other hand, is way heavier, much much more expensive and IMO much harder to learn. But you can have up to 10 simultaneous notes playing, and it has the lowest AND the highest note in the orchestra. These two things are very important because they make the piano a very versatile instrument. You can play chords and melody, or bass line and chords, or more complex two-handed chords, or two simultaneous melodies. The piano is also a very useful tool when studying music theory, because it's very easy to see which notes you are playing, where ever you are on the keyboard, which makes it a great instrument to learn for any aspiring musician.",
"They're easy for kids to play. If you start out on a classical guitar, one with nylon strings, it's really easy to hold down a string to a great and get a good sound. In the beginning stages of guitar most of what you do is hold down one or two notes at a time and slowly building up to full chords. Also, the right-hand technique is just plucking or picking a string, in the beginning. In contrast, a violin, cello, or viola, don't have frets as a reference point, and in addition to plucking the strings you also need to learn how to bow. These instruments take a lot of practice to get anywhere, while you can pick up a guitar and start getting good with it in like a month. I think most of this applies to the piano, but I don't know I don't play it. Also piano and guitar are incredibly versatile. They both have massive ranges of notes, and switching keys is a breeze. Most modern music can be replicated with just one person on either instrument and it would sound mostly correct. Also alot of that music was written with these instruments, so it would sound more authentic. Finally, these guys only require your hands to play, so you can sing or play the harmonica while playing.",
"I'm wanna add something here. Piano and guitar are arguably two of the most simple instruments to learn. Oiously mastering them is still quite a feat, but in terms of learning them at a fairly competent level, they are very easy. Compared to something like a violin, which has no fret guides to help you get the right pitches, plus the added complexity of needing the bow to make the right sound, guitar is a ton easier. Sure, learning different chords can be a little tricky, but it's much more straightforward than trying to learn how to HOLD a bow correctly and consistently. Additionally, for anyone who takes the time to understand the basic theory of music, where the notes are in the scale and how they combine to form different chords, piano is THE simplest instrument to work with, at least for Western musical scales. One note, one key. Easy. Violins have four strings, and you have to extrapolate and manually adjust finger placement to got the pitch you want. Guitars are more in between there, but with the frets to tell you where each semitone division is, it's massively different to a violin. Many wind instruments are similar to piano as I mentioned above, but by and large they don't have a completely intuitive layout, so it can take a while to learn how to play each note. Piano is... This note is this key. Done. Chords are another handy as tell reason they're popular. Almost no other common instrument has the capability to play multiple simultaneous notes. You can play an entire song, not just melodies. As others have mentioned, you can add complexity without insane amounts of effort just by singing as well. If you're familiar with how the theory behind western music works, you can use the intuitive layout of keyboard and guitar to just wake up your own chords. Guitars have 'common' chords, it just like piano it's perfectly simple to make your own chords up as well.",
"As others have said, both are polyphonic instruments so you can play several things at once, whether that's chords, chords + melody, several melodies at once, etc. They therefore stand on their own more than most other instruments in terms of the range of what you can do with them. And if you're a singer they are all you need to accompany yourself with. In that context the guitar also benefits from being very portable. The piano isn't but most performance venues have at least one, plus you'll find them in churches and all kinds of other places, as well as in many homes. The piano came to dominate classical music because of the above reasons but also because it kept on developing. Now, a modern concert instrument can be whisper-quiet or deafeningly loud or anything between. Its pitch range encompasses that of a whole orchestra (a contrabassoon can just about get to the same pitch as the bottom note of the piano, and a piccolo or violin to the top). And with the sustaining pedal you can build up textures of enormous resonance and range, if you like - certainly you aren't limited by what you can do with ten fingers at once. This sheer range of expressive possibility is largely why composers were so drawn to the instrument. As well as a huge body of solo music there's also an enormous amount of the music with the piano in an accompanying role (with other instruments or singers); plus given that it can do anything an orchestra can do (almost) it is used to accompany rehearsals of operas, musicals, ballets, etc before the orchestra turns up at the end of the rehearsal period. So the piano runs finds a use in all sorts of contexts besides the Carnegie Hall stage. And if you're a good pianist, especially a good sight-reader, you're likely to be to find work doing all sorts of different things on the spectrum. Also: before the age of recordings (and indeed well into the beginning of it) pianos were everywhere in people's homes and almost all music was published in arrangements for piano, whether that was the latest popular song or the latest Brahms Symphony. And the only way for most people to ever hear this music was to play it themselves at home. The piano made that possible. I'm rambling about the piano because I'm a pianist so someone else might need to weigh in on the guitar. One of the reasons the guitar is popular is that you can get a passable instrument to start learning on rather cheaply, it doesn't take up much space, and while not easy to play there are very plentiful resources for beginners to start learning, even without a teacher. Plus it's a really versatile instrument in the ways I mentioned at the beginning."
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"There are 7 billion people on the planet. Every single one has imperfect memory recall. Every single one has been exposed to a finite set of facts about history. If you could interview each one of them and list every misconception and flawed memory they have about history, then by the [Law of Truly Large Numbers]( URL_0 ), eventually you're going to find two people with similar memory failures, just because we have so many people. If half of the 7 billion inhabitants are adults old enough to have witnessed or studied a substantial amount of history, and if 0.1% of *them* (one in 1000) have the same misconception or flawed memory of a past event, that's 3,500,000 people. That's a whole lot of people potentially reinforcing the same bad information, in spite of the fact that 99.9% of their peers are saying they're dead wrong.",
"It can't. It's an internet meme. All the cases you hear about it are just people misremembering. It's a fun game, but it isn't real."
],
"score": [
14,
7
],
"text_urls": [
[
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_truly_large_numbers"
],
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
6ow7wd | with a few exceptions, the most popular vocalists throughout history are ones with high vocal ranges, not low. Why do humans enjoy high pitched singing so much? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dkktis1"
],
"text": [
"In classical music, it is typical for the melody to be played on a high-pitched instrument, such as flute, trumpet, or especially violin. This is because those instruments, in a higher register, are easier to hear over the rest of the orchestra. Having the melody \"on top\" of all of the other parts makes it stand out. From a more technical point of view, a higher sound is more constrained to a particular range of frequencies, and the sound waves are less likely to be interfered with by other instruments. This makes it easier to hear, and is also a plus in recording and mixing. It's important to have the distinct parts of a song you are hearing occupy different pitch ranges, otherwise they complete with one another and the sound gets muddled. High-pitched instruments and voices naturally are more easily distinguished. There *may* also be biological or psychological reasons that high-pitched sounds sound more clear to us or get our attention, but I can't speak to that. Another comment asks a question about that, and I too would be curious to know the answer."
],
"score": [
4
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
|
6oxt0u | Tour De France ... What goes on between stages? | Just found out the Tour De France has stages. Been trying to find out what goes on between stages. I know there's that one big pasta dinner everyone has a day or two before the start, but what goes on after the riders are done for the day? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dkl0w3t",
"dklefpk"
],
"text": [
"You can try to look up Taylor Phinney's video tour diaries from this year. He was sharing some of the behind the scenes stuff. But mostly it's traveling to the next starting point, getting the physical therapy a rider may need, going over tactics for the next day, and resting up because you just rode super hard today and have to do it all again tomorrow for three weeks.",
"As little as possible. Riders eat, travel, rest, and get massages and physical therapy, and little else. I have heard of riders fighting over who gets the ground floor at the hotel so they can walk less."
],
"score": [
4,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
6oyvkh | Why were the Harlem Globetrotters in so many cartoons? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dklay6g",
"dkldyei",
"dklhccw"
],
"text": [
"The globetrotters appealed to kids with all the antics that would happen during their performances. The live act is a family friendly gig that would appeal to all ages. That was a great recipe for a cartoon show in the 70’s since those appealed to kids as well. Back in those days, it was common for cartoon characters who were produced by one studio to cross over from time to time as promotional material.",
"Today they are kind of a sideshow you barely hear of, but they were *really* big in the 1970's. You'd hear about them all the time, their games would be broadcast on TV, and they made a lot of media appearances. By today's standards, they had an almost Kardashian media presences. Also, cartoons were a lot different back then. There weren't a half dozen cable channels full of cartoons. The networks put on 5 hour block on Saturday mornings, and an independent network might do an hour or two after school. They were usually among the lowest rated shows of the week, so, for the most part, they were cheap and uninspired. A lot of lazy producers would try to turn existing TV shows and celebrities into cartoons...Mohammed Ali even had a cartoon.",
"I love the globe trotters. They are just amazing athletes and are really good role models for kids. I had a chance to see them live a few years back and it was such a great. I recommend attending if you have the chance"
],
"score": [
8,
5,
4
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[],
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
|
6ozybf | Why do names tend to cycle in and out of popularity throughout different generations? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dkljk8j"
],
"text": [
"\"That's an old person name, I know an old lady at my work who is named that it's so icky\" or \"Haha gross I can't name my kid after my dad\" \"Haha gross I can't name my daughter after my gramma\" \"Oh man, wouldn't it be great to name my child after a relative I barely know to honor who they are as a person?\" At least, that's how it goes in my family. Everyone gets a first or middle name from someone dead in the family that the parent liked. My middle name is a great great great uncles, my first name is a great grampa. My sister is named after two aunts who were sisters. My brother is named after someone on my dad's side, a cousin or something of my grampa."
],
"score": [
7
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
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