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a0ae7t | Why does the FCC even bother censoring nudity and swearing in broadcasts, when streaming services can show whatever they want anyway? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"The FCC’s goal in censorship is to limit certain content on free, over the air broadcasts for which they generally control the airwaves however it needs to be said that the FCCs main purpose is almost entirely technical and not content related which is just a tiny (but loud) sliver of what they do. Notice I said, free and broadcast. That’s all the FCC cares about content on. If it’s paid or not broadcast, they don’t get involved in content and have little to no authority to do so. They are doing exactly what they are supposed to. Regulate certain methods and leave others also. There are still huge amounts of people that want the FCC to regulate content on the airwaves. The FCC is appeasing this demo, while not hurting anyone else.",
"Just because your friend's parents let him go to sleep later and eat more candy than you doesn't mean your parents have to let you do those things as well. You and your friend are two different people who have to listen to different sets of parents. Likewise, over-the-air TV has its content regulated by the FCC. Paid services, like cable and streaming, aren't subjected to the FCC's obscenity regulations, so they are allowed to share content that has more cursing, violence, and nudity.",
"Why make assault/battery illegal when people can fight in a boxing ring?",
"Hey, editor here who has had to censor some things on adult swim before we aired it. & nbsp; Censorship for paid programs comes from a department within the TV network itself and not the FCC. This department is commonly known on all TV networks as S & P (Standards and Practices.) They will review episodes and tell us to change or censor certain content so that the show will receive an appropriate rating from the TV Parental Guidelines Monitoring Board in the form of TV parental guidelines. The board is actually made up of TV networks who agree on what the ratings mean. Those ratings are those little black boxes you see that say TV-PG, TV-14, TV-MA, etc. The main reason why TV networks bother censoring anything is to appease advertisers who want their products to appear with certain types of maturity in shows, like a kids toy appearing next to a TV-Y7 show. In general, advertisers pay more to advertise on shows that appeal to a larger age group, so there is a monetary incentive to keep shows censored. This is why TV networks censor their own shows. & nbsp; On the flipside, Streaming services often are subscription based and don't have advertisers, so they don't need to censor themselves for extra money. But if they do have advertisers, because viewing experiences are so personalized (they can tell what content you watch, have an idea of your age/gender) they can put whatever ad they want in front of you at any time to best match you. As opposed to TV networks where the same ad is viewed by everyone at the same time, so they try to appeal to everyone in terms of the show content and ads. & nbsp; Another reason, albeit not as an important one nowadays, is because you can turn on the television and swap to any channel and at any moment be exposed to something mature because TV programming runs forever even if you're not watching it. Censorship somewhat helps protect networks from lawsuits, even if frivolous, for viewers and their children who are upset they were exposed to mature content without any warning. Streaming services on the other hand, you choose the content you watch, so you're more likely to choose the content that you find tasteful for you. And if you choose content you discover is offensive, the streaming service is less liable in a court of law because you chose it, they didn't force it upon you like a TV network does. & nbsp; **The true ELI5 explanation:** The FCC doesn't censor TV. The TV networks censor their own shows to get lower maturity ratings to get more advertisers/money. Streaming doesn't have to censor because they either don't have ads or they can easily switchup the ads to put in front of a child or a mature adult"
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a0b6zl | Why are video games primarily a male, and not female pass time activity? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"They technically are not, as middle aged women make up the largest group of people who play video games. Think of how often you see your mom or aunt playing candy crush or something like that while they relax. The reason video games are seen as a male pastime is because in 1983 the video game industry crashed for various reasons. Nintendo, the company that revived the industry, had to start marketing their consoles and games with toys in stores to avoid the bad reputation of previous consoles. However, toy isles in stores were clearly marked as either toys for boys or toys for girls. So Nintendo decided to market their consoles for boys as they thought more boys would appreciate their early games. This and later marketing began stereotyping video games being only for boys that has just stuck around because video game companies decided to maintain their marketing strategies.",
"Videogames are almost evenly split male female in modernity. The idea that they are a male pastime is a fabrication of the 1980s when they attempted to recover from the industry crash by putting videogame in toy aisles. Since the toy aisles were gendered they had to either choose one or put them in both and they chose to put them in boys toys.",
"To add to the two replies above, this was also reinforced by the media, so many movies featured boys playing computer / console games. Whether in arcades or at homes, the 1980’s and 90’s were rife with movies, television shows, and commercials that featured boys playing, where girls played with other things."
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a0ei3n | Why does Russia always seem to have such an intense desire to completely seize control over the neighboring Ukraine sovereign nation, but not other neighboring nations? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Mostly because they already have a lot of economic and military interests in the region (their Black Sea Fleet is based in Sevastopol, they have a large oil pipeline that goes directly through Ukrainian territory). There are also a ton of ethnic Russians there that are sympathetic to Russia and want to see Ukraine and Russia become strong allies. Ukraine had goals to become closer to Western Europe and the US and Russia is also screwing those goals up by actively interfering like they are (Russia does not want another super strong pro-Western ally at its doorstep). It's basically an easy target for Russia, unfortunately."
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a0ey52 | Why did Latin die | Why is Latin completely dead? For instance, in Italy, why was the language revamped, if Latin was native to that country. I know that Latin combined with regional dialects around Europe to form the languages we have now, but why in Italy specifically was it changed? Didn’t the Catholic Church push hard to keep it? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"The language wasn't revamped. First and foremost, language changes naturally overtime. The way that words are pronounced just shifts. That's the primary difference between Middle English and modern English. So the Latin spoken by Julius Caesar probably didn't sound the same as the Latin spoken by Constantine, which sounds different from Church Latin. Italian was the product of Latin naturally changing overtime and mixing with not only neighboring languages, but the Gothic, Greek, Arabic, and other languages that invaded modern Italy over the years. Second, the church did work to preserve the language, but only within the Church. They didn't really care outside of that. They made Latin the only language that you could use religiously or academically by the High Middle Ages, but didn't care how regular people spoke.",
"Outside of Rome, Latin was a relatively confined language, even in Italy. Latin was a second language throughout their empire and when the empire collapsed, so did use of the language The Catholic Church kept the language alive but didn’t particularly care for common people to understand it let alone be able to read it",
"We consider it dead because it’s not actively used in daily life. You can still use a language for ceremonial purposes while considering it dead. Sanskrit is a fairly good example, being used as a religious language for Hindus (although a minuscule number of people report speaking it) Hebrew was considered a dead language for centuries even though Jews studied it to read the Torah.",
"Fun fact: Roman patricians (upper class) typically spoke Greek in their daily lives. It was considered classy. Latin Vulgaris was spoken by the ordinary people and classical Latin was used for writing. The closest modern language to Latin is Romanian."
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a0jqfh | How do languages determine if a newly created word is masculine or feminine? If one wanted to say "I have an Instagram" - who/how is it decided whether Instagram is a masculine vs feminine noun? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"It depends on the language. Generally, if a new noun is borrowed from a language that has gendered nouns, the gender will be preserved. In Italian, new nouns are masculine by default. In French, new nouns are assigned a gender by the Académie Française, which is the legal authority on the French language. New nouns are masculine by default unless there is a logical reason they should be feminine. German has a set of semantic rules to determine the gender of a word. In any language, there many be a degree of popular confusion for a little while, with some using one gender and some using the other, until things eventually settle on one side or the other.",
"In Russian, it almost always depends on the sounds that the new word ends in. For example, “Инстаграм” (“Instagram”) is masculine as it ends in a consonant. Words ending in “-a” are feminine. Words ending in “-o” are neuter. I simplify, of course, but this rule covers the vast majority of cases. Source: am Russian linguist.",
"In Hungarian not only nouns are genderless but we even have the same word for \"he\" and \"she\". No genders, no problem.",
"This is so interesting to me as a native English speaker. I know that English is a Germanic language and contains a many loan words (many, \\*many\\* of them being French), yet English is not a gendered language. Why not?",
"In Danish, the gender of the noun is in most cases decided by the gender of its Danish translation. Example: cover in Danish is omslag, which is common gender. Therefore, cover is common gender as well. Other examples of this are \"band - orkester\", \"slogan, motto/valgsprog\".",
"I can only speak to Spanish but the word instagram is assigned the masculine article \"el.\" I'd guess that this is because the word begins with i and it's harder to pronounce \"la instagram.\" Some words that begin with \"a\" tend to be assigned the masculine article for this reason. For example, the tree= \"el arból\" since \"la arbol\" would be pronounced as \"larbol\" because double vowels are usually merged (de el: \"of the\" becomes \"del\"). Edit: yes, if a word ends in a vowel that often lines up with the gender (\"o\" ending words being masculine, \"a\" being feminine), but not always. The example I used ends in a consonant. Just like that rule, this one isn't an absolute, but it is a rule I learned in Spanish phonetics. I do agree with u/SnookerLoopyNut's point, but I've noticed that if I or other native speakers don't know what the actual article is, we tend to use whichever feels more natural. and as u/ElMenduko points out, here is the actual explanation of the rule [ URL_0 ]( URL_0 ) and I forgot that it operates under the condition of the /a/ tónica. Mea culpa.",
"In Arabic all loanwords default to feminine. I think this is because the feminine also covers inanimate cases, like plural non-humans get singular feminine adjectives, but I'm not really sure why.",
"In my experience with Spanish, it depends on what the thing is. People say una oreo for example because an Oreo is a cookie, which is feminine. As always, there are times when different groups of people that speak the same language don’t agree on a gender and it is one in one place and another in another. But it’s always officially decided by a royal academy or some other official linguistic body, but the streets always have the last say.",
"Being English I can’t relate to feminine or masculine quality of things.. but it intrigues me. Like do french/German/Spanish speakers etc. Conceptualise a table (or whatever it is) differently than I do because to them it is ‘masculine’. Does it reinforce gender stereotypes? I mean as far as I c an tell it does the opposite, we seem more up tight in Britain than other European nations...",
"I'm a bit late but since in Hebrew there are multiple ways. One is the pronunciation. So for example application is feminine. Another way is using a \"superclass\" of the noun, so since Instagram is an application it'll be feminine. Though it is important to note that those nouns technically have no gender and can be referenced both as masculine and as feminine.",
"All the languages already have words \"gram\", \"cardiogram\", \"chronogram\", \"seismogram\" etc. so just look at what gender those words have.",
"For example in Polish if something ends with \"a\" it is usually feminine (except the nouns that applicable men) . If something ends with any different vowel it is neuter. Any others nouns are masculine. It's not a rule but might be useful.",
"It definitely depends on the language. I speak Spanish, and the general rule is that any word that ends with an open vowel (as in, the letter a which ends with a soft sound) it’s feminine. However, there’s rules that superseded it. The word water in Spanish is “agua”. Even though it should be feminine, so it could be denoted “la agua”, the two letter “a”s between words makes it sound like one word. It sounds very bad and is hard to understand, so water is treated as the masculine “el agua” (the water) despite seeming like its feminine.",
"Short answer: no one knows! It's complicated! Long answer: it depends on the speaker's individual language generating ability. As people learn language, they internalize all the complicated rules that govern all the use of language around them. These rules can theoretically describe all the language that they've previous heard, and are used to generate novel utterances that are grammatically correct! So in a language group that has gendered nouns, all the speakers have some sort of internal rules that allow them to instantaneously decide if something is masculine, feminine, neutral, or what have you. Of course, language groups fission endlessly, so you get groups that disagree quite often. It's also really hard to figure out the specific rules, so despite a fair bit of research, no one really knows how it works at a deep level."
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a0lf7l | Do cosplay shows have a "don't" list for cosplay effects? | For example, I'm assuming most consortium rules would state that your cosplay can't have an effect that expels real fire from it. But do these places have an actual list or do they just assume cosplayers use their own judgement? I remember a month ago, a Halloween goer got arrested, because their costume included real, unfired, shotgun shells around their chest. | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Fan conventions generally have a weapons policy. I went to a con once, and their policy allowed fake bladed weapons and fake firearms, but they needed to be inspected and marked. They also allowed real bladed weapons, which had to be inspected, marked, sheathed and securely fastened to the sheath so they couldn't be drawn. \"Real projectile weapons\" were not allowed, and this included Nerf guns, squirt guns, and anything that fires any sort of solid, liquid or gas.",
"URL_0 Pretty sure most cons will have a page like this.",
"Some have explicit rules already set up. And obviously you can get away with more on a stage than you would on a con floor. Best bet would be check with individual cons.",
"Annual cosplay con in my city forbids real bladed weapons and firearm replicas that can be mistaken for real guns (airsoft guns, bb guns, gas and expansive firearms...). Ammunition ban is obvious, since you can't legally own ammunition without gun licence and if someone has gun licence, he is obviously intelligent enough to not carry it around like prop."
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a0nbtw | Do different languages have different measures for determining eyesight? | For example, could someone have 20/20 vision when distinguishing between separate letters in English but less than 20/20 vision for distinguishing between the characters of Mandarin (assuming they are bilingual with equal ability to speak and understand each)? It seems like some languages have much more visually complex characters than others which would make them harder to identify than others when viewed from the same distance. | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"So 20/20 just means what you see at 20ft is what \"typical\" people see at 20ft. If you see at 20ft what typical people see at 100ft, your vision is 20/100. This is almost exclusively as an American anectode to illustrate to lay people how their vision compares to others. Most other countries around the world use the diopter (measured by seeing how far your eye can focus) to determine degree of vision impairment. Glass prescriptions are in diopters (i.e. +1.00, -3.25, etc), where +0 is \"typical\"."
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a0nci2 | Jewish CEOs and Antisemitism | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"One of the main problems is that in the Middle Ages and onwards, Jews were forbidden from owning land in most countries in Europe, and they were forbidden from joining most guilds. So if you can't become a farmer, and you can't become a tradesman, then what is left? Merchant or Banker. That's the only way they were allowed to make a living, so they were forced into those areas. Obviously, over the centuries they have been doing it, they have gotten very good at it. So it stands to reason that many of them would have been elevated to the highest positions due to their work ethic and long family traditions, obviously, if your family has had a jewelry store for 500 years, when you take over, you don't want to be the \"guy who botched it up\" so there's a heavy pressure to succeed and do better than your dad did, right? Jews were also randomly prosecuted, expelled from countries en masse for no reason, had their wealth taxed or confiscated unfairly, and numerous other indignities, for being good at what they did. The Nazis were just the most blatant about it, but every country in Europe is anti-semetic. Even to this day they are. And there are dozens of reasons the non Jews use to decry their behavior, conspiracy theories, Illuminati, Tri-Lateral Commission, Bilderbergers, Rockefellers, and on and on. If Jews really DID run the world it would be running a lot better than it does, I can guarantee you that. Jewish culture has evolve over the centuries to be very money focused, for these obvious reasons. Back in the day, it was important to have a big stash of money that you could use to escape if a mob appeared outside your door in the middle of the night all carrying torches and screaming \"Kill the Jews\" so that sort of mindset still prevails to a certain degree. It's kinda not their fault, they are a product of the hardships they have endured."
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a0rto6 | Why do restaurants and establishments commonly have a unisex bathroom and a women's bathroom combo rather than just all unisex bathrooms or a unisex + men's bathroom combo? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"In general, the line for women’s bathrooms would be longer than men’s. This is because 1) women’s rooms are all toilets, which tend to take up more room than urinals, so they can’t have as many people going at the same time; 2) some women’s clothes take longer to get out of (like rompers) and back into; and 3) the logistics of how women go the bathroom tending to take slightly longer than men. As a result, they tend to leave women’s rooms so more of them can get through faster and men are typically still able to manage with just the unisex bathroom (and it can be overflow for if the women’s room is backed up).",
"I have never seen this. Usually if there’s a unisex bathroom it’s either the only one or there are 3. Is this in the US?",
"It is not common to have a unisex bathroom in restaurants or many other establishments. When they adopt the practice of having them they are normally converting the men's room into the unisex one."
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a0v0sc | Why are many people so hard on themselves? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Because that's all they've ever known, people being hard on them. Because they have a drive to excel in what they do. Because they know they deserve it. There's always a lot of motivation behind most of our actions, especially the thing we do to ourselves."
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a0ybz3 | Where/How surnames started? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Surnames started as a way to distinguish different people with the same given name from each other. The practice have changed over time and the modern way of having family names is just a few hundred years old. In a village there is not a lot of people with the same given name. But if there is some ambiguity it is easy to resolve it with a single additional word. For example John the Butcher, Peter the redhead, Rob the old man, Hank John's son or Frank over in Shelbyville. However when people gather in cities there is a lot of duplicate given names so you always need another word to differentiate people. And these words have become standardized as a fixed surname. So even though you move or change occupation the surname sticks with you. And since people tend to live with their father during their upbringing and tended to continue in their fathers line of work it made it easier that the sons were given their fathers surname.",
"In the U.K. surname come many from the following 1). Occupation. Butcher, Baker, Fletcher etc 2). Location. York, Blackbourne, Churchill etc 3) Religion. Cross, Church etc 4). Body features. Russell (Red head), Short, Long, Little 5). Son of. Bevin (son of Evin), Mac, O’",
"Interesting story, in Japan in the 19th century the Meiji restoration happened, and the government told the public \"let's make Japanese culture uniquely Japanese (as opposed to largely deriving from China)\" and something they did was let EVERYONE to create / use whatever surname they wanted. Because of this there are over 100,000 unique Japanese surnames and the overwhelming majority date back to like 1860ish",
"They started as a way to tell different people apart when they shared the same name. Some were occupational such as Smith, Wright, Thatcher, etc. Some were familial such as Johnson, O'Riley, McConner, etc. Some were places people lived such as Del Corso, Van Der Rohe, Hill, Brandenburg, etc. And some were marks of nobility bestowed by a ruler to denote a family as being in charge of a region.",
"Well, in the west at least, very simplified of course, for the most part I think it came from occupation- Baker, Wainwright, Cooper, Mason, etc. If you didn’t know the butcher’s name, it was Master Butcher, John the Butcher, John Butcher. Because family businesses were the norm, then the son would become Edward Butcher, then as generations passed, cities grew and identification became more important officially, it stuck. Oversimplified, but that’s the basic reason. There are also linguistic variants that grew from migration and political reasons (such as MacRandall/ Randall/ Reynault/ Reynolds etc)."
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a14z9x | why 76? | In many different games made by different companies I have seen that the number 76 is popular. For example: the recently released "Fallout 76" and the hero "soldier 76" in overwatch. I can't remember any else at the moment. But I know I have noticed the number being used for many different games. So my question is: why? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"It usually is some sort of reference to 1776, when the United States declared independence.",
"I know for fallout in particular 1776 is the year that the United States of America was founded. The vault in the game was opened in 2076. Soldier: 76 may also be a nod to that, seeing as he is a borderline stereotype of washed up American action hero."
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a1bu3o | why is it called “migrant caravan” instead of the typical “refugees” | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"No. The term was created to gain support against the refugees from those who dislike migrants. In this case, they are (for the most part) refugees fleeing their home countries.",
"Because by politicians describing it this way it pushes the buttons of some of their supporters along with invasion, criminals and other emotive words."
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a1f9jd | Why is it socially acceptable for People to say that they have seen God or felt God's presence but not when they say that they saw a Ghost/Alien? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"It's not. I'll think the same of you if you were to explain an action or decision by a presence you felt, be it god, a ghost, or whatever else. It's socially acceptable in social circles where god is considered a thing. Same for ghosts, you can claim you felt a first with your paranormal club. Believing in god is just more common than believing in ghosts",
"I'll explain it this way: If there is a town with two thousand people and in this town there are a thousand dumb people who believe in ghosts, and ten dumb people who believe in flying pigs, that means half of the town believes in ghosts but only 0.005% believe in flying pigs. If someone says they saw a ghost, 50% of the population will believe it because it validates their beliefs. It's socially acceptable because every second person is okay with that thought. If someone says they saw a flying pig, less than 1% will believe them. Basically it's socially acceptable because there are more stupid people who believe in God than there are stupid people who believe in aliens.",
"In my country we don't find it socially acceptable for people to say they have seen God or felt God's presence. It's more acceptable that someone has seen a Ghost or a Ufo. So this statement isn't true everywhere.",
"What's always puzzled me is that if someone claimed to have had a long conversation with a burning bush in 2018, even the most hardcore believer would recommend serious medication and therapy. But that is totally accepted in the story as fact. This makes no sense to me."
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a1ml65 | Why does every Country have a similar variation of the word Police? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Police in Japanese is Keisatsu. So, you're probably thinking of languages that stem from a common root, like Latin.",
"Because it’s root is an ancient (Greek) word and it has descended down to most of ancient Greek’s successor languages, including Latin, meaning all of the Romance languages. There are a bunch of other words like this - “athlete” is an example. You just don’t see them in international spy movies.",
"Same linguistic root. Police in some form or another comes through the Latin (*politia)* from the Greek (*politeia*) meaning citizenship, administration or civil polity. Which is itself derived from the word for city (*polis*)."
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a1ob2n | Why do lions appear on old european heraldry despite lions not existing in Europe ? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"1) Lions lived in parts of Southern and Eastern Europe until the 300s AD. So in many regions there was cultural memory of the beasts even if they died out several generations previously. 2) The Romans took their gladiatorial fighting traditions wherever they conquered and a major part of that was importing exotic animals for people to fight. So lions would be known in Romanized Europe. 3) They had trade routes to the Middle East and to Africa which would allow for the wealthy Nobles and Royalty to import exotic animals for menageries which were popular in the middle ages.",
"Because lions existed in Europe, as well as seals. Descriptions of such animals can be found in several of Aristotle's Biology works. EDIT: For all the confused Redditors, I meant Southern Europe. My bad.",
"A few reasons. Lions did exist in parts of Europe (largely Southern) until \\~300 AD, possibly longer in small numbers. Lions also were culturally adopted from the Ancient Greeks onward and many of these subsequent peoples would have had physical access to lions via expanded trade routes etc. Finally, Lions are featured in the Judaeo-Christian tradition, which in tandem with the lion's reputation as the \"King of Beasts\" would have influenced their desirability for heraldry.",
"1. Lions did exist in Europe at one time. 2. Dragons and unicorns did not exist but were still part of heraldry. Overall people would pick creatures they knew were imposing in many instances even if they haven't seen them.",
"I heard lions lived in northern Africa and also Spain which is close geographically, before they were killed off by humans.",
"Although other posters are correct in saying that lions existed in Europe in the classical Greek and Roman periods and there are plenty of depictions (mosaics for example) and accounts (Themistius deploring the difficulty of finding lions for beast shows), we shouldn’t forget that the first appearance of a lion in medieval heraldry was in the 12th century with Geoffrey Plantagenet (possibly bestowed by Henri I of England). His father, Fulk V of Anjou became king of Jerusalem in 1131, so it’s safe to assume that the upper classes in 12th century Europe where familiar with the geography and fauna of the Southern Levant (what today would be Israel/Palestine, Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, etc), having travelled there at least since the First Crusade (1095-1099) and the establishment of the Kingdom of Jerusalem by Godfrey of Bouillon.",
"In England lions were kept in the tower of London, the first record of one was in 1240, referring to the upkeep of \"the King's lion\". Royalty could afford to have keep exotic animals.",
"Though Im sure theres a multitude of factors, the title of lion is one that many have adopted through history. Most significantly to the question, Jesus is attributed the title \"lion of Judah\" in the book of revalation, and the animal tends to be the second animal he is most symbolically attached to (the first being a lamb). Though they would not have the animal, they would be more than familiar with it as a symbol of fierceness, and many might use it to connect to their religious beliefs by metaphorically saying the honor, bravery, and strength of Jesus is with them.",
"For centuries, lions have been associated with COURAGE, PRIDE, and STRENGTH. These were qualities that nobles, monarchs and whole countries wanted to be associated with. King Louis VIII of France (aka \"Louis le Lion\") and King Richard of England aka \"Cœur de Lion\" (Richard the Lion Heart) were both strongly associated with lions. Thus, it is the symbolism of lions, rather than their geographic proximity, that made people eager to adopt them as heraldic symbols. For similar reasons, eagles are also frequently adopted as national symbols. By the way, before the U.S.A. adopted the bald eagle in its coat of arms, the original design was of an imperial eagle, which is native to southeastern Europe.",
"There are [cave paintings of lions in France]( URL_0 ) so it seems likely that lions ranged across large chunks of Europe before hominids wiped them out.",
"Why are dragons on old European heraldry? A: they’re cool and frightening"
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a1wkf4 | Why is the DEA getting away with their curent scheduling of drugs..that law enforfement follows..(Schedule 1-4 listed) | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Most of these drugs make sense to classify by use vs risk of abuse ratio. That does make quite a bit of medical sense. Keeping them rigid and not allowing for trials because something is schedule 1 is quite dumb though. Clearly marijuana and LSD have medical properties as we know this I'm limited research. However, some of it is political in nature and doesn't reflect the true identity. An example being cocaine. Cocaine is a local anesthetic and is very good at helping out with small vessel bleeding for dental or nasal surgery. It is pretty addictive and has a high abuse potential, yet, we still use it medically. Marijuana has limited harmful effects when compared to drugs like hydrocodone or cocaine, but it is schedule 1. Doesn't make much sense."
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a201d3 | When did we start using the word "like" more? | I just started thinking about this. When did we as an English speaking society start using the word "like" as a placeholder or almost simply a sound inbetween points? Even explaining my point to my aunt, I used the word "like"... Like 5 times. | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"I think it was in the 80s. Part of the Valley Girl slang was: \"Like, totally!\" Today, it's a passive way to pull some directness out of what you're saying. It was 40 miles away. It was, like, 40 miles away. One is very certain, one gives wiggle room. That's morphed into a passive voice that shows an unwillingness on the speaker's part to commit to their statement, for fear of offending people. It adds just a little distance. And it's also become the \"um\" of the 2000s and beyond."
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a2518r | With porn being arguably the most pirated form of entertainment, how does the industry remain profitable? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"I think it survives similar to the way that freemium gaming works. 95% of people just watch/play for free but there's that 5% that spends a huge amount of money on it."
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a27h67 | Why is the zodiac sign cancer depicted as a crab/lobster? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Cancer is the Latin for crab. You can still see this in some of the Romance languages - in Spanish it's _cangrejo_, and in Italian it's _granchio_. The disease cancer takes its name from a similar root. The Greek physician Hippocrates supposedly named the disease _carcinos_, which is Ancient Greek for crab, because the spreading fingers of cancer tumours reminded him of a crab's legs. We still use the word _carcinoma_ to describe some tumours. The Greek word was translated by the Romans to cancer, and the rest is history."
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a2bdpe | Why do drug stores have tons of reading glasses in varying intensities (for farsighted people), but no pre-made glasses for nearsighted people? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"If you are nearsighted, you can see close up but not far away - so to do something like driving that requires good vision means that you need an accurate pair of glasses to fix your far vision. If you have the wrong strength of glasses this means that you won't be able to see correctly at distance. As you may not be able to always change the distance between your eyes and something far away enough, the prescription needs to be perfect to see (think about trying to look at a landscape where everything further away than 50m is blurry because your prescription isn't perfect). Being farsighted means you can see things far away, but your eyes get worse looking at objects close up. If your eyes are such that you can see well a meter away, but cannot read a book sat on the table on front of you, a pair of reading glasses will correct your vision so that you can clearly see something that is closer to your eyes. The differing strengths will alter this distance to different degrees, so a weak pair of glasses will allow you to read 20 cm closer, a stronger pair 50 cm closer, and a pair that is too strong may adjust your eyes too far and make them worse. With something like reading however, you can easily adjust the distance between your eyes and the object you are reading - so while a pair of glasses that are slightly wrong may not allow you to read something 30 cm from your eyes (such as a book laying in bed), they may adjust your eyes just enough to read a book 40 cm from your eyes, so you can just hold the book 10 cm further away to compensate. So if you find you need reading glasses, it is not so necessary to have a perfect prescription, and you can happily use glasses from the pharmacy (which are typically sold in half steps of strength, where prescription glasses can often be sold in far, far greater accuracies - steps of 0.01 rather than 0.5) An optometrist will test you and prescribe reading glasses properly too, just this accuracy costs money and many people will happily make do with store bought generic glasses. One other thing to mention is how people wear glasses and how easily damaged they will be - short sighted people tlypically wear glasses permanently, so when you put them on in the morning you wear them for the day. Far sighted people however will only wear glasses when reading, and will take them off when using distance vision (such as driving). Because they are taking them on and off regularly there is a far greater chance of losing then, forgetting them, or sticking them in a pocket and breaking them. If you have to replace them regularly then the cost of prescription glasses will add up very quickly, so cheap generic glasses will save your a lot of money. For a near sighted person that will often wear the same pair for years at a time without losing them the cost is far more justifiable.",
"It’s because the drug store glasses are actually not for treating hyperopia (farsightedness), they are for presbyopia (loss of accommodation)- which is an age related occurrence where your lens looses ability to focus. The drug store readers are geared toward people who essentially had “good” eyesight prior than hitting the age where they lost accommodation, therefore requiring them to only need a little magnification. There are truly hyperopic and myopic people that the drug store readers will not work for. So if you think of the “normal” vision people as starting at 0.00D, they just need a little bump to read (+1.00D to +3.00D or so), whereas folks who have had a perception previously may already have needed (say from -5.00D to +5.00D) so there are much less options in the drug store they can use to get them to the effective +1.00 to +3.00D that they need to read. Also, for those folks who already need glasses to walk around, they likely have bifocals to “add +3.00D” or whatever reading modification they need.",
"I used to be an Optician, so I'm gonna take a swing at this. & #x200B; There are 5 common terms you need to know before I begin: Hyperopia - far sighted Myopia - near sighted Presbyopia - loss of accommodation Astigmatism - Your eye is not perfectly round, but it is round-ish Focal point: the place your eye is focusing & #x200B; The eye has a couple of components that allow you to see near and far. When there is a deficiency in these components, things are blurry. You have the Cornea, the pupil, the inner lens, the retina, and the optic nerve. When a doctor measures your eyes, they check for the shape of the eye, and your sight strength, using what's called diopters, a unit that is based somewhat on the focal length or point. When an eye is \"perfect\", it has a power of 60 diopters and is round-ish like a sphere, but when your eye is deficient it needs to be corrected. A natural eye can be lacking by having either has more or less spherical diopters or being not perfectly round and more olive shaped in one way or another, which determines if you have Myopia, Hyperopia, or Astigmatism. & #x200B; Myopia means you have a surplus of Spherical diopters, whereas hyperopia means you have a deficiency of power. To correct this, a doctor will write you a prescription for spherical lenses to make up the difference. A doctor will give you more or less power to bring your difference back to 60 diopters of power, so that you can see more clearly. If you have an Astigmatism, your lenses may also have a cylindrical shape cut into the lens at an axis (usually a number between 0 and 180) to change the light to a different focal point within the eye. & #x200B; The prescription looks something like this: OD (right eye) +/- x.xx | +/- y.yy| θ | Add +z.zz OS (left eye) +/- x.xx | +/- y.yy | θ | Add +z.zz & #x200B; X are the numbers for your Spherical Power Y are the numbers for your Cylindrical Power θ is the axis for your Cylindrical Power Z is the number of magnification you need if you experience problems reading up close & #x200B; Reading glasses that you find in a grocery store or drug store are intended to be used for people with Presbyopia. As you age, there is a lens just behind the cornea that, as you age, builds layers kinda like a tree trunk builds layers. Eventually, when you hit age of 40+, the muscles that flex that lens can no longer flex it because it has grown too stiff. These glasses aid in helping the object's focal point be closer to the eye so that the muscles don't have to work as hard. As you noticed, these glasses are strictly positive spherical power glasses. & #x200B; When you have hyperopia, you need positive power spherical lenses to make up your deficiency, which is why the reading glasses will somewhat work for your prescription. Also, when you're hyperopic, the eyes are instantly able to tell if the glasses you picked up off of the shelf are too powerful because your vision is just blurry. It's also very hard to get those muscles for your inner lens to loosen up more to bring your vision into focus. Side Note: this is also kind of how VR goggles work. & #x200B; Now, myopia needs negative spherical power. The eyes are more tolerant of having extra negative power than they need to focus for far away, but this will cause eye strain, fatigue, and sometimes headaches. This is because the muscles for the inner lens will stretch your lens thinner to help you focus through that extra power. But, this wouldn't be an ideal scenario for drug stores or grocery stores because it's bad for business if the customer is unhappy, and you wouldn't know right away if you picked glasses with too much power, unlike hyperopia. I know this is a long reply, but I hope it helps shed some light on the eyes and how they work. & #x200B; Edit: changed from 4 to 5 / changed the bit about presbyopia",
"Direct Answer: It's more difficult to correct long distance vision accurately than it is to get \"good enough\" short distance vision. Why: Long distance vision correction needs to be accurate because, for instance, if you're piloting a vehicle at 65mph down the road, you're going to need to be able to read the signs quickly and without strain. Short distance vision correction can be approximated since you're **generally** not trying to read a book flying by you at 65mph (I mean, I assume so but I won't judge). Additional Details: Finally, there's a thing called \"astigmatism\". Astigmatism can be summarized as that your eye (and lens in the eye) isn't perfectly smooth and round. These tiny variations in the eye have a significantly more pronounced effect on distance vision. As a result, generic lenses for distance correction really can't exist in a meaningful way.",
"Simply put, 2 main reasons: 1. Possibilty of astigmatism included in the vision Rx, being on a specific axis, which would preclude lenses both being same sphere, and 2. Possibility/probability that the 2 lenses are differing strengths. Normally in readers both eyes require a simple modicum of magnification to compensate for the effects of presbyopia, literally \"sight of old age\".",
"I think as close to ELI5 while still being accurate. There are no premade glasses for nearsighted (myopia) because Rx glasses in pharmacys are not meant to treat farsighted people (hyperopia). They are meant to treat presbyopia, or age related far sightedness. This means the muscles in the eyes get weaker with age and reading up close becomes hard to do. This condition can occur in people with farsightedness, nearsightedness or 20/20 vision and is usually treated with bifocals, a lens that has a small magnifying glass as the bottom to help read up close. If you don't wear glasses but get older and need help reading a trip to the drugstore can help. Also, wearing lenses that magnify (like those used to treat farsightedness) unnecessarily don't really do anything to your vision except magnify everything. Wearing lenses that minimize (like those used to correct nearsightedness) unneccessarily can give you a headache.",
"I would say mostly since farsightedness is a process that is part of normal aging and affects about 99% of people above a certain age while nearsightedness is a pathological condition and is probably more than 1000 times less prevalent.",
"In UK. Ready made reading specs can only be sold for the correction of presbyopia, the lack of power (accommodation) required to focus on a close object. Correcting long or short sightedness (hyperopia or myopia) would be against the regulations for the sale and supply of ready readers, stated in the 1989 opticians act. The closer the object, the more + power required. As the sale has to assume that you have good distance vision (not long or short sighted), you would only require the additional + power from the specs to focus on a close object.",
"Real ELI5 (since other answers are far from being ELI5, while being really informative) : Because making the right glasses for nearsighted people is harder. You can always pick glasses that are close to be good four your farsighted problem, you only need to place the book you are reading a little closer of further from your face. Nearshighted people need the right correction to see properly. Driving a car with \"just ok\" glasses for nearshighted people can be hard.",
"So basically everyone commenting missed a huge thing, and that's over-accommodation. It's very easy to use too much minus if you just put on a pair and look out. Many people can focus through extra prescription to a point, but over time with extra minus you end up with lots of headaches and even an accommodative spasm. Simply put, your optometrist/ophthalmologist/optician goes a long way to make sure you aren't getting too strong of a minus prescription, and you can really mess with comfort of your daily life by messing this up. This does not happen with + lenses, as they do NOT stimulate accommodation (focusing). Additionally, each eye will need the same amount of reading help, assuming the eyes are corrected for distance. This is not the case with minus lenses.",
"It's for people with presbyopia, which is an age related issue where the crystalline lens in your eye hardens, so the muscles in your eyes can no longer focus up close. You'll see different RXs available as it usually goes along with age. A late 40s person will probably use a +1.25 to a +1.75 and by the time you reach your 60s you'll be at a +2.50 or so. These are cheap and easy to accommodate for most people who need help with just reading. Making premade glasses for somebody who is myopic is nearly impossible, because there are too many variables with your RX to accommodate for \"generic distance\" glasses. Most people have an RX that consists of their sphere, cylinder and an axis, like this: OD: -2.75 -1.50 x75 OS: -3.50 -1.25 x90 So a generic pair of distance glasses would be impossible to make for somebody who needs a correction for distance.",
"You can buy pre made swim goggles with various negative diopters off the shelf in North America. I don't know why only that. But I will guess. All the issues about individual variability and having an exact match from the optometrist are true, but exaggerated. People could easily judge for themselves that something is better than nothing. They don't make contact lenses in my prescription, so my optometrist supplies me with the closest match that's ok for hockey and barely legal for driving, and I propose that an average person who tried on testers and looked across the store would easily tell if it's something that could help them drive. For people with limited income who can't afford eye care, this would be much better than nothing. I respect my optometrist and my optician for their services in my more complicated situation all my life. But I suspect the real reason that you can't get simple glasses that correct the most common cases is to protect the profession, not the users.",
"The reason that there are lots of reading glasses available is that almost everybody over 45 yo is a potential customer. Our eyes focus using a single muscle. The more flexible that muscle, the closer we can focus. As we age, that muscle gets less flexible and our closest focus is no longer as close as it used to be. Hence some older people trying to read by holding the print much further away than a young person would. Reading glasses have the effect of reducing our minimum focus distance. Big market for that. Off the shelf glasses for near sighted people? Too small a market to be viable.",
"Many other answers here are incorrect. The real reason is due to regulation intended to ensure people get regular, professional eye exams. An exception was made to allow over-the-counter reading glasses for people who otherwise had properly-focused eyes but needed reading glasses due to the natural, age-related stiffening of the eye's lens after about 40 years old. This was not always the case - you can see in this [old article]( URL_0 ) that as recently as 1988, they were still battling about whether \"ready-made\" reading glasses should be legal in New York state. For people that need prescription glasses when they are young (nearsighted or farsighted), the system is supposed to make them get professional exams, even today. It is actually an accident that people whose prescription is slightly farsighted can get away with buying the over-the-counter glasses that are intended as reading glasses; that is just part of the compromise of letting normal, older people get cheap reading glasses. The other replies dealing only with the technical aspects of the glasses are just not correct. Yes, professional glasses can be better than the over-the-counter ones, especially with nearsightedness and astigmatism. But the real reason is regulatory- see link above. P.S. (eye doctor here) Nearsightedness and farsightedness, especially when severe, do put people at extra risk for certain eye conditions that should be monitored, at least at certain ages. I'm not giving an opinion whether the current regulatory balance is correct; just sayin' that is how we got here.",
"I would guess because nearsighted people wear their glasses most of the time they're awake. I would think farsighted people mostly wear their glasses to read. Maybe they lose them, forget them, crush them.....harder to do that if glasses are on your face. Just a guess.",
"They are not for farsighted people, they are for reading and focusing on other small(er) details. I am nearsighted, severely, and wear contact lenses. As I get older and my eyes continue to get worse, I have to wear reading glasses to be able to focus on small-ish type (10pt and below) as my contacts simply cannot compensate for everything anymore.",
"If your nearsighted, it takes tiny changes to see correctly, if your farsighted it can be solved with a magnifying glass stuck to your face of less large changes",
"There are far-sighted people who must wear their glasses all day as well. My 8 year old daughter is +6.75 and +5.25 and must wear them all day. The first thing she does in the morning is reach for her glasses. Even though she’s far sighted she can’t see well far away either. And like other have said she gets bad headaches if she goes too long without her glasses.",
"You need few basic info about how eyes works but that would require a sort of long post. A short eli5 would be : because prescription made out of + (ex :+1,5 d) Cannot harm you in anyway. Or at least not more than you would yourself without glasses. So it's okay to wear them. On the other hand. Prescription with - (ex : -3 d) can harm you if you're not exactly nearsighted with -3 on each eye. Also... And that's the reason why you don't see - 3 in drug stores : Unlike +3, a prescription of - 3 can be tolerated / liked by many ppl even if they dont need it. So to make sure no one is getting a - prescription for nothing they don't sell them."
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a2ci3b | In G20, How world leaders know where they should stand for taking pic? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"i don't know the answer specifically to this question but it is not uncommon for professional photographers to place markings on the ground. Something like an A4 sheet of paper with the country's name on it or something. How they determine who goes where tho is beyond me."
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a2cqkv | Why is Russia so interested in Ukraine? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"After the collapse of the Soviet Union, many former Russian allies ran to embrace the West. This put Russia in an uncomfortable situation because they were losing economic partners and risking opening themselves up to \"foreign aggression\" (they've always been a rather defensive people ready to defend the Motherland). Ukraine has traditionally been a \"country of brothers\" to Russia (just like Belarus), and indeed there's a large Russian population there. But in the last few years, Ukraine has been trying to refocus its politics and efforts towards becoming friendlier with the West, at the expense of Russia. This again puts Russia in a very uncomfortable spot, and they are trying to slow or prevent that from happening (unfortunately very successfully, though part of that is because Ukraine also has a rather corrupt and inefficient government). It should also be noted that Ukraine has had a weird history, where it was an independent territory (as Kievan Rus) and then became parts of Poland and Russia and then became a Soviet Republic in the USSR. So Russia always likes to claim that Ukraine belongs to Russia anyway (and the name \"implies\" that).",
"Speaking in Realpolitik terms, Russian leaders feel that the enlargement of NATO and EU into Eastern Europe and the Caucasus is a direct threat to them. They have always said this so it should come as no surprise to the West. After the coup that ousted a pro-Russian Ukrainian president and installed a pro-Western one, Putin was afraid that the Crimean peninsula would host a NATO base. Yeltsin said “This is the first sign of what could happen when NATO comes right up to the Russian Federation’s borders” during the Bosnian civil war. At the time the Russians were too weak at to derail NATOs eastwards movement. At the time none of the countries shared a border with Russia except the Baltics. Then NATO considered allowing Georgia and Ukraine to enter (though France and Germany were against because they feared it would antagonize Russia) Russia’s deputy foreign minister at the time said as much “Georgia and Ukraines membership is a huge strategic mistake which would have most serious consequences for pan-European security”/ Putin remained that admitting the two to NATO would represent a direct threat to Russia. Putin hinted “very transparently” that if Ukraine was accepted into NATO, it would cease to exist. Russia’s invasion of Georgia in ’08 should have dispelled any remaining doubts about Putin’s determination to prevent the two from joining NATO. Further, the West funded pro-western individuals and organizations in Ukraine in order to try and export their values to the country such as democracy promotion and civil society strengthening When Russian leaders look at Western social engineering in Ukraine they worry that their country might be next, and such fears are not groundless. “Ukraines choice to join Europe will accelerate the demise of the ideology of Russian imperialism that Putin represents. Russians, too, face a choice, and Putin may find himself on the losing side not just in the near abroad but within Russia itself.” This triple package – NATO enlargement, EU expansion and democracy promotion – added fuel to a fire waiting to ignite. The spark came in 2013 when Yanukovych rejected a major economic deal with the EU and decided to accept the Russian counteroffer instead. That gave rise to antigovernment demonstration that escalated over the following three months. Yanukovych fled to Russia, new government was pro-Western and anti-Russian o the core. IT is clear that Washington backed this Coup. Shortly after, Putin incorporated Crimea into Russia – Easy because there were already thousands of Russian troops in Crimea and because the majority of inhabitants in Crimea are ethnic Russians, most of whom already wanted out of Ukraine. Putin next put pressure on the new government in Kiev to discourage it from siding with the West against Russia, making clear that he would wreck Ukraine as a functioning states before he would allow it to become a Western stronghold. Provided advisers, arms and diplomatic support to Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine and massing a large army ion the Ukrainian border. Also raised the price of gas that Russia sells to Ukraine. Putin’s actions should be easy to comprehend. Ukraine is a buffer state of enormous strategic importance to Russia. No Russian leader would tolerate a military alliance that was Moscow’s mortal enemy with moving into Ukraine, nor would they stand idly by while the West installs a government that was determined to integrate Ukraine into the West. This is Geopolitics 101, you may not like it but you should understand the logic to it. Great powers are sensitive to potential threats.",
"Wasn't the Black Sea Fleet stationed in the Ukraine during the days of the USSR? Getting that particular Seaport back may well be part of the motivation for taking the Ukraine over first."
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a2ei4s | How did people come up with images of people from the Bible nobody even saw them, and there’ not even a physical description written? For example, why is God depicted as an old man? And Mary who doesn’t even have a hint of Middle Eastern feature in her. | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"> How did people come up with images of people from the Bible nobody even saw them, and there’ not even a physical description written? Let's say you just read a book and there's a character in it that doesn't have a physical description. Okay, now draw it! You could still draw it, doesn't mean it's accurate/accurate to what the writer intended. Certain depictions just stuck. God being depicted as an \"old man\" is likely because he was regularly referred to as a fatherly figure, and wise. If you had to draw someone that was a father to many and was extremely wise, would you maybe draw an older man? > And Mary who doesn’t even have a hint of Middle Eastern feature in her. Depends on whose depiction you're looking at. White people tend to want to make their religious figures look white.",
"We do know what the size range of Jesus is though. Bigger than infant but smaller than a temple.",
"> How did people come up with images of people from the Bible nobody even saw them, and there’ not even a physical description written? Think of a fictional character, what do they look like? People attribute characteristics to characters in the bible the same way. God is thought of as an authority figure and is referred to as the 'Father', which is likely why he is drawn as an old man. Many of our images of Bible characters comes from Renaissance artwork which was painted centuries after the fact by Europeans. Many of them probably didn't even know what Middle Eastern People looked like... but by that point the classical image of Christ was already established as a white man with a beard and long hair. Which is an image in the style of a man in the medieval period. While Christ himself was a Jew and would likely not have had long hair as that is considered unclean by Jewish tradition. There is a lot of pagan influence as well. A lot of things attributed to God's image, like the bearded old man is reminiscent of the image of Zeus or Jupiter. As the Roman's converted to Christianity they adapted their pagan traditions in Christianity. Church ceremony for instance is based on Roman meal customs. There is a surprising amount of things attributed to the Judeo-Christian religions that are pagan in origin. As Christianity moved across Europe Pagan symbols and traditions were adopted by Christian preachers as a way of assimilating their flocks. \"You can keep the Christmas trees and Reindeer so long as on Yule you go to church and celebrate Christ's birthday\""
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a2j2bu | Why is it that different parts of the world ended up driving on different sides of the road | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"In the past, almost everybody travelled on the left side of the road because that was the most sensible option for feudal, violent societies. Since most people are right-handed, swordsmen preferred to keep to the left in order to have their right arm nearer to an opponent and their scabbard further from him. Moreover, it reduced the chance of the scabbard (worn on the left) hitting other people. Furthermore, a right-handed person finds it easier to mount a horse from the left side of the horse, and it would be very difficult to do otherwise if wearing a sword (which would be worn on the left). It is safer to mount and dismount towards the side of the road, rather than in the middle of traffic, so if one mounts on the left, then the horse should be ridden on the left side of the road. In the late 1700s, however, teamsters in France and the United States began hauling farm products in big wagons pulled by several pairs of horses. These wagons had no driver’s seat; instead the driver sat on the left rear horse, so he could keep his right arm free to lash the team. Since he was sitting on the left, he naturally wanted everybody to pass on the left so he could look down and make sure he kept clear of the oncoming wagon’s wheels. Therefore he kept to the right side of the road."
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a2nzhh | Why is mint the "standard" toothpaste flavor? | Also, why is it so strong? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"That cool signal sent to your brain from the mint made your mouth feel cleaner. ... They were told that their teeth were \"dingy\" by Hopkins if they didn't feel that tingling cool sensation in their mouths. This ad campaign not only popularized minty toothpaste, but also created the daily brushing habit. ~ Google",
"Because who would like a breath smelling of Pork Liver Pate? 😉",
"To add to what other people have posted I switched to a cinnamon flavored tooth paste that was still fresh feeling but didn't make everything taste terrible afterwards. It has changed my life. Tom's of Maine Whole Care Fluoride Toothpaste, Cinnamon Clove, 4.7 Ounce, 2 Count URL_0"
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a2olb5 | Why do a lot of bootlegs come out of China and how do they get away with it? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Unlike in America and Europe, the copyright and trademark laws in Asia, particularly in China and Taiwan, are incredibly ill-defined and very lax in terms of being enforced. In particularly, the laws with regard to foreign copyright and trademark violations. As a result, the bootleg merchandise industry is booming there, since there’s very little in terms of either ability or desire to stop them."
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a2tex3 | Why do foreign languages sound so strange to us until we learn what they mean? They are the same sounds | My guess is that it changes because of the psychological confusion we have when we can't comprehend the words but I still don't understand why, please explain. | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"There actually are many different sounds or phonemes and the brain is taught to filter out sounds that don't normally belong to the language you regularly speak. If it didn't do this, our brains would be overwhelmed by noise. When your brain starts to learn a new language, your brain will continue to filter out unfamiliar sounds until it is exposed to them enough that it gets the picture this new sound has meaning.",
"Not all languages share the same phonemes (the units of sounds that make up syllables), and those phonemes aren't used in the same sequences. Let's take Japanese versus English. With vowel noises, there are five specific vowel noises in Japanese: A (pronounced aah), i (pronounced like the letter e), u (pronounced ooh), e (pronounced eh), and o (pronounced oh). There are fourteen to sixteen vowel phonemes in English - so Japanese begins to sound foreign because we're not hearing the same sequence of sounds. There are additionally fewer consonant phonemes - around twenty-four compared to fifteen. Now, Japanese is additionally different from English because of the way its syllables work. In English, we can put a bunch of consonants together without vowels - like \"fr\" at the beginning of the word \"French\". However, Japanese doesn't allow that. All consonant noises (aside from n) must be accompanied by a vowel noise. So the English phrase \"Hot Dog\" becomes \"Hotto Doggu.\""
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a2tu4r | Who is, and why is "John Doe" a common example of a name? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"It goes back too far for anyone to be completely sure of its' origins, but various legal texts from England in the 1300s would use \"John Doe\" and \"Richard Roe\" as placeholder names for either hypothetical defendants and plaintiffs, or used as a person when there were technical requirements governing standing and jurisdiction; from there the name as a sort of \"hypothetical every-man and no-man\" stuck around; today as others have mentioned, it's mostly used when either the real name of the person isn't known or they have reasons for protecting his identity (or her, in the case of Jane Doe)",
"John Doe is not an example of a common name. It is the default given when someone cannot be identified and specifically indicates that they are male. A female that cannot be identified is a Jane Doe.",
"John Doe is a placeholder name for when someone's real name is unknown / cannot be shared. Examples of this are dead people awaiting identification, people who have their identity withheld while involved with a court case, or when you are talking about a typical everyman without meaning a specific person etc. There are various forms of John Doe. Jane Doe is a common one for women. Baby Doe / Johnny Doe / Janey Doe when talking about kids. John Roe or Richard Roe get used too. The concept of using placeholder names when arguing hypothetical plaintiffs / defendants goes back to ancient Rome. The specific usage of John Doe (or derevatives of such) dates back to the Endland in the middles ages."
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a2ufvw | Why is folk music called “folk”? | context: I’ve googled it, and I understand what the word “folk” means, but still don’t understand and it raised more questions than answers | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"What's so hard to understand? It's the music of ordinary folk, originating in the days before the term \"pop(ular) music\" was made up, before electrification, and was passed down by word of mouth (song) from one genreation to another - oftan a way of preserving stories - folk tales."
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a2unwr | How did the phrase “put down” come about for animal euthanasia? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Apart from the usual euphemistic language surrounding death, killing a largish animal like a cow or horse, literally puts them down onto the ground."
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a2wc5u | Why do American documentaries mostly use football fields as a form of measurement instead of miles or kilometers? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Probably because football is a very popular sport in America and it's easier to judge that distance based on constant viewing of what the field size is, saying one mile isn't very helpful because it's hard to see an actual mile so this is a easier visual aid.",
"This is because Football is integral to American Culture. EVERY High School has a football field that everyone at some point in time has been on or interacted with. We are taught that a yard is 3ft so the size of football field is 300 feet. It's just easier for us to visualize the size of things. Also, the use of saying something is X amount of football fields is used for dramatic effect (\"WOW thats huge its 10 footballs fields long!\").",
"A lot of people may have a hard time visualizing an abstract unit of distance. Most peoe can visually imagine how big a football field is. So by saying something is 3 football fields away, it's easier to get a sense of how far that is instead of saying something is 300 yards away. Also, America has a lot of different measurements for distance (yards, feet, miles) which don't convert equally to each other. Again, it just helps to visualizing when trying to convey a distance."
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a2xufd | What did Jesus do to the Romans to result in them trialing and crucifying him? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"He was tried for claiming he was the King of the Jews. However, it was others who made that claim, not Jesus",
"The Romans didn’t like the idea of someone to rival their king. So they crowned Jesus king of the Jews and crucified him."
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a396uv | How did the saying speak of the devil come to be? | I know it means when you mention something/someone they appear shortly after mentioning them but I've always wondered how did the saying come to be why the devil of all things how did it get it's meaning? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"It comes from old superstition that if you speak of the Devil, you get his attention and he'll appear in some capacity to cause you some ill."
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a3ag8c | How is it that languages that developed closely geographically, can be so different? | For example, French and German, or English and Gaelic. These languages developed so close together yet have little in common. Wouldn't it have made sense for ancestors who spoke the root languages to converge instead of diverge? p.s. Tagged as culture since that felt like the best fit, since language is such a big part of culture. Let me know if I should change it to other. | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"French is derived from Latin which was brought to the region via Roman Conquest. Germany was not conquered and so kept its tribal language roots. Likewise English is derived from the High German spoken by the Angles, Saxons, and Jutes who conquered the Island taking it away from the Celts. Both French and English have remnants of the earlier Celtic languages bobbing along in them but they are primarily the language of their conquerors.",
"But they are similar. Spanish, Italian, Portuguese and French are predominantly Latin origin whereas German, English, Dutch, and the Nordic (although separated earlier than the former) are of Germanic origin. Just look at the similarities of those languages, for example storm is the same in both English and Norwegian and in German it's sturm. Even the Dutch word for go is gaan and in northeast England \"gan\" is used for go more commonly than go is used.",
"You have to think, not only in geography, but also in terms of time. The examples you listed, the languages developed at different times -- Gaelic was spoken in the British Isles when the Romans invaded, long before English was a thing (English itself is an outgrowth of German languages, with modern English picking up lots of stuff from many other languages, primarily Norman French, Latin, and Ancient Greek). German has grown out of the language of the tribes that were in Germania when the Romans invaded Gaul, and left behind Latin, which became French (and later influenced English when William of Normandy did his conquest). These languages all developed near to each other geographically, and have even influenced each other with vocabulary and structure, but they developed at vastly different times. The best way to think about it is as a tree of language families -- Portuguese, Spanish, French, Italian, Romanian, etc, all in the Romance family, descended from Latin. English, Icelandic, German, Dutch, etc, all in the Germanic family, descended from the same ancestral languages. Those ancestral languages all came from varying places, and eventually, you get back to Proto-Indo-European (a theorized mother tongue that gave birth to most of the languages in Europe). This, coincidentally, is why many simple, basic words are very similar in a variety of languages. One, un, uno, ein, ān (Old English/Anglo-Saxon), um (Portuguese), unum (Latin), and éna (Greek) all have the same root from Proto-Indo-European (they're thought to have descended from something that sounds like \"hoi-no\"), but you can see that the Latin-descended languages are closer to unum, while English, Old English, German, and Greek are outliers."
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a3b65p | How do we know what names mean? E.g. Hercules wife was called deinara, which means husband destroyer. In ancient greece was this woman literally called husband-destroyer? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"We do have lots of ancient texts which uses these words and some even explain the words directly. And \"husband destroyer\" is not any more unusual name then a lot of modern names like Patience, Faith, August, Angel, etc. However most modern names are traditional and even in other languages and the meaning is lost to us. But in the ancient world it was more common to have names that would be a word of phrase in the language as they did not have the big pool of names to draw from.",
"Part of the answer is that often the names basically are the word(s) in the original language. The idea that names mean something directly sounds weird to you mostly* because names in English were largely taken from other languages (sometimes via a language or two in between) hundreds of years ago. For instance, names like John, Christopher, and Isaac all come from the Bible, which means they are originally from Aramaic, Hebrew or Greek. In their original languages, these names made perfect sense. Christopher, for instance, comes from the Greek words \"Cristos\" and \"phero,\" or \"bearer of Christ\" and comes from a parable about a man who literally carried Christ across a river. Isaac, or Yitschak in Hebrew, comes directly from the Hebrew verb \"to laugh\" because his mother Sarah didn't expect to get pregnant and laughed when she realized. Other names are just cool sounding. Zev, Dov, and Arieh are all Hebrew male names that mean wolf, bear, and lion, respectively. A few female examples are Gal, Shir, and Tamar, which mean wave, song, and date (the fruit), respectively. Do Hebrew speakers find it odd that someone is named \"Wave\"? No, not at all, just as you aren't confused by someone named Frank or Bob, both of which mean totally other things in English. As with so many things in language, context is key. *Edit: husband destroyer is just weird on its own Edit 2: my first gold?! Awesome! So stoked right now. :-)",
"I mean there are lots of people in the modern day that have real world meaning names, such as April or Rose. These girls aren't literally the month of April or the flower, just named after it. Same with people with last names like Smith, doesn't mean they are actual blacksmiths. A name like Husband Destroyer would be a bit more specific of course but perhaps in the context of the time it made more sense and maybe in the future people will look at our names and think, can't believe they ever had names after jobs, places, months etc.",
"Old German names like Wolfgang or Siegfried are basically two words combined. Each on its own sounds weird. While saying the name is completely normal.",
"In languages with kanji, like ~~mandarin and~~ japanese, each kanji that makes up the name has it's own meaning. For example 山本 (Yamamoto) is an extremely common family name. The kanji mean mountain and origin, respectively. Together, they could be interpreted to mean 'base of the mountain.' So all names with kanji have at least one layer of meaning behind them.",
"I'm pretty confident of mine :P My actual name is Rowan, derived from the gaelic/irish Ruadhán. The name is two part, the word for Red, and a diminutive. Essentially translating as \"Little Red\". It refers to the berries of the Mountain Ash (otherwise known as a Rowan Tree) which are..small and red. (surprise!) I imagine if a baby was born small and flushed red (not uncommon!) it'd be an obvious choice of name. Or if they were a redhead, which isn't uncommon in ireland at all :P For what it's worth, I'm not a redhead, nor am I irish. My parents just liked the name and went with a gaelic/celtic theme in their naming scheme for myself and my siblings.",
"I suspect (with no evidence to back it up) that in this instance, the meaning was applied retroactively. The name Deianira became so associated with the story of Hercules that it absorbed her actions as its definition. Consider Benedict Arnold. His treachery is so famous that calling someone a Benedict Arnold literally means calling them a backstabber. That particular name didn't directly translate to \"betrayer\" before his treason, but now it does.",
"I'm Turkish, all the names have meanings for us. Sometimes they are nouns, sometimes adjectives, but always meaningful. For example Cenk and Savaş mean war, they are both used as names and as nouns. Yavuz means grim, both used as a name and adjective.",
"Hercules is a character from legend, not a historical figure. Neither he nor his wife actually existed. & #x200B; As for names in general, we know what they mean if and when we understand the language. First names in English don't usually have a meaning in English, but surnames often do. The surname 'Blackman' literally means 'black man', and the same is true for both first names and surnames in many other languages.",
"It sounds more like an epithet/nickname than an actual name, like The Rock or He Who Must Not Be Named or The Ring-Bearer. Not their real name, but another way to refer to them based on a unique characteristic or a thing they're known for.",
"Most Greek names are still like this today. Nicholas (Νικόλαος) means victory of/over the people. George (Γεώργιος ) meaning farmer, Alexander (Αλέξανδρος) protector of men... (fun fact, parachute in Greek is αλεξίπτωτο (alexiptoto) showing the same prefix as Alexander haha! )",
"in german, names are often derived from what someone (from that family) used to do. for example, \"bauer\", which is a very common german familyname, literally means \"farmer\". if you're last name today is bauer, you most likely had ancestors that were farmers.",
"I'm Nigerian. All names have meanings for us and for most countries in sub-saharan Africa. They are usually common words in the native languages and no deep interpretation is needed to get their meaning.",
"I mean I'm Greek and my sister's name is Androniki which literally translates victory over men. A nice way to call your sister especially if you are a young boy...",
"All names originate out of words called root-words, which lend their meaning to those names. I can't speak for Western names, but nearly all Indian names have meaning, and are named for the meaning. My own name (which is unrelated to my username) means bliss.",
"If you want to place the onus on the names themselves to establish meaning, and depth of character development, you’ve come to the wrong place with mythos. Hercules’s name itself was changed, from Heracles, to fit the location that the story grew popular from, the same meaning I think, but illustrating that you pick whatever helps your audience associate with the story. In the modern times no, most people don’t actually hold ties to the meaning of the name they want. For the love of whatever you believe in, how many children are rolling around as Daenerys, Hermione, and can’t forget ABC-DE... just because someone thought it sounded good.",
"Her proper name is Deianira ( **Δηιάνειρα** ) and in this case it is a compound of two ancient Greek words that literary means husband destroyer.",
"you need to think about mythology that the ancients saw them in much the way we think about comic book heroes. Stories were told for entertainment, it was religious some, but mostly Hercules was the Superman of his day, his wife(what happened to her) destroyed him, and so she got a name kind of like how we have a Dr Doom and things like that.",
"I think most of the answers here are missing the point of the question: Are many old stories and tales thusly without metaphors in the name? For example, naming characters after angels is extremely common to foreshadow a character development or trait. & #x200B; So, in the old stories, was it literally something like \"Strongman and Husband-Destroyer™ were walking along the park.\" And then the entire story just carrying along with everybody knowing the ending?",
"Greek citizen here. I don't know about other countries but here your second name can tell what your ancestors were. For example if your second name is \"Papamichális\", it means that one of your great grandparents was a priest named Michalis. \"Papás\" means priest and \"Michális\" is the name Michael. Other examples can be \"Psarás\" which literally translates to fisherman. Long story short, your second name in Greece can tell where you're from (by the second name's ending syllables), what your ancestor's job was, what was their nickname and what was the name of the parent of your ancestor. If anyone's interested, I can mention a lot of interesting names",
"For more traditional names the meaning is a bit lost, but for example in Spain there are names like Nieves (Snow), Mar (Sea), Soledad (loneliness) that usually come together with Maria del (Mary of) or alone, and they are perfectly normal.",
"Most names have meaning, even common ones that we think of as solely proper nouns. For example \"Matthew\" means \"Gift of God\" and Robert means \"Bright fame\" and Alice means \"Noble person.\" A great resource for this can be found [here] ( URL_0 ).",
"The was a myth so its not a real name. Oftentimes in myth names are made up of attributes. Think Snow White and Rose Red. & #x200B; As far as knowledge, we have other sources for the definition of the name from that era.",
"I'm no expert on these things but I think the reason why Deinara means husband destroyer is because that what she did/was known for back then. I might be wrong tho. I think that's how some names got their meaning and not like other names which really had one already.",
"A lot of words or expressions are names in Greek. Me and my brothers were dating three different girls at some point named Agape (love), Hara (happiness), and Irini (peace). It does not help that my brothers names are Sotirios (salvation), Athanasios (immortality ) and my name is Anastasis (resurrection). Now THAT'S drama.",
"When you're composing a story, you can give your characters appropriate names. Whoever composed the story of Herakles (\"Hercules\" is the Roman version of the name) decided to name his wife \"husband destroyer\" for some narrative purpose. This woman, of course, was *not* running around ancient Greece being married to (and destroying) a demigod, because she's a fictional character.",
"Should also note that Hercules, et al are not real people but characters in myths. This matters because the names would have more actual significance in their meaning than if the names were being used by actual living people. For example: if we are referring to our friends John Smith or Mary Cooper, we aren't connecting the names to ironworker or barrel-maker. But if we are referring to Superman or Iron Man, we are aware when we say them of the qualities they represent.",
"I often wonder this with words in modern languages and times too. For example, in my province there is a town called Souris (*French for mouse*) and a town called Crapaud (*French for toad*). For native French speakers, in this case, is it at all odd that they're calling their village Toad or Mouse? I guess we also have in Canada called Moose Jaw, Medicine Hat, Conception Bay, or Dildo, so even in English we have our own strand of weird, but I don't know any places called \"Dog\" or \"Horse\"."
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a3bkh2 | Why are so many people protesting and rioting in France at the moment? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"French guy here, to make it as simple as possible, people do not agree with the overall policies of the president, especially more taxes for the low and middle class (especially the tax on gaz) and what is perceived as less taxes for the rich (no more ISF). So these people are called « gilet jaune » (yellow jacket) because they wear their high visibility jacket... and like in a lot of other movment in france, they organize meetings and actions to immobilize the country (preventing people from accessing stores among other things). Among theses « actions » some people get hot headed, some are just there to break stuff... and even thought « gilet jaune » are pacifist, you can see pictures of some protecting historical landmarks, since a few are trying to destroy everything, it’s how everything derail, the police are on edge, manifestants feel like they are prevented from doing what they pacifically wanted to do... gilet jaune are expecting the president to take actions, but he stays silent...and what you see happens...",
"In French, we call them \"Gilets Jaunes\" (yellow vests). It is a social movement. They are protesting against the fuel prices growth. Every year, it increases because of the taxes growth. Then, it widens to other claims, like the purchasing power due to the decrease of earnings. They try to be heard by the politicians by blocking roads. They are made up of people of all kinds, but mainly from the rurality. Sadly, some idiots take advantage of the movement to degrade stores or even the Arc de Triomphe... I'm french so sorry if my English isn't perfect ;)",
"They are rioting an increase to a tax on fuel that was meant to reduce their use of it to fight climate change."
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a3gk46 | Jim Crow law? | Can someone explain this in a simple and easy way that i cannot forget? An example will help as well. Thanks | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Following the loss of the American Civil War and the abolishment of slavery, the concept of white supremacy was still considered part of \"southern culture\" by most people living in the south. This concept was enshrined in law by Jim Crow laws, which forced non-whites to use inferior public facilities like schools and hospitals, and denied them entry to certain businesses like restaurants. While black people had the right to vote, Jim Crow laws also included various voter disenfranchisement measures like segregated polling places, special taxes, and biased testing requirements. As a result, very few black people were able to vote in most southern states. White supremacy remained a part of the lawbooks of many states until around 50 years ago, when Jim Crow laws and segregation were struck down during the civil rights movement.",
"They were laws put in place to keep segregation dominant in American society after slavery was abolished Examples being public schools, water fountains, parks, and voting rights",
"An example of a Jim Crow law is that, in North Carolina, following desegregation, anyone who wanted to purchase a handgun had to go to their local sheriff and prove that they were an upstanding citizen of the county. The sheriff would then compare skin tones and decide if you had the \"right to keep and bear arms.\" You can imagine who got to have guns and who didn't. This law, by the way, is still active in NC. If you want to purchase a handgun in the state, you have to get a pistol purchase permit from the sheriff to do so. These days people support the law on the basis that it's gun control and not a Jim Crow law, but it's important to remember where these things come from."
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a3jiuf | What, ACTUALLY is the first religion/mythology that educated communities can mostly agree, began before other religions/mythologies? It does not have to be currently practiced. | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Animism or some sort of nature worship are prolly the oldest type of faith to appear. We have some evidence of Paleolithic bear cults amongst Neanderthals and modern *H. sapiens sapiens* in certain parts of Europe. More concretely, there are bull cults throughout the Mediterranean and Middle East region such as Catal Hyuk and Minoan Crete.",
"Unfortunately, I think it's going to be an unsatisfying answer. The oldest religion will probably be one of those stone age carvings of a woman with massive breasts that was worshiped as a fertility symbol and we know almost nothing else about that culture. Anything with more detail like actual teachings and holy laws will be much later and skip over hundreds of other protoreligions that maybe have multiple idols but no book etc.",
"From my understanding of the subject, sun worship/nature worship in general were the first religions"
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a3jshr | why were prehispanic cultures in America so advanced in astronomy, math, etc but so primitive in other sadic rituals and beliefs? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"You don't have to single out the American civilizations. You could say the same about any advanced society from Babylon on down. The United States put satellites into orbit before it abolished segregated lunch counters. Math and astronomy are, in fact, practically necessary to build a civilization in the first place. You need to know math to construct buildings, and divide land and food and other resources. Astronomy is vital to survival of large groups; it's a clock that tells you when to plant and harvest crops, when it gets cold, when the rainy season begins, and so on. It's also important to remember that ancient peoples were plenty smart enough to figure out the math behind the sky, but they had no idea what was actually going on up there. They knew where the sun was going to be, but they didn't know what the sun *was.* They didn't know what the stars or planets were, even though they could tell you where Mars was going to be thousands of years into *our* future. In fact, a lot of those barbaric rituals were put in place because they were terrified that if they didn't chop off each other's heads and kick them down the pyramids, the heavens would *stop* running so smoothly and planting season would never come. We also tend to overrate astronomical prowess because we just don't care about it as much as they did. They figured all that stuff out not only because they needed to for survival, but because they just didn't have much else to do. When it gets dark, we go inside and binge Narcos. The night sky was their Netflix. If we didn't have all these modern distractions, average people would probably be paying more attention to the natural world, and it wouldn't seem all that mysterious that our long-dead ancestors did the same thing.",
"Misattribution error probably and slow to change cultural beliefs. You have to remember the Catholic church burned Giordano Bruno at the stake for proposing that stars were distant suns even after mostly accepting the heliocentric theory that Copernicus proposed. Advancement in one area of culture does not necessarily correlate with advancement in another. We have smart phones that connect us with every person on earth but still believe a magic sky man watches us masturbate and gets angry about it."
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a3juo6 | Does the standard playing card deck have a proper name? Why is it also 13 cards of 4 suits: ace, 2-10, Jack, Queen, & King? | Why not 1-13? Or 1-15 per suit? Does it have something to do with odds in games? The amount of time for games? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"They're known as [French playing cards]( URL_0 ), technically speaking. There are a lot of other decks of cards that were originally intended for games -- including things like the Tarot deck, which is now more famous for fortune telling -- including Spanish, Italian and German styles, but the reason why the French deck took off so well is down mostly to two things: firstly, trade between the UK and France in the Middle Ages made it popular in the UK, and the UK and France were two of the world's dominant powers for the next five hundred years; and secondly, they were very useful for playing popular games such as Bridge. When those games became popular around the globe, the French deck went with it. (It's important to note, however, that many other regions still use more localised decks in addition to the French deck; it's not entirely uncommon to see variations on the seemingly-standard 52 cards if you find yourself in a foreign country.)",
"If you're out shopping for such a \"standard\" deck, it's usually called a \"Bridge Deck\", meaning 52 cards and typically narrow-format because each player holds 13 cards. The opposite term in US cards is a \"[Pinochle]( URL_0 ) Deck\", which is a 48-card deck, 9-J-Q-K-10-A doubled in the usual four suits."
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a3lmdm | Why delivery drivers in USA leave packages outside your house? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"In many cases, the package doesn't require a signature to be dropped off. If the package isn't too valuable, it's much easier for the delivery person to leave the package at your doorstep instead of waiting for you to come to the door (if you're even home in the first place.) More expensive packages will often require a signature, and will be brought back to the post office if no one is home. Package theft is rare enough that it doesn't hurt companies like amazon if they need to send out a replacement, so there is little risk to leaving a package outside the house.",
"Depending on the carrier they do for expensive items. But remember that that's not really what most consumers want. If I bought something from Amazon, I usually prefer the convenience of not having to be home when it's delivered over the safety.",
"Usually when you order or send something for delivery and you can choose (and sometime must pay) to require a signature for delivery. Otherwise, the default these days is no signature needed with most companies. Fun fact: FedEx used to require signatures before dropping off a package because they didn’t want to pay the insurance premiums to leave packages with no signature. Then they started getting beat by companies like UPS that would leave items without signature. Somewhere in the last 10 years or so, a CEO of theirs figured out that they would increase their business so much by allowing packages to be dropped off sans signature That it would pay for the increase in insurance premiums. Another fun fact: FedEx is the actual company name now and not just an abbreviation for “Federal Express”. Not sure when they officially changed it to FedEx but this makes a difference sometimes as related to legal process service."
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a3n0md | Why is Hungarian a Finno-Ugric language? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Due to migration. Coming from the Caucasus mountains, Finnish people went north, Hungarians went through Ukraine-ish lands and settled on the Carpathian Basin. Then went viking on rest of Europe until Europe got too hard to raid. Then they became christians and settled down and used christianity as protection from vengeance-raiding."
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a3o8rl | Protests in France | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"It's a gas tax strike. The Macron government feels that strong action on climate change is required, and they implemented a carbon-based transportation tax, additional gas tax, to push French drivers toward electric cars. They have agreed to significant greenhouse gas reductions, and this sort of tax is one of the few ways to meet their commitments. They expected French voters to see this as necessary, because \"fight global warming\" polls well in France. Alas, rural Frenchmen, who don't have subways or buses to serve their travel needs, are unhappy. Apparently climate change isn't as big a deal as Macron thought."
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a3p6sw | Wisconsin's power grab to weaken the new Governor | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Short Answer: People are angry because even after the election showed Wisconsinites wanted new leaders in power, the old leaders are passing laws to make it really hard for the new leaders to undo what the old leaders recently did. Longer Answer (ELI8?): Wisconsin has a Republican governor (Scott Walker) and a Republican-controlled legislature, the people who write the laws. Now any law written by the legislature has to be signed by the governor or it doesn't take effect. Because the current governor is from the same party as most of the legislature, they generally get along and agree (for the most part) on which laws to pass. But in a recent election, Scott Walker lost to Tony Evers, a Democrat. So next year when Evers takes office the Republican-controlled legislature is going to have a more difficult time getting the laws passed that they like. So before that happens, they have a few weeks left to do things Evers wouldn't agree to. Therefore they called a special session to write a bunch of laws Democrats wouldn't like, and in particular make the governor and the attorney general less powerful. Assuming the laws pass, Evers will not be allowed to make changes to certain public assistance programs like Medicare and he won't be able to withdraw from a lawsuit that Wisconsin filed against the Obamacare."
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a3sy19 | Why are fancy dishes that no one uses called "China"? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"text": [
"China used to be the only place on earth where really high-quality porcelain was produced. Europeans tried for many decades (centuries?) to work out how to make it, and they called it \"China ware.\""
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a3u0mf | Why do Jewish people wear those string things below their shirts? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Those are the tassels called Tzitzit which are on a religious prayer shawl called a Tallit. They are suppose to be worn during prayer times, on the Sabbath, and on the High Holy days though some orthodox Jews wear it daily. As with most religious garments there are lots of meanings attached to it, but in general it is viewed as both a sign of submissiveness to God, and a singling out that you are a Jew."
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a3urcl | why do English speakers say “uhm” to fill gaps? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"It's called a hesitation noise, and many other languages have them. It's a natural part of casual speech.",
"It has to do with us thinking and filling in that gap. A lot of people don’t want just silence so they’ll say uhm or uh while thinking",
"Yeah, in German It's 'na ya'. You'll notice that posh english speakers dont do ums, they instead talk more slowly and deliberately to avoid them. This is because saying 'um' can sounds like you haven't thought/prepared. Speaking more slowly giving you time to plan ahead without sounding like you don't have a clue."
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a3uyst | The End Of The Egyptian Civilization End With Cleopatra, but Egypt Was Conquered Many Times? | Egypt was conquered many times, but the end is said to be after Cleopatra. Technically wouldn't it have ended when Alexander conquered it? Or the Assyrians or anyone else. Why is Cleopatra seen as the end? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Cleopatra was seen as the last Egyptian Pharaoh, as after her alliance/affair with Antony, Egypt was almost completely ruled by Romans. While the Romans didn't actually settle there, and the Egyptian people remained largely autonomous, they didn't set up a new system of pharoahs, and instead brought in cultures like Christians and Arabs, and a new system of governance. Alexander, on the other hand, laid the groundwork for the Ptolomaic Dynasty, which ended with Cleopatra.",
"Because after Cleopatra, for about a thousand years, there wasn't an independent state in Egypt again. And even then, it was never the same; it was an independent province of the Muslim-Arab world. That is, Alexander conquered Egypt, but within a generation, it was back to being an independent state, just with a new, Greek-speaking governing class. When the Romans conquered it, it stayed part of a Mediterranean-wide Roman empire for five hundred years.",
"After Cleopatra, Egypt was part of the Roman Empire and the personal property of the Roman Empire, it would remain this way from 30 BC until the Muslim Conquest in 641 AD. Egypt would never again have a Pharaoh. We can now look back and say with certainty that the Roman conquest of Egypt was the end of the Egyptian kingdom for the last time. Certainly during those days they may have been concerned that it was the end every time they were conquered, but we know that the conquest in 30 BC would strip them of their autonomy for nearly 700 years which is far longer than any before did. Alexander the Great conquered Egypt but died a few years later and it fell under control of one of his generals, they all took great care in trying to maintain the autonomy of the regions they oversaw.",
"Until 30 BCE, every other conquest of Egypt had kept the religion, the titles, the symbology of Egypt. That ended with Octavian's victory"
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a3v9bg | How do people develop fetishes? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"I think there are a few ways. People learn to associate certain cues with sexuality when growing up (like breasts, hair, lingerie, etc) and sometimes other things get thrown in too when those things get associated with sexual feelings- like, your attractive neighbour had braces and red hair? Maybe you develop a taste for those things. There’s also the idea that fetishes can be a way of processing trauma or emotional stress of some kind, as are plenty of human experiences and behaviours. It’s a bit of a cliche but sometimes things like your relationship with your parents impact the kind of things you seek out in relationships. And finally I think some of it just comes down to play behaviour. Humans have a lot of different social constructs, anxieties, roles, taboos, and rules to remember in our daily lives, and sometimes subverting those or playing with the feeling of danger, (like fetishes can) can be funny, sexy, or exciting."
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a3vnen | Who determines, and what is the process for determining, what a new ASL sign is for new words? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"text": [
"There's no centralized sign authority, they come about organically then spread around through the local Deaf and Hard of Hearing community, they may cross between regions eventually Sometimes words get spelled out but after a while you're tired of spelling it out and just have to make up a sign. Facebook? How about the sign for book by your face? Yeah, that'll do. There are regional dialects of sign language so you may encounter different signs than you would use for that object or concept, but since signs are tied to concepts or objects rather than being 1-1 word replacements you can often figure out what a new sign means from the sign itself"
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a3vzkg | How archaeologists determine if weapons were used for subsistence, warfare, or ceremony | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"text": [
"Probably by the amount of and direction of damage or wear is on each item. The way you cut meat is different than the way you slice or cut with a sword. A ceremonial item would be well maintained with very little signs of actual frequent use.",
"Is this a plain boring hammer, or is it a spiky fatal-looking hammer found buried with a warrior? Broadhead hunting arrows are shaped differently from armor-piercing bodkin arrows. Hunting spears tended to be shorter than pikes. A few tools like Viking bearded axes could go either way between woodworking and slaying depending on mood."
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a40d6c | At a large quasi-state funeral, like that of President Bush, who actually organizes it and who pays for it; if it's from public funds, who decides who gets such a funeral and how much should be spent? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"So each president is in charge of planning his own funeral while he is in office. As far as the funds go, not sure but I think it is publicly funded.",
"I just googled this. Basically, the President and his/her family plan it in advance, and it's paid for with public funds. URL_0",
"Usually it’s planned in advance however in unforeseen circumstances like JFK, it has to be done last second. Jackie planned it and had to combat several people of how she wanted it done",
"[The Military District of Washington]( URL_0 ) is generally responsible for organizing funerals for heads of states and holds to a detailed set of protocols. This 138-page document outlines the ceremonial requirements for laying to rest a president or other high ranking official. Most political figures, especially presidents, have their personal funeral arrangements (music, eulogy, interment site, etc.) planned before they take office. The State pays for the service."
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a473wf | Why do so many US TV shows and movies with scenes in Mexico tint those scenes yellow/green? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"From an artistic standpoint, it might be to drive the \"this place is hot\" point home. There's many subtle effects applied to films that one doesn't think about right away. Look at the film Aliens, with its heavy lens flare and blue filter. Kinda gives the impression of being in a cold inhospitable place naturally without having to have a character say \"gee this place sure is cold and inhospitable.\" Now go and play Dead Space 2, and there's a part in a big walk-in freezer and as you walk into it you'll notice it also suddenly applies a blue filter to say \"hey you're in a freezer\" without some hamfisted ezposition by the protagonist, and there have been games that use orange/yellow filters that have a noticeable sudden shift when entering the area to signify it's hot. In the same way, a warm filter gives the feeling of being in a warm place.",
"I remember the film [\"Traffic\"]( URL_0 ) as being my first memory of this: > Soderbergs use of color filters is intended to establish a different location, not only physically, but psychologically Found a post that says this dates back to old Westerns: > [This goes back to the time of the first Westerns shot in color. The desert is yellow. That is a fact. And the heroes of these movies had to thrive in the desert: the heat, the scarcity, the outlaws. So, when our heroes traveled to Mexico, which was usually depicted as being hotter, scarcer, and more outlaw-y than the Western US, it stood to reason that it had to be yellower. ]( URL_1 )",
"The yellow is, as has been previously stated, just the tinting that typically gets used for scenes set in the desert. Green lighting, however, is the standard for implying the scene is alien, foreign, or uncomfortable so that may have something to do with it. This is largely just because green is really uncommon as a color of lighting that we encounter in day-to-day life. The Matrix movies use this to almost egregious effect and it's also prominent in a lot of David Lynch movies.",
"Some signals or props in art are really just shortcuts. Artists tend to repeat conventions that have worked traditionally *unless there is a reason to change them.* For instance, a shortcut to a chemistry teacher’s personality might be brown corduroy pants and a plaid shirt, boring nerd haircut. But if he *shaves his head,* it’s a signal something has changed substantially - in both his life circumstances and his physical state. And not only does that become integral to Walter White, *it becomes integral to Heisenberg.* It’s basically a principle of storytelling. Part of your story will always be told in these shortcuts and that can be how you establish a setting or someone’s basic big-lines personality without having to spend precious time on details. If a character or setting differs from those conventions, there should be a reason, and that reason should be important to your story. So showing Mexico this way is more than likely just a way of saying *Mexico.*",
"The same reason the matrix was green, or the US was yellow in o brother where art thou. To give it a feel, and because they can."
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a47nfg | Why do months in the calendar have different amount of days? | Wouldn't it just be easier if the months all had the same amount of days? I don't understand | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Months started out being 29 days long to follow the cycles of the moon but this led to there being only 350(ish) days in a year which caused the seasons to drift. Julius Caesar changed this to make the months longer so that we'd have 365 days in a year and since he couldn't evenly split 365 up 12 ways, they had to take turns this was called the julian calendar. (He also added an extra day every 4 years to compensate for the fact that year is actually 365.25 days long.) However, this wasn't perfect and by the 16th century we'd drifted by 10 days so Pope Gregor the whateverth changed the date and made it so every century year that was not divisible by 4 would not be a leap year (The year 2000 was a leap year, but 2100 won't be). This is called the gregorian calendar and we use it to this day.",
"I don't know all the dates or exact details but the main gist of it is that the Pope of his time was fed up with the religious days moving forward in the then calendar that he got together his best mathematicians and astronomers to build a perfect calendar that wouldn't move Lent. It also relates to some Roman traditions and changes I learned about this from a podcast with Neil Degrasse Tyson explaining the importance of religion in the history of science to Joe Rogan, so go watch that here [ URL_0 ]( URL_0 ) (clip starts at 4:10)"
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a4cvap | Why did it take over a year to convict the man who ran his car into people in Charlottesville? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"The wheels of justice grind slowly in the U.S. Most murder trials take many months to reach the courtroom. The police may continue to investigate well after a person is indicted. There are lots of pre-trial motion hearings, the discovery process, extra time to prepare for death penalty cases. Very few murder trials make it to court in less than a year.",
"Because we value due process and its important that all the steps are followed Its far more difficult than \"show the video and convict\" because there are many degrees of crime and intent matters. The state must *prove* that the accused did what they're being charged for and that the charges the state picked are appropriate. A car hitting a crowd doesn't mean that it was that person driving the car or that they had the intent to kill people when they drove into it. Those aspects both require far more than just \"Show the video and convict\" The long legal process often seems bulky and inefficient but that is actually good. Quick and callous handling of trials for \"guilty\" people results in quick and callous handling of trials of people who aren't actually guilty of the crimes they're accused of. The slowness is there to try to find the truth and avoid imprisoning innocents if possible."
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a4gibw | How did Hitler, basically a homeless failed artist at the time, get entire legions of people to follow him into a genocidal rampage? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Hitler was a homeless failed artist in the early 1900s but moved to Austria in 1909 and started making some political connections. When WW1 started up in 1914, Hitler joined the Bavarian Army where he was decorated with the Iron Cross, Iron Cross First Class, and Black Wound Badge. It was after WW1 that his political career really took off at which point he was no longer a homeless failed artist but instead a decorated war veteran and a great speaker positioned in a country that felt it had just gotten shafted by an agreement to a ceasefire that had imposed harsh reparations on them and crushed their economy. After 15 years of an ineffectual Weimar Republic, Hitler was able to make a power grab and the rest is the history that we know. Your question neglects an entire Great War which was really the whole reason Hitler was able to rise to power in Germany."
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a4jk2l | Why do schools need to know your race and have it in their system for teachers to see? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"At the school I worked in, we didn’t put it in the system for teachers to see, it’s collected so that we could monitor whether students from different ethnic backgrounds were disadvantaged in any way. Results were then analysed to see if there were any gaps between students from ethnic minorities and the ‘average’. It’s something we are monitored on by the UK Government.",
"It is not really put in the systems for the teachers to see (though I cannot understand why that would be a bad thing if it were as your race can be identified just by looking at you which the teachers will do daily). It is put into the system for the government to track the progress of minority groups, some of which are entitled to additional government aid so the school needs that information to apply for said aid.",
"In the USA it’s used for standardized testing purposes and to determine if the school/teachers are performing well. Teachers have to analyze data/performance based on race, but it’s typically obvious what the students races are. I believe it may also be linked to funding, but I don’t deal with that end of it."
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a4kdqu | Why do Jehova's Witnesses have a bad rep? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"I think it’s because the religion can be controlling by modern standards. Some examples include the refusal of certain medical procedures involving blood transfusions and forbidding most mainstream cultural celebrations like birthday parties. I’m sure that like most religions there exist a variety of interpretations though so maybe not all follow those restrictions",
"They treat anyone who leaves the church absolutely horribly. They're more of a cult than a religion",
"Ich selbst lebe in Österreich(nahe Gänserndorf, falls Dir das was sagt) und hier ist es genau so. Das Problem mit denen ist, dass sie einfach-wie jeder anderer Tür-Makler - nerven. Wir haben kein interesse daran. Aus Ende Schluss. Und wenn sie dann nochmal, teilweise am Samstag/Sonntag in der Früh kommen und wecken ist das halt nicht sehr angenehm...",
"Many people regard them as a brainwashing cult who removes the individualism of its members and their capacity for free thought. Anyone displaying anything contrary to their values is expelled an isolated from their family and friends.",
"They annoy people by spreading their message. They don't celebrate anything, so if you have on at work like I did, he didn't participate in anything. No birthdays, no newyears... So they place themselves outside the social gatherings and won't wish anybody a happy birthday and even reject your cake or treat. And most important, they oppose certain medical treatment. So if a Jehova needs a blood transfusion to live, they'll rather die (or let their kids \"in the hands off god\") instead of accepting blood. This pisses me off."
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a4ohl9 | What was/is India's Caste System? | I've heard it mentioned a few times but i've never understood what it meant or if it is still happening? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"The *varna* system divides Indian society into four categories: * Rulers and priests * Warriors * Merchants * Peasants * (then people outside these four are \"outcastes\" or Untouchables, the modern nice word is Dalits) Within the four varnas, there are literally thousands of castes, which are generally tied to the historical profession a family had. Note that it's really not as simple as the names of the categories, as there are farmers who claim descent from the Warrior varna, small business owners who claim descent from the Ruler (Brahmin) varna, etc. You're tied to your caste by family history, even if your current job as a Google programmer doesn't really fit into the system. And people will get turned down for jobs or housing or whatnot based on caste relationships, even though legally that's not supposed to happen. And India has \"affirmative action\" programs to try to get people from depressed castes into college and good government jobs and whatnot. But even there it's complicated because there are communities that are technically higher caste but historically poor who need preferences, and lower castes with a lot of successful people who thus don't get special advantages in hiring, etc. And the whole system historically had a lot of flexibility. If your faction started gaining political power you could find people to \"rediscover\" that your group belonged to a higher caste. The Brits unintentionally made the situation worse, as in their efforts to make things documented and orderly they tried locking castes into a rigid hierarchy and throwing the flexibility out of the system. So even today in India you have issues of discrimination, especially against the Dalits where people from higher castes can commit literal rape and murder against them and the police will kind of shrug it off because they don't want to stir things up."
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a4rlze | Why is "Baby it's cold outside" not suitable for 2018, but Cardi B telling everyone to eat her ass is? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"ELI5 is not for current events. Questions like this are better in r/outoftheloop.",
"\"Baby it's cold outside\" is perfectly suitable for Christmas season of any year, anyone who tells you otherwise is a whiner.",
"Because (in theory) she’s giving permission for the ass-eating. I’m Baby It’s Cold, he’s trying to convince her to stay (and drink more), hence the alleged offensiveness."
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a4sgrx | How do the laws prohibiting publication of classified documents not go against the first amendment? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Classified documents are not your speech. They are someone else’s speech. This is similar to copyright law. You can’t publish someone else’s words and claim freedom of speech.",
"Laws that ban the *publication* of classified documents are against the First Amendment. The Supreme Court has agreed with that notion multiple times - most notably in [New York Times Co. v. United States of America]( URL_0 ). However, laws that prohibit the *sharing* of classified documents are constitutional. You do not have a legal right to share classified information with unauthorized people even if you believe a law is being violated. The [Whistleblower Protection Act]( URL_1 ) was passed with the intention of providing an avenue to report illegality in the Federal Government but only if you report it to people who are authorized to be in the know. TLDR: It is illegal to share classified documents but it is *NOT* illegal for a journalist to publish the documents once they have been given it. The legal jeopardy remains with the person who leaked it in the first place.",
"Classified documents are made so because in general it’s deemed that they’d have an adverse effect if leaked to the public, usually regarding national security. Additionally, classified documents only really belong to a handful of people high up in the command line, so it’s not anyone else’s information to give out. It’s comparable to giving out trade secrets of a corporation.",
"There have long been limits to free speech despite the amendment. The most famous example is the 1st amendment does not give you the right to shout \"Fire!\" in a crowded theater because it could insite a panic that could harm or kill others. Similarly, the release of some classified documents could result in the harm or death of Americans. Courts are always trying to find the legal line on free speech and it is still evolving, but it is a long standing precedent that \"free speech\" does not mean you can say it publish anything you want to."
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a4sms3 | Why do movie trailers reveal so much of the plot and twists? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"So first things first, trailers are meant, most of the time, to get you to see the film in theatres. The majority of viewers don't like to be surprised when they watch a movie in theatres. When they go in, they want to know what they are going to watch. Why? Lots of reasons, but mostly I think because going to the movies is an ordeal and most people generally want to know they are going to have a good time before they commit. This is partly why genre movies like superhero films are so successful: when I buy my ticket I know exactly what I'm in store for, and then I take pleasure in the subtle variations of essentially the same film over and over. Movies with built in hype due to brand recognition or whatever, like the marvel films for instance, don't need to give much away in their trailers because they can guarentee sales just bases on their name alone, because the viewer already knows what to expect. This is not true of movies with no built in brand recognition, so to get people to go see the film they give a lot of the plot away so that the viewer knows what to expect. Market research backs these ideas up: people, in general, like to not be surprised at the movies. This doesn't explain every instance of trailers giving away all the details but a lot of the time this is why"
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a4u10a | What is the difference between Executive Producer, Producer and Director on a movie? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"The producer and the director both manage the film, but from different perspectives. The director manages the artistic and creative side of the film, while the producer manages the business and logistics side. An executive producer is more high level than the producer. They don't deal with the actual filmmaking, they usually deal with things like securing finances and legal issues.",
"The producer is responsible for the film's production: making sure it has the things it needs so that it can actually get made, largely financial and logistical. The director is responsible for the film's creative direction: how the actual filming / acting of the film should look and feel. \"Executive producer\" is a nice way of saying \"threw a whole lot of money at the film to help get it made, in exchange for an 'executive'-level credit and a say in how it gets made\"."
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a4y3mm | The riots in Paris | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"They are upset that the president have lowered taxes for the rich and increased the fuel taxes. How justified they are to be upset is up for debate. But it does not help that a lot of the people who have joined in the protests are just joining due to the hooliganism and robbing they can potentially get away with. The yellow vests is required EU safety equipment in a lot of environments, for example it is required to have reflective vests in your car in case you need to step outside the car on the highway in the dark.",
"Here are a couple links from /r/bestof URL_1 URL_0",
"Yellow vests are standard equipment in cars in a lot of European countries. So everybody that has a car has one. The riots are generally about how the lower working classes in France keep getting shafted by the French elite with ever increasing taxes on things like fuel and ever decreasing social benefits because most of those go towards helping immigrants and refugees."
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a507ms | What does Kurt Vonnegut’s quote “Life is no way to treat an animal, not even a mouse.” mean? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"I believe he means that life can sometimes be unfair and excessively cruel. He’s writing as if life is something that’s done to living things, rather than an experience. Excessive cruelty and unfairness is no way to treat an animal, not even (something as ‘insignificant’ as) a mouse.",
"His point is that life is incredibly cruel, and he wouldn't wish it on anything, not even a mouse. Vonnegut was a deeply cynical man, for good reason I would add, and often talked of life as a punishment."
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a51ytx | How did it come to be that Michael Jackson owned The Beatles’ songs? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Songwriters often contract with a publishing company to market their songs for commercial purposes. That means they sell the rights to commercial use to the company, and the company pays them royalties (either a flat dee or a percentage every time the song is used). This is a benefit to the songwriter in many cases because they do not have the time or the expertise to promote their work commercially. So they focus on writing, and let the publisher do the selling. John Lennon and Paul McCartney actually formed their own publishing company, called Northern Songs. They sold shares in the company, and eventually another company called Associated TeleVision bought enough shares to affect a takeover. Lennon and McCartney then sold the rest of their shares, and entered new deals for Beatles songs after 1969. In 1985 Associated TeleVision sold off it's music publishing business, and Michael Jackson bought the company's publishing rights to Beatles songs. That gave Jackson the right to market those songs for commercial use, which made him a substantial amount of money."
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a53g4c | How did pizza become the main birthday food in the US (and I assume Canada) and what did it replace? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Pizza is one of the main party foods in the US because it can easily feed a large group of people, is affordable for delivery, and most kids like it. Before delivery pizza became common for the birthday parties you likely had BBQ/Grilling parties which did things like hot dogs and hamburgers, but these would have to be cooked by the hosts of the party most of the time. Prior to that you did not really have middle class or lower class children having birthday parties. If they celebrated at all it was as a family affair and only the upper classes had parties which were catered by the rich family's cook.",
"It’s easy and cheap. Got 20 people to feed? Order 5 pizzas. No hassle cooking, easy cleanup, and not going to break the bank."
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a53if8 | Where did the political terms “The Left” and “The Right” originate? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"It comes from the French revolution when the common people (or more accurately the upper class merchants who were not part of the nobility or the clergy) started to get upset with the situation in France. As a prelude to the revolution they split from the traditional body of discussion after being told they would essentially have no power in it (the nobility and clergy would run everything) and formed a new body called the National Assembly. Within the National Assembly there came to be two major groups. One group thought that liberation from the monarchy/king was important (\"liberals\") while another group wanted to keep or conserve the monarchy/king (\"conservatives\"). Like minded people started sitting together at the assembly so that the liberal favoring ones where on the left side of the President/moderator while the conservatives sat on the right. This led to the press starting to call them the \"left\" and the \"right\" when discussing the political situation.",
"From the French Revolution, Pro-monarchy and conservatives sat on the right of the National Assembly, Pro-Republic and liberal revolutionaries sat on the left",
"As others have said, it was incidental to the National Assembly during the French Revolution. Pro Revolution members sat on left, Anti Revolution members sat on the right. As the Revolution progressed this remained consistent. Those insisting on further reform continued to sit on the left, while those satisfied with the revolution or those who thought it went too far moved to the right. Lafayete famously made the trip all the way from the far left to the far right before fleeing Paris. The identification of the left with socialism didn't happen until the revolutions of 1848, when they first held seats in European assemblies. That was before Marx started writing and they were mostly defined by their allegiance to full \"social\" revolution rather than merely political revolution promised by contemporary democrats.",
"Isn't it because they literally sit to the left or right of the dividing aisle?",
"Here is France I've always been told that it was because the right was sitting on the ride side of the Assembly from the PoV of the speaker of the house and the left on the other side. Your post just made me realise that it's internationally the same and now I'm confused",
"Is there any association to the fact that democrats sit together on the left side of the House and Senate buildings, while those other guys congregate on the right? Of course it depends on where you're looking from, but I'm talking about from the back, looking toward the podium.",
"In the French Revolution, they held a big meeting to determine the future of the country. The liberals (who wanted to change things radically) sat on the left while the conservatives (who wanted to keep things close to how they were under the monarchy) sat on the right. The newspapers reported on \"the left\" and \"the right.\" And we still use it.",
"The French Revolutionary era was where the terms ***Left-wing politics*** and ***Right-wing politics*** first originated. The reason for the terms to become used at all was the seating of the ancien régime of France at that time. The aristocrats sat on the right, and the commoners sat on the left. So these terms evolved to mean so that right-wing politics refer to politics for aristocratic and royal interests, while left-wing politics refer to republicanism, socialism, and civil liberties."
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a54ad6 | Why did hitch-hiking die? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"People got really really scared that the complete stranger they've never met before is going to murder them and eat their kidneys. Or something to that effect.",
"For hitchhiking you have to trust a completely stranger enough, to spend an amount of time in a confined space. And since stories of serial killers, kidnappers, escaped prisoners and so on spread, there is much less trust in people you don't know. Hitch hiking isn't dead, the number of people willing to take the risk is just very small.",
"There's a lot of financial and cultural changes that have happened since the height of hitchhiking. Sticking your thumb out used to be the regular way that soldiers got from home to base and back (army pay was rightly only spent on booze, cigarettes and women). Trust is a big issue other posts here have highlighted. But basically if you are driving long distances now-a-days it usually because you have too much baggage/people to consider flying (flights have gotten a lot more affordable over the years) which means your car is already pretty full. The days of driving long distances with just one or two people in the car (especially with today's gas prices) is dwindling. Also people now have iPods and iPhones to entertain themselves on the road, whereas in yesteryear you were happy to give a hitchhiker a ride just for the company. Another big issue is of course insurance - yesteryear you had no problems picking someone up and sharing the driving with them. Nowadays you can't afford not to think about potential liability all around. And also as public transport (especially flights) have gotten more affordable the people hitchhiking aren't middle-class soldiers or college kids anymore but from the poorer rungs of society. But the stranger danger factor also increased as you are more likely to be picking a meth addict nowadays whereas your 60s and 70s you weren't as concerned since your pot smokers are generally respectful and pretty harmless.",
"Not sure if this answer will be allowed as it's more of a \"my guess is\" but here goes: I think the biggest reason would be that news travels infinitely faster now than in decades past. Not saying there weren't crazy psycho hitch-hikers in the time frame you're talking about (going to guess 60s/70s), but odds are if a hitch hiker was picked up and raped/murdered/whatevered a couple of people in say Iowa, not many people would hear about it outside Iowa, let alone outside of the Midwest. Similar to you, my dad had to hitch to and from college for some of his home visits. But now, if a college kid (especially if a girl) goes missing, it's national news within a day. Did people go missing decades ago, most definitely, it just didn't hit the national news so it wasn't really well known. Transportation infrastructure has also improved (slightly) since then. The US is not even close so a lot of other countries as far as public transport, but we have made progress. So this would also decrease the need to hitch. Overall, more families/people own cars now than they did back then, so again, less of a reason to hitch. Uber and other driver services have been taking off lately. I haven't used, but I know some offer rides over longer distances than say home from the bar or to the airport.",
"Ive heard everyone was hitch hiking until the 80s because a couple dudes died and there were movies about it and now everyones scared.",
"Hitch hiking is big in France, every french girl I met staying at hostels while traveling refused to get public transport and only did so at a vary last resort.",
"Information. The half-hour of news you watched on your local channel at 7am or 10pm back then had bigger stories to report on than someone getting kidnapped while hitchhiking, if the story even got further than a police report to begin with."
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a593gx | what makes people believe so hard that wrong information is true? | I'm mostly thinking of the conspiracy theorists who think things that are actually good are bad. See anti-vaxxers, anti- gmo, and people who thing the earth is flat. | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Ideology. The average person has very little way to verify whether most of these things are true or not. So what they believe is entrenched in a matrix of their overall worldview. If you are convinced that the natural is good and the artificial is bad and that the government is trying to cover this up it is easy to clean to all sorts of ideas about science.",
"I'm not convinced that there are any real flat earthers, and that the whole thing isn't just a long term trolling/satire project. Still, anti-vax and anti-GMO are very real so the point stands. The Oatmeal did a [long comic]( URL_0 ) about this a while ago. He also includes a few sources. The tl;dr is that we react to attacks on our beliefs the same way we respond to physical attacks. Our beliefs form our worldview, which is a part of our identity. When someone says we're wrong about something and they have evidence to show it, obviously the logical response is to hear them out and look at the new evidence, but our instincts aren't always logical, so our actual reaction is to dig in and fight it."
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a5dzoh | why is “colonel” pronounced “kernel”? Where does the “r” sound come from? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Coronel came through French and colonel through Italian. Colonel preserved the look of the related word \"column,\" but coronel brought a nice, regal \"crown\" to mind (though it wasn't actually etymologically related). So it went back and forth until we settled into the 'l' spelling with the 'r' pronunciation"
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a5hr5a | Why do people like drag? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"text": [
"Drag is an art form. I used not to like it, until my current boyfriend got me into watching Drag shows. Some shows can be pretty boring, especially if the only thing the drag queen has going for then is that they can look good. But a lot more do comedy, choreography, music parodies, etc. Drag isn't about looking like a woman, it's about being a parody of a woman. It took me a long time to realise it, but drag is difficult, a drag queen has to have a lot of skills, they have to be good at makeup, have a good sense of fashion, be able to dance (and sometimes sing), be able to talk and perform in front of large crowds, be funny and relevant. And as well as all that, they have to put up with a lot of discrimination, quite often from people in the gay community itself. It's not a conventional artform, but it's still an artform and can be very entertaining once you learn to appreciate the difficulty and skill involved.",
"Living outside of conventional values, even if it's just while they're on stage Being able to create a persona beyond yourself, and the freedom that allows And the culture around it is admittedly pretty hilarious and fun. I think that's what causes most people to be drawn to it."
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a5hvxo | Why is the rhetoric surrounding pro-choice focused on “woman’s body, woman’s choice”? Shouldn’t the arguments be on whether a fetus constitutes a life or not? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Whether the fetus constitutes a life or not, I actually agree with the bodily autonomy argument. For the same reason that a living person cannot and should not be forced to donate organs/blood/tissue to save another person, the fetus being considered \"alive\" still wouldn't be entitled to the use of a woman's body against her will.",
"Focusing on the fetus as \"a life\" allows people not directly involved an opportunity to compel a woman to do what they think is best rather than what she thinks is best. That's not a good thing, compelling people to obey your will is how the whole slavery thing worked and that's pretty broadly seen as not a good thing. Certainly, a woman might use that sort of rationale to decide for herself, or some other rationale if she prefers. If you want to tell her how to make the decision, that's the path to badness discussed previously. There is also the whole \"if you take the fetus out of the woman, is it still going to live?\" test for being \"really alive\".",
"Arguing when a fetus becomes a human life is full of pot holes and gray areas. It's entirely subjective and open to interpretation. Arguing that a person should have the right to choose what happens to their body does not have gray areas, and that allows for objective and adamant arguments. To avoid polarizing people to either side of the subject, we want to eliminate any gray area from an argument. If there is a gray area, people can waffle around in it and avoid actually coming to a conclusion."
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a5izvl | How did red and green become "the Christmas colors?" | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"In Europe, where most of the Christmas traditions originated, most of the trees lose their leaves in the winter. The few trees (and plants) that stayed green year-round were celebrated and even brought inside the house; not just pine trees but also things like holly, ivy, and mistletoe. Because who wants to decorate his house with bare twigs? This tradition probably even goes back before Christmas was celebrated in that part of the world. As for red, the connection is not as old. Holly berries are red and also apples and other fruit that might be used to decorate around Christmas-time. Another connection with red is the red robes of the bishops. Since the historical St. Nicolas was a bishop, he was often portrayed using a red robe, and the character of Santa Claus (which is ultimately based on St. Nicolas) likewise tends to wear red. (Some say it's because of a Coca-Cola advertising campaign, but that's not correct. Santa Claus was commonly depicted wearing red long before Coca-Cola was using him to advertise their products.) Maybe it's just due to the fact that green & red are complementary colors, like purple & yellow or blue & orange."
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a5j9fa | How did the middle finger become an insult? | When and how did holding up just your middle finger at someone become an insulting/derogatory gesture? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"It's a phallic gesture that goes way back, the middle finger is the penis and the curled fingers are the balls. \"fuck off/go fuck yourself\" I personally prefer giving people 2 fingers, but it's rarely used outside of the UK",
"It looks like a penis. Nearly every insult is just someone deciding a phrase or action had some vile meaning, and then everyone agreed.",
"I could be wrong, but I believe it was originally used as an insult by archers. When archers were captured they would have their middle fingers cut off because it would make it significantly more difficult to shoot a bow and arrow, so throwing up the bird was basically their way of saying “still got em!”",
"It is a phallus; in the Ancient Near East (i.e., around the Mediterranean, around the First Century), it was also a way to ward off the evil eye, by gesturing a (presumably fertile) phallus. Scratching your testicles or making the cornuta (first and pinky fingers extended, like \"Hook 'em, Horns!\" or like you're at a metal concert), which symbolizes a (super-virile) bull's horns can also turn aside an evil eye by appeal to male virility. This may work for one of two reasons: 1) the evil eye is often thought to be cast by women, who may be distracted by erect penises; 2) the evil eye is trying to steal your virility, so showing by gesture how super-virile you are thwarts the evil eye. It can also be both (an easily-distractable woman who's trying to steal your virility)! (See, for example, Bruce Malina's *The New Testament World: Insights from Cultural Anthropology.*) But yeah, when you flip the bird, you're showing a symbolic penis and testicles to someone who wishes you ill, to turn aside their ill-will. As far as I know, the middle finger as a protective/rude gesture suggesting a penis comes from the Ancient Near East, but I'd be very interested to see older citations/citations from other parts of the world! The Ancient Near East is hugely concerned with male fertility in symbolic ways -- fertile women aren't allowed to stomp grapes, because their hungry vaginas might steal men's fertility when they drink the wine later; only widows can stomp grapes (because widows don't menstruate, because ANE people believe women only menstruate when having sex with fertile men, which almost requires very early marriage for girls, but renders widows non-threatening and much more free than other women). Women also can't touch certain farm implements because their hungry vaginas will indiscriminately steal fertility from the field via the farm implement. So gestures that suggest male fertility are powerfully protective against curses, which mostly are seeking to steal male fertility."
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a5qj91 | Why are Irish people stigmatized with drinking a lot. | I've recently learned I'm Irish (and not Scottish as my parents told me growing up). I'm wondering why Irish people are usually depicted as drunks/alcoholics in modern media. | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Tens of thousands of Irish fled Ireland to start a new life in the US. On arrival they found mainly shitty jobs with shitty pay. A lot of Americans resented this flood of new immigrants and moved away from them. A bit like 'white flight'. These richer Americans tended to be protestants and opposed drinking. They therefore started to brand the lower class Irish as immoral drunks and blamed their poverty on their addiction to booze. Alcohol did (does?) play a strong part in Irish culture. It was believed to keep you healthy, happy, and more resilient to cold weather. This just didn't go down well with the rich, teetotal Americans who already resented them.",
"A lot of it stems from the old Anti-Irish sentiment (you'll have to read up on that yourself because there's way to much going on there but basically - racism). But part of it is also due to their history. Due to constantly being dispossessed from their land and homes again and again many Irish families began to brew an alcohol called poteen. Their biggest customer were the working class/peasants since they were more likely to be able to afford poteen over proper alcohol and there was a lot of disease and misery due to the displacement. And then during the great famine many people turned to alcohol as a coping mechanism. Same with all the political unrest & unemployment issues throughout the 21st century. But most interestingly alcohol was used a measure of \"manliness\". Drinking contests were common with young bachelor's in early 19th century Ireland and were seen as a way to prove your strength/stamina."
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a5xr12 | Why are more developed countires less religious (think Western Europe , Japan etc) whereas poorer countries tend to be more religious. If religion is equally "free" what explains this? | What explains the difference in religious affinity between Rich and poor parts of the world. Why are poor regions more ferverent and religious? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Part of the reason is that religion supplies an answer for things not known. The more you know, the more that religious answer no longer applies. Religion is also oppressive in terms of control. Education leads to free will and that is less people wanting to be a part of a religion. Religion also supplies hope and a sense of family. That can be quite important when your life consists of a decent amount of misery. Having that family and close support system helps in times of grief and sorrow.",
"A lot of the answers in this thread seem to be along the lines of, \"If your life is hard and you're not well educated, religion offers an easy explanation.\" I think this is overly cynical (and makes it easy to see people who live in poverty as being stupid, which is wrong). I would say that developed countries have more followers of \"material\" religions such as consumerism or nationalism. These are not usually seen as religions, but they have rituals (Black Friday, Independence Day), tithes (Shopping, Taxes), group gatherings (Auctions, Casinos, Elections), etc. These \"religions\" are attractive because they operate and produce blessings in the physical world, so faith is easy. I do think that, even if all that is true, developed nations tend to be more areligious than third world ones; and I think a major factor in that is that poorer communities have a culture of interdependence which helps religion and which religion helps, and richer communities lack that. In other words, when you're rich, it's hard to see how much you rely on people around you - it's easy to think that you can survive and do well on your own merit. Jesus said, \"It is easier for a camel to get through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of God.\" I think this is something like what he meant.",
"A greater level of ignorance around scientific phenomena, and general supression of women often co incide with poor religious countries. You can't claim god makes the tide come in and out when the moon and laws of gravity were explained in grade school. Keeping women out of schools prevents half of the population from being immunized against that level of ignorance. Provided one has been prepared from birth to accept the tenets of religion as unfailingly true, the faith would probably bring comfort to someome who's life would otherwise be miserable. They \"know\" they will receive a benefit of some kind next time round, so it is much easier to accept that this time isnt going to be so great.",
"I think a lot of people (in this thread) mistakenly think being religious equals ignorance, but if that were the case the advancements of science would be propelled by “atheists”, which absolutely was not the case (e.g. big bang theory/renaissance or Middle-East chemistry/algebra/medical). Also Japan is religious, the US is religious, westerner Europe is religious. The trend to less religion didn’t start well after these countries were considered developed. Today’s mostly developed nations are closely related to the allies after the second world war (western Europe), and those who had close economic ties with the US (Japan). I honestly have no proper explanation, but I think your question would be better formulated more like “what drives people in developed countries to become non-religious”. Since the cause and effect are, I believe, actually reversed"
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a617pm | Why are 47/50 of the most dangerous cities in the world in the Western Hemisphere? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"> The following 50 cities have the highest murder rates in the world of all cities not at war, with a population of at least 300,000 people, and all relevant data available online. Areas which may be prone to violence in the Eastern hemisphere include areas such as India where the records may not be kept, the continent of Africa where there are likely no records, countries at war, and a lack of large enough cities in many places, and China who just isn't going to report anything that might make them look bad. So you see the list is likely skewed based on the data available and population limits.",
"Well, like, over half of thre cities on that list are in Brazil, which is going through a bit of a... let's call it a 'polutical crisis' at the moment where the president that was just elected genuinely thinks there haven't been enough mass-killings by government forces in the past to quell decent, so... Another dozen or so are in Venezuela, where they are weighing stacks of money instead of bothering to count it because inflation is at 100,000% or some other absurd rate; and that kind of economic despairity tends to lead to SLIGHTLY elevated crime levels. Most of the rest seem to be mostly Columbia and Mexico, which have a minor drug war problem, if you'll recall. With some good, old fashioned US gun crime sprinkled about for flavor. I'd be curious to see a list from 2000, before Brazil and Venezuela's recent problems. Would probably see more global representation, I'd think."
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a62dhb | On the wikipedia page of Utopia, why is Krakow, Poland called an unfinished utopian city? | [Here's the link.]( URL_0 ). Is it referring to the Nazi genocides for a perfect society? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"You did not read it correctly. The article only refers to one section of Krakow in this way. It really was designed to be a sort of ideal city. URL_0"
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a62qor | The differences between the 3 forms of Buddhism | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"You said ELI5, so here goes. There are basically two versions of Buddhism: poor man’s Buddhism and rich man’s Buddhism. The latter emphasizes salvation through good deeds. But peasants and others who had neither the time nor the money to perform good deeds or pilgrimages gravitated to Buddhism that said you could get into Nirvana by chanting."
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a668if | Why do car accidents become a spectacle for people to stare at while driving or gather nearby to watch? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"2 reasons. 1. They want to help, but need direction. 2. People are fascinated with destruction and death, especially because it reflects their own fragility. Two second lapse of judgment, and your car is inside out. It's an examination of vulnerability without the vulnerable part.",
"I would assume because it is unusual and so draws attention. You get a similar response if it was instead a bright pink unicorn running down the hard shoulder.",
"Novelty aspect? You dont see crashes every day. Humans are very curious by nature."
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a6acj0 | Why is KFC a christmas thing over in Japan? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"KFC put a lot into marketing. Christmas in Japan is a fun, commercial holiday. Closer to valentine's in its seen more as an adult and romantic holiday then religious or for kids. The marketing worked, they offered much higher quality meals on top of the normal stuff, and so people liked it and it became a thing.",
"KFC was an early fast food restaurant to open in Japan, in the 1970s. One thing they started doing early on was to have a statue of Colonel Sanders outside their restaurants. At some point, someone started putting red Santa hats on Colonel Sanders, which made him look a bit Santa-like. This made people start to link KFC and Xmas, and the KFC marketers started advertising KFC as a great Xmas dinner meal. Xmas has no religious connotation in Japan as there are very few Christians. It’s more of a romantic holiday, and there aren’t any other traditions this would conflict with. So the advertising campaign was enormously successful and now KFC has become an Xmas dinner tradition.",
"Because Christmas was not well understood in Japan until recent times, so KFC took advantage of the gap by advertising its American food as traditional Christmas food. Sneaky monkeys!",
"Extremely clever marketing in the 70's, since Japan didn't have any specific tradition leading *up* to Christmastime or New Year's with mealtime because there were so few Christian families, so they marketed and directly associated the KFC colors (white and red) to the already established festive colors of red and white, targetting families with a slogan 'Kentucky Christmas'. Essentially there was an already existing gap that they capitalized on.",
"Take the western tradition of a turkey dinner and swap in the more readily available chicken. Japan didn't really have any Christmas traditions, so this worked pretty well as an advertising campaign and helped make KFC a strong part of the tradition. Rudolph the red nose reindeer was originally advertising for Montgomery Ward, so it isn't even like Japan is all that strange.",
"You're all missing one of the big reasons. Even today, most Japanese kitchens do not include ovens. They do have a small broiler for fish though. As the post war Japanese were starting to emulate many things about western culture, like the idea of making a Christmas holiday of their own, they had no way to bake a turkey. This is when KFC jumped in the fill the need. This was a void there that they filled and continued to successfully grow."
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a6c4b9 | Why do sandwiches taste better as triangles? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Because triangles are a stronger shape than rectangles, so they can better contain the power of the delicious sandwich flavors. The flavor leaks right out of a whimpy rectangle.",
"Someone who cuts in such an unorthodox way probably put in a lot more effort making the sandwich.",
"I imagine it's because instead of going from one edge of sandwich to another edge, where the filling is less concentrated, you now have sandwiches where most of one side is a nice middle of the sandwich bit where more of the filling and condiments are concentrated. Having a narrower profile, you are then more likely to eat it in such a way that each bite has part of the middle or the last bite is purely that part. Whereas a whole sandwich might be too large, and more bites would consist of the edges of the sandwich where less of the fillings and condiments may have spread unless you overfilled it, in which case it might have too much of, say, peanut butter \\*or\\* jelly which is a different kind of worse. Just like Thanos says, cutting them in half allows more access to perfect balance. It's probably why he gave his favorite daughter a sandwich knife.",
"Basic quantum physics coupled with some neuroscience & psychology. So what happens when you cut it into triangles is that all those nanobots in the bread are shed off. So you get more filling to bread ratio. Besides who wants to be a square. Not even a sandwich."
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a6c4hp | Why is ethnic Judaism passed down through the mothers side? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Because you can be absolutely certain that the child is related to the mother, but you can't be absolutely certain that they are related to the father.",
"OP is a troll. [Here]( URL_0 ) he is posting anti-Semitic bullshit in r/jokes.",
"Before the days of paternity tests, there was no sure way to guarantee who the father was. Though everyone assumes that the married parents of a child are the biological parents, the child only physically comes out of one of them."
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a6ew8o | China’s social credit system | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"text": [
"If you’re what the government defines as a good person, you get points. If you’re what the government defines as a bad person then you lose points and if you lose enough points then you also lose certain privileges such as public transport, access to certain jobs, the ability to buy a home or borrow money and eventually spiral down into oblivion."
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a6fa8n | How would you explain the purpose of having friends to someone who genuinely had no understanding of the concept? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"text": [
"You still seek approval and understanding from others, so you use reddit and recieve it from anonymous strangers because their is no risk to you and you don't have to put in any effort to maintain the benefits you recieve. Friends are not necessary but they enhance life, you share your successes and even your failures and gain a better understanding of yourself in the process.",
"The reward is in someone you can trust to talk to about all the dumb shit in your life without being judged for the way you feel about it. They'll show up when you're broken, laugh with you when you're whole. You can sleep on each others couches just cause. It's worth it, life long, and satisfying."
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a6gcbu | How can a Federal judge in Texas rule Obamacare's individual mandate as unconstitutional when the Supreme Court decided it fell under Congress' taxing power in 2012? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Before a judge makes a decision, they usually have two arguments (one from each side). Sometimes the arguments are faulty, incorrect in some precise legal way. These are the easy cases. The interesting cases, like the Obamacare case you cite, have two arguments that do not have a clear legal fault. In these cases, the judge has to decide which case is stronger. It's a relative judgement, and therefore subjective. Subjective rulings are often appealed. In a subjective situation only a ruling by the SCOTUS sets a definitive answer, a precedent that future courts will apply. In this case, the SCOTUS went the other way, but that's how the system is supposed to work. When the SCOTUS agrees, they often refuse to hear the case, essentially saying the preceding judge's decision was clear enough that they don't need to reconsider the arguments."
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a6haxu | Why did the repeal of the Individual Mandate of Obamacare make it unconstitutional? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"The Constitution defines what Congress can do, it can't do other things. In particular Congress can't make you do stuff, the Founding Fathers were super mad about the prior British government making them feed soldiers and their horses, so they were specific in not allowing Government to pass mandated actions. Congress can institute taxes, so the individual mandate in Obamacare was constitutional because it was a tax on disobeying their orders to buy healthcare. Congress didn't repeal the individual mandate, there weren't enough votes for that. Then the Congress, as part of tax reform, changed the tax to $0. 20+ state attorneys general sued, saying \"A tax of $0 isn't a tax\". One judge ruled they were right, but that's going to be appealed to the SCOTUS, where we will get the final answer. The judge also decided the mandate was non-severable, so that finding that one provision unconstitutional invalidates the whole law. This is the legal system's version or \"a deal is a deal\", so that I don't get burned if I agree to buy X if you agree to buy Y and then the courts rule that buying X in unconstitutional you don't get to buy Y either. This will also be appealed, and I don't think this appeal is likely to fail - but who cares what I think because I'm not on the SCOUTS.",
"Two important corrections: the decision doesn't say that the whole ACA is unconstitutional, it says the ACA doesn't work without the individual mandate, and the mandate is unconstitutional. And it wasn't all of the individual mandate that was repealed, just the penalty for not buying insurance. Anyway, the argument is conveniently placed in the 16th paragraph of the article you cited. It goes like this: Congress does not have the power to force people to buy things, but it does have the power to tax people who choose not to buy things. The Individual Mandate was the second thing, a tax on people who chose not to buy health insurance. But with the penalty removed, the Mandate is a requirement to buy, not a tax, and is thus unconstitutional. There's agreement on both sides that without the Mandate, the ACA doesn't work financially: unless healthy people are required to buy insurance, nobody will buy it until after they get sick, and so the cost of insurance will skyrocket and nobody will be able to afford it even if they wanted it. There is *not* agreement on both sides as to whether Congress can pass a law requiring you to buy something.",
"Put bluntly: Because a judge ruled it was unconstitutional. There’s a lot of legal analysis from both sides of the aisle that suggests the Judge’s ruling was a major stretch. This will go to the SCOTUS who will rule on it again. At that point whether it is constitutional or not is literally based on what their ruling is. The SCOTUS isn’t the final word because they’re right, they’re right because they’re the final word."
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a6kpyl | How is mental illness handled in Japan, and how common is it, and the way they diagnose it, treat it, and how their citizens handle it and all that, compared to how it is in America? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"**Psychatric Diagnosis and Mental Health Service in Japan** URL_0 This is already a bit older (1998)"
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a6r1d1 | Why is this year's Youtube Rewind so despised? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"text": [
"This feels more like a /r/OutOfTheLoop post, but anyway: Jack, the rich guy in your group of friends, every year invites you all over to a party to showcase your projects to each other. But then, in these last years, Jack has been also inviting other rich people to his parties. Jack still showcases your projects, except Mike and Brian though, because they can be immature every once in a while. This year, Jack gave the spotlight to his rich friends, instead of focusing on your group. Mike, Brian, Ally, Sophia and Clementine were not invited at all. Your friends think that this year party was a joke and it's no longer about your group. It's just an excuse for Jack so he can show off his cars to his new friends. (maybe this allegory was unnecessary lol. TL;DR: the community feels disconnected from the latest rewind)"
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a6w7zv | Why do foreign names get spelled and pronounced differently in English? | I️ always see English translations of Chinese words or names and they utilize letters that can in no way phonetically produce the sound of the word. A close example would be “Zhou.” So what’s the purpose of spelling a word that does not translate correctly letter for letter but also does not phonetically have the correct meaning? Why not spell Xiang as Chiang? This occurs in other language translations to English to it’s just prominent in Chinese. | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"text": [
"Because they have different origin languages. English is Germanic in origin, converts semi-ok to Romanic languages but not really. Nordic languages have different letter sets, and the Chinese has different inflections on syllables, makes its tough",
"> I️ always see English translations of Chinese words or names and they utilize letters that can in no way phonetically produce the sound of the word. Those aren't translations, but *transliterations*. It really only shows up most significantly in Chinese. The short version is that there are a lot of sounds in Chinese that just don't have analogues in English or with the Latin alphabet. Worse, Chinese doesn't have a phonetic alphabet. We've gone through successive styles for representing Chinese in Latin characters. The current version (Hanyu Pinyin) is just the latest, and was developed by the Chinese government, and adopted in the US as part of Nixon's push to open up China to the rest of the world. For example, if you were referring to that most infamous of Warlords (and of the Kingdom of Wei) from the Three Kingdoms period of Chinese history, if you were using the old Wade-Giles system you'd spell it as Ts'ao Ts'ao, which is relatively close to the actual pronunciation. Under the current system, it's Cao Cao."
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a6zs92 | If the vast majority of African Americans are descended from Western Africa, how did the "hotep" subculture of claiming Ancient Egyptian ancestry come about? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"text": [
"Especially in the 1960s and 1970s a lot of African Americans became interested in conversations of what's called \"Pan-Africanism\" which was a movement that looked to establish solidarity between all people globally who have African descent. This sought to unify African people globally and celebrate the many unique cultures in Africa, while also encouraging a cultural exchange and dialogs about cross-cultural histories on the continent. Egypt and Egyptian culture became a focal point of Pan-African dialogs because it's iconic and its age and relationship to the continent helps to establish a dialog of cultural lineage. Egypt was a major trading post that had contact with a great deal of the ancient world, including parts of Europe, Asia, and other parts of Africa. I think it's kind of like White people of Western Europe talking about Greece being the birthplace of Western civilization even though Western Europe would've been considered a savage untamed wilderness to the Ancient Greeks.",
"The reason why some African Americans might want to promote the idea that they have ancient Egyptian ancestry is the prestige that ancient Egyptian culture has. It has (fairly or not) more prestige than West African cultures do in the eyes of white people."
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a6zwdj | what is supposed to be wrong in the Escher's sentence "More people have been to Russia than I have" ? | I read about [comparative illusions or "Escher's sentences"]( URL_0 ) but, as I am not a native speaker in Englsih, I really don't catch what is supposed to be dissonant in the example sentence: "More people have been to Russia than I have", even though I really get other typical examples given in my own native language. | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"text": [
"When your sentence is structured like \"More people... than...\" it implies you are comparing two sets of people, for example \"more people have been to Russia than to the Moon\" means \"Number of people who have been to Russia\" > \"number of people who have been to the Moon\". \"More people have been to Russia than I have\" means \"number of people who have been to Russia\" > \"I have been to Russia\", but \"I have been to Russia\" isn't a measurable value, it's simply a true/false statement.",
"\"More people\" is counting people. However \"then I have\" is counting number of times. These two terms can not be compared. You are saying that \"x amount of people\" are more then \"y number of times\". This does not make sense. You can say \"More people have been to Russia then have been to Mount Everest\" and you can say \"Most people have been to Russia more then I have\" however you can not combine those comparisons. So even though the sentence looks grammatically correct it does not make any sense at all. You can make similar sentences in any language.",
"What is the quantity of people *you have* that have been to Russia?",
"The issue is you’re not comparing quantities directly. In the sentence, it would be more correct to say “People have been to Russia more often than I have”. As it is currently, there’s no direct quantitative measure to compare to between “I” and “more people.” More people is always going to be greater than a single person, so it’s nonsensical without comparing what specific characteristics are involved. A linguist can probably give a better answer, but hopefully that helps explain some."
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a70hmf | What is a haka and what does it mean? | I’ve seen a few videos lately about hakas, which appear to be a Hawaiian ceremony performed at special occasions. What is the tradition behind this? Why does it involve intense facial expressions? It seems very meaningful to those watching it, and is beautiful, so I’d like to understand it. | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
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"text": [
"Haka is a Polynesian war dance. Hawaii, Fiji, New Zealand and many more each perform a haka and each are different. It's a dance to show no fear, then courage, then defeat to the opponent",
"I read a theory that this is the human species’ superpower. Basically the explanation was: a large predator such as a bear or lion could take down any individual human with ease. But if a group of humans suddenly clump together into a crazy scary super-organism, with a dozen glaring eyes and a lot of bared teeth, moving together and roaring with the noise of many voices, those critters gonna nope the F out. It later also turned out to work well on hunan enemies."
],
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a737li | Why were hetairai (courtesans in ancient Greece) allowed to symposia when normal women were excluded? Did they serve other functions besides providing sexual favors and entertainment? How did ancient Greek see them? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"ebzxtgj",
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"text": [
"They were upper class and so were afforded the same rights as other upper class women. They were also more akin to formalized temporary mistresses than standard prostitutes and often only had a single client at a given period of time.",
"First of all we do not know that much about ancient Greek daily life. It is very likely that hetairai were as much desired for their intellectual capabilities then their beauty. So having them present at symposia would not have been very out of character. Secondly ancient Greece had lots of different cities with different laws and customs and these also changed over time. So what is more likely is that some symposia did not allow women but some did. We have similar things today where you might sometimes have a girl only or boys only party. And it would not be too much of a stretch for the boys party to also include some paid hostesses. Of course the cultures are different but it is not a too foreign concept to us today."
],
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|
a78x54 | why do suicide rates increase during the holiday season? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
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"text": [
"Christmas is usually a time when families and loved ones get together to celebrate. During the holiday season, people who are lonely feel more alone than ever because everyone else is celebrating with their loved ones while they are on their own. Add to that that, in the Northern Hemisphere, winter is cold, dark and hostile and many countries rarely see the sun, making seasonal depression a lot more common and intense than usual.",
"The added stress from the holiday obligations and the \"seasonal depression\" can push people that are already leaning towards suicide over the edge. Its a straw that broke the camels back.",
"According to the CDC, it's a myth. Suicide rates are actually lower in December. & #x200B; [ URL_0 ]( URL_0 )",
"They don't - this is a myth. It is actually LOWEST during the holidays. Its entirely possible this is due to the family connections that occur around holidays. & #x200B; [ URL_1 ]( URL_0 ) & #x200B; & #x200B;",
"I was hoping someone could point me towards a study or some actual data"
],
"score": [
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"text_urls": [
[],
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"https://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/suicide/holiday.html"
],
[
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suicide_in_the_United_States",
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suicide\\_in\\_the\\_United\\_States"
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} | [
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|
a7dt55 | Back in our early civilizations, how did people from different empire/country interact with each other without knowing a common languages before hand ? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
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"ec26gal",
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"text": [
"With difficulty! One option is, of course, a translator, or a chain of translators. Sometimes, a lingua franca developed regionally, where people everywhere could speak some of at least one language, even if it wasn't theirs. Otherwise, a lot of gestures and patience.",
"A cat is a cat, regardless of the word used for it. A bird is a bird, the sun is the sun, water is water... When 2 people with no common language elements to draw from, wish to communicate, they have to go back to basics, just like teaching a child that doesn't speak at all. New shared words are invented, one person teaches another. We all eat, so they share meals, using simple sentences in their own language. They both learn from one another. New shared languages are born and after a time, we are where we are today.",
"To find someone who speaks a different language, you have to walk from where you live (where everybody speaks a language you know) for a long way. Along that way, you will find people who speak your language and another language. You can ask them about the people in the direction you are going, and they can tell you about them and their language. Unless you are an idiot, you bring this person with you. Along the long walk, you learn some of their language from this person you meet. When you finally get there, you have the person help translate what you want to the new people. As you live with the new people, you work hard to learn their language, through immersion and with the help of your new friend. Then you have learned the language and you can talk to them. All this existed long, long before you could visit another country in 30 minutes on a whim, like you can today. When it takes 6 months to get to a new place with a new language, you have a lot of time to learn about it."
],
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a7dv85 | Why is the Dutch oven Dutch ? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"ec2997n",
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],
"text": [
"Back in the old days, (early 1700s), everyone's cooking pots were made out of brass, which was kind of expensive. At that time an Englishman named Abraham Darby visited the Netherlands and saw them casting pots in molds of sand, instead of the usual English way, which used molds of clay. Darby realized that if he cast cooking pots with sand like the Dutch did he might be able to make them out of iron, which was way cheaper than brass. It took a few years of experimentation but eventually Darby and his workers figured out how to make cooking pots of iron. Because they used the Dutch method of casting in sand they were called \"Dutch ovens\" and the name has stuck ever since.",
"[Here you go]( URL_0 ), but the short version is: \"During the 17th century, brass was the preferred metal for English cookware and domestic utensiles, and the Dutch produced it at the lowest cost \\[...\\] In 1702, Abraham Darby was a partner in the Brass Works Company of Bristol \\[...\\] in 1704, Darby visited the Netherlands, where he studied the Dutch methods of working brass, including the casting of brass pots \\[...\\] Darby realized that he could sell more kitchen wares if he could replace brass with a cheaper metal, namely, cast iron \\[...\\] He obtained a patent for the process of casting iron in sand, which derived from the Dutch process, thus the term \"Dutch oven\"\"."
],
"score": [
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15
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"text_urls": [
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"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_oven"
]
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} | [
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|
a7enep | Why is "fancy english speech" so modulated? | There is this gag, or stereotype that english "fancy" lady or gentelman speaks in very deep and modulated voice. Does is come form something specific, is it referance to something? & #x200B; Example: [ URL_0 ]( URL_0 ) the way Cheryl speaks. | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"ec2eill"
],
"text": [
"This is a satire of how the upper class (Posh) folks in England learned to speak during their early years at school, in elocution class. While it is embellished (making it satire), it's a fairly decent representation of that vocal training that occurs (and has historically occurred) in upper-class boarding schools in order to make the families of wealthy people **sound** wealthy and otherwise distinct from the lower classes. For examples of less embellished, more \"natural\" versions of this Posh voice, turn to YouTube and look for \"posh speech\"."
],
"score": [
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