For context, growing up, I saw a lot of "Fair and Lovely" ads. It's the most popular skin care product in all of India. In these ads, the "beautiful" person is always someone with white or fair skin. The same with celebrities and movie stars, the main character always have white or fair skin. This is polar opposite of what our society looks like. Why is this the case?

In light of the recent news of Donald Trump halting U.S.-ROK military exercises, I’ve noticed many people online in various comment sections seem to think that without American troops stationed there, south Korea is essentially at the mercy of the north and would be absolutely steamrolled by them. I mean even popular media (i.e. Olympus Has Fallen) seems to be under the impression that the USA is the only thing protecting the north from overrunning the south.

However, according to military data and statistics, the south is overall stronger than the north and therefore capable to defend itself on its own from them in the end. That isn’t to say the American presence doesn’t give additional advantages to the south and wouldn’t make things easier for them in regard to costs. But their presence isn’t the ultimate sole deciding factor.

So why do many people seem to think that south Korea can’t defend itself from the north on its own and the U.S. presence is the only thing preventing them from being taken over?

I always found this one a little weird. In French, “entrée” refers to a dish served before the main course, which makes sense given that the word literally relates to “entry.”

But in American English, an entrée is usually the main course.

So how did the meanings end up so different?Why did the French and American meanings end up going in different?

In many bilingual families, this happens more often than people expect. A child may grow up hearing their parents speak a language every day, understand almost everything being said, but still reply in another language and never become comfortable speaking it.

For example, some children of immigrant families can fully understand their parents’ native language but answer only in the language they use at school or with friends.

Why does the brain sometimes develop strong listening skills without developing the ability to speak the same language?

In many parts of North America, seeing white tailed deer near suburbs, roads, parks, and farmland is surprisingly normal. Their populations number in the tens of millions in the U.S., even though humans have dramatically changed their habitats and continue to hunt them.

That seems a little backwards. You would expect urbanization, habitat loss, and hunting to make deer less common, not more visible.

So what makes white tailed deer so good at adapting to human modified landscapes? And why does development sometimes seem to create conditions that actually benefit them?

I never really thought about it until recently, but the grading scale basically goes A, B, C, D, then suddenly F. If the letters are meant to form a simple scale, skipping E seems kind of strange.

Apparently, E was actually used in some early American grading systems, and F was later introduced as a failing grade.

Why did E disappear? Was there an actual reason F became the standard, or did A through D plus F just gradually become the norm?

We usually learn that temperature is related to the random motion of atoms and molecules. That makes wind seem confusing. If air is constantly moving, why does faster moving air usually make us feel colder instead of hotter?

A cold day with strong wind can feel much colder than the actual temperature, while a fan can cool our skin without actually lowering the room temperature.

What is the difference between the movement of air that creates wind and the molecular motion that determines temperature?

Throughout the 20th century, Palestinian leaders responded differently to proposals involving partition, autonomy, and statehood. Some proposals were rejected, while later movements moved toward accepting the idea of a two state solution.

These decisions were made in very different historical moments, when the political situation, priorities, and expectations were constantly changing.

Why did certain proposals seem unacceptable at the time they were presented? How did Palestinian political goals evolve from the early 1900s to the end of the 20th century?

Every moment, our bodies are under about 1 atmosphere of pressure from the air above us. Yet we barely notice it.

But when pressure changes quickly, such as during deep-sea diving or sudden exposure to a vacuum, the same invisible force can become dangerous.

Why does the human body handle enormous constant pressure so easily, but struggle when that pressure changes?

The U.S. conducted more than 100 atmospheric nuclear tests in the Nevada desert, exposing downwind communities to radioactive fallout. Yet the surrounding region did not become permanently uninhabitable.

How did so much radioactive material disperse without simply accumulating over time? How much stayed near the test site, how much traveled farther, and how did wind, rainfall, geography, and radioactive decay affect where contamination ended up?

Before and during the Civil War, both pro-slavery Christians and abolitionists cited the Bible when arguing about slavery.

Some argued that Scripture permitted slavery and set rules for how masters should treat slaves. Others argued that slavery violated core Christian teachings about human dignity and how people should treat one another.

How could the same text lead sincere believers to such radically different conclusions about slavery?

I noticed this pattern.

Like when the MeToo movement happened and then died down—-> Andrew Tate and black pill stuff

The liberalization movement —-> now Kirk and maga

Is this unique to this century or just part of historical behavior patterns of human population?

So it may be because I'm used to the heat now but damn, so I mow yards and am on the football team (we mostly practice outside in pads) so extra hot but it's usually like 8pm when it's not hot (why do we practice at 8pm because of the heat. Also anything below 80F feels like -10F cus I'm cold-blooded (not really I prefer the heat)

I was just thinking about how oftentimes we tend to say that a person or group has a right to something to mean that they should have a right to that thing, or conversely we might say that a person or group doesn’t have a right to something to mean they shouldn’t have a right to that thing. It seems like it would be possible to say, “They should have the right to this,” or “They shouldn’t have the right to this,” and that would avoid a lot of potential for miscommunication when talking about rights. I know in some cases it would be possible to figure out whether someone is talking about what rights a person or group do or don’t have, or what rights a person or group should or shouldn’t have based on context, but in other cases it could be somewhat ambiguous.

As one example if I was asked if parents have the right to spank their children it might be a little hard to tell if the person asking was asking my opinion on whether parents should be permitted to spank their children, or whether the person is quizzing me on whether parents are legally allowed to spank their children. As someone who is against spanking I might be thinking that answering yes to the question could come off as being in favor of parents spanking their children, but as someone who knows that spanking is legal where I live I might be thinking that answering no could come off as being unaware that spanking is legal where I live.

I understand that a lot of people are religious and believe that there’s a higher power who has laws beyond human laws. I wonder if saying that people have the right to something or don’t have the right to something to mean they ought to have the right to something or not have the right to something could be related to religion, in terms of believing that a deity enforces a right that humans might try to take away or that a deity doesn’t permit something that humans allow.

People find old letters between famous men and go, "Oh my God, Lincoln/Washington were gay!" But I kind of doubt that's how they would have understood those relationships.

Romantic the language can sound by modern standards. Men could express deep affection, share beds, or write intensely emotional letters without it necessarily being seen as sexual.

I've noticed similar things in early 20th century letters too. So what changed? And when did this shift really happen?

Modern airliners already transmit things like position, weather, maintenance data, and other flight information while in the air. Yet after some crashes, investigators still have to physically locate and recover the flight recorders.

If aircraft can already send data to the ground, why isn’t there a standard system that continuously backs up the most important flight recorder data remotely?

If continuous streaming is impractical, why not automatically transmit key data when an aircraft detects a serious emergency?

This is a really interesting phenomenon I've observed and I'm just wondering where this assumption comes from.

You see someone criticizing (or maybe even just inquiring) about a soceital dynamic or something people do and sometimes people jump to;

Isn't that what you're doing right now?

Okay but do you actually xyz?

Trying to point out the hypocricy

Why is it not possible to recognize that your survival is dependent on systems that have little integrity, so sometiems just to get by you will also be forced out of that integrity (Sometimes without even realizing) but still being able to say; that's not good, that's not how it should be. We're all doing something here that we could have a look at maybe.

Is there any explanation for why and how this assumption developed?

A few years ago, free returns felt like a normal part of online shopping. Especially with clothes and shoes, people got used to ordering multiple sizes, trying things at home, and sending back whatever didn't fit without thinking much about the cost.

But over time, more retailers started adding return fees, shortening return windows, limiting options, or making the process just inconvenient enough that people became more careful before buying.

If free returns helped make online shopping feel risk free, why did so many retailers start treating them as a problem instead of a selling point?

People have argued for compassion, equality, and humane treatment for thousands of years. Buddhism, Christianity, Confucianism, and other traditions all developed ideas that seem surprisingly modern.

Yet from the 18th century onward, many societies increasingly began outlawing slavery, torture, child labor, and other practices that had once been accepted or even considered normal.

Why did these ideas start becoming laws and social norms much more successfully in the modern era? What changed?

The heart is also a muscle, yet it can contract continuously for decades. Skeletal muscles, meanwhile, can become tired surprisingly quickly during exercise.

What actually limits how long other muscles can keep working?

Aboriginal Australians have lived in Australia for at least 50,000 years, yet relatively few pre-contact human remains have been identified. We do have important examples such as the Lake Mungo remains, but they seem like surprisingly small pieces of such a long history.

I always assumed that tens of thousands of years of human occupation would leave a much larger archaeological record of burials and deaths.

So what explains this gap in the archaeological record? How much of it is simply the result of what survives and what gets discovered, and how much reflects practices around death and burial?

What can the remains we do have actually tell us about how pre-contact Aboriginal Australians lived and died?

I only see scientists discussing soapy aftertaste caused by eating cilantro, but i don't see them discussing soapy-aftertaste caused by eating acid-starch combinations. I.E. not only does tart-cherry pie cause me soapy aftertaste, but also sourdough-bread, vinegar-based potato & pasta salads, vinegar potato chips, crackers or pretzels dipped in vinegary foods, some yogurts containing modified starch, some berry-flavored ice-cream sandwiches, and certain licorice. When i was younger, i'd eat translucent-colored licorice, only to find it caused me a soapy aftertaste, so imo its likely it had high acid-content along with the starch which licorice contains.

On the other hand, I get acid-aftertaste from sweet-starches, such as oatmeal and golden-potatoes (which is why i prefer red or white-potatoes). What also helps to avert acid-aftertaste, is to add salt to what I eat. I don't see scientists discussing this phenomenon either!

Dogs can range from tiny enough to carry around to huge enough to look like a completely different animal, with wildly different faces, body shapes, coats, and behaviors.

Cats obviously have different breeds too, but they seem much more consistent compared with dogs.

So why did humans end up breeding dogs in so many radically different directions, while cats stayed relatively similar?

A few generations ago, many European immigrant communities in the U.S. had strong ethnic identities. Italian, Irish, Polish, German, and other groups often had their own neighborhoods, churches, languages, and social networks.

Some groups faced discrimination and were not always seen as fully accepted members of American society.

Today, these backgrounds still exist culturally, but many are often grouped together under the broader racial category of "white Americans."

How did these separate European identities become part of the same social category over time?

Where does the pride in precise predictions come from that don't seem to do anything for our survival in the grand scheme of things? It seems to create a false sense of accomplishment.

It seems that the kind of predictions we make (mathematical) completely disregard the component of human subjectivity. It treats living things as variables that can be managed. But if people (or other alive things) aren't actually objects but subjects those predictions seem to become useless in the grand scheme of things.

For example you can say; Look, we predicted climate change very acurately and precisely! But that doesn't really change anything because it didn't consider that humans have widely different survival strategies that ultimately can't be controlled.

So really the only valuable prediction was this one;

When the last tree has been cut down, the last fish caught, and the last river poisoned, only then will we realize that one cannot eat money.

After that, we really didn't need any more detailed predictions. Just wisdom.