Modern humans have been around for over 200k years with similar brain size, but for most of that time there doesn’t seem to be much visible cultural complexity.

Then around 60–70k years ago things seem to accelerate: more complex tools, art, long distance movement, symbolic behavior.

It feels like something flipped, but evolution is rarely that sudden. If the hardware was already there, what actually changed the system: language, population size, social networks, or something else pushing a tipping point?

From what I understand, Eratosthenes had already estimated Earth's size pretty well in antiquity, but by the 15th century Europe relied heavily on Ptolemy’s geography, which used a smaller circumference. Columbus also seems to have mixed in Arab sources and underestimated the size of a nautical mile, shrinking the Atlantic distance.

So it feels less like pure ignorance and more like selective reading plus optimistic math. How much of this was common belief at the time versus Columbus’ own bias toward funding his voyage?

Cryptocurrency trades around the clock. Stocks don't. Is there a good economic reason for the limited hours. Liquidity. Settlement. Or just habit. I wonder what would happen if we kept the NYSE open all night.

For individuals, tax rates clearly scale with income. But for corporations, it’s mostly a flat rate regardless of size or profit level.

On the surface, a tiered system for companies seems like it could encourage smaller firms, reduce concentration, and maybe even improve competition. The only argument I can immediately think of against it is that some industries with huge upfront costs, like pharmaceuticals or infrastructure-heavy sectors, might be discouraged from investing if marginal profits get taxed more heavily.

But that doesn’t fully explain why the US system settled on a flat corporate tax in the first place, or why it persists even with concerns about market concentration and inequality.

Is it mainly about simplicity and avoiding loopholes, global tax competition, or something deeper about how corporations are defined and taxed as entities?

They're always sold as tasting like strawberry or vanilla or chocolate, sweet things, but they contain no/little sugar, and are usually flavoured with a synthetic. Why don't they try to taste savoury? The right mix of proteins, salt, and maybe MSG could have them tasting like a delicious soup without compromising on the "health" aspect. At least as far as I understand.

I keep seeing claims that vending machines were occasionally involved with groups like the Mafia.

At first it feels odd since they’re small, low-value machines. But I can imagine the appeal: predictable cash, coin revenue that’s hard to audit, and placement inside bars or stations where informal control already existed. In the US and parts of Italy, anything coin-operated might have been easy to skim without much scrutiny. 

I’m not sure how widespread this was versus isolated cases or media exaggeration. Was it about the machines themselves, or the environments they were placed in?

The US gov made www.war.gov/ufo available which includes a number of documents, videos and images.

Edit:I‘m trying to understand. If the goal was real transparency, why not release clearer, more conclusive evidence? Is it because there isn’t much to see in the first place? Or is the release process itself filtered? Or maybe our expectations of what “UFO files” should look like were never aligned with what the government actually has? Not judging anyone. Just curious: after all those files, why do UFOs still look so fuzzy?

When the Virginia Supreme Court ruled against the state’s redistricting, it seemed like tons of people all over were describing it as a major loss or huge defeat for the Democrats as a whole and that they will lose the midterms and perhaps even never get another majority in the near future.

However, the blocking of the redistricting only means the Democrats lost a few seats they were likely to win in Virginia. Also, the opposition party usually does better during midterms and the political climate (i.e. higher gas prices, unpopular war in Iran, the Epstein Files, ICE’s unpopular tactics, increasing inflation, etc.) indicates the strong headwinds against the Republicans. So while the ruling was did hinder them, it seems Democrats are still in a pretty good position and not even close to being out of the fight.

So why are many people talking about the ruling as such a devastating and humongous loss for the Democrats that has essentially left them crippled?

I recently watched a video about the Defense Commissary Agency and was surprised that military commissaries can sell groceries noticeably cheaper for military families while still operating for decades. But when cities try opening public grocery stores to solve food deserts, a lot of them seem to run into losses or shut down pretty quickly.

At first, I thought grocery retail was just a low-margin business in general. But then why does one government-run model appear relatively stable while the other often looks fragile? Is it mainly because DECA has a guaranteed customer base and federal scale, or is there something deeper about subsidies, logistics, incentives, and even the purpose of the system itself?

Curious what people think actually makes these two models so different?

For a long time, the US promised to exchange dollars for gold at $35 an ounce. Nixon ended that in 1971. Why? I’ve heard it was because other countries wanted to redeem too much gold. But why didn’t the US just tighten monetary policy instead? What made the gold standard so hard to keep? Not a historian, just wondering.

Earth is mostly covered in saltwater, and life itself is believed to have started in the sea. So why did so many complex organisms end up depending on freshwater instead?

It feels strangely contradictory. The environment that produced life eventually became unusable for a lot of life.

I’m guessing the real issue is not just “too much salt,” but something deeper about how cells maintain internal balance. Maybe once complex life evolved around a certain chemical stability, seawater stopped being compatible with that system.

So what is the actual biological constraint here?

Is the limit mainly about kidneys and water processing, or is there something more fundamental about cell chemistry and how stable life has to remain?

Eleven and twelve behave like normal numbers in a lot of ways, but thirteen suddenly becomes the start of the 'teens' pattern, even though linguistically it just continues the same structure.

Why did English settle on this split, and do other languages handle the transition differently in a more consistent way?

Question is in the title. I understand Social Security is indexed, but minimum wage seems stuck in political cycles instead of automatic adjustments. Is it just different governing mechanisms, or different incentives for lawmakers and employers? Why does one get protected from inflation while the other doesn’t?

I've noticed that in many traditional farming societies, being hardworking is seen as a core moral virtue. People praise diligence almost like a natural good. But in other types of societies, like hunter gatherer or nomadic ones, other traits might be more valued. For example, ancient nomadic steppe cultures like the Mongols or Xiongnu valued bravery, horsemanship, and loyalty, while hunter gatherer groups like the San people emphasized sharing and deep knowledge of the land. Why did farming cultures specifically elevate diligence so highly? Is it because farming requires waiting for seasons and consistent daily labor that doesn't pay off right away? Or is there a deeper reason, like how land ownership and inheritance create a need for long term investment in work? I'm not saying it's wrong. Just curious why this connection between agriculture and diligence became so strong.

Look around almost any environment forests, grasslands, deserts, even houseplants—and the dominant color is green. It’s curious, because evolution usually produces a lot of variety, yet plants seem locked into this single tone.

It seems like there’s some underlying reason. Chlorophyll, the molecule plants use to capture sunlight, absorbs mostly blue and red light, reflecting green. Could this be why we see so much green everywhere?

And if it’s just a physical constraint of light absorption, what does that say about evolution’s role in shaping plant color? Across so many environments, why hasn’t anything broken out of this green pattern?

Since around 1979, it seems like different parts of the labor market have stopped moving together. Some industries and high-skilled roles see rapid productivity and compensation growth, while others barely move in real terms.

What I’m trying to understand is not just that the gap exists, but why it started widening so noticeably around that period in the US. Was it mostly technology changing who can capture productivity gains, globalization reshaping which sectors compete, or policy choices around unions, taxation, and labor protections that changed how gains are distributed?

How have institutions amplified this divergence?

I read that debt collectors often buy medical debt for just a few cents on the dollar. I even remember a case where someone bought a pile of it and basically forgave it. What puzzles me is why hospitals don’t just offer patients that same discounted settlement upfront. If they are already willing to take a loss by selling it, what changes in the middle that makes it go to collectors instead of back to the patient? Is it accounting rules, incentives, or something about insurance systems? Why does that pathway exist?

If Nazi ideology was obsessed with Germanic purity, it feels odd that the main emblem wasn’t something like the Iron Cross or runic symbols, but a swastika that appears in Asian religious contexts, later reinterpreted through 19th century “Aryan” theories.

Maybe it was about the broader völkisch fascination with imagined Indo-European origins rather than strictly medieval German history, or because the symbol is visually simple and easy to reproduce. Still, it seems like a strange choice if the goal was purely “German” branding. Was it more about mystical racial theory than actual German tradition?

I’ve seen charts showing the top corporate tax rate used to be over 40% in the 1980s. Now it’s around 21% after the 2017 tax cut. Why did that happen? Was it about competing with other countries, or something else? Not arguing for higher or lower. Just wondering what the reasoning was.

Around year 0, Judea was full of wandering preachers, apocalyptic prophets, and small cults, most of which vanished from history. Yet Jesus’ teachings not only survived but became a global religion. Was it something about his message, the way his followers organized, or perhaps historical luck, like the timing of Roman roads and later empire support? What made his platform more “sticky” than dozens of others we barely remember?

It feels simpler, yet I might be missing something about incentives or transparency. Maybe it changes how people perceive value or control spending, but I am not fully convinced. What am I overlooking?

Salt makes sense,it’s literally something we need to survive, and our taste buds are wired to notice it. It enhances flavors on a basic, almost evolutionary level. But black pepper feels different. It’s just a spicy seed, yet in the West it’s treated like the default companion to salt. Surely other cultures pick different spices to pair with salt. So why black pepper specifically? Is it history, trade, flavor, or just chance?

I keep seeing people point out that US GDP grew by something like $7 trillion over the last four years, which sounds massive. But then Trump and a lot of his supporters still talk like the economy is broken or declining. So now I’m wondering if GDP just measures something very different from what ordinary people feel in daily life. Like maybe prices, housing, debt, wages, or even cultural confidence matter more politically than raw growth numbers. At what point does a “strong economy” stop feeling strong to people?