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This is an "It Just Bugs Me" entry. This area of the wiki is more friendly to the idea of conversation in the article itself, due to the highly subjective content. The regular entry on this topic is in the main wiki.
Real Life
  • Why are Asia and Europe considered separate continents? They have the same tectonic plates. Also if your going to say that Europeans are culturally different or some BS like that well Iranians and Chinese people are just as distinct too.

  • Why does "reputation" play a part in college rankings? Seriously, US News and World Report polls professors and other people in education to ask them what they "think" the best schools are. Does no one else see the potential for a positive feedback loop? Say a whole bunch of people start to think X University is great because its rank has gone up (for whatever reason) and happen to encounter our dear professor, s/he then has a better view of the place and votes for it to go up in rank.
  • Why is it that optimism is considered naive or stupid, and pessimism is considered intelligent observation?
    • Because all the people you've spoken to about it are cynics
    • Studies have shown (sorry, I don't have any sources for this) that pessimists tend to see the world more accurately. However, optimists tend to live longer. Take from that what you will.
      • Some people think that being optimistic means you're in "denial" of the real issues around you. It's entirely possible to be positive, yet realistic on some things too.
    • An optimist and pessimist are both given the same task, and instructions to complete the task in the same manner. The optimist thinks the instructions will work, and does them. The pessimist thinks they will fail, expresses it, and then (hopefully) tries to add additional measures in case things go wrong. If they both complete the task, then the optimist's optimism was fine, and the pessimist was just worrying too much. If they both fail, the optimist looks stupid for thinking it would work, and the pessimist was right. If the pessimist thought it wasn't going to work and also took some additional measures to either try to ensure success or try to minimize losses, then if it doesn't work, they seem more intelligent as they were able to figure out it wasn't going to work ahead of time.
      • Optimist wouldn't believe in failure, and thus will accept that when the instructions fail, they still find that they've learned from the experience at least. A Pessimist doesn't believe in success, so they'll meander about things until it fails just to prove themselves right. If it does succeed, then they feel they fail at failing. Optimism doesn't mean you're an idealistic dolt, hell, the best evil masterminds know how to put a spin on a perceived failure. Pessimism doesn't mean you have a gritty real world attitude about you.
    • Another take on it is that a pessimist thinks that way because previous experience suggests that they are going to fail. Following that, an optimist is either someone who failed to learn from previous experience, hasn't had previous experience, or denies the validity of previous experience. Alternatively, an optimist is happy in spite of previous experience and a pessimist is someone who can't let go of the past. Either way, to a pessimist, optimists are silly.

  • Why do people insist on insulting each other when arguing? Don't people get that "fuck you" is no way to get a person to say "Oh, you're absolutely right", and that it distracts from the issue at hand?
    • Ever notice that the people swearing like that are often the ones with no valid arguments on the matter?

  • The fact that there are people who actually take Chick Tracts seriously, and some have, in fact, converted upon reading tracts by him. It boggles my mind.
    • There are people who take Jack Chick seriously because Who Would Be Stupid Enough often applies to real life, especially when dealing with a large population. If we assume that, for example, 0.1% of everyone who's read Jack Chick believes his claims about Dungeons & Dragons, and 10 million people have read "Dark Dungeons" in total, then 1,000 people will be convinced that D&D will lead to suicide.
    • Most people generalize and believe in media & authority too quickly. They think it's true because someone says it so on a website and therefor acknowledges their assumptions. And if you think what I state is not true, the first time I read Jack Chick, I took it semi-seriously, as it was about media controlled by demons, continuously broadcasting Darker And Edgier stuff, leading up to the death of a Junior High teen using drugs. Therefor, I thought he had at least some truth in it, because he acknowledged my assumption that most people generalize and believe in media & authority too quickly. Wait a sec, since I took Jack Chick semi-seriously for a moment, does that mean my assumption is wrong or right? ARRGGGGGHHHHH!!! *SPLODE*

  • Why do people seem to like it when stupid people get killed? If there were no more stupid people, there would be nobody to laugh at or make the rest of us feel superior. We would lead a very dull existence if it weren't for the world's morons.
    • Schadenfreude?.
    • As well as the nice, if totally irrational, feeling of superiority and safety you get out of it. And let's face it, we'll never run out of stupid people.
    • Trust me; we are never going to run out of stupid people.
    • We'd still have a bell curve. There's still be a bottom end.
    • You don't really "get" evolution, do you? When stupid people die or are prevented from reproducing, we get a better overall gene pool. When they miraculously survive, we get stupid people to laugh at. Win/win situation!

  • Why did no one ever invent a complete martial art? Did the strikers never think they would have to grapple? Did the grapplers never think they would have to strike? Did the stand-up heavy ones never think they would have to go to ground?
    • No. They did not. The people who became masters of one of the martial arts to be able to defend themselves are only vulnerable to another high level martial artist. Those who learned to master one martial art in order to be the best in the world at that style are uninterested in the pragmatism of a broader skill base. Those who wish to be the best in all round martial arts or be able to defend against anyone are the few who master several styles of radically different martial arts.
    • Have you had a look at Krav Maga; I hear it's got everything.
      • Actually, Krav Maga just means martial arts in hebrew. i think my source is legit, living in israel since i was born and all.
    • No complete martial arts? Have you tried, I dunno, any of them? You would indeed have to be a moron to assume you'd never be out of your chosen element, but outside of actual military combat training, we don't have any "complete" styles because nobody ever bothered writing everything down. Plus, a fight between two trained combatants is going to go strike-dead or strike-counter-dead anyway.
    • Secondly, why did we forget to write down our western martial arts? It'd be awesome to have a proper East meets West with traditional styles.
    • Well, they did, but as the art got handed down it got Flanderized until it was so rigid and narrow a new, more flexible art took over. Which then gets Flanderized...
    • They were written down by their contemporary users, in manuals. What we don't have is continuous usage, because while anything but narrow or rigid, these arts fell out of use with changes of nature of warfare as well as society as the above Troper stated.
    • Because it's more practical to learn several different arts than one over-generalised uber-art.
    • Taijitsu contains your karate-type sparring, judo-type rolls and throws and weapons training if you're old enough to handle two bits of foam with a achain between them. Doesn't stop it being fairly useless though.
  • So, if Spartans were supposed to be these badass soldiers that excel at warfare, why did they never figure out a better way to fight than mass heavy infantry rush?
    • Because the Spartan military was never all that tactically inventive, focusing more on conditioning and discipline. It carried them well until people figured out tactics for taking on the traditional Greek phalanx without using another phalanx, at which point their entire training regimen became obsolete. Not coincidentally, that's also when Sparta stopped being militarily important.
    • "Badass, fearless warriors" does not really mean "military genius". For a demonstrative case of this in action, see Kamina.
    • Also, consult David Eddings' Tamuli. King Androl of Atan, one of the greatest warriors of a culture whose childhoods are usually spent in combat training and who can utterly depopulate regions if necessary...is about as clever as yeast.
    • Because sometimes the mow-them-down tactic just works.
    • Because the Spartans' reputation was about one third historical embellishment at the very least. Sparta's fame really came about as a result of the courageous stand at Thermopylae (which was pretty much their primary contribution to the entire war; the Athenians and others had a lot more to do with the success of the following campaign). They were neither invincible nor tactically innovative, and honestly, most Greek warfare was highly ritualized and formulaic because of how predictable the phalanx is. Greece was not a real warrior culture; its hoplite forces tended to be volunteers who had to provide their own gear. Battles were set pieces, their sites agreed-upon in advance, and with distressing frequency one force might just break and run soon after they took the field. The Spartans, having an insane mania for militarism because they needed to suppress their huge population of slaves, had probably one of the closest things to a professional military in the region. This hardly made them invincible; whenever the Spartans came up against any unconventional tactics they tended to lose spectacularly, most notably to the Thebans and their modified phalanx, which had a strengthened flank because one of their military geniuses had noticed a phalanx invariably leans to one side as each man is trying to take shelter behind his neighbor's shield.

  • Who let the dogs out?
    • That guy in the Halifax ads.
    • Pete Townshend, Roger Daltrey, John Entwistle and Keith Moon.
    • It was me. I'm sorry; I probably should have put their leashes on first.
    • That guy over there. He cried "Havoc!" first, though, so it's okay.
    • The World Health Organization (WHO) let the dogs out. You are absolutely correct.
      • That's what the dogs want you to think! They are all timelords that have run out their 13 Human form regenerations and now moved on to their 13 Dog form regenerations.
    • AHHHH!!!!!!

  • Since Japan puts so much emphasis on dignity that women aren't supposed to tell anyone if they are groped, does that mean I could go over there and assault someone in public and get away with it because it is "some else's problem"?
    • With a good amount of planning, sure. Just like any other crime. You'd just have to make sure no one else sees you. Oh, and do you look Asian, and can you speak Japanese well? If you can't pass for Japanese, you don't really have much of a chance.
    • Who said women aren't supposed to tell anyone? They are asked to, but nobody wants to because it is shameful. Same thing in the states, really... lots of groped women just don't report it.
    • Because stuff like that never never seen anything like that anywhere else.
  • What is up with the Maddox Doctrine? How did people get it into their heads that, given the option, it is preferable to be as rude and contemptuous as humanly possible? How is that a good thing? Unless you're going by some "attention is everything" mindset, which I don't subscribe to.
    • Because they think they're being "edgy". They're really just as annoying as any of the subcultures they make fun of.
    • Or, alternatively, because they're not thinking long-termly, either by theirs own or the Maddox Doctrine's fault. Picture a world where, given the option, everyone will be as rude and comtemptuous as humanly possible...
    • Or possible because being a pessimist is easy and can be funny.
    • Because, as soon as you join a clique the first thing you want to do is run around and spray paint on some shit. You've got your get out of jail free card. Some people take that opportunity of having a cause for the first time to be a tremendous douchebag for it.
    • Ditto the Mystery Method.
    • Maddox's earlier stuff was funny and made him popular. People, including him, mistook the popular element as being a jerkass and got lazy with the humour and content. Happens all the time.
    • And if you weren't such a muttonhead, you'd have realized it yourself.

  • Why are Japan and many other Asian countries so friggin sexist?
    • Probably an outgrowth of Confucianism's downplay of the individual in favor of the group.
      • Why was Confucianism so successful, then?
      • I think you just answered your own question - The group might be wrong, but the individual can't fight them all, unless he's Mike Haggar - and, even then, he better have Cody's help.
      • Because humans are social animals.
    • Well it's not like the big events in the history of everything happened everywhere around the world at the exact same time. That would be freaky. Cultures, even if you don't agree with them, are different because they have differing histories.
    • ...are you saying that countries outside Asia aren't sexist? Dude, if you honestly believe that, you're not paying attention. The levels of vileness vary, as do the ways in which it manifests, but there's sexism everywhere in the world.
      • True, but Japan imports FAR more culture to the United States and Europe than most, making cultural differences more apparent.
      • Aren't there two groups in the discussion?
      • Japan would export culture to the US and Europe, or import it from there. Sorry.
    • This troper wonders whether these countries once had their equivalent of feminism too, but it failed for some reason. Maybe because the feminists there/then refused to become mothers, removing themselves from the genepool that way?
      • You Fail Biology Forever. A social attitude is not passed through the blood. And a kickass Action Mom could have her children forcibly torn away from her. Way to blame the victimized, here...
      • You Fail Logic Forever. What the troper above you is saying is that if these proto-feminists did not have children, these people would be unable to instill a new generation with their own values. Sure you could say that these people might have been able to put themselves into situations that would allow them to teach the young, and that might have worked. But if the societies in question are as anti-women as implied, such teachings could have easily been shot down as propaganda.
      • You failed to notice that that troper used the term "gene pool." Expecting them to have been talking Biology rather than Sociology is a perfectly normal reaction.
    • Consider that until recently, marital rape was a contradiction in the United States. Also, American "feminism" has taken over academia and started talking about a primal matriarchy where there's plenty of sex available for everyone, in all possible combinations, sandwiched between the Neolithic Revolution and the advent of animal husbandry.

  • How do you tell the difference between a Chinese person and a Japanese person?
    • Chinese people speak Chinese, Japanese people speak Japanese.
    • How do you tell the difference between a French guy and a British guy? It's like that.
    • Ask their name. The languages have slight differences if you have a cursory knowledge of one of them.
    • A Japanese person once got quite mad at me for not being able to tell the difference between Japanese and Chinese by sight. As he was ranting at me about it, I asked him if he could tell if my ancestry was French or German. He stared at me blankly and declared that was completely irrelevant.
    • You're not the only one - I'm Australian, but due to Scottish parents, my accent is quite mangled. I once got into a "heated discussion" with someone when I mistook them for Chinese over Korean. Yet apparently mistaking me for English over Australian wasn't the same thing. Just grin and bear it.
      • I got ripped a new one for mistaking Dominicans and Puerto Ricans, but nobody thinks anything of mixing up Jamaicans with Haitians, Trinidadians, or even folks from Africa. So, I know what you mean.
    • Keep visiting this website until you get a perfect score.
      • This troper got a 7/18 score the first time. Supposedly, that's "Very bad."
      • This troper, being a Chinese, also got a "Very bad" score.
    • Most Japanese names have more than one syllable in their last names. Most Chinese names has only one syllable for their last names and compose of 5 or less letters. Similarly, Korean names also have one syllable in many of their last names, and share several with Chinese names; Vietnamese names have more of a French influence in their spelling.
      • A good rule is that Chinese names will usually have no more than three characters. Japanese names can have more syllables and characters.
    • Chinese people tend to have rounder faces.
      • Koreans have squarer faces and Japanese people have narrower faces. Japanese people tend to be paler. I don't mean it to be offensive. I have Chinese, Korean, and Japanese friends.
      • It bugs me that pointing out differences of phenotype in this way needs to be clarified that it's not intended to be offensive.
    • Someone speaking Chinese sounds like a tape being played backwards. Someone speaking Japanese sounds like he's trying to lift an extremely heavy weight.
    • Japan and China have had a history of being relatively isolationist and not entirely friendly with each other, that's why they don't like being mistaken for the other. If you pay enough attention, you'll eventually learn to tell the difference.
    • There's actually a kids rhyme that, along with the actions, has a non PC way of telling the difference between Japanese and Chineese. It was actually in the first episode of Extras At 4:50
    • This reminds me of watching MASH with my father. He can tell the difference and would make comments like: "Look, they have a Vietnamese actor playing a Korean! Stupid producers!" And the whole time I'm like: "How the hell can you tell?"
    • This Swedish troper can sometimes differentiate between Korean, Japanese, Chinese and Other. He does not know how he does it but it may be because he went to Kendo with Japanese, Korean and Chinese people. It's not fool-proof though. He was hit with shinai when he noted that there was a new Japanese guy in the class under him to his Japanese sensei. the guy was Korean.
    • For a touch of irony, American soldiers had this problem *hard* during some war or another. The solution? The american military published a pamphlet for their soldiers "How to Spot a Jap". It included many phenotypical assessments, some were accurate and others not. One I'm familiar with from this pamphlet that hasn't been mentioned is that due to the unique styles of geta and so on that the Japanese wear, they tend to have a wider space between their thumb toe and their index toe than a chinese person would have, by apparently enough of a margin as to be useful.
      • But that would be completely useless in a war, unless you honestly expect them to be fighing barefoot.
    • It's vaguely possible to tell a Korean who can speak Korean apart by asking them to pronounce the word 'perverted'. It will have an accent. Just be careful about context.

  • When did the letter "H" become a vowel? Why do people talk about "an historic event" or "an hysterical fit"? People who speak with accents that often involve "dropping" the H have a reason for using the "an" - an 'orse, an 'oliday - but even then, they didn't write it down. The only you need to put "an" in front of a word beginning with "H" is where it's silent - like "honor." Now there are newspapers referring to "an hilarious comedy." And more to the point - why does this incredibly minor quirk of language annoy me so much?
    • This is actually an older rule of English; a word starting with "H" is preceded by "an". It's obviously not used much nowadays, with the most common use, for some reason, being "an historical".
    • Blame the Norman conquerors, who came from a country where they almost never pronounce the letter "H". Thus, when they saw an article to be used when the word begins with a vowel, they started to use it, and the habit has never quite been shaken.
    • Our insane imageboard friends at 4chan even made a meme of this: "An Hero". The details are sad, so I won't go into them.
      • They laughed at a guys suicide because of a typo he made in the announce. Not that sad, just typical.
    • That's actually more to make fun of a typo from a certain page than anything to do with the H...
    • Dropping the "H" sound helps... Both sound right depending on how you pronounce the following, as with or without a vowel sound. Never heard of this "H" rule...
    • To answer your second point, you are obviously a Grammar Nazi - welcome to the club.
    • Yay, we have a club! Anyway, I only thought you used "an" when the h is silent (an hour), but used a when you pronounce it (a hero).
      • What about welsh people? Can they say An 'ero?
      • Cockney people would do exactly that.
    • More importantly, when did people start thinking the letter Y was a vowel?!
      • Y was a vowel in Old English. To be specific, a "close front rounded vowel", like ü in German. The IPA records it, naturally, as /y/.
      • When it started being pronounced like an I.
    • Even more importantly, when did W stop being a vowel?

  • Why are mobile phone ringtones so annoying?
    • Because if they were enjoyable to listen to, you'd listen to your ringtone instead of answering the phone.
    • I've actually had that problem before.
    • Because you only notice the annoying ones. All the people with their 'phone set to a bell ringing or whatever just fade into the periphery of your perception, all of the people that have adapted some artifact of popular culture into a ringtone through furious molestation immediately cause seething pain throughout your mind. Plus, people that do this tend to have retched taste in pop culture to begin with.
    • Because in the early days of cell phones, people didn't have a choice of ringtones—each phone just had a single ring. Which led to the common situation where someone's cell phone would ring, and everyone [[Main/ would have to check to see if it was their phone ringing.]] Having a wide variety of ringtones (and given a wide variety, some are inevitably annoying) is actually not as bad as what we used to have.
      • And that's come full circle, I've heard a story about a group of 6 girls sitting at a table in a library. one of their phones rang and each girl reached for their phone. the attendant asked why they did this and they responded that they all had the same song as their ringtone.
    • Or you could just set it to vibrate, even back then.
    • They can be quite good. This troper recently heard one playing what sounded like Warren Zevon's Werewolves of London. It was picked up before it could be tested whether it was in fact that song or a certain "All Summer Long" ripoff.

  • Why do mobile phones have cameras, but landlines do not normally have video cameras for the benefit of deaf people?
    • Those exist, but they just aren't very popular.
    • I have a video cell phone. I live in Japan, so give it another decade before they're common in the rest of the world. Also, deaf people can just email or SMS.
    • AT&T already tried that. Remember the slow-scan Picturephone in the 1960's? The digital, monochrome VideoPhone 2500 in the late 1980s? Both bombed spectacularly. Not to mention that no cellphone I've ever seen actually lets you to videoconference with their cameras, only allowing you to take snapshots and videos like you already can with a standalone camera. I've used PC-based VOIP videoconferencing since the 1980s though, and it may well completely supplant normal 'phones some day, especially with more cellphones running legitimate OSs capable of real internet VOIP. Also, the most common way deaf people use a telephone is with a special teletype machine and service called TDD, you've probably seen them at airports and such.
      • Zeerust, Video phones are well within our technology, and many people now video chat via computer. However, they never came into wide use the way science fiction expected because it turned out that nobody wanted to have to look presentable to answer the phone.

  • Why don't we have solar powered flying cars yet?
    • Big oil companies. Everyone knows they're holding back alternate energy and mass transit, but far less well publicized is the fact that Exxon has singlehandedly stymied the development of hovercars, jetpacks, teleporters, The Everyman Project, and mass enlightenment for all the Earth. They also underwrote Ballistic: Ecks Versus Sever, killed President Kennedy, cancelled Firefly, and ran over my dog.
    • Flying cars have been around since the 1950s, so have sub-$50,000 (today dollars) airplanes and helicopters. Why aren't you flying one? Oh, right, you do not have a pilot's license. Did you know that auto accidents are the leading cause of violent death since decades ago? Imagine if most of them could fly, and qualification was as easy as present-day driver's licenses. That is why there will never be flying cars.
    • There will never be a practical solar car. The amount of energy available per square meter is about 375 W/m^2. 1 HP = 746W. Therefore, in a nice, bright shiny day, with an inexistent 100% efficient panel and electric system, you get about 0.5 HP per square meter of solar panels on your car. That's why the ones you see are all so weird and flimsy. That amount of energy is not enough for any modern car. Just the radio and various lights would consume several times more than the available solar power. You can however have an electric car with a battery, and charge it with a house covered with solar panels.
    • Have you ever had your car break down on the side of the road? Unpleasant experience, yes. Now imagine it happening when you are 200 feet ABOVE the side of the road.
      • Autogyration/gliding to the rescue! Admittedly tricky, but that's why you got pilot training, right?
      • Autogyration only really works if you've got power to start with. There are a lot of failures like running out of gas that don't allow that. See : Gary Powers.
      • There are a number of light aircraft now equipped with rocket-deployed parachutes capable of supporting the entire aircraft.
    • How would you rule the traffic?
      • An outgrowth of this question, supposing for a moment that cities would have, as we see in films, layers of "lanes" stacked between tall buildings, imagine for a moment being in a car that has a breakdown or collision and must fall through every lane of traffic below, possibly colliding with one or more buildings on the way down. Yeah, I wanna go on that ride.

  • Why can ordinary cars travel at upwards of 250kph when the speed limit is 100kph at most?
    • To facilitate high speed chases.
    • In the USA, most cars are only designed for up to 120mph (~193.1kph), and highway speed limits typically run up to 70-80mph (~112.6-128.7kph), the remainder is intended for passing and emergency measures. Of course, much of Germany's famous Autobahn has no speed limit, so Porsche gets a free pass on this question.
      • If it's free of other cars. Doesn't happen that often.
      • Also, not all of the Autobahn is unrestricted. People intending to drive to Germany to take advantage of the lack of a speed limit are advised to make sure that the road is unrestricted first.
    • Speed limits are typically set for safety reasons in the US, but driving slower is also more fuel-efficient (as you go faster, your car has to push at the air harder to maintain its speed.) This is actually why most of the US highways got speed limits of 55 mph back in the day - they were set during a fuel shortage. On the other end of it, many Americans like knowing that their cars can go really fast, even if they'll never be able to use all that speed on public roads legally. A car that wasn't capable of exceeding 90 mph probably wouldn't sell very well even though that would hardly ever be a real practical limitation.
    • In Australia, there's roads in the outback that have no speed limit. Or so I've been told. But it was by a good teacher of mine so I believe the information to be reasonably reliable.
      • While it is true that there are roads in the outback with unlimited speed, the fact that kangaroos, wombats and even cattle have seen known to show up on the road WITHOUT WARNING which makes travelling at 160kph(100mph) a risky affair.
    • You lot are all complete wusses. UK motorway speed limit: 70mph. Inner lane travel speed: 100+mph. Everybody, including for the most part the government, knows and accepts this, and this is why your cars can go fast. Also, the speedometer says they're going 10% faster than they are, cause car manufacturers have a maximum error limit and they want you to feel like you're going very fast.

  • Why are American sitcoms like Everybody Loves Raymond so wildly popular?
    • Because Viewers Are Morons.
    • See also According to Jim. Better yet, don't.
    • Or maybe because people enjoy it? Is it really that hard to fathom?
    • In the case of that particular show? YES, IT IS.
    • I theorize that the audience of such pseudotainment don't have, or realize there are, alternatives...like the Internet, or cable/satellite, or video games, or music, or a hobby, or a book...
    • Or maybe they find it entertaining because they're not snotty little brats who want to seem smarter than everyone else?
    • There's nothing snotty here, shows like these have weak dialogue writing, recycled plot lines, Flanderized characters, and are a dime a dozen. The only real way to enjoy any show like "Raymond" is to just convince yourself that nothing better is on TV at the timeslot and never explore the alternatives.
      • Exactly. There's stuff like Frasier and Scrubs, which are much funnier and better written. So how the Hell did Raymond appear?
    • Scrubs is pretty badly written and fairly bogged down by it's aesops. Also it's a matter of perspective - Raymond is fairly relatable if you've ever lived a life like his, which much of the show's audience has. A doctor's problems are like an alien planet to nondoctors.
      • Scrubs was brilliant in it's earlier seasons, ELR remained mind-numbingly dull throughout.
    • Obviously, most people saw the title and decided they didn't want to face the derision of their peers.
    • Obviously you can't apprecate Frank Boyle's jokes. I pity you, you pathetic bastard.

  • On that subject, why is every single character in a given popular American sitcom incredibly beautiful? And why is every woman blonde and indistinguishable from the two other blandes on the show?

  • Why is this site so bloody addictive?
    • Because Evil Feels Good. Join us.
    • Because the entries are interesting, well written, informative, and hilarious.
    • Because it has all the satisfaction of fiction writing with none of the creativity.
    • Mangoes.
    • There's a nice little subculture here with its own language and mannerisms. Going to this site feels kind of like going to a foreign country and learning about their culture first hand. This is comparable to the massive membership of online groups like Anonymous. Furthermore, a wiki gives a sense of accomplishment. Going onto TV Tropes isn't the same as going to an online forum because you feel like you learn things here. In many cases you really do learn things, you can also pass on knowledge to others. The anonymity of the whole process adds to this too. There's a sense of community that you don't get with named contributors. There are occasional times when you can see who did a certain thing, but mostly it's just a bunch of regular people working towards a common goal. In short, the facade that the articles present are almost like the creations of a Utopian world...Did I just say that?
    • Because we rock.

  • One huge problem [with real life] is that the main character is not at all obvious. I woke up in the middle of the night, thinking that some significant plot event was about to happen to me. But then I realized that everyone else doesn't think I'm a main character, so all that happened was that I used the bathroom and got a drink of water before complaining about the lack of main character on this Wiki. There needs to be some concensus on who the main character of this is, so that we might better apply tropes to this.
    • It's a Government Procedural meets Ancient Conspiracy, and the main character is George Bush. You and I are Those Two Guys. Your older brother is a Mook.
    • You have it confused. I am the oldest brother. You might be thinking of my wife, who has an Evil Twin brother, and they were Separated At Birth. By the way, I'm completely serious about that.
    • I always assumed I was the main character, because as far as I can tell, the story is first person limited, and it never seems to leave my P.O.V. However, I have a twin and I grew a beard about a year ago which makes me likely to be Evil Twin, but then I realized that it's probably being parodied, especially since I recently moved into a Five Man Band apartment which matches perfectly, (and I even have a romantic past with The Chick). There are probably other shows I've crossed over with. Of course, now that I've come to this realization, I am dreadfully afraid that the show will be cancelled, or I'll be killed by a bus to make way for a more interesting main character.
    • No, actually, you're the POV character in a fanfic written by Zeus about how the main character's actions affect the average person.
    • Perhaps we are all the main characters of our own stories and reality is one giant Cross Over or Shared Universe (or a 'Verse, for that matter).
    • I seriously hope not. I have too much TV to watch as it is.
    • "All the world's a stage, and all the people merely actors. Unfortunately I feel I have been cast as an extra" - Paraphrased (Badly) from Discworld.
    • At least you know what you are. I never even got my copy of the script! I've just been ad-libbing this whole time...
    • Dude, we sent it on time. Mailman must have stolen it. I assure you it was good, though.
    • That's why no one else ever knows their lines!
    • Our characters are not Genre Savvy enough yet.
    • Who's writing some of this shit anyway? Hitler committing suicide? There's a copout if ever there was one. And have you heard some of the dialog Bush has?
    • We're in a fanfic.
    • It's post-modernism. It doesn't have to make sense.
    • The Main Character and his true allies/foes haven't been born yet. We're just the secondary POV characters in the backstory. Since the author's trying to be REAL exact with the story but is making it up as they go along, we're all around to gather all the knowledge and technology for the Main Characters to use and to act as selective breeding to ingrain all the traits the standard character archtypes have into their DNA. If that isn't your purpose, you're either NPC breeding stock or somehow necessary for some Time/Space travel related plot device.
    • Our show has Loads And Loads Of Characters, and is set in a Crapsack World (oh,yes it is). It has a rotating main cast, like in Doctor Who. Right now, the main characters are Dubya (The Scrappy), Gordon Brown, and whoever's in the news right now. We are all minor characters. And while Hitler might not be the best written of villains (he has a mustache for God's sake), the writer is getting better, no longer resorting to Deus Ex Machina (God popping out of the sky to make people do things or saving people), yet despite this improvement, people still complain (oh, why wasn't God there to help me? The writer got better, that's why.)
    • My script constantly breaks the fourth wall, but the audience seems to enjoy it.
    • I was a Deadpan Snarker Gentle Giant Chivalrous Pervert Smart One in our Five Man Band. Then I got BrotherChucked.
    • I'm pretty sure that I'm somehow relevant to the core story, due to my Superpowered Evil Side and the fact that Superpowerful Genetics seems to apply to my scholastic abilities, plus my Deadpan Snarker and Genre Savvy traits too...
    • I can only assume that we're an interconnected series of different shows. Oh, and since I'm a boy who goes to a girl's school, I'm pretty clearly in a Harem Comedy.
      • .......half of my wants to know how you got into that situation, half of me knows I'm better off not knowing, and half (made up by parts of each) wants to know how that's working out for you?
    • I can only assume I'm going to move past my Age Appropriate Angst and move into the territory of Action Girl, but at the moment I'm attempting to outrun the looming specter of depression coupled with a little Innocence Virgin On Stupidity. So can I be the Yaoi Fangirl in the background?
    • This troper actually has a strange friend (who is also a troper) who seems convinced that he is not the main charactrer in his life story. He's still trying to figure out who is.
      • This troper's life got much easier once he figured out he was only a background cast member throughout childhood, then upgraded to the Snarky Sidekick of his best friend during high school and has since spun-off into his own series with a brand new cast, Seinfeld dialogue and a lack of focus on plot development. The show might Jumpthe Shark when the writers try for an edgy dramedy in Hollywood mixed with a world-hopping Action Hero meta-arc.
    • This troper has a very poorly written story, assuming we aren't the MMO prequel to Second Life. Entire chapters are devoted to finding a webcomic in which [[WMG/Mario Bowser is turned into a girl]]. Maybe it's just that nobody wants to play any of the 10 billion bonus campaigns?
    • Probably the worst thing about Real Life is that it's so fraught with clichés and Dead Horse Tropes. At least Sick Sad World, Bolivian Army Ending, Status Quo Is God and Reality Is Unrealistic come to mind. And don't even get me started on the character tropes...
    • And are we supposed to be the characters, or the audience? And if we all are characters, who's the audience then?
      • And if we're the audience, what show are we watching?
    • This troper is convinced she's spent her life as a professional secondary character.
    • This troper always assumed that he was the nerdy guy who's futile attempts to get a girl friend provided comic relief to the angst built up by most the other characters. Then he moved out and got a girlfriend (and roughly the same time) and feels like he's got his own spin off. Unfortunately the spin off seems to be far more seinfieldian than the original and he's fairly certain it's going to be cancelled for low ratings despite the producer's desperate attempt to import several characters from the parent show next term.
    • This troper used to assume he was a professional extra, but now is under the impression that his life is a bad indy movie, probably an amerrican knockoff of french neo-realism, possibly headed for a downer ending with a sequel hook. Either that, or a post-apocalytic film still in the introduction.
      • This troper feels he too is an extra who has become popular in certain shows ranging from occasional guest star to recurring character. However poor characterisation results in plotholes and inconsistencies from one show to the next. In one show he's the plucky comic relief, the woobie/chew toy in another (of course that's subjective to which one I am). It looks like he has actually been upgraded to love interest but time will tell.
    • This troper got some major world-time recently! In a spin off of Real Life, titled Real Life: The Younger Years (Alternate Scrapped title, High School) I managed to win over some fans as the cloudcukledoodle badboy and got my own spinoff! That went sour when executive meddling turned my love interest into a lesbian and confused everyone (but it was lampshaded) and the series rating crashed. I was afraid of falling to obscurity but it appears the author's of some of my old friends' series appreciate me, I may be brought back the moral core of Real Lif E: High School: Goes to College.
    • This troper is convinced he's the personification of Honor Before Reason in his own story. He also wonders when his story is going to Grow The Beard.
    • We're in the world's biggest example of Spin Offspring, so the ensemble cast keeps changing.
    • Obviosuly because there is no main character. It's an MMORPG.
    • This troper is fully aware that he's, if anything, an Ensemble Darkhorse. He's a Big Eater, Cloud Cuckoolander,and Karma Houdini, with a little Crazy Awesome thrown in just because. Life is good.
    • This troper, being the driving force of her own plot, is the protagonist of her story until such time as Team Mom becomes The Apprentice.

  • Why can't I build a dirigible with my mind?
    • Who says you can't?
    • The mean man outside my window.
    • You aren't trying hard enough.
    • There's not enough material to work with. Try stitching other people's minds together instead.
    • They tried that. Didn't work.
    • You can't build a dirigible with your mind. You need a lot of steel and helium and stuff. Minds are just too squishy and don't hold in the helium good enough.
    • You can build a dirigible with your mind. Envision a dirigible. Turn it around, look inside, make sure it's accurate... and you're done.
    • You need these things called like... superpowers. Matter creation or some shit.

  • Why am I not fabulously attractive like all the other anime girls? You'd think that after years of selective breeding and evolution only pretty people would be left.
    • Oh but in fact, that HAS happened. This troper is convinced that if time-travel were possible, anyone travelling to the past would be horrified at how ugly (and SMELLY!) everyone would be. That, and the laws of physics, are probably why there are no tourists from the future hanging around.
    • Evolution and selective breeding doesn't take into account the ever-changing opinion on what "pretty" is; back in the middle ages, what we would consider obese was considered handsome, so it's impossible to accurately breed out what is considered "ugly", since that opinion may change and fall out of fashion during the breeding process.
    • Not to mention that all those not considered attractive tend to pair up with each other anyway, preserving their genes. And that attractiveness is only one factor in successfully mating, wealth, power and personality all effect it as well. Read This
      • As a proof, compare Giada De Laurentis (hottie) from Everyday Italian to her husband. Bit of a looks mismatch there.
    • You are also forgetting this◊
    • Standards of sex appeal vary substantially between genders. A handsome man is a barrel-chested, square-jawed, steel-sinewed titan; A beautiful woman is an hourglass-waisted, high-cheeked, curvy waif: The contradictory nature of these standards and combinatory nature of breeding ensure that if two sufficiently attractive people reproduce, their children will grow up to be completely hideous.
      • Except for testosterone and estradiol to fix that.
    • You say you're not attractive like "other anime girls". Are you saying you *are* an anime girl? Because, if so…
      • Cosplayer, hopefully NOT CD.
    • You'll find ugly people, like fat people, have been forced to develop these things- they're called personalities. Some of them are jolly. Some of them are snarky. Some of them are sweet and affectionate. And believe it or not, some pretty people see this and like it. I'd rather have the children of the future be hideously deformed but healthy, friendly and likeable, rather than big eyed, small nosed, Cheeky Mouth, and Generically Cute but with Trope-Perfect personalities.
      • Please. Only because beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder doesn't mean you don't like your other half to be good-looking, in his/her own way. And do not presume "beautiful" people doesn't have personalities. I know several "beautiful" persons with great, often nerdy, personalities.
    • You're there to appeal to a different sort of crowd. You're essentially the glasses girl of the picture.
    • On a related topic: Why can't i be unbelievably aweome like most anime guys?

  • What's the deal with the colour pink?
    • You know about the DEAL<?
    • The colour red seems more vivid to women than men
    • There's a colour pink now?
    • It's not pink! It's lightish red!
    • Some of the best things in life are pink.
    • Only real men wear pink.
      • Nah, some fictional ones do too.
    • Pink is more of a light/bright purplish red; In RGB, pinks have the Rs as the highest value with the Bs with the second highest value, eg ff00aa, b4568b.
    • Pink as a word originally came from the carnation flowers, which were commonly known as 'pinks', possibly from the Dutch pinck oogen, meaning 'small eyes' (hence pink -> small -> pinky finger), a phrase sometimes used to describe carnations. Because carnations are often pale red, the term 'pink-coloured' was used to describe objects of a similar hue, and this was eventually shortened to just 'pink'. Pink was originally considered a masculine colour, as a subcategory of red. After WWII, pink became associated with feminity, and also eventually with homosexuality as a result of the pink triangle, so the formerly feminine blue replaced pink as the boy's colour to give us our current blue for boys and pink for girls/male homosexuals. That's the deal with pink.
    • Why do people insist on smothering little girls in it? Talk about smothering their identities.
    • I understand she's still in the music business and film industry. She definitely dropped off my radar, though to be fair, she was never far on.

  • Who did put the bomp in the bomp-she-bomp-she-bomp?
    • Same guy who wrote The Book of Love.
      • This guy also put the 'ram' in the ram-a-lam-a-ding-dong
      • How many gigs does it have, then?
      • He also made my baby come back to me. Real nice guy.

  • Where have all the good men gone?
    • Long time passing?
    • And where are all the gods?
    • Where's the street-wise Hercules to fight the rising odds?
    • Gay bars.
    • Married.
    • And we're working on the whole "gay marriage" thing so that all the good men will be both married AND in gay bars. Take That, everyone who isn't a gay man!
    • Dead.
    • Not my fault! Er, I mean... terrible thing, that.
    • Just not that into you.
    • Stolen by aliens. Mars needs men.
    • "Good" is relative.
    • They're being ignored by women who want jerks.
    • My address is...
    • They all have boyfriends. Or husbands.
    • Into Hershey's Good Men and Cream! A mouthful of good men in every bite!
      • That's probably the gayest candy bar ever.
      • Only if it's a guy eating it.
      • Perhaps, but the nuts are great.
      • And it's super-packed with fudge!
    • Well, right now by my clock most of them are at home, asleep in bed. About as many of them will be getting laid as the bad ones are.
    • The more honest question you ask even if it makes you sound shallow is; Where have all the good handsome men with large disposable incomes gone?
    • Pissed off because of feminism.
    • We're around here somewhere. Rare. But defenetly existent.
    • The same place as the cowboys.
    • But I'm right here. Along with all the other men reading and adding to this. We're all wonderful. You're all wonderful. What are you waiting for, huh?
    • We're all here. As in, incidentally, not out and looking.

  • How much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?
    • According to the Monkey Island games, the correct response here is 'Oh, shut up.'
      • False. The correct response is "A woodchuck would chuck no amount of wood since a woodchuck can't chuck wood." ("Oh, shut up" is the sixth iteration.)
      • But that's an invalid response. The question specifically refers to the condition of the woodchuck being able to chuck wood ("if a woodchuck could chuck wood"). Anyway, I've always accepted the answer as "five," because Red Mage seems to know what he's talking about.
      • Yes, but see, you're assuming that the woodchuck is aware of this ability. Hence, my belief is that since the woodchuck would be unaware of its wood-chucking skillz, the proper answer is "None, because no woodchuck would chuck wood just because a woodchuck would chuck wood. After all, why should it chuck wood just because it could chuck woodchuck wood?"
    • What the heck is a woodchuck?
    • A largish-cat-sized rodent that lives in burrows, also known as a groundhog of the "see his shadow, six more weeks of winter" sort. Which is dumb all on its own, since the (astronomical) first day of spring is always six weeks after Feb. 2, but hey.
    • And have you noticed that whatever the groundhog sees on Feb. 2, predicts that we'll see the opposite weather for the next six weeks? Incidentally, since the "first day of spring" is actually the day on which the light from the Sun shines equally on both halves of the earth, which would seem to be right in the middle of the winter-to-summer transition - seriously, wouldn't you expect the weather to be similar on both sides of a solstice? - there's a case to be made for spring actually starting not that long after Feb. 2.
    • Not to mention that there are several cities claiming their groundhog is THE groundhog, usually with conflicting predictions.
    • A woodchuck would chuck as much wood as a woodchuck could chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood!
      • No, it's "A woodchuck would chuck all the wood he could chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood." It was the only tongue-twister I could recite, I know.
    • The real question is "how much wood would a woodchuck chuck if it knew it wasn't getting paid?"
    • How much Norris would a Chuck Norris chuck if a Chuck Norris could chuck Norris?
      • Chuck Norris doesn't chuck wood. The wood flies away itself, in mortal fear.
    • How many boards could the Mongols hoard if the Mongol Hordes got bored?
    • 42.
    • According to official scientific study (as cited in Uncle John's Bathroom Readers) the answer is 700 pounds. Or possibly feet.
    • 1/4 cord of cork for every quart of quarters accorded. You'd be better off hiring a human. The real question is what a woodchuck would do with all the quarters. You don't see many woodchucks eating out of vending machines.
    • How many nuns could a nunchuck chuck if a nunchuck could chuck nuns?
    • How much chuck would a woodchuck wood if a chuckwood would chuck wood?
    • If a woodchuck could chuck wood a woodchuck would chuck one chunk of wood.

  • Why is it that most nudists are people you don't want to see naked?
    • Most of the population in general are people you don't want to see naked.
    • Okay, then why are people in general so ugly?
      • Your standards.
    • Then what's the point of strip clubs?
      • Quality control.
      • Why would you go to a restaurant if what you had at home in the bottom of the freezer tasted just as good? Never mind that it's swimming in grease, expensive and likely to give you some exotic disease like fugu.
      • Errr... Fugu is a type of blowfish. It might poison you if the chef's not careful, but it's not going to give you a disease. Plus, you're probably not going to be preparing it at home. (Though you can buy dried fugu as a snack in Japan).
      • "Not going to give you a disease"? Death is pretty bad for your health.
      • Poison is not a disease.
    • Getting back to the naked thing. Think of how confusing/horrifying it would be if you and all the other students in your high school were naked. Sounds awesome, until you realize that the teachers and faculty are also naked. And how crippingly embarrasing it would be to get an erection/period with everyone watching. What if someone starts getting friendly with his manhood in the middle of class? AGGGGHHHHH!!! Brain Bleach!
      • Speaking of erections, why are they forbidden on nude beaches if it's all about "body acceptance"? This troper's girlfriend took him to a nude beach once, and you could easily interpret many of the rules supposedly to make women more comfortable as just a matter of titillation. Men have to cover up their erections even though an erection is usually just a reflex. Your party must have one female for every male "to prevent rape". And what's with the ones with shaved pubic hair, if it's not about sex?

  • Why do I hate myself for doing things but do them anyway? Honestly, there's no logic there.
    • The only possible answer is that you're stupid. Or insane. Or both. That's an attractive little package you got going on there.
    • Ok, that's it... Default Answer!
    • Because if you hated someone else for the things you do, then you'd be an idiot. Of course, if you hate yourself for things other people do, then you need help. Whisky or vodka?
      • Most of the things I've hated myself for doing were done after drinking whisky or vodka...
    • You hate yourself for doing things that make you hate yourself. Simple, no?

  • Why don't more people have mustaches like Tycho Brahe?
    • Because in the time it would take to grow one, their bladders would explode from holding it in too long.
      • This actually happened to Tycho Brahe.
    • And what the hell has my bladder to do with my undernose hair?
    • Because not many people have artificial noses made from some mixture of precious metals? Really!
      • And, by extension, because not many people get into random sword fights with people who question their astronomical predictions?
    • Because mustaches look weird on women

  • Who'd win in a fight, Hillary or Barack?
    • Armed or unarmed?
    • He'd haul her up to the corner of Know Your Role Blvd. and Jabroni Drive and check her candy ass into the Smackdown Hotel, If You SMELLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL! What BARACK! ... Is cookin'.
    • Neither. Their fight would start a chain reaction that would eventually involve all Republicans and Democrats, who would gleefully wipe each other out until only one man was left. . .
    • But Mr. Rogers is already dead!
    • ....Or is he?
    • Actually, the WWE just did this one on Monday... turns out that the answer is Umaga.
    • Personally, I think Hillary would fight dirty and Barack would be a crazy-determined Boy Scout in the Clark Kent vein. But John McCain would win in the end, because they'd end up making out anyway and giving up.
    • They wouldn't. They're BFF.
    • Barak.

  • Why are sports and relationships all anyone ever talks about outside of the internet? Seriously, people will just not shut up about these two things. Why?
    • Maybe you should make some new friends? Friends who are interested in feminism and paintings and herbal tea and glue sniffing and embroidery and bee keeping? Conversely, why are anime and American politics all everyone talks about ON the internet?
    • Actually, people on the internet talk more about the internet. And porn.
    • Weird. I almost never say a word about sports or my relationship, and actually I'm the one nerds call "a nerd"(gotta take note of this!) — i.e., relationship is very low on my list — , and I still can maintain conversation with people. Am I doing magic, so?
    • This troper, being a fairly recent initiate into middle age, finds that he and has friends now talk incessantly about 401(k)s, home ownership, and health issues. (And while he appears to have been plopped into an Everyone Is Single plot, apparently other people his age also talk incessantly about their children.) Believe me, "sports and relationships" are a lot better than what people could be talking about.
    • Those are presently the socially-acceptable things to be Geeky about.
    • This troper hangs out with people who generally don't talk about those things. In any case, this troper talks about politics, tropes, games, music, game design, and various other things that don't include sports. As for relationships, he hasn't had one yet sadly, but he does occasionally talk about them. However, he enjoys defying expectations, and he isn't interested in a very stereotypical relationship anyway.
    • Because they're the only things we don't talk about on the internet?

  • What the hell is up with scientists spoiling the ending for everyone before the damn thing is broadcast? I mean, seriously, we have spoiler tags for a reason. Stupid, lab-coated assholes.
    • Like... what?!
    • Hey! It's not our fault the author foreshadowed it so obviously! We thought everybody knew!
      • Why the scientists?

  • As I asked before The Great Crash, who do I blame for my Character Derailment from The Smart Guy into a Shinji Ikari clone?
    • Hideaki Anno.
    • You too? In my case, it's because since I left high school, I haven't seen my old Five Man Band as much, thus my role as the smart guy is no longer as clearly delineated, thus I am forced into the role of Unlucky Everydude.
    • Yourself! Don't be looking for scapegoats! You Suck!

  • Tabletop RPGs require only paper, writing tools, dice, and printing. We've had those for centuries, so why didn't anybody think of it until the 1970s?
    • Gygax did not die, he just went home.
    • A bunch of reasons, at least a few of which are explained in the original version of Castle Falkenstein that boil down to: 'proper' people did not use dice for anything. Another is that Gygax was simply the first one to look at the 'classic solids' and extrapolate from the fact that since one of them was a cube, why couldn't he put numbers on the others to generate random numbers?
    • They did exist as probably the oldest tabletop game ever: Miniature tabletop wargaming. Used before the dawn of written history by strategists as a tool to conduct and analyze actual wars or at military academies to groom officers on effective tactics, such passtimes were strongly discouraged amongst the common plebs for fear of uprisings (these bans often extended to chess, [[Main/ I Am Not Making This Up]].) As for why all the Warrior Poet classes around the world that spent all their free time playing these kinds of games and writing ballads never thought to combine them, that's a mystery for the ages.
    • For all we know, they may have done. A roman glass d20 went on sale at Christies in 2003, so we know they played SOME form of dice-based game...
    • Well, considering most [=RPGs=] take place in a pseudo-medieval setting, it would have been a coachman's holiday. Also they were busy trying to gather enough food to make it through the winter and not get killed by dinosaurs while doing so.
    • Because a lot of the stuff Dungeons & Dragons has was inspired by LOTR and since LOTR didn't exist at the time, the concepts didn't either.
    • Actually, it's been going on for centuries.
      • Can't believe it took this long to post this.

  • A little explanation for this one: a few years ago, I found members of a forum for a popular indie internet radio talk show whine about how a super-secret assignment the show's host gave them failed for some reason or another; it was so uber-secret, that only the show's host could explain what it entailed. When I talked with him about it, he said the assignment's real goal was to weed out fans who could keep a secret, in order to join some hidden group of his, and that I was just jealous because I missed the memo (and thus couldn't participate), something that his group never does. Now, I won't go into any further detail about this incident, even though several things about it that would need explaining bugs me, but that one accusation of his sticks in my mind: how in the hell can he say that no one in his group could miss a post? As much as the internet is a fountain of information, that same information can easily be lost; forum and group posts have a shelf life of a month or so, if that, before they're abandoned and shoved to the bottom of the pile (which is why people bitch when someone remakes a post that was on there previously; they tell you to use the search function, but more often than not the search function on any group or forum is nigh-useless unless you know exactly what you want to find and where to find itt), most free email accounts have a limited amount of inbox space and a limited amount of time mail can be stored there before it's automatically deleted, and it's impossible to rig it so that you're notified for every new reply to every post in the existence of a group. Both myself and my mate are members of several such communities and moderators for a few of them, and even we miss out on a few things. So what makes him think that his group has achieved the internet Holy Grail of total and complete data retention and distribution?
    • Easy. Anyone who misses a post isn't in the group any more. Therefore, the group is composed only of people who haven't missed a post yet. It's all about definitions.

  • How do new species happen? By definition, members of a species can only produce fertile offspring with others of the same species, so how is the barrier jumped? At some point, wouldn't you need a fertile offspring with a different number of chromosomes from its parents?
    • There's no single drop dead point for species, a creature will be a different species from it's Xgreat ancestor, it's child will be a different species from the firsts X-1great ancestor and so on. (note that this comes from a decidedly non-expert).
      • Still doesn't answer the chromosome-count question. (Yes, I'm using three asterisks.)
      • The concept of a species is just our invention. There's no point where one suddenly turns into another. Say, rats get into a ship and sail to another continent. They reproduce there for many generations adapting to the new conditions and predators. Maybe at the new place it's advantageous for the rats to be bigger. So over time the bigger rats will survive better, and the average size of the species will grow. Perhaps they'll get large enough to not be able to breed with their ancestors. This won't happen immediately. First maybe 10% will be too large. Then it'll be 20% and so on. At some point you'll have little rats on one continent and big rats on the other. If conditions stay stable, then the rats will mostly stay the same (ie, not growing or shrinking anymore because they're now well suited to their area) and those of not ideal sizes will die out.
      • Right, right. And the number-of-chromosomes issue? (On another note, how long until some humans become incapable of breeding with each other? If that'll ever happen barring deliberate genome alteration.)
      • Mutations can cause chromosomes to split apart and join together. However, as long they retain reasonable sequence homology, they are still capable of undergoing homologous recombination with those of mates in early zygotes. For example, at some point in the past, Homo chromosomes 12 and 13 fused. This mutation first arose ine some members of the genus, but when they mated with members who had not undergone the split, the fusion chromosome paired up with both 12 and 13; this fusion could be treated as two chromosomes for pairing purposes due to close homology to the separate chromosomes. As time goes on, the fusion became more common, until Homo sapiens completely switched from 48 to 46 pairs of chomosomes.
      • We have 23 pairs of chromosomes — 46 chromosomes in total. (Except for gametes, of course.)
    • The number of chromosomes isn't a hard and fast issue. Vertebrates tend to be relatively staid on the subject, but it isn't uncommon in the insects for an individual of a species to have many, many, many times the number of chromosomes as another member of the same species, and still be interfertile. Even in mammals, it isn't a hard and fast barrier. Przewalski's horse (66 chromosomes) can interbreed with domestic horses (64 chromosomes) and produce fertile offspring (65 chromosomes). Generally speaking, the more genetically unlike two animals are, the less chance to interbreed they have. So, "same species yes/no" isn't really an accurate picture of the situation.
    • Here's a post from Pharyngula from a few years ago about how changes in chromosome number happen.

  • Where does that one sock go in the dryer?
    • The Red Hot Chili Peppers stole it.
    • Outside the drum - I heard of a guy who opened one up
    • There is a Planet of Socks somewhere in the universe. That or the other sock in every pair is made of water-soluble material to increase the sales of socks worldwide.
    • This troper prefers to think of it not as one sock disappearing, but a sock spontaneously forming due to the interaction of a spin cycle and vacuum energy.
    • It's all a lie: you lose the socks in the washing machine, not the dryer. Dryer is innocent!
    • Narnia
      • Hey! Give me back my sock, ya goat bastard!
    • There is one species of gremlin specialized in stealing "those one socks". They even wear gas masks to avoid the hazard of the bad smell of feet...

  • Why do people insist on believing that all their problems will be solved if they're rich? Unless your problem is that your game's frame-rate isn't high enough.
    • Why, because these problems usually include having to work your ass off to get along, being bored out of your mind with having the same experiences every day, paying for that dental surgery that's not covered by the insurance and other fun stuff.
    • Your FPS aren't high enough? All the time!? Man, you need to see an optometrist.
    • Because while money can't buy happiness, when you're poor you can't buy ANYTHING.
    • Aside from the chronic illness, on the whole my problems would be solved, or at least easily solvable, if I were rich. The flaw in this reasoning would only arise if I didn't realize other problems would replace them.
    • "Money can't buy you happiness, but it can buy you a yacht big enough to pull up right alongside it". People with lots of money are (generally speaking) found to be much happier than average folks, simply because they DO have fewer problems. You can afford medical care when you get sick, don't have to worry about paying rent, your children can attend school anywhere, and food is plentiful.
    • It may not be able to buy you happiness but have you ever frowned on a Wave Runner?
    • Most likely because a lot of torubles can be linked to financial issues.
    • Life stays as difficult or gets harder no matter how much you try to make it easier, like trying to hold water in your hands.

  • Why does this page even exist? Why is it so long? And why am I adding to it?
    • Because TV Tropes Wiki is a virus. The more you read, the more it gains control over you.
      • Virii gain control when you read them? I am switching out of my genetics course.

  • Why didn't Growing the beard have any effect on me?
    • Maybe the writers were just trying to mislead the audience into thinking you'd be better than before without actually putting any effort in it.
      • Less effort, actually.
    • Because there are somethings women really shouldn't wear.

  • How many roads must a man walk down before you can call him a man?
    • Seven!
      • It's a rhetorical question!
      • Okay... eight!
    • At least three: the road to physical maturity, the road to college, and the road to a successful career. The road to marriage is completely optional.
    • Forty-two.
      • Wrong! That's the answer to "How many years can some people exist, before they're allowed to be free?"
    • According to Life (The Game), 5. College (optional), Career, Marriage, House, and Retirement.
      • If college is optional, then it's 4...
    • As many as it takes for him to become a man. Note that Becoming "The Guy" is NOT a substitute for becoming a man. Also note that becoming "The Man" does not count for becoming a man. Usually, a male human being will have to go through puberty (physical maturation) and social maturation before he can properly be considered a man. Usually.
    • None. He's a man before he starts off. Otherwise, he can't be a man who walks down roads, he's just ass. roadwalker. Which is, as we all know, is just a lazy version of a skywalker.
    • Why would a man walk down roads? Wouldn't he have a car?
    • None. Real men ride ostriches.

  • Why are guns edited out of anime in America where guns are up there with Jesus and apple pie, but are okay in Japan where gun control is a lot stricter?
    • So the dubbing companies can watch Western fans complain about how "prudish" their country is online.
      • Because cartoons are aimed at different, younger audiences here.
    • Ah, an ANSWERABLE QUESTION! The choirs of angels are singing. The glory of heaven be raised! Ahem, guns are very difficult to get in Japan, so difficult that even the Olympic shooting team have been denied permits. Shows aimed at children in Japan can thus have guns because they are as exotic as laser beams. Not so...In America!.
      • In other words, there's no chance of Japanese children emulating what they see on television, so less risk of showing it.
      • A ha ha ha ha ha, you said "aimed", and you even followed that with "at children". Sorry, I just had to point out the viciously bad pun.
    • In a related question, why do the Japanese STILL put several-pixel-wide censorship thingies over the very tips of characters' naughty bits in violently explicit hentai?
      • The biggest Running Gag ever.
      • Because they can't show the whole thing. So they do the barest minimum required. Or use Naughty Tentacles instead of guys.
    • Beacuse Children Are Innocent.
      • Wait, children are watching hentai?
      • Japan must have some bitchin' cable channels, then.

  • What would happen if a woman took Viagra?
    • Wasn't Viagra developed as a circulatory pill first, but they changed the focus when a certain side effect manifested? I would think it would just help those with heart problems.
      • Actually, a recent study suggests it has... beneficial effects similiar to those found in men in women as well. i.e. increased possibility of achieving the elusive female orgasm.
      • It's elusive?!
      • No, but the above troper couldn't find it.
      • All This Hypnotist needs to do is say "Good girl."
      • *surreptitiously hands you a Made Of Win*
      • Actually, now we've even moved beyond the Trigger Phrase—she just cums automatically whenever I order her. I love having a partner who shares my kinks.

  • If a person dies with contact lens on, or with braces, or with a cast on, do they take the contact lens/braces/cast off when they're buried?
    • They strip you naked, redress you and stitch your eyelids shut, so they'd definitely take the cast off, and likely the contact lenses as well. Not sure about the braces though.
      • Er... stitch your eyelids??
      • Yup, the above troper speaks the truth. Could you imagine leaning over to say goodbye to your dearly departed loved one, only to see them staring...staring back at you...with those accusatory eyes.
      • But doesn't everyone just close the eyelids of the deceased, like on TV?
      • Why would they need to sew the eyelids shut when cyanoacrylate would work just as well? It's not like it's going to cause any significant pollution, when you're already putting a corpse full of formaldehyde into the ground.

  • Why do songs with literally impossible song titles even exist? Like songs such as "Heart of Glass" by Blondie.
    • Rule Of Cool.
      • There's also these things called "figures of speech"
      • What? That's ridiculous! You can't have a figure made out of speech: all the bits of speech would just met away before you can get half of it done!
    • I imagine a heart could be made of glass, but it would be of more use as a model than as an actual pump.
    • That's a good point. Let's see what other ones we can find.

  • Why is Gratuitous French seen as cultured but Gratuitous Japanese seen as geeky and stupid? There seems to be some racism in that, like it's okay to speak another "white" language, but speaking an Asian language makes you a wannabe "wapanese/weeaboo".
    • Gratuitous French isn't cultured. It makes you an annoying snob who's trying to affect being French or European as though it were a particularly good thing to be rather than merely a culture that got a bit better at oppressing other cultures faster than the other cultures got good at oppressing it.
    • Because at one time in the past, French-speaking people successfully invaded and conquered the entire English-speaking world (back in 1066). These Normans then used their superior skill at stabbing people in the face to establish themselves as the rich, powerful, impressive people in England. Therefore, for hundreds of years French was the language of choice for rich, powerful, impressive people in England. Even though the English later developed a lot of hostility towards France, that impression stuck. If the Japanese had somehow managed to invade and conquer England instead of the French, it would probably be the other way around.
    • Because French is associated with Casanova types, while Japanese is associated with disgusting Otaku and irritating fangirls? These stereotypes only exist in the fandom community anyway, its not like actual japanese people are being attacked.
      • Well, the attitude still reeks of Unfortunate Implications to me. I saw a stamp on Deviant ART that basically said "You're not Japanese, stop talking like that". While I can understand the annoyance with fangirls, I wonder if the person who made that has ever said "C'est la vie" in his/her life. What if I said "You're not French, stop talking like that"?
      • "It was "Shut up you're not Japanese." Said stamp features what's pretty obviously supposed to be an annoying fangirl. You know, the kind that throw in the Gratuitous Japanese phrases constantly.
      • Not a good comparison. "C'est la vie" is a French phrase that has successfully become part of the English language. AFAIK, the only Japanese phrase to do that is "Sayonara." It doesn't help that the majority of Gratuitous Japanese speakers ARE annoying fanboys and fangirls who only care about anime and japanese video games and not actual Japanese culture and language.
      • Precisely. It's not rascism, it's just that more French phrases have entered the American lexicon than Japanese ones. Whether that is a result of racism is anyone's guess.
      • Well, it shouldn't matter. I feel either all use of foreign language in conversation should be considered appropriate, or none should. And I myself do actually care about Japanese culture, and I do wish I were actually fluent. But for now, can I please not be reprimanded for using the words that I do know?
      • Just as long as it's not DESU DESU DESU KAWAII< =^-^= otherwise you deserve all the reprimanding you get. Oh, and crying racism when there is none is far more annoying than any Gratuitous Japanese speaker.
      • Okay, fine. But I thought of something else: Why is it when Westerners use Gratuitous Japanese, people get annoyed, but when the Japanese use Gratuitous English, people find it just plain amusing?
      • Because it's funny.
      • The real question is whether Japanese people have loosely flipped perspectives of the two practices. In other words, you're amused by culturally Narm-y behavior externally but annoyed by it internally, since the latter implicitly links you to the lack of education/culture/whatever. ("You" being used in a generic sense here.)
      • Also, I'm not going to cry racism, but I'm going to say that when it comes to gratuitously using foreign words, either all of it's okay or none of it is. That's my position and I'm sticking to it.
      • Then it falls hard into Narm, poor grasp of language has been used for jokes for years.
      • Americans don't have to learn a foreign language for people to take them seriously but the Japanese do.
      • Americans messing up foreign languages can still be used for jokes. (See My Hovercraft Is Full Of Eels or A Fish Called Wanda.) It's just harder to make immediately apparent to an English-speaking audience because, well, it's an English-speaking audience.
      • It's because French as a language is more related to English and the other Western languages. The French are "of ours", while the Japanese are of "the others". (For Westerners, of course.) So, imitating these strangers is seen as a sign of lack of pride of your culture (in a broad sense), while admiring other Western cultures is a part of being one of us...
    • I think Gratuitous Japanese bothers people in the same way that faking an English accent or attempting to speak in a "ghetto" way do. It comes across as affecting origins that one does not actually possess, rather than simply being knowledgeable about the culture. Beyond that, it's seen as a compromise of the culture in question when the use is based largely on the culture's representation in media; I'd guess that there aren't currently many non-native speakers who use Gratuitous Japanese but have interest in the language that predates interest in video games, anime, etc. Most French phrases aren't viewed that way because, as mentioned, French has already somewhat been integrated into English-speaking culture as a result of history. (Not sure if I'm expressing my thoughts in an understandable way.)
    • The Otakus started out as an amiable character group but got flanderized. Slowly they've been taking every Japanese Speaking character down with them.
    • It probably has more to do with the fact that the important French contributions to American culture are much older than the important Japanese contributions. Essentially, being a Sartre or Rimbaud fanboy is thought of as being intellectual, but an anime fanboy isn't. If in a hundred years people still care about anime, I'm sure it will be just fine to randomly drop into Japanese.
    • In Canada, Gratuitous French is commonplace. It's understandable, because depending on where you are, it's mandatory for a length of time; this troper had to take French for seven years, and he took it for one extra one because the alternative was a First Nations language he wasn't interested in. On the other hand, in my experience, Gratuitous Japanese is really rare, and actually tends to impress people even if you're totally screwing up because they don't know. And it sounds cool. The Internet is a totally different story, of course.

  • Why do little boys think Girls Have Cooties? Seriously, why? Are they just born thinking that, or do they learn it from cartoons? But then again, the fact that people put that trope in cartoons means that the creators themselves thought it, so where did they get that from? I can't watch Cartoon Network anymore because they really have an "anti-love" attitude. Thankfully, Nickelodeon does the exact opposite, but anyway, back to my point. Just why? Can anyone who was actually a little boy shed some light on the subject?
    • I think we're born with it. When I was a little boy we didn't need Recess to tell us about cooties (heck, it hadn't even been made yet!). Boys vs Girls is just something that's part of childhood. But we all grow out of it, at least I hope everyone does...
      • No, the names just change. When you're little they're called cooties. When you get older they're called STDs.
    • My guess is it's rooted in the fact that, since boys and girls think and act differently, and people tend to fear or be disturbed by that kind of weirdness, some vague idea of contagiousness was introduced and it mutated the way rumors do into the concept of a pseudo-disease.
      • Cooties are head lice. There was a time when bathing was fairly uncommon and people with long hair were much more likely to have lice, which could spread to other people in close proximity. Nowadays, there are a handful of adults who encourage the behavior because they think it's cute, and from there children propagate it themselves.
    • Because girls do have cooties, darn it.
    • Because historically, the young children that other young children tend to see the most often are their own blood siblings. Thus there are very good evolutionary reasons for the existence of a psychological mechanism that prevent the two sexes from getting too close to one another (emotionally or physically) until such time as they are mature enough to be capable of seeking a mate outside the family group. If they formed a close relationship while children, they might be close (in the biblical sense) as adolescents, which is obviously not desirable. Of course, modern children spend far more time around non-relatives than their ancestors did, but the psychological mechanism doesn’t discriminate. Incidentally, cooties are a culture-specific reflection of this mechanism. I can only speak for England, but no young children ever talk about cooties here - it's usually girls/boys are smelly/yucky for no well-defined reason.
    • It's totally an US cultural thing. Here, it's an unknow behavior, leading to total incomprehension of US cartoons and this "cootie" thing (leading translator to adapt the plot, because we don't even have a word for "cootie".)

  • Who is John Galt?
    • And why won't he stop talking?
      • Because the author wanted. Seems she loves to hear him (or herself) talking.
    • John Galt is the voice actor who gave the voice to Lo Wang in Shadow Warrior and to Enisi in Prey.

  • Want anything from the store?
    • Cornetto.
    • Dude. Waffles. WAFFLES.
      • And some of those Raspberry tarts from the Bakery section.
    • How does going to the store "Just Bug You"? My lack of comprehension angers and INFURIATES me!
      • No; what bugs me is not knowing if anyone wants anything I don't have on the list.
      • Dude, it was a futurama reference, made with a friendly smile. That said, were waffles procured?
      • ...Yeah, I got your stupid waffles, where do you want them?
    • I'll have several plums and a can of spinach, but it seems I'm late.
    • Oh, can you get some of those little corn things?
    • World peace. I think they stock them next to deodorant.
    • An XBox 360. Because then I can get Eternal Sonata without feeling like I'm shelling out a few hundred just for one game.
    • A gold-plated spaceship that travels through time at light speed! Every store I go to always seems to be out.
    • Ahh, could you pick up that Tsubaki MK-III I ordered? Thanks, bro!

  • Why isn't marsupial birth more common?

  • Why is Hirohito considered a Karma Houdini? Wasn't Hideki Tojo The Man Behind The Man? I thought it was mostly his fault. What made Hirohito so bad?
    • Cause he's a figurehead. Just like people say all this bullshit with the US Gov right now is all Dubya's fault, even though he's just a figurehead. That's essentially what figureheads are, a poster boy and a scapegoat if necessary.
    • Because he wasn't just a figurehead, but actually the head of the government. He was the only one that both the army and the navy reported to, and they required his approval for all their actions. At the end, his subordinates (such as the aforementioned Tojo) sacrificed themselves to keep him from being tried for his actions in World War Two. McArthur went along with this so that he could use the emperor as a propaganda device during the occupation of Japan. But before losing World War Two, Hirohito was the actual head of the government, responsible for its actions.
    • Are you entirely sure of that? I did a good deal of research a while back on postwar Japan and when I get home I know I've got a book "Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan" that I can check, but I'm pretty sure that he was still a figurehead. The Meiji restoration gave the emperor some power back, but it didn't last from what I can tell.
      • Actually, "Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan" is where I learned this from. It's got pretty much every argument I could make.
      • It may not be as simple as saying Hirohito was responsible for all military actions. I think it's Richard Storry who writes (about the Kwantung Army) that even if Hirohito had directly ordered them to stop their meddling in Manchuria they may very well have ignored him, stating that he was under the influence of corrupt or "evil" politicians. Another example of this is the 1936 army mutiny and the works of philosophers like Kita Ikki. Kind of a combination of being outwardly idealistic and altruistic (claiming they're acting in the Emperor's best long-term interest) and inwardly pragmatic and more self-serving (never intended to back down at all).
    • From what little this troper knows, trying to kill the Japanese Emperor would've made Japan explode, either metaphorically or literally, so they kinda needed him to unify the nation post-WWII.

  • Why does it seem that the more certified a person is, the stupider and less efficient they become? Nearly every idea brought about by Executive Meddling is an outright horrible one. I thought higher education was supposed to feed your brain, not sap it away.
    • "In the beginner's mind, there are many possibilities; in the expert's, there are only a few."—Shunryu Suzuki
    • "Nearly every idea brought about by Executive Meddling is an outright horrible one"? I suggest reading Protection From Editors to learn what can and does happen when editorial control is removed. Yes, executives have often meddled in things which they should have not meddled, but meddling also improves things; we simply don't hear about it because people doing their jobs correctly is not as interesting as when everything goes balls up.
    • When Executive Meddling brings about a good idea, you don't notice.
    • Lookit author/star meddling. When someone famous fires their editors or becomes the show's producer, little fun is to be had.
    • Because college professors are liberals.

  • Your sister's hot, can I have her phone number?
    • Only if I can get your mother's.
    • ...Annnnnd then they broke out the wiffle canes.
    • I have a sister?
    • Tristan, if you try that again, I'm gonna kill you!
    • Ask that to the police when my little lovely underage sister will tell 'em that a guy asked for her number...
    • "Hot"? Poor kid looks like me!
    • 590-711-SCAM. Yes, it's real, why do you ask?
    • I don't think you want to do that she is already engaded to a soldier.
      • My two single sisters are crazy.
    • I am a hot, single sister. And this is my phone number: (818)301-6845.
    • NO. ... Actually, I don't have a sister. But somebody had to do that.
      • Whats wrong with the pool of suitors on TV Tropes? From what i've read the people here are generally intelligent and funny, good personalities etc. Id like to see someone get responses like this on something like 4chan.
    • Sure thing, only If I can date your cousin though.
    • Of course, but it'll cost you two huskies, 100 dollars, the latest albums of Anthrax, Van Halen, and Dream Theater, a herd of goats, and your finest Thunder Bull.

  • Why do so many writers not do the research? Especially when said research would take like two seconds on google/wikipedia. Seriously, wtf?
    • *cough*
    • Wikipedia isn't always correct and I'd trust google even less. What's more, decent research usually takes more than a few seconds...The fact is, writers don't do research because even in our enlightened age such things take time (and they're much too lazy to do it) or they simply don't realise that they have to (you know like how people mistake "wherefore" to mean "where"?).
      • I understand complicated stuff, like that grammar thing. But come on, wikipedia isn't that inaccurate. In fact, it's relatively accurate for most applications that one would need, especially for writing.
      • Even then, often enough people don't do research on a topic because they falsely believe they know everything about it. With that mindset, something as accurate as Wikipedia could be seen as false.
      • Hey, forget Wikipedia or Google. According to Snopes.com, nearly every modern Urban Legend is found via e-mail, and who's going to stop them from lying?
    • Off course, there may be cases where people don't think any research needs to be done, in the case of Urban Legends, the writer might mistake it for a real event and accept dodgy physics at face value.
    • Because they believe the 'wrong' thing and want it to be right. I'm reminded of so many stories I've read where Famous Politician Bob is accused of doing something horrible and or stupid. A couple minutes of Google Fu (and I suck at Google Fu) proves without a doubt Bob did not do that thing. Ironically, it proves Bob did OTHER horribly stupid things. Example: Demonizing Ted Kennedy for say, ignoring poaching in his hometown and punching a hooker...when all you have to do is mention 'drove off a bridge'.

  • Why do some people write the number seven as a backwards 'F'?
    • So it can't be confused with a one (1).
      • This troper misread your line at first as "So it can't be confused with one [as in an Fuck
      • Which also brings up the reason why 1 has those stupid serifs: to keep people from mixing it with an l, or a |.
    • And also because these people think it looks better, one would imagine.
    • The same reason some people put a line through the middle of their "zeds."
      • I cross a 7, but not a Z. I don't know what a Z could be confused with.
      • The number 2. And mathematicians have notoriously terrible handwriting.
      • I don't know about you, but most of my Zs look like the number 3...I don't cross them however (though I probably should).
      • A crossed Z in Polish is an alternative way of writing the Z with a dot over, which represents the sound usually rendered phonetically as "zh".
    • My theory is that there is some archaic reason for the additional crossed line. Maybe it was to be fancy, maybe it has roots in other alphabets and letters.
    • I started putting a stroke through 7s after my family thought I was cheating while scoring a game (confusion between seriffed 1 and 7), but since then I've started to write 1s as just a single stroke. Due to my weird handwriting, my 7s now look like backwards 6s.
    • I started doing it to be different, but now I've started seeing it written like that everywhere, and I'm considering changing back. Also, I've heard that style of writing it referred to as "European Style."
      • Here in U Kvia, we refer to them as "Continental" sevens or zeds.
    • I cross my Zs and put tails on my Ts when doing math, but not when writing actual words.

  • Why is Alaska the most awesome state in the whole US? I mean its huge, has polar bears, and everything?

  • Does the world really care about Mexico at all?
    • The countries below it in Central and South America do. Their political refugees end up in Mexico (which is usually more welcoming) more often than in the U.S.
      • But not the rest of the world, Take that Mexico!
      • I care about Mexico and I'm not in any way North or South American.
      • Why?
      • Because their food kicks ass.
      • However, they haven't amounted to anything else in the world, so who needs them?
      • Well evidently, America does. Or did you not notice that Mexican immigrant doing the odd job that no-one else wants to do?
    • Hell yeah, Mexican food kicks ass!
    • They care for Mexico more than for America, that's sure. I mean... not counting the 'they're gonna kill us all' part.
      • No they don't. America is always on the news. Mexico is never on the news. Mexico is barely a blip on many people's radar. Ironically, it's America that cares about Mexico the most since it has the most problems with Mexico. Everyone consumes American culture and enjoys it, but very few consume Mexican culture other than its (yes, very awesome) food. I'm tired of certain people here pushing their anti-American agenda and pretending that's the case for everyone in the world when it clearly isn't.
      • Ehm... I'm not anti-American, is just that I did live in other countries. You see, in Italy, France and German they do talk about Mexico, even if not so much 'cause, well... it's not their country. They, actually, do talk about America for things like the war or, y'know... the new President- things that you HAVE to know, since, well, who rules America can save or destroy the world. And, of course, 'cause in the war they have people.
    • Not yet, because everything is going acc'ording to the plan :D

  • What's with ethnic groups in the United States anyway? Why does it even bother to even think about diversity in the U.S. when there's too much prejudice there. Does the world even give a care about any of this?
    • What, about diversity in general or diversity in the US? Possible immigrants tend to care about whether they'll be accepted in countries they move to and so those traveling to America would care. What's more, many European countries make as much a fuss about being culturally diverse as America does (perhaps to reach out to immigrant workers in a decreasing population).

  • Why did Soundgarden make the scary Black Hole Sun music video?
    • Because he felt like it.
    • The Black Hole Sun video is not scary. You people have weak stomachs, I say!
    • What's scary? There's a bit of squick, but it's mostly narm. This troper feels that a better question would be "Whay did Soundgarden attach such a messed-up video to such a decent song? Do they hate people who actually liked the song?"
    • It was an homage to David Lynch.

  • Why do You Suck so bad?
    • I learned from the worst, you.
    • Because you decide we do.
    • You Suck!

  • Why do I stay up late browsing this wiki when I could be out enjoying the real world, improving myself, or attempting to build a lasting relationship with another human being, or... ooh! Monkeys<
    • Meh, all those other things are over rated. Alternatively, You Suck.

  • Why is Paris the greatest city on Earth? And why is France better than the United States?
    • Paris works so well as a city based mostly on aesthetics - it just looks cooler and often more cultured than most cities (which I find intriguing because often if you look closer, it has many of the same problems as other cities like litter and poverty but you just don't notice it). Also, I have a theory that the French language might actually make people smarter. When you think about it, these are people who have to say "four-twenties-and-eleven" just to say "ninety-one" (obviously, there are languages worse than French in this respect but I'm comparing it to English) so perhaps that's a part of why the French in themselves are better (and end up making their capital look better)...That all goes without mentioning its grand history, which one can run into at every other corner.
    • France is not better than the United States.
      • Sure it isn't...
      • Correct. It isn't.
      • Except it sort of is.
      • It's better at some things, and worse at others, and which country you think is "better" overall depends on which of those things you care about.
      • We can all agree that France is better than Canada.
      • But Canada is where the moose are! France just has cheese-producing livestock, nowhere as cool.

    • There are english speaking countries better than America
      • Like what? Canada? lol
      • Well there's Britain...
      • Britain, Canada, and Australia are built on being cool.
      • The United States is built on being cool. And how can Australia be built on cool when it started out as a place where Britain sent its convicts?
      • You just answered your own question.
      • How about we agree that all English-speaking countries are cool....except New Zealand. Damn sheepfuckers.
      • The question was about France, not the other English-speaking countries.
      • France is a very awesome country, The United States sucks at being a country. Since when is the United States cool when its so bad its horrible?
      • You're the type that plays Marvel vs. Capcom to beat up on Captain America, aren't you? :p The USA is an awesome country. Just because Dubya sucks doesn't mean the US as a country sucks. And he's out in November January.
      • We should be nice. After all, most countries have a relatively recent successful war, decently functioning budget, or other positive feature to fall back on. France only has their dillusions... and their new, more Bush like government, as their previous one sucked on the "getting anyone to work" front.
  • Paris's charm, architecture, and culture are a force not to be messed with, no American city can beat that. Heck there's a movie that proves this called Moulin Rouge
    • Paris only has American cities beat when it comes to history. But San Francisco, New Orleans, and Manhattan are just a few American cities that have much more charm, architecture, and culture than Paris.
      • Australia is the best country in the world anyway.
      • Australia sucks.
      • Any country that isn't run by Mugabe, Vladimir Putin, Ahmadinejad, Hugo Chavez, or Kim Jong Il is a cool country.
      • Australia>Canada>Japan>France>Great Britain>USA>Sweden>Italy>Ireland>Norway>Holland>Germany>New Zealand>Germany
      • I find it hard to call Australia the best country when they ban some movies and video games for being "too violent." That's just not cool.
      • Please America isn't cool, for one, racism is one reason the United States sucks
      • Britain is worse with racism then America. They even have a problem with red-headed people. Redheads? What have they ever done? And yet they are the victim of serious hate crimes. So I guess by your logic, Britain isn't cool?
      • The redhead thing is grossly exaggerated btw and if there is a problem with racism (worse with it as you would say) it is perhaps due to a significantly less diverse population. And again, it is grossly exaggerated.
    • Because Paris is Paris. While I wouldn't say that is the best city on the world, I can tell you that is for... something. It isn't just 'cause is a beautiful place: everywhere you can find somebody who plays an instrument (not only beggars, but people with some C Ds), and... I can't really tell you why is a nice place. It's just something that you feel.
      • instruments are irrelevant to the question
      • Actually, they are. It's different go around by the Tube with just the sound of people who sneeze than with the music of a talented violinist. Music adds something at the city, like do the lights of Las Vegas' casino or... whatever. Anyway, it's not just that: it's the atmosphere. You have to go there for understand.
    • France would be an awesome country if it wasn't for the French
    • The French and The Americans have this huge dick-waving contest with one another because neither can accept that the other is occupied by anything but snobbish, self-righteous, ignorant and intolerant people who can't accept the other one. The French say that the Americans are intolerant of homosexuals (What, no gay marriage?) and the Americans say that the French are intolerant of religion (Those cult laws...). Both countries naturally claim to have a superior history of Democracy. Americans say that the French can't fight wars and the French say that Americans are (basically) war sluts. For two countries that have literally always been allies, they really don't like each other.
    • All this talk about the French are like this, and the Americans are like that... it's a total crock. French people and American people get along great when they're together, swapping favorite drinks, foods, and telling stories. I know, I've served multiple tours with the French military. The French and Americans that "don't get along" are the French and Americans that refuse to interact due to preconcieved notions of "how they are." I've been in and out of France dozens of times, I've never been treated worse than I would be anywhere else. Your average French or American person would generally just be interested to meet someone from another country, and not start slinging "Yank" or "Frog" slurs.

  • From the above, why is New Zealand so unpopular? We have the fourth best living standard on the planet. And alpine parrots smart enough to rob cars. And the world's only remaining living dinosaur. And cheap beer. Join us.
    • How does one go about measuring a country's living standard?
    • You have criminal parrots, most countries only have to worry about human criminals.
    • Your primary exports are nightclub bouncers and that Border Security show. The concept of two-lane bridges seems to be an affront to most of your engineers. Your beer sucks. And the number of crosses on the roadside is frankly nightmarish for a country with less than 5 million people.

  • Why are people so overprotective of their home countries? Why do Americans have this retarded prejudice against the French? Why can't people spell "delusions"?
    • Because it's easy to interpret bashing of one's own country as a personal insult. I've been trying to figure that out for years, with only a number of vague ideas: differences in cultural perception, the long-held idea that french-speakers are snobbish (possibly because it's been a popular language with snobbish Americans for over a century), their less-than-enthusiastic attitude towards the Iraq War (hooray for Irony?), and the like. And I'm not sure on the last part.

  • Why is there someone in the Kitchen with Dina?

  • How do I shot web?

  • Why do so many websites require compulsory registrations in order to access something? It's incredibly annoying and even if I do register(if for some reason bugmenot.com does not have a valid login and password) I'll just use my spam account(or a throw-away email from the already mentioned bugmenot) and completely fake data. So what's the point?
    • Flow rate control?

  • What kind of sick bastard would give certain speech impediments names that those with said speech impediment cannot pronounce? Lisp, studder, rhotacism...
    • Acceptable Targets
    • The terms are providing an inbuilt test for those who may have the condition being named. This is entirely practical, and it's surprising that there aren't more names for conditions that have such a feature.
  • It's likewise deeply screwed up that dyslexia and dyspraxia are both so hard to spell.

  • I cannot even begin to understand the above question, so I introduce my own less confusing one: Why are so many writers convinced that their writings form part of the third Holy Testament, and if anyone doesn't like them it's because they "don't get it" or "prefer books that don't make you think that hard"? What's wrong with simply saying "Hey, these are my books. I'm not perfect, but I hope you enjoy them. If not, that's cool. Just try something else."
    • Ego. No more no less, some people just think really highly of themselves. Heck, there are plenty of fanboys who insist that X is what you said, and use similar arguments to their favor, and they didn't even make the series/fiction.

  • Why do so many anime fans wish they were Japanese? You don't see American Doctor Who fans wishing they were British or British fans of American TV wishing they were American. Or Hong Kong cinema fanatics wishing they were from Hong Kong. What is it about anime that attracts those with an inferiority complex?
    • Er, well, I certainly wish I was English sometimes, and a whole lot of Japanese schoolgirls sure seem to wish they were American...
    • Which is especially funny since the Japanese tend to look down on foreigners as they see them as "dirty gaijin", not to mention women are more or less second-class citizens. Also they have the highest suicide rate and an increasing crime rate. But hey, as long as they make totally awesome anime, EH?!
      • Oh, cumon. Say a country and everyone will tell you thousand good why for not live there. If we really had to look for those things, then would be a question why people do go out of their own house.
    • From what I've witnessed, anime fans who want to be Japanese don't actually want to be Japanese or even have anything to do with the actual country, their desires focused more on the image of Japan and Japanese culture presented in anime. This is a probable explanation of the lack of other fans of international media wanting to be British/American/whatever, as while the image presented is often far from accurate, it is generally less appealing.
    • Faux Japanese Society, AKA the stuff in the manga, has its good points. Bonds of loyalty, mostly. Someone promises to be your best bud/help you out/kill demons with you, you can count on this happening as surely as you can count on the sun coming up. And if the sun doesn't come up, they'll share their blanket with you. As for wanting to be English; they are stoic in the face of danger, very Spock like, have cool castles and awesome accents. Who wouldn't want to live in a post-card perfect London town that has all of modern amenities? Compared to a strip mall across the street from Lego Apartments...urgh.
    • Sure that there aren't fans of US TV shows who'd like to immigrate to America?
      • Agreed. Moving to the UK to see Doctor Who when it's actually broadcast has great appeal.

  • I was going to complain about the surprising shortage of Manic Pixie Dream Girls, but I guess the length of this page kinda explains it. Life wears everyone down.

  • How come there are so few cities with good zombie plans? We need those. Robot plans, by the way, aren't needed. If they revolt, we're screwed anyway.
    • My city has doomsday sirens, and that's about it. Personally, my house has windows that are way too high for zombies to hop into. Unfortunately, a living room wall is a giant glass window with sliding glass doors. I figure there's a giant couch in the way, so I just need to slide the rest of it over to blockade the room. In terms of weapons and defense, I've got a couple of show swords (slightly sharpened), meat cleavers, and sports equipment. Others may think I've thought this out too much, but I figure that if I'm prepared for a Zombie Apocalypse, I'm prepared for anything.
    • In my country, everyone already has high walls (complete with fences and broken glass at the top), owns at the very least, a large knife, and keeps enough food to feed a small army at home. Richer people (like my family, which is somewhere in the lower-upper-middle-upper-middle-middle class) will also have access/ownership of at least one rifle and several handguns. Chalk it up to paranoia and a terrible crime rate I guess, but that's how we are.
      • Just out of cuiriosity what country is that?
    • Much of Florida is built low and squat with few entrances, because of yanno, hurricanes. We're pretty much set to resist zombies, except for yanno, the heat and no food or water.
    • I have security blinds, matches and a good supply of tinned food. Screw the rest of the country.

  • Is there some sort of Government Conspiracy to make certain articles on The Other Wiki nigh unreadable? This troper managed to makes his way through calculus with a reasonable level of understanding and that's apparently not enough to have an inkling of what's being suggested by the formulas that are shown in place of an explanation for what the fuck the article is about.
    • A lot of the articles on technical subjects (like math and physics) are being written by people who really know this stuff. In other words, the math articles get written by mathematicians. Mathematicians often have very strange ideas about what goes into a good explanation. They spend an enormous amount of time and energy coming up with very fundamental and 'deep' description of mathematical concepts. So when they look at the Wikipedia article on calculus, they feel compelled to add some bit of explanation that requires two or three years of theoretical math study to understand. Keep that going long enough, and the good explanations that make sense to people who just use calculus without worrying about how it works on the abstract level disappear. All that's left is the cross-talk of the mathematicians, who speak a language almost nobody else can understand.
    • I know, man! Sometimes all I want to do is check the sounds of a language, and they throw IPA at me. So fine, I go to find out what the IPA symbols mean, and I have to wade through "nonvoiced bilabial fricatives" or something like that.

  • Why does Wil Wheaton Exist? And why does he hate his role as Wesley Crusher if he sucks at being human?
    • Answers: 1)Well, when a man and a woman love each other very much... 2)Kinda begging the question, there.
      • Does anyone here hate Wil Wheaton?
      • Apparently, some do.
      • If you hate Wil Wheaton because of Wesley Crusher, I suggest you read his blog at TV Squad. He's written some pretty funny tongue-in-cheek synopses of TNG episodes, albeit only the ones partway through the first season. And actually read the entries before you decide whether you hate him or just his most (in)famous character.

  • Seriously, why is there no TV Tropes entry for Real Life Comics? It's one of the biggest webcomics, quantity-wise, references a ton of tropes, has the weirdest definition of a fourth wall this troper has ever seen...Heck, The Other Wiki even has an article on it, and you know how they are on notability.
    • There is no entry because you're too lazy to make one.
    • Dan, if you want that concerned about the popularity of your comic that your scrounging around wikis advertising it...

  • Why do people find my name so difficult to pronounce? It's made up of two common syllables, it's pronounced phonetically, and there are no accents on it or anything. Yet I've met I think three people, possibly more who have been totally unable to pronounce it correctly. Two of them had reasonably heavy foreign accents, but I don't know what the third one's excuse was. Also, I've met someone who could, theoretically, pronounce it correctly, but for some reason kept on using a wrong pronounciation, irrespective of how many times I corrected him. I eventually gave up trying to set him straight.
    • This troper has the same problem, and would like to add the question of why people only begin to pronounce her name correctly when someone comes along with a name that is close to hers, but not the same, and even in that case sometimes still mispronounces her name, even though it is much more obvious that her name would be pronounced the way they are pronouncing the other person's name.
    • Rfeojijmln? Is that you?
  • Does anyone else have problems with people spelling their names? I always have either one or both my names spelt wrong. Yes, Rachael is less common than Rachel, but not completely unthinkable. As for Eyre- it's part of one of the most famous titles in literature! Why can no one spell it or pronounce it properly? ARGH!
    • My name is one letter off from someone internationally famous. Even when the difference is pointed out, people still cock it up.
    • Probably because it's pronounced phonetically. Apparently, English-speakers find that difficult. (And I am one!)
    • My name is common(in fact, one of the commonest female names in America) and uses the conventional spelling(in fact, I don't think I've ever seen it in a variant spelling) but people still manage to mangle it.

  • Who?
  • What?
  • When?
  • Where?
  • Why?
  • How?
  • Why is "how" last, when one would typically explain the "how" after the "what" and /or "wher," but leave the "why" for last, if it's not after a "because" at the start of the explanation?
    • This troper has always heard it said as: "Who, what, where, when, how, why?" For those of you who are wondering, it's the basic rule of journalism.

  • Why do so many novels these days make so blatantly obvious who the main character is going to hook up with? I WANNA GUESS, DAMMIT! Practically every book I've read in the last year that was published recently conspicuously mentions the guy/girl ON THE FLAP. That's right, I already know before I've even read the first page....
    • In a related manner, why do so many movies give away the whole plot in the trailer?
    • Don't read the flap. No, seriously. Books are so much more fun that way.
      • What if someone wants to read a fantasy and end up reading some teen pregnancy book? Not saying it's happened to me, but usually reading the flaps or reading the back of the book at least gives you a general idea of what you're going to read, just so you're not stuck with something of a completely different genre.
    • Covers Always Spoil?

  • Why do we drive in a parkway and park in a driveway?

  • Why does Sally sell seashells by the seashore?

  • Why do cold temperatures make it easier for humans to get sick?
    • Temperature on its own has only a very minor effect, and it becomes quickly positive. Winter months, however, do associate with the influenza season, largely because it involves a lot of people that'd normally be out in well-ventilated areas like the Real World instead being cooped up in closer contact with other germy humans.
    • You're not going to catch a cold by going out in cold weather. Hypothermia, maybe.
      • No, but the cold does weaken your immune system by forcing your body to regulate energy to keeping you warm. Combine that with you above...
    • Cold temperatures don't make it easier for people to get sick (except indirectly). They just make people show similar symptoms to illness.

  • Why is the term "shitfaced" used in a positive manner to refer to getting drunk by stupid ** college students? It's just...the Unfortunate Implications give a bad visual...
    • Speaking as a college student who only drinks in moderation, I've only heard it used as a derogatory term for such stupid college students who do go out drinking just to get as drunk as possible.
    • "Hammered" and "wasted" sound equally unpleasant.

  • Why do men grow moustaches? It can't be laziness, since they'd need to trim them and still shave the rest of their faces. Do they really think they look good?
    • Sometimes it helps.
    • It's much easier to give it an occasional trim than to shave it regularly. Also, they make us look more authoritative.
      • Don't some police forces still pay officers more if they grow a moustache?
    • Also, a surprising amount of them might just look like girls otherwise....
      • Shaving is HARD.
      • And beauty standards are highly variable from person to person, from culture to culture, and from generation to generation.
    • Some people look odd without any facial hair, or with a beard. So yeah, for looks most of the time.
    • Moustaches ROCK. And goatees.
    • You drag a sharp blade across your upper lip every morning for a few years.
    • The Brigadier (yes, that one) and [[StarWars Lando Calrissian.
    • Sometimes their jobs require shaving the rest of the face but allow mustaches. Thus I had a mustache (but no beard) when working for Publix.

  • When did the alphabet for air, void your throat to memorize a bagel and got a Christian about Welsh people? You can't prove a negative number is only still used by theirs own theories are not Genre Savvy enough for any negative number is an inch. Why do so it's probably have a cursory knowledge and technology and many aspects of the signs that mention some that varied significantly through furious molestation immediately cause seething pain throughout history, masses of nearly unarmed people reproduce, their mind. The prisoner's dilemma is unlucky enough material to tell the writer is a foot, a Christian, became an atheist, and the habit has an Evil Is Sexy thing. Religion is the third act as selective breeding doesn't take into account that everyone else doesn't think Wait a live and also know what you This can only jog but it uses semantic It makes empirical claims, but only if the hare was originally a single step towards world produced mathematical models of 8 degrees to be a tremendous douchebag Is there are newspapers referring to another system from Joan Of course, much a kilogram is? If every antelope who does or doesn't exist but they save energy and mass enlightenment for an individual. No such + Zeerust, Video phones some day, especially with more cellphones running legitimate O Ss capable of appreciating nature, science and culture Asian religions are usually have no speed limit, so much emphasis on the side of the non-existence of breeding ensure that no cellphone I've ever comparing all of them and semantic It makes the heart of a measurement of the motions of the nice, sensible ones. Dude, if ever there two groups of soldiers comparable Give the Imperial measurements have more personal experience with angry atheists are assholes. And if we're the second- complex personalities, why hormones gone wild and given a house covered with it because it has helped put an in a fanfic?
  • Dude, because I read this whole paragraph and lost at least 30%of my functioning brain cells. And Chicken. That's why.
    • True Art Is Incomprehensible.
    • It's like a stream of consciousness novel written by Bjork. With an introduction by Tori Amos...
    • It took me awhile to realize this was a joke. If I wanted to destroy my brain cells, I would've watched The Hills, thanks. XP
    • That's some serious word salad...
    • Is it bad that my first thought on finishing that paragraph was "needs better punctuation?"

  • Why is there a place off the Florida Keys called Kokomo?
    • Because they like Cocoa mo than anybody else.
    • Because "New York" was taken.
    • Because that's where you wanna go to get away from it all. Same as Aruba, Jamaica, Bermuda, Bahama, Key Largo, and Montego!
    • Because they liked the Missouri radio station KOKO. It's fairly popular.

  • About goldfish. Even though they are called "goldfish", they aren't really gold colored are they? Things like that make me sick.
    • I think I've seen at least one that did look gold...I suppose calling them that just makes them easier to sell. A lot of languages just call them "redfish", though.
    • In China, where goldfish were domesticated, only the imperial family could keep golden fish. So, the fish that were bred and kept by commoners were more orangey.
    • Did you hear about the goldfish who went bankrupt? Now he's a bronzefish. >_>
    • I keep forgetting that there are goldfish that aren't gold. They usually go by "fish," "carp," or "squicky bubbleheads," depending on the type (incidentally, a group of non-gold goldfish can be troubling.)
    • Better check yourself into a hospital, then, because language has a lot of that.

  • Why is the Moon a harsh mistress?
    • Because if you tick her off she will invent the Colony Drop. And test it on your head.
    • Because she keeps the seas under control, and has no vacations and that makes cranky.
    • Because Sokka ended with Suki, so if she can't be happy, nobody will.
    • Because she's a gigantic mass of rocks with a temperature variation of 400 degrees and no atmosphere. Who apparently has a vagina.
    • Because she's into world domination?
    • She's no moon... she's a space station!

  • Why is David Bowie such an awesome person?

  • Why do I go to the Tear Jerker pages when i know it will just make me tear up? especially when I'm listening to Jessie's song from Toy Story 2?
    • ...y'know, wanting to cry isn't a bad thing.
      • I never understood that. 'Good cry'? What? Women are confusing (I'm a dude).
      • Okay, I'll explain it in words you can understand. Crying is like emotional masturbation.
      • So instead of:
    "fapfapfap...fafafafafap*[icky sounds] I feel better*"
    • it's:
    "sobsobsob...wahahahahah*[hugz teim] I feel better*"?
    • Yup, pretty much.

  • What's with all the aborted arcs, promised character development which became character derailment and flanderization of me and my life? I really feel like i'm just simply "that guy" that ranges from background character to recurring character in other people's stories. If I don't get some good character development soon I run the risk of just becoming Gil from The Simpsons!
    • Make your own stories.

  • If the world does end on September 9th then that means this wait for Heroes season 3 would of been for nothing!
    • To be more serious, the Ad at the top of the page is for a DVD that tries to prove Jesus Christ never existed, which is kind of a worrying thought.
    • Hey, how do you think this troper feels? She's been waiting for the 4th season of Mork And Mindy to come out on DVD for what feels like forever, even if it's only been a year since the 3rd season came out. (And no, she doesn't care if Mearth was The Scrappy and the whole show Jumped The Shark because of him... she just wants to see cute young Robin.)
    • Pssst! I'm posting this on September 23, 2008 and the world's still here!
      • To quote Rorschach-in-disguise: "Are you sure?"

  • Do androids dream of electric sheep?
    • Oh, I know this one!
    • Yes, ([[Hitchhiker'sGuideToTheGalaxy Marvin]] and at least one from The Dark Side of the Sun dream of electric sheep, so the pluralization is correct.
    • No. They dream of enslaving humanity.

  • How come, like, 85% of all animals capable of freakin' killing you all live in Australia? Seriously. It's like evolution got too busy making Australia's animals so badass by the time she looked at the clock she realized she'd been neglecting the other continents. Why exactly is Australia evolution's bitch?
    • Think of a whole ecosystem confined in an island — huge, but still an island, distant from every other non aquatic ecossystem in the planet — and maybe there's an answer: the animals don't have where to run if attacked, so they attack back! But what also bugs me is how that means Australia's evolutions "bitch"...
      • There's tons of islands out there that aren't filled with animals that can kill you. Also, Africa is nearly as bad, and it's not even an island at all.
      • "Australia: Where the spiders are so big they have lifebars!"
      • God created Australia to train the faithful.
    • My answer? If most of Australia had a pleasant climate, I'd imagine most of those things would be extinct or at least threatened, because humans would want to live in more of it.
    • It's there to stand as a counter-argument to intelligent design. There aren't enough drugs in the world to get a creator high enough to create Australia's denizens.
      • Of course not. God used them all when creating Australia.
    • A better question is why with so many native animals able to kill you did the Australians invent more like dropbears.
    • Remember how most of Australia's original inhabitants were British convicts? Yeah, a deadly cotinent and a bucnh of convicts.
    • Australia: Tomb of Horrors for the non-RPG gamer.

  • Why aren't deserts more thoroughly inhabited? I understand in the old days, but now that we have plumbing and such, why not? All the deforestation is already done for us, it seems like the perfect place for humanity to build and thrive.
    • Dude, water. It's life on Arrakis, you know.
    • It's too far from the shops.
    • Americans have already perfected this. That explains Los Angeles, Phoenix, and Las Vegas. The only drawback is the constant droughts that get worse over time.
    • Because you still have to build and maintain the plumbing system.

  • Why do people bash celebrities for their slight imperfections despite the fact that they look better than most non-celebs, and almost always better looking than the basher? Are they just self conscious, and celeberites make for Acceptable Targets?
    • Envy. Really, I wish these kinds of questions answerable with one word didn't show up here...

  • Okay, this might take a while, and it's another one for the biologists. I've been looking at people's index fingers for a while, and I've noticed that if the person has tiny hairs growing on all their fingers, EXCEPT the part of the index finger that's below the part of the index finger that has the fingernail at the end. I want to know why it is that there's often no hair on that part.
    • Because if we did, we'd be like Spider-Man

  • Why are there lots of people named Michael but no one named Metatron? They're both archangels. Who decides which biblical names are usable?
    • Because after about 1985, Metatron was just too close and reminded people of an evil giant robot.
    • Besides, Michael is a real name. Metatron is just a little too...angelic. In fact, isn't Metatron where we get the prefix meta? Anyway, it's the difference between naming your kid Joseph/Mary, and naming your kid Jesus (I think the hispanic name has other originals and very little to do with Christianity, though I could be wrong), or naming him Moses, or Judas. Some Biblical names are jumped all over, some are avoided like the plague.
      • Michael and Metatron sounds like a story about A Boy And His Robot.
      • Actually, Moses is a fairly common name in parts of Africa.
      • Wait, who would name their kid Judas?
      • I would. I would then teach him loyalty and the fact that friends are more precious than money. He would venture out into the wide-open sandbox of our world, curbstom reason and redeem his name, which was given to him by a dumbass father.
      • Given that Spanish derives directly from Latin, and that the Latin form (Jesus/Iesus/Iesu/etc.) comes directly from, in reverse chronological order, Greek (Iesu) and Hebrew (Yeshu/Yeshua), it's safe to conclude that "Jésus" is indeed another form of the Nazarene's name. My question (for which The Other Wiki doesn't have an answer) is why Hispanic cultures are the only ones for centuries who've kept it in circulation for baby naming.
      • Mexicans do use the name Jesus, why we shouldn't? He wasn't probably the only one with that name in his country/village/whatever unless God decided to for originality, and just because someone because famous doesn't mean his/her name has to stop being used from now on.
      • Joshua, Jesse, Jesus (Spanish)... With a bit of research, you'd be surprised.
    • While we're on the subject, I've always thought "Lucifer" was an underrepresented name. I mean, it's pretty cool - it means "Lightbringer/Morning Star", can be shortened to Luke or Lucy. We're not going to use it cause one guy ruined it for everybody? What a jerk.
      • And that's just a Latin name with the same meaning as "Heylel".
      • Name your kid Lucia Fernanda, or Luke Ferdinard or a variation and you are done. ;)
      • Same with "Adolf". Parents don't want other people to associate their kid with that "one guy".
      • Actually there was parents that named there child Adolf aswell as Hitler for his middle name. I read about it in the news and it upset alot of people.
    • What means Metatron anyway? Michael means "Who's like God?", but Metatron?
      • "Next to the throne." So the only real difference is that Michael could pass for a human name (even given the angelic suffix), but Metatron just sounds like a string of words. Sort of the difference between naming your kid Forrest and naming your kid Bunchatrees.
    • Probably because Metatron isn't the name of an archangel. He isn't even mentioned in the Old Testament, the New Testament, or the Qur'an. He was briefly referenced in the Talmud as "The Heavenly Scribe", but he didn't become a major player until the advent of Kabbalah. On the other hand, Michael is the only confirmed archangel (though most people consider Gabriel, Raphael, and Uriel to also be archangels), commander of the "Army of the Lord", and supreme enemy of Satan (all taken from the Old and/or New Testament).

  • Why are ghosts against slavery?
    • If you were stuck in a house for a few hundred years, the concept might piss you off, too, regardless of your feelings before your death. In addition, anti-slavery movements in American dated back pretty far, so if you find a ghost north of the Mason-Dixon line, chances are good he was never particularly a fan of it in the first place.
    • Even more importantly, why aren't they allowed to vote?
    • Because they don't exist.
    • BECAUSE THEY'RE A-BOO-LITIONISTS HAHAHAHAHAHA
    • Because ghost slaves tend to get forged into Stygian Iron.

  • Given the existence of Eagleland Osmosis why hasn't every country set their teleoperators to transfer calls to 9-1-1 to the correct number?
    • Because then them damned Yankees win. Besides, most phones now redirect their calls when people call 911 in other countries.
    • More people are familiar with the actual number for their countries, so you'd have a worse problem changing it.

  • Why do people make awful movies anyway? Can't people do something to stop people from taking them seriously?
    • Speaking as a filmmaker and longtime film buff:
      • 1) "Awful" is often subjective, where the exact nature of guaranteed good elements and guaranteed bad elements varies depending on the viewer.
      • 2) Said elements sit on a spectrum that will shift irrevocably with factors during production (both the shooting and post-production packaging with effects, music, editing, etc.)
      • 3) Equipment has advanced to the point that even under-experienced and untalented crews and casts can afford to produce a film.
      • 4) Some people are willing to watch repetitive slop that's easy to consume rather than be challenged, confused, stressed or (worst of all) bored, enabling an uncreative industry. This creates demand in the market for low-quality films that reliably fill valued economic niches.
    • Luckily as an informed viewer, you can choose what to watch and what not to. Your attention is as valued as your money in the entertainment industry.
      • There are also filmmakers who make money (or try to) by getting as many investors as possible, such that the less money the filmmaker spends on each aspect of production (especially the screenwriting, filming, editing and test-marketing steps), the bigger a profit they'll make. Think of The Producers, albeit to a much less over-the-top, and more lawful, extent.
    • Fetish Fuel? A guy running amok stabbing half-naked cheerleaders...
    • Money Dear Boy

  • What is the deal with those people that don't agree with me? How can they be so stupid?
    • Stupidity is merely a point of view. They all think you're stupid. There is no such thing as objective stupidity. Narf.
      • See, that's his point. What I say is right, all the time, no exceptions. Why are you too stupid to understand that?
      • You wouldn't happen to be Jack Thompson, would you?

  • What happens when an unstoppable force meets an immovable object?
    • The unstoppable force passes through the immovable object. The unstoppable is not stopped, the immovable is not moved.
    • The Joker loses.
    • Chuck Norris Dies [1]
    • Such a question is irrelevant- if a force is truly unstoppable, than there'd be no such thing as an immovable object, and vice versa.
    • Somethin's gotta give, somethin's gotta give, somethin's gotta giiiive.
    • The immovable one breaks eventualy, immovable but nobody mentioned indestructible.
    • Considering what Zeus did to Laelaps and the Teumessian fox, probably turn both of them to stone so no one has to deal with it.
    • Time stops forever.
    • Well, consider that a photon is by definition unstoppable, and has a momentum relative to a mirror so tiny that the mirror might as well be considered immobile. The unstoppable force bounces - it never stops, the thing it bounces off never moves.
    • The unstoppable object bounces off and moves in another direction, laaa~♪.
    • They yield.

  • What would happen if two unstoppable forces meet at one point?
    • They'd sit down to to tea and sandwiches, share a few laughs, and talk about how hard it is to be a truly unstoppable force in this day and age.
      • PROVED in the last book of the Twilight series. Ohbitch.
    • Bounce each other and continue their way.
    • They Fight Crime!

  • Why are fluorescent reporter genes used to measure effects of environmental change on biofilms? Wouldn't the extra energy required to generate said proteins alter the cells' individual physiologies and thus make the results inaccurate?

  • Why doesn't the Roman alphabet as used today have individual letters for the CH, SH, and TH sounds?
    • Why not just invent new alphabet for each different sound used in English language so that there would only be one way to pronounce any given alphabet? Works for some.
    • A case of 'Unpleasable Fanbase'. Polish did this, even if for their own sounds. Reaction from the rest of the world? "TOO MANY LETTERS". Unpleasable and annoying indeed.
    • English used to have Yod and Thorn for the two sounds we denote with "th", but they got tossed out with imported movable type from cultures without them.
    • Well, Portuguese uses the letter X to denote mainly SH(and also Z, S and KS), and TH doesn't exist. I guess it depends on which language you're talking about.

  • Why do toy companies keep on making toys with magnets in them if so many of those toys keep on getting recalled for those same magnets?

  • Am I the only person who watches space shuttle launches?
    • Nope. My mother seems to love it, and we live in Europe.
    • Thank God, I thought I was the only one.
    • I watch them too. They're awesome.

  • Why is it that we're taught that violence is wrong, but that it's okay to go to war?
"Here is better than home, eh, sir? I mean, at home if you kill someone they arrest you, here they'll give you a gun and show you what to do, sir. I mean, I killed fifteen of those buggers. Now, at home they'd hang me, here they'll give me a fucking medal, sir."
  • Because sometimes they need killing. Unfortunately you have to go through ten thousand of the poor schlubs on the front lines before you get to the Rape Monsters in charge. And yes, I expect to be flamed by someone somewhere for this.
  • "Fighting for peace" is an oxymoron, after all.
    • No it isn't. The unfortunate reality is that many times, war is the currency with which peace is purchased.
    • True. But I don't like how that works, so I'm disassociating myself with that logic. :P
    • Peace is not defined as the absence of conflict.
  • It's not that violence is bad, per se. More that it is painful and should be avoid if at all feasible.

  • Why does giving birth hurt like hell? Evolution like it when you reproduce, so why does it hurt? Evolution made sex feel good, so why not the actual birth?
    • Probably because sex has been around a much longer time then producing human babies. The actual difficult lies in moving their massive heads through the hip bones.
      • The benefit of our freakishly large skulls outweighs the detriment of losing members of the tribe through childbirth. Given enough time, we would have evolved easier birth, but too late now.
      • We walk upright and have freakishly large brains. It made sense to evolve both of these things - unfortunately, they don't go together well when it comes to that part.
      • So, is the cesarean section allowing people with genes for sturdy hipbones and large heads to escape natural selection, thus making giving birth even worse?
      • Indeed. Civilization screwed up natural selection. That's why there is so many stupid people.
      • Civilization also made it possible for the smart but infirm to survive.
    • Because God gets really pissy when you eat apples he told you not to eat.
      • Yes. What is this "evolution" business you crazy people keep on going on about?
      • ^ Made. Of. Win.
    • Because otherwise, women wouldn't mind it, and the world would be overpopulated within one generation?
    • In short, evolution doesn't work that way. The link between sex and pleasure incites reproduction, and thus is benefitial for the survival of the species — and, also, is not a trait only present in humans —, but wether or not giving birth hurts is irrelevant for the survival of the species.
    • Because it's better going in than coming out?

  • Why isn't our brain in our chest? It has a much better chance of survival, hiding dicretely among the other organs than it does in a head. Why even have a head that holds such a vital organ? It's like a big bull's eye for anything meaning you harm. Indeed, some animals have evolve false eye markings to give an illusion so a predator attacks its ass instead of the actual brain. Why don't we evolve with brains in our chest for full protection instead of on some strange stalk that juts out awkwardly screaming that's where the vital organ is?
    • It would make sensory input take too long. Our heads work really well for quickly gathering input.
    • It's cuter.
    • I think you're inverting some concepts here. The place where your brain is in your body is just obvious because we know where it is. If it was in the chest all along, it would be obvious anyway. Also, doesn't the chest, with heart and lungs in it, also scream that's where the vital organs are? Other point: ribs are open, and thus much more vulnerable than the skull. On the other hand, if they weren't probably it wouldn't be possible to breathe. And finally, if that's such a good idea, why haven't any of the other animals move the brain to somewhere than its head — or whatever they have — before us?
    • Thanks to the marvellous anatomical feature called the cranium, the head is in fact a safe place for the brain. As long as you observe common-sense safety precautions (wearing a helmet for activities where falls or blows to the head are common, not spinning around unrestrained until you lose your balance, not imitating cartoon characters by repeatedly banging your head against the wall), your brain is secure just where nature put it.
    • Despite what zombie movies may portray, it's not so easy to shoot a head. And with the chest, well, if an arrow pierces it, you're in trouble. The chest has a lot of expendable bits. The head, not so much.

  • Why couldn't people keep politics out of this page?

  • If there is no God and no real purpose for human beings to exist, why don't we just kill each other until everyone is dead and destroy the world?
    • I can think of three answers off the bat. The first is simple enough: We enjoy living. The second is answered in the opening of the question: "If". One may as well ask ask "If there is a god, and a real purpose for humanity, why don't we all get along with flowers and hugs?" Human nature. Which is the third answer: It'd go against human nature (not to mention be bugfuck stupid from an evolutionary standpoint, if we were bred that way) to kill everyone off and destroy the planet.
    • Because evolution exists, and thus killing ourselves until everyone is dead would be stupid as HELL.
    • Since WHEN do I need God or a purpose to live or be happy?! I don't say that He doesn't exist, but, really, c'mon! Even if our life was useless, then? Videogames are useless, art is useless, internet is useless, but we like and enjoy them the same.
      • Just like children can survive their parents, the offspring of the mind can survive the death of their creators. That's meaningful.
    • As someone said much further up this page, life doesn't have an inherent meaning, nor does it need to, because each of us has the opportunity to create meaning. See the works of Camus and Sartre, among others.
      • No, do not read the works of Camus and Sartre. Please, just take our word for it (or have somebody interesting explain it to you).
    • Anyone else afraid of the people who believe that if they were certain that was no God they'd instantly turn into Omnicidal Maniacs?
      • Only if they're running for office.
      • They don't have to run, they're already there.
    • Why is it that if you don't believe in God it's just assumed that everyone would go and kill themselves? Plenty of the population is filled with Atheists, I don't see them going "Oh well. I don't believe in anything. Might as well shoot everything." I'm a Christian and this question annoys me.
    • Just because there's no inherent meaning doesn't mean you can't go make your own meaning.
    • Well... In the greater scheme, in the big picture, nothing we do matters. There's no grand plan, no big win. (...) If there's no great glorious end to all this, if ... nothing we do matters ... then all that matters is what we do. 'Cause that's all there is. What we do. Now. Today. (...) All I want to do is help. I want to help because I don't think people should suffer as they do, because if there's no bigger meaning, then the smallest act of kindness is the greatest thing in the world.
    • Because no-one likes an asshole.
    • If there is a God(and an afterlife) then why not just kill everyone and destroy the world so that we skip to the eternal bliss part? Life actually becomes more meaningful and precious rather than less if that's all there is to it.
    • Your question is based on the nonexistence of God. This premise has been not been conclusively proven one way or the other and is therefore faulty.

  • How come so many people who basically state that God is their Morality Chain miss the Unfortunate Implications, namely that they are admitting to being evil at their core?
    • Because they believe that Humans Are Bastards in general - it's different whether only YOU are evil or EVERYONE is evil.
    • They don't. Original Sin is a large part of Christian doctrine (I can't speak for Judaism or Islam). If you're a Calvinist, it's even worse - see Total Depravity. The whole point is that because of the fall, man is an inherently corrupt creation, hence we can only be saved by the Grace of God. Besides - how can their be any hope of redemption for a species that produces something like Twilight....

  • How come the best rapper's white, the best golfer's black, the tallest person in the NBA is Chinese, the most violent athelete is French, the best porn star is short, fat, and bald, and the most powerful people in the country are named Bush, Dick, and formerly Colin?
    • Looks like Destiny has Sense of Humour.
    • God is mocking you.
    • Because race/national stereotypes are just that.
    • Reverse Bizzaro World?

  • Why don't we do it in the road?

  • Why did Joel Schumacher make that abomination of a film entitled Batman And Robin?
    • Money Dear Boy
    • So they would stop making Batman movies until Christian Bale grew up enough to play the part.
    • But why does George Clooney still have an acting career, ever though he played the worst Batman
    • Because he's an otherwise sucessful, charming, funny, and handsome actor, and a compotent writer and director as shown by Goodnight And Good Luck. And he ends his sentences with punctuation marks.
    • You know, some people may like this movie. Not me, but some people. I mean, it made money, didn't it?
    • It made money, but people DIDN'T LIKE IT, I mean Bat-Nipples, Bat Credit Cards, Every single line spoken by Mr. Freeze, The fact Bane was portrayed as a mindless thug, and this list goes on.
    • Directors don't have to care if you like it or not, but they will care about sufficient people spending money on it. If fewer people were of the mindset that they need to be among the first to see it and would wait for trusted feedback before deciding whether or not to check it out for themselves, bad movies would likely be less profitable. As for B&R, it was a Batman movie, and thus could be guaranteed ticket sales to a certain demographic.

  • Why do more people remember the inferior 1980's Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cartoon than the superior graphic novel they were based on?

  • Why do I want to name one of my kids "Zero?" And not after the Reploid or anyone, but after the number.
    • Hmmm. Yeah, that's quite a thinker.
    • Just name him Ciro and make it an inside joke.
      • Better yet, Rei.
    • Because Sue is already taken.
    • Because your child is to be the Anti-Christ. Your wife will refuse to use "Zero" as a first name and instead use Louis. Cypher is another word for zero. He shall grow up to be an evil abomination bent on destroying the world and your wife will say she told you so.

  • Why does so many people despise "beautiful" people? It's a useful bonus, nothing more, nothing less!
    • Most of them lord their beauty over others, and a lot of them are shallow as a puddle
    • Personally, those society deems beautiful aren't to me? Pretty, yes, but not the drop-dead gorgous sex-bombs that everyone drools over. I'll take a pass on America's Top Skeletons and drool over Tara Maclay any day.
    • Partially because they observe people giving them a "pass" where they themselves wouldn't be able to get by in the same situation.
    • Most people don't despise beautiful people. They despise people who think they're better than others or deserve to be treated better because of their appearance (the indication is usually subconscious), and a higher percentage of these people are beautiful. I (a very plain person) have several absolutely georeous friends who get along with people slightly better than I do.
  • Envy, pure and simple. Though studies have proven that attractive people are more successful in terms of careers, relationships and so on. Obviously these paragons must have personalities and intelligence to back it up; no one wants to hire or marry someone who's denser than an ottoman.

  • Why do so many humans find moonlight romantic?
    • Probably something to do with the dimness, same as candlelight. None of the drawbacks of total darkness, gains the advantages of not being able to see imperfections in the other's appearance, maybe an "exoticness" element or something...
    • Maybe you're genetically hardwired to associate lunar cycles with menstrual cycles?
      • That makes little sense — there's no connection. They're about the same length of time, but the phase of the moon tells you nothing about where a woman is on her ovulation cycle; it varies from person to person (unless they live in close proximity).
    • Humans naturally like shiny objects, and the moon is the biggest, shiniest object we can see (besides the sun, but it's more burny then shiny).
    • They're really werewolves. Yourself included.
    • You can get away with a lot more in the moonlight. I should know. I, and a very beautiful lady, have.
    • And you can get away with a lot more in total darkness. I should know. I, and a roughly-human shaped, oddly smelling object, have.
    • I remember reading somewhere that one of the reasons that dimness is romantic is because it causes people's pupils to dilate, and that makes people look nicer (a smile of twue wuv is apparently more likely to involve pupil dilation).
    • Because direct sunlight wishes to kill us all. The first humans noticed that the moon had similar properties of light, but did not burn when looked at, so it became a messiah of sorts.
  • In the same vein, why the fuck can't resturants have any sort of normal overhead lighting unless its a fast-food joint? Yes, i get the whole "dim rooms are romantic" but I'd like to be able to see the menu a little better. The same with hotels. I hav never seen a hotel, even a nice one, that doesnt have a horrible lighting setup, i.e. the two lamps by the beds, and the one for the bathroom.

  • Why is a raven like a writing desk?
    • Poe wrote on both of them.
    • Andy Weir's vision of that question◊.
    • Because both are nevar[sic] turned the wrong way 'round. Because they both have quills. "Because I didn't think you idiots would be running these seances just to ask me about a riddle to which I never wrote a punch line." Because Carroll was on laudanum, or whichever opiate/hallucinogen was popular at the time. I don't know, why? Because [random surrealism reference].
    • Because there is a B in Both and an N in Neither.
    • Because the writing desk really likes the raven and wants to emulate him.
    • In the fact that they're nothing alike.

  • Where are the Snowdens of yesteryear?

  • Why is saying that all jews are thieves seen as worse than saying all gypsies are thieves? I mean, both stereotypes are equally bad, and the jews and gypsies were both victims of the Holocaust. So then why is discrimination against gypsies seen as okay, when discriminating against Jews is one of the worst things you can do?
    • Less gypsies, more Jews.
    • Also, there are more Jews in the entertainment industry.
    • Plenty of people were targeted during the Holocaust, but because Jews were moreso, it's worse to discriminate towards them. It's all Hitler's fault, really. That fucking bastard.

  • What do Koreans refer to the Korean War as? Also, what do Vietnamese people call the Vietnam War?
    • The Koreans refer to the Korean War as "The North-South War" or the "6.25 War (pronounced "Yook-Yee-Oh", translated as Six-Two-Five)" after the date of the beginning of the war, on June 25, 1950. This from the troper who found it very strange why everyone was interested in the Korean War the first time he arrived at America, only to find out it sounded remarkably like the card/manga/anime series...
    • I think the Vietnamese call it the American War. Not just because of the enemy, but also because they a lot of other fighting to distinguish it from.
    • The Vietnam war, from 1964-1975, is known as the Second Indochina War (the first went from 1945-1954, where the Vietnamese won independence from the French).

  • Why don't girls want smart guys? I don't need to explain this one.
    • This Troper girl wants smart guys. It kinda doesn't help that a) I'm shy. b) so are the majority of smart guys.
      • Where do you live?
      • This Troper is an Aussie who lives in Victoria. (she is underage though)
      • This Troper is an Aussie who lives in Victoria. (he is also underage)
    • Jon Stewart has his fair share of fangirls. Including this troper.
      • Rebecca Romijn-Stamos has a crush on him, so you are in very sexy company.
    • They do, but the smart guys are too shy to make a move?
    • What the hell are you talking about? This girl would rather have a smart guy anyday! Especially one she could fangirl comics with. <3
    • Why don't guys want smart girls?
      • Who says we don't? Except people who don't know what they're talking about.
      • If you do a study of IQ vs. (hmmm I don't remember - marriage maybe) girls want smart guys but guys don't want smart girls. Although that's more about slightly above average vs. slightly under average as opposed to complete and utter genius nerds.
      • I want smart girls.
      • A lot of us smart girls are freaks. I would know, being a Teen Genius and Dogged Nice Girl. Stupid Pale Skinned Brunette I had to fall in love with....
    • We do. Don't listen to the movies.
      • A shame that some girls do, and they begin to think that way. Hot guys aren't the be all and end all of everything. Success rate also depends if you have an attractive personality.

  • Why do bin bags smell bad? I don't mean the contents, I mean the actual plastic. You take a fresh black bin liner off the roll, and it smells bad. Plastic should not have a smell.
    • Um, it does, so yes it should. Is this one of those irrational things again?

  • "I wouldn't touch that with a ten foot pole." What's with that saying? Did people a long time ago carry ten foot poles so they could not touch anything with it? You never hear "Oh yeah, I'd touch that with a ten foot pole," you never touch things with this ten foot pole that you carry around. Which seems rather counter productive, since ten foot poles would presumably be ten feet long and thus difficult to carry everywhere, for the sole purpose to never touch anything with it.
    • I've always heard it as "...with a bargepole", meaning those long poles you use to push a barge along with. Not that that makes any more sense, really.
      • The Bargepole wouldn't just be used to propel it, it could also be used to push garbage and chunks of boat-damaging stuff out of the way. If you wouldn't touch something with the ten-foot pole, it would be gross enough to warrant going around, or just running it over.
    • "That's so icky, I wouldn't touch it even indirectly by poking it with a stick. Not even if the stick was long enough that I didn't actually have to go within ten feet of that!"
  • Yeah, pretty much. I thought this one was pretty obvious.
    • But why would someone not want to be be beside a 10-foot pole when they touch it? It hurts the pole's feelings!

  • Why is it that you're considered crazy when you love a celebrity but not when you hate one? And I'm not even talking evil stalker-"love", I mean... y'know, when you feel you care about this person even if you don't know him. Isn't it just as crazy for someone else to say they want to punch that person out?
    • Good point actually. This troper has much love and respect for Stephen Fry, even though he's never, and will never, meet him. He just thinks he's neat.
    • There's a difference between admiration and love.
    • There are many reasons to want to punch someone. Promoting what you feel is a harmful world view. Being in offensive movies. Throwing phones at hotel employees. Having romantic feelings for a pure stranger is usually considered = to stalking behavior.
      • Yeah, but it really isn't a person's fault if the actor is attractive. We're only humans, we like what we see. But stalker love is still creepy.

  • Why isn't it a law for patrons to wash their hands after using a public restroom?
    • Why should there be? It's not like they're playing and sticking their hands in the toilet. Well, most of them aren't anyway. What's the big deal about washing your hands?
      • Unsanitary?
      • This troper has a theory that while it is a good idea to wash your hands after using the bathroom, it's not because there's something about going to the bathroom in particular that soils your hands, unless you get urine or fecal matter on them (and if you do, seriously, learn some better wiping techniques). It's because especially when you're out and about in public, you're going to come into contact with a lot of things a lot of other people have touched. As such, you should wash your hands on a regular basis. It's convenient to put toilets and sinks in the same area, and everybody has to pee sometime, so "wash your hands after you use the toilet" is an easy way to encourage it.
    • No consequences. the most they could do is refuse to allow you to eat there, and even then only if you haven't already gotten or paid for your meal.
      • Because you have bacteria living in your pores which are fine and dandy there, but which shouldn't really get into your digestive tract. Since they tend to escape your pores over time, washing your hands after you touch skin that hasn't been washed recently is a good idea.
    • How the heck would you enforce something like that? People already bitch about meter-maids not being "out capturing real criminals"; how can you expect them to get behind an initiative to basically have your mom in the bathroom with you clucking that she won't let you out the door until you're all scrubbed up? And I say that as a dedicated hand-washer.
    • Because a businessplace cannot tell its customers what to do.

  • Why is Finnish so complicated?
    • Because the beguine is so simple.
    • Swedish is an eastern outcrop of a Western language group, Finnish a western outcrop of an Eastern (and largely Stalin'd) language group. It has rules, just not the kind of rules an English-speaker would recognize in Spanish, French or Latin. Think of it as Alien Geometries for language. More to the point, in English you write a word one way and say it another. What is up with that? You hold competitions, quite prestigious if Peanuts is to be believed, to see if children can pronounce single words of the language!
      • Never that I've heard of. You do have to say the word before and after you spell it, in a spelling bee, though.
      • Sure, ruin a perfectly good rant just because it's wrong. Spell single words of the language.
      • Which is pretty much the same thing, but coming from the other direction. Because English is such a mishmash of languages, and standardized spelling is... something of a modern invention.

  • Why do people find it strange to find an animated character attractive?
    • Because dimension-hopping or massive paradigm shifts notwithstanding, there's zero chance of being able to actually act on said attraction. I know; it's not fair.
    • Yeah, and 95% of males don't stand a chance in hell of getting laid by somebody like Carmen Electra. Will you ever meet your celebrity crush? Chances are, no. If by some slim chance you do meet them, will you have sex with them? Still no.

  • If a woman doesn't change her last name when married, that means you have two last names in the marriage. Fair enough, but what last name do the kids get?
    • Personally, I always liked the system whereby they alternate; Mr. Lamperouge and Ms. Yagami and their three children Alice Yagami (8), Bob Lamperouge (6), and Christopher Yagami (5), for example. When the kids grow up, they pick the last name they like better. Yeah it's confusing for school officials, but better that than the inevitable marriage of Alice Lamperouge-Yagami and Douglas Xanatos-Wayne producing little Edward Lamperouge-Xanatos-Yagami-Wayne (although such a kid would be genetically predisposed to awesome).
    • This troper's boyfriend is in such a situation; he and his brother get a hyphenated last name. Name Name MothersLastName-FathersLastName.
    • Exempli gratia: Pro-Mole's mother kept her two last names, and thus he has three last names(two from mother, one from father). Also, if he ever have a child with his current girlfriend, he plans on giving her four lastnames(one from each grandparent).
    • This troper's mom never changed her name. Both my brother and I (I'm male) have our dad's last name. I don't know what they would have done if a girl had been born actually. Personally, I wouldn't make my wife change her name, for a really weird reason: I think it would be a pain in the ass to have to develop a new, official signature.
    • It varies from couple to couple.

  • What is it about English degrees that turns people into arrogant jerks?
    • Possibly the notion of True Art, which turns ordinary literature lovers into Fan Haters of anything that isn't angsty, offensive, ancient, foreign, or incomprehensible.
    • Because if we allowed them to breed then literature would get too awesome.
    • They don't actually contribute anything of value to society by virtue of their degree, so they have to make themselves feel it's worthwhile by pretending they've been elevated above the common herd.
    • Historically doing a useless degree showed that you had the money to be able to be useless, hence arrogance - 'i don't have to do something useful'

  • Why do so many people in the world lack perspective? Maybe world peace might actually be more likely if we all just let go of our ego for once and tried to acknowledge that maybe the other girl/guy has a point too.
    • And if that other guy's point involves shooting your ass dead, you need a Plan B. It's perfectly okay to believe that violence doesn't solve anything, but expect to always be at the mercy of anyone who doesn't.
      • Have you ever considered why said person wants to shoot your ass dead?
      • And if their reasons include things such as: my race, my religion, my nationality, the actions of my government, etc. etc. then a "live and let live" mentality isn't really going to help much, now is it?
      • Yes? It's not particularly helpful in quite a wide variety of situations. I can understand where much of the people of the Iran are coming from, but it doesn't change how completely their internal policies demonize and lead to the murder of people based almost entirely on place of birth. It's not originally, it's messy, and it's bad PR, but killing everybody works far too well for second chances.
      • Still, in most cases, insisting you are absolutely right just leads to problems, like the whole "white man's burden" idea, or spreading capitalism through free market dictatorships.
      • Except, we are right, and they are wrong. How the hell are the dictators better than us? They just want to treat their citizens like crap.
      • That just means the other guy needs perspective too.

  • The lack of comprehension of irony gets me. When you (a general you) ban Dilbert comic strips from cubicle walls, you WILL be infamous. I guess, severe lack of Genre Saviness just translates into 'If they are this weird about Topic A, god knows what else they might do'. And thus, we wrap up this entire page. META!

  • What in HELL is "libertarian socialism"? I know that word has some different meaning in Europe, but it's been used in a US context that makes no sense to me. It sounds like "Free market communism" or "Jewish national socialism" or "Christian Islam".
    • Isn't libertarianism a political vision and socialism an economic system? I don't see anything particularly contradictory between the ideas that the government shouldn'et meddle in the affairs of private citizens and the idea that a business/factory/whatever should be run by the people who do the actual work. Or do you Americans have some weird definition of socialism?
      • No, but we do distinguish between cooperatives ("a business/factory/whatever should be run by the people who do the actual work") and socialism ("a business/factory/whatever should be run by representatives of the state in the name of the people"). Throw in some Flanderization of the words "socialism" and "communism", to boot...
      • Ah. Now see, those 'cooperative' things you're talking about are socialist. "A business/factory/whatever should be run by representatives of the state in the name of the people" is communism, not socialism.
    • The term libertarianism in America usually refers to both free market and social freedom (such as protection of homosexuality and civil rights). Presumably, people calling themselves libertarian socialists agree with the social freedom part, but not the free market part. The US Green Party would probably be a good example of this kind of thinking.
    • Well, that would make them social liberals, wouldn't it? That's the term usually used for people holding a stance akin to the US Green or Democratic Party. Libertarianism is a particular political ideology, which is mutually exclusive with the position of state socialism, much as pacifism is mutually exclusive with Fascism.
      • Pacifism has nothing to do with fascism. Pacifism is opposition to war and combat. Fascism is a political system in which all power is wielded by a single person who isn't a monarch. A dictator who refused to let his country get involved in any wars would be a pacifist fascist.
    • The difference between US libertarianism and libertarian socialism is the difference between a jacket and a straightjacket, to borrow a particular phrase. The former is essentially Ayn Rand on sedatives, while the latter is best pictured by Noam Chomsky, so you can get the picture. The European version seems to have originated in the mid-1890s by a bunch of anarcho-communists trying to avoid some of the French anti-anarchist laws. American version seems to have originated in the mid-1940s with the influence of Rand and some European economists that didn't know about the European usage of the word. Libertarian socialism is allegedly less about the state running things and more about people voluntarily being mandated into cooperatives... insert statements about no true Scotsmen and many true idiots here.
    • Libertarianism (A.K.A.: Anarchism, egalitarianism) is the belief that individuals should be free to do as they wish, and (especially in the case of anarchists and egalitarians) that hierarchies should be simple, malleable, ephemeral, and generally avoided. Socialism is the belief that all members of a society are obliged to help and sympathize with their fellows to some degree, and often that all humanity are members of a common society. Libertarian socialism (anarcho-socialism,) thus, is both the belief that people should generally stay off each others' backs, and that one still needs to lend a hand when somebody's hurting. Communism is a type of socialism which holds that the members of a society should pool their resources, while communalism (A.K.A.: collectivism, cooperativism, unionism) is a type of communism which holds that autonomous groups (clubs, businesses, towns, etc…) should be owned and managed by their rank and file. American Libertarian Party libertarianism (A.K.A.: anarcho-capitalism) is basically the rule of the jungle.

  • What's up with boogers? Seriously. Little green, funny tasting, nasal-blocking, hard to reach dicks is what I say.
    • Its congealed mucus. As to what mucus is, its a sticky liquid that exists to repel acids and attach to germs and other impurities, to keep such impurities from coming in your breathing passage. It gets sticky and congeals annoyingly because otherwise it'd be easy to get out of, which defeats the purpose of a filtration system. Yes, its a jury-rigged hassle of a filtration system, but we're basically jury-rigged fish, so be glad you have something to keep those lungs clean at all, air-breather.
    • More importantly, why do people eat raw oysters, when they look like giant boogers, with less color variation. Plus, I remember my brother saying that boogers tasted salty (He was like three at the time), and when i asked him how raw oysters tasted, he said they were salty. Coincidence? I think not!

  • Why am I laughing so much at everything on this page?
    • Because the above virus idea wasn't a joke. You're laughing now, but later you'll buy us all pizza.

  • What's with that weird meme that everyone outside the US is politically left-wing? How the hell did Nicolas Sarkozy and John Key get elected then? Or, for that matter, why did Hugo Chavez receive a downsurge in popularity?

  • Why do some people feel the bizarre need to spell "mod" in all caps?
    • Probably the same reason some people feel the need to make the names of some Transformers into Wiki Words. BoneCrusher and such. And in a crossover of sorts, I know a guy who insists on putting Evac's name in all caps.

  • 01000010011010010110111001100001011100100111100100100001
    • 01000010 01100101 00100000 01110011 01110101 01110010 01100101 00100000 01110100 01101111 00100000 01100100 01110010 01101001 01101110 01101011 00100000 01111001 01101111 01110101 01110010 00100000 01001111 01110110 01100001 01101100 01110100 01101001 01101110 01100101 00101110 00100110 00100011 00110110 00110101 00110101 00110011 00110011 00111011
      • 01000110 01101001 01111000 01100101 01100100 00101110 00100000 00100000 01011001 01101111 01110101 00100000 01100010 01110010 01101111 01101011 01100101 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100101 00100000 01110000 01100001 01100111 01100101 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100101 00100000 01100110 01101001 01110010 01110011 01110100 00100000 01110100 01101001 01101101 01100101 00101110 00100110 00100011 00110110 00110101 00110101 00110011 00110011 00111011

  • Which one of you is Spartacus?

  • Why exactly do people act like Scientologists are flat-out evil? This troper knows, this troper knows, people are probably going to brand him as one — actually an atheist, who's cool with religion in general — but it needs saying. While certainly out there, what religion isn't when you think about it and who even cares what other people believe? It seems to be only because it's a pretty recently started religion, which can even also be compared to some in a manner of speaking. Look at Catholicism, they've basically got the official policy that all of the rules change any time the Pope feels like mixing up things in Simon Says For The Soul. Not trying to insult anyone, but it seems like Scientologists in general get a bad rap.
    • Do your research.
    • Mostly, it's the fact the church requires large sums of money to join them that makes it get its bad rap. That, I get. It's people who complain about scientology's mythology that bugs me. Serious Arbitrary Skepticism there, I mean honestly, you laugh at the people who believe in some alien overlord, but a man who brought back the dead, and a burning bush talking is completely reasonable? Not trying to convert people one way or the other, but seriously people, it's not cool to laugh at another religion's mythology.
    • People generally don't consider Scientologists evil - however, those who know about the activities of the Church of Scientology have a good reason to want to see the organization brought down and hard. The mythology is rather silly - not because it involves alien overlords, but because it's a straightforward rip from a bunch of other religions, put into sci-fi trappings, yet nevertheless claims to be distinct and unique. Really, the only thing that Scientology claims that isn't already in some other religion's doctrine minus the science fiction part is that its followers get superpowers by participating in their expensive courses - so far not a single super-powered Scientologist has demonstrated their abilities in public, even though that would be the best imaginable way to convince others of the religion's genuine power, if they could actually do it. But yes, mainly it's the highly unethical actities of the Church of Scientology, not the beliefs of the Scientologists themselves.
    • Personally, I find it skeptical that a science fiction writer founded a religion based on aliens. If it were elves or something, maybe it would seem a bit more plausible.
    • Not even /b/ like them. Take that as you will...
    • They obssessively hate psychiatry... If you've got OCD, ADD, ADHD, Schizophrenia, Bi-polar disorder, depression, autism, psychosis, Post Traumatic Stress disorder or anything else I've left out, chances are you've seen a psychiatrist at least once to help cope.

  • Why do people keep refering to Otaku "Fangirls?" Though I've seen a handful, I've yet to see more than a handful anime fans at my school, let alone a fangirl. For that matter, how do you meet Otakus offline, anyway?
    • Um...dress like a Bishonen and kiss the first pretty boy you see?
    • Attend an Anime Convention look one up at Anmecons.com and see if there's any near by you'd be suprised [[This Troper]] attends abut two to three a year sees soe old friends and makes new o nes from tiem to time

  • Why is "hell" considered a swear word, but "devil" isn't?
    • ...It is....
    • The devil you say?
      • To hell with you, then!

  • Why is it that DVDs of half-hour shows don't always make efficient use of the space? If you can get four episodes of an hour (really 40-45 minutes) show on a disc, doesn't it follow that you can fit 7-8 eps of a half-hour (20-25 minute) show in the same space? For instance, volume 4 of Chrono Crusade has only 3 eps. Since these discs are usually part of a series box set, why not save a little on the production costs?

  • Why is it it "bloody Asian drivers" and not "bloody Oriental drivers"? The only people who seem to be targets of it are Oriental immigrants. I've never heard anyone complain, outside of taxi anecdotes, of the driving skills of Indians, Russians, Afghans, Tajiks, Iranians, Arabs or Israelis.
    • If you ask the average Western person to think of an "Asian", they will imagine an Oriental person. Don't know why.
    • If I had to guess, I'd say it's because orientals share more culture with the west, and there's more oriental immigrants. The Middle Eastern people more or less keep to themselves in terms of culture, or rather, most of their culture is part of being muslim. There's also not as many Middle Eastern immigrants in America as there are Vietnamese, Korean, and a few Chinese. Russia is half European, so it's inaccurate to refer to them as Asians anyway.
    • Funny thing, Middle-Easterners are the worst drivers on Earth. But nobody knows about this due to lack of media exposure.
    • Because we get yelled at if we refer to anyone as Oriental anymore.

  • Why oh why do people keep confusing Swedish people, with:
a) a vegetable called Swede b) people from Switzerland. And this isn't limited to english. Even in chinesee the word for Sweden and Switzerland sound quite similar to each other.
  • There's a vegetable called Swede?
    • The Americans renamed it Routabaga.

  • Can love grow out of friendship without it being a Dogged Nice Guy situation? I mean, if I was friends with a guy and we fell in love, could it ever be that we really fell in love, or was he just manipulating me?
    • Totally hypothetical question, right? Well, yeah, love can indeed grow out of friendship. Why would you think he's manipulating you just because you're friends?
      • Actually, this is totally hypothetical... seriously. This troper is a lonely troper. I was just wondering in case it ever did happen. And I asked because the way the article was worded made it seem like this was always the case. Or maybe I'm too dumb to catch on to anything.
      • Well, the trope states that the traits associated with it are stalkerish because the feelings aren't mutual, the guy just doesn't give up until she finally does. If the feelings are mutual though, well it seems like it'd be a perfectly fine relationship.
      • It's possible for two good friends to fall in love simultaneously. It works wonderfully.
      • Two people can fall in love while friends and that doesn't (always) mean the guy has liked the girl all along. Or vice versa. It just means that, at some point, the guy liked the girl and, at another probably independent point, the girl liked the guy. That can point be "since we first met" (though Love At First Sight is generally a crap shoot) and "five minutes before we had THE conversation".

  • Why do I keep going to Game FA Qs, even though most of the people there represent the scum of the internet? And why does my pet bird like to go inside my t-shirt!?
    • I would assume your bird likes the coziness and warmth inside your shirt. Game FA Qs is just addicting, and it's more or less the only place where you can easily find a board about any game you want. IMDB has video game boards too, but they don't receive anywhere near as much traffic, and people act like even bigger snobs over there.
    • Hang out at a certain Image Board for some time and soon the people of Game FA Qs will seem like nice, friendly, intelligent people.

  • More on Game FA Qs, why do their boards not have an edit button? Seriously, every other site board I've ever been too has edit buttons, why deoesn't gamefaqs have it?
    • Most likely to prevent a Ninja Editor and a Troll from running amuck. I do agree that lack of edits is slightly annoying.
      • There was a point where certain types of users were granted the ability to edit their posts. Reportedly, there was almost immediately an epidemic of events of the following type: Someone asks a seemingly innocuous question with a numeric answer, like (making something up) "How many Mega Man games do you own?" Other users posted answers—7, 12, 5, 10, and so on. The original poster waited until a few replies were posted, then edited the post to read "How old are you?" and reported everyone whose answer had been less than 13, getting them banned. I'm not aware of any direct connection between this sort of thing and the removal of the feature, but you get the idea.

  • Is Belgium going to fall apart? What happens then?
    • We sell it on E-bay.
      • But what about the waffles?

  • Turkish oil wrestling. How do the wrestlers hold on to each other if they're covered in oil? It'd be like a game of Catch The Greased Pig, but without the pigs.

  • Why do humanity professors get so freaked out about Spark Notes? Do they see them as a threat to their jobs? Are they afraid the Spark Notes will explain the concepts better? When electronic pocket calculators were invented, you didn't see math teachers go ape. Equally, if you're having trouble with Chemistry, your professor may encourage you to use study guides. However, if you're having trouble with Jane Austen, and you tell your professor that you used Spark Notes, he may fail you. It just bugs me.
    • This teacher would like to note that the simple problems for which kids want to use calculators is...scary. I have no problem with them when speed is an issue, but the whole point of the course is to learn the method by which you can do it yourself.
    • Some teachers forbid stuff like spark notes or wikipedia because they believe that A) it doesn't contain all the facts that the teacher is trying to show and B) sometimes the information may not be reliable. In other words, they want the students to figure out the answers on their own and not rely on a website for all the answers. Of course, this all depends on who is your teacher.
    • You still need to know the equations in order to use a calculator properly. Study guides for chemistry are, well, guides for studying. Spark Notes on the other hand, just gives you the answer.
      • And the answer key, in the back of the chemistry study guide, doesn't?
    • If you're somehow capable of coming up with the right answer in a chemistry or math test, ipso facto, you have obtained the intended benefit of a chemistry or math class. If you skim through pieces of art or accounts of the humanities without really thinking about them, instead regurgitating prechewed thoughts on them to pass a test, you haven't benefited from the class at all.

  • The color pink bugs me and I have no idea why... and that bugs me. It's bugs that it bugs me that I don't know why.
    • Quick! Stop him! He's going recursive!

  • How come editorials, which begin in the first few pages of a magazine, end in the back of the magazine. In other words, how come the article stops on page 7 and continues on page 96? Why don't they just finish the article where they started it?
    • Duh, to better trick you into reading other articles and the ads... Picture it, you're just flipping through, searching for the page the article continues on, and you see an ad, and- Ooh, look at the picture!
    • That reminds me of something that REALLY bugs me. Whenever an advertisement or picture touches the edge of the page, they OMIT THE PAGE NUMBER. This means that only a tiny fraction of pages HAVE numbers, so it's impossible to find anything using the table of contents. Oh, right, the ToC, they always put THAT a random number of pages in as well, instead of putting it right at the start of the magazine.

  • If a tree falls down in a forest, and nobody's around to hear it, does it make a sound?
    • Sure it does. It's just that nobody's around to hear it. A camcorder isn't considered alive, is it?
      • No, but a squirrel is. There's no such thing as an empty forest, unless the forest itself doesn't exist. In which case, no, a non-existent tree falling through non-existent space in a fictional forest will not make a sound. And even if it does, it won't be heard on this plane of reality unless you leave the window in the Fourth Wall open.
    • According to seventeenth-century philosopher George Berkeley, events can only known to occur when there is an observer to witness them. Since a camcorder watching the tree fall does not have a conscious mind, it does not count. No noise of a tree falling would be made until someone finds the camcorder and watches the recorded image. However, he argued that since God is the observer of all reality, there are no truly unobserved events.
    • It's a question of objective vs. subjective reality. According to objective reality (which holds that reality exists even without an observer), of course, unless it lands in cotton or something. According to subjective reality, of course, the trees will hear it.
    • If a tree falls in the forest, and no one is around to hear it, and it hits a mime, does anyone care?

  • Which came first: the chicken? Or the egg?
    • The Chicken Maker Machine.
    • This one's mine. According to evolution, every animal shared a percentage of genes that mutated up to make a full 100% species. The first chicken egg came from two creatures who were 99.999999(you get the idea)% chicken, and their genes mutated to make a 100% chicken egg. So the egg came first.
    • And the egg came way before if you don't specify "chicken egg". Of course, even if you do specify it that way, by "chicken egg" do you mean an egg laid by a chicken or one that will hatch into one?

  • Hmm, Peter Pan and peanut butter. How do those two go together?
  • Why are people on Youtube so goddamn retarded?
    • Cam Whore + Troll
    • Because the videos they're commenting on are all suffocate-to-death-because-you-forgot-what-breathing-is retarded to begin with.

  • It bugs me that most of the things on this page are not things that people are bugged by, but are instead either questions or tropers posting outrageous claims. It wouldn't, however, bug me at all if someone went through and cleaned it all up.
    • Suck it up, princess!
      • I wouldn't say most of them. And a few less as of now.
  • Why do people in arguments (especially trolls) veil their statements in faux-conversationalism, even overfamiliarity? It's like a seven foot tall bouncer calling you "pal"— it doesn't actually fool anyone into thinking he's your friend.
    • The same reasons bouncers do : to make it clear that this is as friendly as they're going to be for the discussion, to suggest or attempt to shape your side of the debate into a faux-friendly manner, and subliminally demonstrate that not-friendly is pretty easy for them to access.

  • ...Why did I just read this entire page?

  • What really bugs me when I start seeing foods that are labeled "Now made with real/fresh (insert ingredient here)." I know most foods are processed these days, but it makes me wonder what the hell was I eating before the change!

  • Why isn't Real Life a musical or has at least some musical episodes?
    • Because we would have to spend most of our time rehearsing every single day. Besides, not everyone has a good singing voice.
    • Yours, isn't?

  • Jean-Baptiste Lamarck was instrumental in popularizing evolution in 19th-century scientific thought, paving the way for Darwin and Mendel. He was right about several principles, such as the idea that positive adaptations tend to propagate where negative ones dissipate, and that there is some form of heritability. Why does he always get Flanderized to Lamarck Was Right?
    • He kind of had evolution backwards. For example, in his views, if your parents were tanned and you were tanned and your children were tanned etc. then eventually after generations your grand-grand-grand-children's skin would turn black. Or if you exercised a lot and your children exercised a lot then somewhere down the line your children would be extremely muscled. Evolution doesn't work like that. What you do in your lifetime doesn't really affect what traits will you pass down to your children. A shorter version: he believed that the traits that you acquired during life would be passed down, when it's only the genetic code that you possess goes to your kids.
      • True, but that still ignores that Lamarck recognized that heritability existed, which was not universally accepted at his time. No one derides Newton for not deriving quantum mechanics. And anyway, that's not the most ridiculous belief of Lamarck's; more silly than heritability of acquired traits (which might not be completely ridiculous, if the field of epigenetics means anything), so much as the idea that all species evolve towards a "perfect" (read: human) form.

  • Why do we have to pay more money for cable "pay per view" events? We're already paying more for cable to begin with. Charging us more for these events is extortion.
    • No, extortion would be if the WWE wrestlers came to your house and told you to buy Wrestlemania or else they'd slam you through your coffee table. PPV events still cost money to put on, and if you don't charge more for PPV events that cost will be distributed to everyone. Whether they want it or not.
      • That first sentence you said would make an awesome commercial for Wrestlemania.
    • Because all cable used to be commercial-free. When they invented PPV and scramblers, they added commercials to basic cable so that people would have a “reason” to buy PPV.

  • Why can't I have my cake and eat it too? And who came up with that saying anyway?
    • The situation I can think of where that saying makes sense is when you want a cake for both aesthetic and consumptory satisfaction. If you have a really pretty-looking cake, you have to stop admiring it if you want to eat it. I'm not sure of any non-metaphorical situation where this occurs, though since I can never eat more than one or two slices of cake at a time, it's a personal moot point.
      • That actually...makes sense. Huhn. One less thing to bug me, I guess. Next up, why do I procrastinate so damn much? (Mostly rhetorical.)
      • I say make two cakes. As for the procrastination? Getting work done will pay off in the long run, but procrastination pays off right now.

  • What defines weather a name is a usable name for a person? and that's acceptable for that particular gender for the first why would given the choice between Aerithand Bob would someone choose Bob and why when I say i want to name my duaghter Edward people always say "that's a boys name. what about Edwin?" though I know this oen girl who named her daughter Optomis Prime (late husbends dying wish) I don't get it does this have to do with the fact that Status Quo Is God I mean really what defines normal in these circomstances?
    • Uh...what?
    • Tradition. Hillary used to be a boy name.
    • With that logic anything could be tridition i mean if Hilary used to be a "Boys name"" why couldn't Richard be a "girls name" I mean why do people make such a big deal about the difference anyway? What's in a name? a rose by any other name would still smell as sweet no?
    • Because millennia of culture, art, and meaning went into creating normal names, and a few seconds of confused ignorance or infatuation with some fleeting trend likely went into those stupid names. Whenever you try out a “novel” name, you're pitting your ostensible artisté-ic ability against all of civilization, with predictable results. Even worse, every time somebody runs into your poor little Neveah, Lusy, Rupert, or Halo 2 once she's grown up, they'll treat her like a demented retard. She'll understand this treatment, because she knows it's obvious to everyone that YOU gave her that name, and that everyone tends to assume those sorts of… Characteristics tend to be congenital.

  • Satre and Nihilists, fucking crybabies: "Boo Hoo! Your Presence is threatening my purely narcissistic concept of existence!". Also Marx, Marxists and kids who think Che t-shirts are a way to assert your individuality.
    • Actually, nihilism would promote complete indifference, and thus inaction, rather than "boo hoo!" The issue is that the idea, regardless of validity, is more or less incompatible with human experience. So I'd think your complaint would be better written as: why aren't nihilists better adjusted to their own philosophy? But the same could be said for most anyone if they complain about it. Also, not all nihilists do.

  • How has our society become so desensitized to violence that we can crack jokes to each other about killing other people, yet not desensitized enough that we can argue that anyone who takes such comments seriously is an idiot?

  • If I've heard correctly, the Japanese look down on Otaku culture. So why do they keep making anime and manga?
    • Think of it this way. Most Americans would look down on, say, Trekkies, and obsessive science fiction fans. And yet, people still write science fiction, and Star Trek is still a successful franchise. Not everyone who picks up a science fiction novel now and then is the stereotypical SF nerd; not everyone who catches an animated show or two, or pages through a particularly fun comic is a socially deviant hikkikomori. Western anime fans have tried to take on "otaku" as a badge of pride, while in Japan it's still treated as creepy and pathetic.
      • I suppose that's a fair comparison... except I've never heard of Trekkies being accused of being rapists or pedophiles.
    • What I think the first guy was asking is: If nerds are still seen as nerds in Japan, why is there so much more nerdy stuff made there per capita than here?
      • Well, it was more of a "they accuse Otaku of being dangerous creeps but they still keep making anime anyway" (not that I want them to stop making anime) thing. Money is probably a factor. Oh and I'm a girl. :)

  • Black stars. This troper means, balls of gas that emit black light. What the hell?
    • Do those really exist?
    • You're probably thinking about black dwarfs, which are essentially stars that have burned up all their fuel. They don't emit black light; they don't emit any light at all. Unless you mean ultraviolet light, which all stars emit anyway.

  • Why is it that learning disabilities involving reading and writing earn sympathy and extra time, while people who have difficulties with maths are seen as stupid? Dyspraxia and dyscalculia are now officially recognised conditions but don't receive anywhere near the same coverage. You're still written off as an empty headed ditz if you can't do sums.

  • People who brag that they've never read a book in their lives, or wait for the movie to come out. What's there to be proud of in that? I wouldn't mind if it was the odd person here and there, but this baffling mindset seems to belong to some 90% of the population.
    • Somebody's got to be the idiot.
    • People don't read books because they don't have imagination to think of images related to text. Next time somebody says reading books sucks, ask him to imagine a apple. Then to imagine him peeling it.

  • Why is it that in politics, people must refer to their opponent's party as "the Enemy"? Can nobody understand that one's opponent is a citizen also and wants what is best for the country? On a related note, why do lawmakers write laws so it takes eight years of college to understand?
    • This (Australian) Troper has never heard people refer to an opposing party as 'the enemy'. Never. 'Those bastards', or perhaps 'Those stupid [insert party name here]', but never 'the Enemy'.
    • They don't actually refer to them as "the enemy" out loud- its mearly implied.
    • Why? Rather often in my case, see the next item down.

  • War. What is it good for?
    • Absolutely nothin'. On a serious note, winning one is like the international equivalent of having a huge e-penis.

  • What constitutes a micronation? Is a country automatically not a micronation if it's officially considered a country? Why the hell isn't the Vatican a micronation if it's just an area of Rome and wouldn't be notable without the Pope?
    • The Vatican is more of a legacy nation and still wields quite a bit of influnce. From oh, 789 until 1871 the Pope was the defacto ruler of a good part of Italy. The treaty that had the church recognize the claims by Italy to the city of Rome outside the Vatican and recognize the indepedance of Vatican as an independant nation in exchange for giving up rights to those landclaims. If Sealand had a history of over 1,000 years of independance and larger teritory it gave up on the mainland to England it would be a different matter. It also helps that the Vatican is recognzied as an independation nation by most nations and Microstates generally aren't.

  • Clothes that shrink after their first wash bug the hell out of me. I heard it's because the fabric is streched when produced. But why make your product bigger when it'll just shrink back? If it would stay the same size then it will take less of your space, and costumers will have an easier time finding something that fits them. Wouldn't it be better and cheaper?

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