Society
Exploring "Why" questions about Society
481 articles
Why is the gold standard touted as being real money and fiat currency as fake?
A major difference is who controls the supply. The supply of gold is controlled by factors owned by a wide enough variety of unrelated people and companies that its roughly uncontrollable by any singl
Why is pornography not illegal like prostitution is, considering everyone involved is doing it for the money?
Because...well because. Long answer, I think that the rationale is that, for pornography, you're paying two people to have sex with each other, and no one is exchanging money in return for an orgasm p
Why is police brutality against African Americans becoming so prevalent now?
It was always prevalent, it's just that with the advent of social media and similar things that the stories spread like wildfire instead of being local stories that aren't able to gain any traction. T
Why aren’t lie detectors used more often in court cases?
Mostly because they don't actually work. The truth is that they are not a very good tool to tell if someone is lying. The threat of them or the willingness to undergo a lie detector test are sometimes
Why doesn’t the TSA agent face criminal charges for lying in court?
I've wondered about this too. I have also seen a reddit post from a news channel baiting TSA agents with Ipads. TSA agents stole the ipads and then the news correspondents used an app to locate the eq
Why do people think that politicians, and the government, benefit from acts of war? Is there any truth to this?
War is big business. It is the weapons manufacturers that benefit the most. Politicians are influenced by them.
Why does the American presidential race cost millions of dollars?
Travel, opening campaign offices in each state, television and radio ads, and paying everyone who works for the campaign, from those who research your opposition, to those who manage your website -- i
Why aren’t independent votes counted in the presidential primary?
Right now the parties are voting to pick who they want to run for president, as private entities. They may want to exclude non-party members, for instance to avoid letting 'guerilla voters' bump up a
Why does the cuban government tolerate guantanamo on their territory? Especially if one considers their bad relations in the past.
Cuba had been trying to get independence from Spain for most of the late 19th Century. As part of the Spanish-American War, the US encouraged them to rebel. After the war, the US controlled Cuba and c
Why do American colleges and universities spend millions of dollars on non-revenue generating athletic teams?
They DO generate revenue. Just not directly. It is advertising for schools.