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Day: December 28, 2016
Why does Iran have a variety of ethnic groups?
Mehrdad, canım, I don’t know. I will guess, but whatever I guess, Dimitris Almyrantis will guess better. Here goes. The usual answer is, Iran is at a crossroads of civilisations. Maybe. But you know, so is Greece, so is Turkey, so is Russia, so is Spain. In itself, that’s not actually an answer; it’s only […]
Why do you think Ottomanism and Pan-Islamism Failed?
Mariam Als, thank you for your A2As. I truly am not qualified to answer this, and I hope Dimitris Almyrantis will. Irene Avetyan, I’m looking at you too. This is more to provoke an answer out of them, and it’s not rooted in any great understanding of Ottoman or Turkish history. (That, and I’m cleaning […]
What is your reason for having a goatee?
As I said in Nick Nicholas’ answer to How are men with goatees perceived, and how do they think they are perceived? : they were very fashionable in the mid 90s. I took it up after some facial hair experimentation, and Australians nowadays seem to have big problems with moustaches (because of overexposure in the […]
What is the point of life if you just die and most of us are forgotten in time?
Ah, Jeremy. This is not a trivial question. And most of the non-religious people have converged on the same answer; I liked Bobby Strick’s formulation. When I was in my 20s, I yearned to cheat death by joining that 0.1%. Hence the whole “get my scientific papers laminated and sent to Svalbard” thing, which I […]
What are the best public high schools with high ATARs in Melbourne (co-ed or girls only)?
School League Tables. Mpf. They’re not all they’re cracked up to be. Is the point of education to get you into a top ranking uni course? Or to make a decent citizen of you? At any rate, the current rankings for Victoria are out at: VCE School Ranking – 2016 If we exclude boys’ schools, […]
How has sport shaped Australia’s national identity?
I read Geoffrey Blainey: A Shorter History of Australia by Nick Nicholas on Aphypnēsis Amichaiou , which actually posed this question. And if I hadn’t left the book in the hotel… well, I still wouldn’t look it up. But in brief: Australians defined themselves early on (like, 1820s) against the British, for being more fit […]