Questions

• Russia has given us some of the all-time greats in music and literature, like Rachmaninoff, Tchaikovsky, Dostoevsky, and Tolstoy. But it seems like their artists don’t get the same global recognition. What’s up with that? What factors contributed to the flourishing and global prominence of composers and writers in Russia compared to artists during from the same time period? Does the perceived disparity actually reflect a lack of standout art, or are they underrated?

• Why is the IRA significantly more infamous than the UVF (whom I had never heard of until recently, illustrating the point!)? How strong is Irish Catholic guilt? How does the scale and nature of their activities contribute to the disparity in infamy?

• Why are awesome toilets so ubiquitous in Japan, but not elsewhere in the world? 75% of Japanese households have a “high-tech” toilet, yet I’ve never seen one in Europe or the US! Why is the West so slow to adopt clearly superior toilet technology!?