[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
[The Legend of Zelda] Why is Hyrule such a technological hodgpe-podge?

In the canonically first game, Skyward Sword, we catch numerous glimpses of high technology, with other smatterings here and there alongside the magical elements throughout the series. Clawshots and hookshots exists alongside bows and boomerangs, and by the time of OoT, you could buy high-tech self-motivating bombs in the same town you bought a low-tech metal shield. To say nothing of the complex apparatus moving doors, blocks, and large volumes of water in Hyrule's dungeons and temples.

How does such a large range of technology exist all at once? And why does it seem that at every point in the timeline, no advances are ever made?

[Assistant]
Because that's how it works in the real world! On our very own planet Earth, you get cyberpunk-esque megacities that seem more at home in an alien civilization and pre-stone age hunter-gatherer tribes sharing the same continent.

And as for the stagnation, don't forget that Hyrule is a kingdom. In order for the kingdom to remain what it is against potential troublemakers (who seem to just find all this technology and wizardry lying around), there may be extensive repressive measures, including total thoughtcontrol so everything remains in balance, and so when anyone upsets this balance, they can only perceive it as evil taking over.

It's also totally possible that Link is actually part of Zelda's secret Thoughtpolice, and he just imagines/trips that he's a legendary warrior.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
[Warhammer 40k] What did the two missing primarchs do to deserve censure from imperial records?

There were 20 primarchs created and scattered by chaos, and all 20 we're found, but some point between their discovery and the Horus Heresy, 2 of them managed to screw up so bad that they were completely removed from imperial records. This is a punishment even more severe than what the 9 traitor primarchs received after what is considered the greatest betrayal in the history of the Imperium.

The only thing I can think of more damaging than half of man's elite army falling to chaos is ideas, ideas that would dramatically alter the collective culture of all mankind, threatening what it is. What would these crimes be?

The only thing I can think of is that one may have somehow rediscovered how immensely beneficial AI can be, using it to great effect perhaps before he was discovered, the other may have landed on a world much more accepting of xenos, like an eldar exodite world or one where man trades and lives alongside aliens in harmony which the emperor would absolutely never accept.

What could be more heinous than taking half the army and killing the emperor with it? We know Horus didn't receive the same treatment, why did these two?

[Assistant]
The Emperor did not like failure.

Perhaps they were simply defeated or killed in battle. He doesn't want to mess with the illusion of an unstoppable Primarchs so he wiped their failures and their names with them.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
ELI5: TCP and UDP using real world examples.

I've read the other posts on here about IT stuff but it doesn't click with me at all. Since I'm creating a post on reddit right now, which sends information to the reddit servers, can you tell me what TCP and UDP are doing in this instance?

[Assistant]
TCP uses back and forth communication, like a telephone call.  If one person didn't hear something, they can ask for it to be repeated.

UDP uses 1 way communication, like TV or Radio broadcasts.  If you miss something, tough noogies, just keep listening.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
[Bourne Movies] What part of Operation Treadstone turned Jason Bourne form elite solider to the superagent he became?

Like what were the training methods the book or the movie said that bourne went through physcologically? What caused him to get the migranes and light sensitivity? I didn't understand how he turned from they turned him form this good human fighter into an agent who never made mistakes, always focused on an objective, and had the mental strength to do whatever he needed.

[Assistant] Ok so book bourne and movie bourne are so different its really not worth comparing. In the movies, it is shown that Jeremy renners character in the 4th bourne takes the different drugs to enhance his natural abilities. Ive only seen that movie once but the implications were that this was used on all the "assets" to make them better. Plus there was extensive training w treadstone on how to be an assassin. The reason behind it in the books is a whole seperate issue, totally way better story, so i wont spoil it if you want to read it. If not, let me know.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
[Avatar The Last Airbender] Could the Avatar pass any bending for ther children?

If an Avatar who is already a master of the four elements has a child can he pass any element to his children or just the element the avatar was born with?

[Assistant] No. While bending is largely spiritual, there is a not-insignificant genetic component. The Avatar's unique bending abilities come from the Avatar Spirit, which doesn't have any effect on their genetics. (as far as we know)


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User] [Elysium] Whats the rest of the world like?

[Assistant]
Considering travel to almost anywhere on earth would be easier than traveling to Elysium, we can assume there aren't many places substantially better than LA.

Even just having access to spaceships makes it a *better* spot than the vast majority of the planet.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User] ELI5 - What is a Solar/Steller Wind?

[Assistant]
Ok

Most stars are basically giant fusion reactor which constantly spits out radiation and charged particles,

And think there are trillions of them around the galaxy and universe doing that exactly, depending on the type of star they spit out different ranges of radiation and at different strength,

those radiations cause currents of matter, particles and energy which are called "solar or stellar winds".


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
ELI5 what the phrase "turtles all the way down" means?

I read the Wikipedia article but.. I still don't really get it.

[Assistant]
It's a joke. An old woman is convinced that the world sits on the back of a giant turtle. Underneath that turtle is another turtle, and so on. It's turtles all the way down.

It supposed to represent someone being presented with a gap in their beliefs and instead of questioning those beliefs, they double-down.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
ELI5: Whats the science behind feeling your 'heart drop or getting a sinking feeling?

What does the body go through?

[Assistant] Typically, that sinking feeling is occurring in the digestive system. That sinking feeling usually occurs because of either something frightening or stressful occurred or you feel a sense of dread. This triggers your fight or flight response and your brain signals the endocrine system to release endorphins and adrenaline. Your muscles and body is now working on overdrive. The sinking feeling comes from your metabolism speeding up due to this release of chemicals. Food is now moving through your body faster then usual. What your feeling is your stomach being quick to hunger and rub together faster then normal and your intestines expanding and contracting faster then normal. This is the sinking feeling and in a way its aptly named since its caused by food sinking down through your digestive system faster then normal.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
Bodily autonomy and drinking while pregnant

Does the bodily autonomy of a pregnant mother grant them then right to drink while pregnant (where this will harm the foetus)?

If not then the foetus seems to have a right to not be harmed by the mothers conduct, limiting the mothers bodily autonomy in the case of harm to the foetus.

Would this limit (in the case of causing harm) not imply a similar limit in the case of abortion, where termination would constitute an even greater harm to the foetus?

[Assistant]
>If not then the foetus seems to have a right to not be harmed by the mothers conduct

Is that the only possible reason we can think of why it may not be permissible? Like first you could just add the proviso of 'fetus you plan to bring to term', which cuts out the comparison to abortion, or you could just avoid talking about the fetus at all, and speak about taking about avoiding actions which would harm a person who is going to come into existence (around birth or whenever you feel like is the cut off) and have no concern with the fetus at all in of itself.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User] ELI5: Why are wasps so aggressive?

[Assistant]
They're very territorial, can get pissy when tired like we do, and they don't like being swatted at.

Wasps = assholes.  They can sting things multiple times and they know it.

Bees = just wanna make honey.  They can only sting once and will die after doing so and they know it.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
[Marvel] can Thor command Mjlnir out of a worthy persons hand?

Say someone like Jane foster or Steve Rogers is in possession of Thors hammer. Could Thor command the hammer to return to him straight off their hand? If neither person is in direct possession of it and both command it to return, who gets priority?

[Assistant] Mjolnir is to a degree sentient, and as such it would go with however needs it more in that moment. If Thor was about to die it would probably go to him, otherwise it would remain in the hand of the current worthy user.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
[LOTR] Were the men who allied with Morgoth actually evil or just misled?

Did they, due to Morgoth's lies, sincerely believe the Elves were evil and that they were righteous? Some descendants of these men (.e.g. Rohirrim, Dale) fought with honor against Sauron, meaning they couldn't be inherently evil. Or were these groups neutral or uninvolved in the war with Morgoth?

[Assistant]
Not inherently evil, but they were goaded to evil by Morgoth who promised them power by "stealing back their birthright" so to speak.

Its the banal kind of evil when men take just one little step every day then wake up to discover they are neck deep in a war on the side of evil.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
[Arrow] What position in the city does Ray Palmer have? Why is he considered a city leader?

He's got money.... that's it, as far as I know.

[Assistant]
He's currently the CEO of Palmer Industries (formerly Queen Consolidated), the single largest company based in Starling City and source of hundreds-if-not-thousands of jobs, making him the largest voice of business in the area, for one.

Given that he revived the company from its previous state of disarray (what with the previous poor management and short turnaroud time for CEOs) and bring a fair deal of wealth to the city in doing so, he's seen publicly as someone acting in the best interests of Starling City, something very much helped by his natural charisma.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
Do/will Marvel characters remember the old DC universe (pre new 52)?

Or were all of those crossovers non-canon?

[Assistant]
JLA/Avengers was New Earth and Earth-616, yes. And Marvel would remember it as happening because the New 52 is a new universe, Prime Earth, not New Earth.

All of the other crossovers happened in different universes, though.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
[Harry Potter] Is the so-called "magical Renaissance" over? Is the wizarding world on its way out?

I am a wizard, and this is my first time using a muggle computer, but I should be safe asking this question from any exposure to muggles given this neat little obliviating hex my Professor taught me holds up.

I am away at academy, and I try to be a good student. I want to learn as much about wizarding culture as I can, which, yeah, attracts some bullying or namecalling from time to time.

There's this one prick, though. Wilfred Pesk. He's raised by scientist muggles, so he prides himself on knowing things others don't, and making sure everyone knows how smart and keen and "red-pilled" (some muggle reference?) on social sciences he is. He's the most nihilistic, pessimistic, and downright rude individual I have ever met in my life. He loves to poke fun, saying things like "The magical Renaissance is over", or "spells aren't made anymore, anywhere". And I know that's not true, for the most part.

But he said something recently that really kinda got at me. I was reading up on the Wizengamut and the political system in the British wizarding community, when Pesk showed up and started taunting me.

He said something to the effect of, "Give it a rest, will you? There's no population growth, there's no desire to study magic, there's massive stagnation scientifically and sociologically, huge xenophobia, and general apathy in the population. Everyone is comfortable, and that's the worst thing a country could be. This is how Byzantium fell, this is how Rome fell, this is how every apex country in the world fell, and it's how the wizarding world will fall, too." I asked him how he was so damned sure, and he said "I dunno, why don't we have any idea what Magic really is? Why aren't we still researching and making spells every day? Why are there so few magical creatures still around? The magic is leaving the world, buddy." And then he fucking left.

I'm mad but I can't help but entertain his thinking. His history at least seems sound, from what I know. Is the wizarding world on its way out? Are there any references to this that I can read? What will replace wizards as the new "apex society", if so? Or, what could prevent this stagnation?

[Assistant]
Typical Brit, always thinking the world revolves around you. You do realize the the UK is the magical equivalent of the short bus right? Nothing but angry squabbling inbreds who refuse to look outwards. There is an entire world of magic and spells out there.

And if he wants to brag about "science" go ahead, just remind him that scientists can even break the laws of reality like even a typical first year can do. And they call themselves advanced.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User] ELI5: How are checks considered a safe form of payment?

[Assistant] Watch the movie catch me if you can with Leonardo DiCaprio. It shows how checks used to not be very secure and now they are very secure due to his character. There is a lot of fraud protection built in.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
ELI5: Can anyone explain why we have foods that start out on the shelf but than have to be refrigerated so they won't go bad?

Foods like:
Ranch
Mayo
Ketchup
Etc..

[Assistant]
Most foods with "refrigerate after opening" have been vacuum-sealed or canned in order to kill off harmful bacteria, or heated and the package filled with nitrogen (or inert gas) in the case of dry foods.

As soon as the container or package is unsealed, it's exposed to oxygen and all the dirt, spores and bacteria contained in our atmosphere once more, and so the decay, fouling, molding and/or other such degeneration processes start back up immediately. At that point, you put it in the fridge or things like mayonnaise will do what they do best; go completely rancid overnight.

Effectively, the packaging techniques allow us to temporarily pause the food's expiration, until we've opened it.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User] CMV: Free college education isn't such a great idea.

[Assistant] Free college doesn't give everyone a college degree, it just removes the barrier of affordability.  People will still need to meet the admission requirements, and actually pass the program in order to get a college degree.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User] ELI5: The differences between; coroner, medical examiner and forensic pathologist.

[Assistant]
The coroner is the person in charge of reporting to a court the circumstances in which someone has met an unexplained death. A medical examiner is someone who examines people who have been killed or injured during the course of a crime or suspicious incident. A forensic pathologist is someone who examines a dead body and determines the cause of death.

There is a great deal of overlap between these roles and often they can be performed by the same person, indeed a forensic pathologist is a specialist medical examiner.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
[Fallout] Why is the East coast so much less developed than the West coast in terms of organized society?

It's population was roughly the same, if not greater, than the West coast and it had plenty of vaults of its own so population shouldn't be a problem. The West coast doesn't appear to have much more infrastructure. While the commonwealth makes sense given the presence of the institute but what about the rest?

[Assistant]
Remember that we've only seen a few TINY glimpses of an utterly massive half of the country. There might be some rather large and organized parts of the east coast further south, but communication and trade are just starting to become commonplace beyond small local economies.

Washington DC was hit especially hard by Chinese nukes, because it was the seat and symbol of America's power. China targeted it with a huge number of small tactical nukes and dirty bombs meant to poison the landscape forevermore. They wanted to utterly destroy America's heart and make sure it NEVER rebuilt no matter what. Because of this extensive and brutal bombing, the Capital Wasteland is more barren, broken, and poisonous than other areas. But as we've seen, there is hope. Oasis might spread in the coming years. And Project Purity will eventually fix a major part of the local water supply. With the Brotherhood of Steel firmly in charge, it's very possible DC will soon be the capital again, but of a BoS government.

Boston was not hit nearly as hard, and is in fact remarkably intact after two centuries of neglect. But still, the radstorms that come from the glowing sea keep the local area full of deadly radiation. And thus keep mutations, cancer, and other deadly afflictions constantly in the living populations. We know that people in the area have certainly tried to set up local governments and organize themselves. But the Institute destroyed the last attempt (but from their perspective, they tried to set it up in the first place and petty issues destroyed it). And the Minutemen fell apart because of weak leadership and constant infighting.

Similar to the issues with the glowing sea, the tiny glimpse of Maine we've seen is full of regular cycles of incredibly deadly radioactive fog. It's impossible for people to live and prosper there without extensive technological aid.

Also, remember that the NCR would never have existed without the aid of the legendary Vault Dweller. And then, it took decades after the dweller's actions for it to become a large stable power. It's only been ten years since the Lone Wanderer helped stabilize the Capital Wasteland, and the Sole Survivor is still doing stuff around Boston as far as we know. So perhaps in 50 years, we'll see some kind of massive change in the local area.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User] [MCU] Whats the best example of Tony upgrading his suits as a result of fighting experience? Are any of the suits considered downgrades?

[Assistant]
From MCU probably not a direct fight but from observing reports and footage: Hulkbuster.

All of the tech involved is literally meant to incapacitate Hulk specifically. Does it work on other stuff? Well yes, but consider how the back up stuff is pumped in on standby and at a moments notice. It was a kit designed specifically to deal with a nigh unstoppable rage monster.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User] [DC Comics] if there are no telephone booths, where will Clark Kent go when he needs to change into Superman?

[Assistant]
He uses the supply closet at the Daily Planet building, and then flies out the window so quickly that no one will see him.

He's gotten used to having to change in abandoned alleyways since phone booths haven't been a thing in years.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User] Do organisms with shorter lifespans evolve faster?

[Assistant]
Yes.

A single slightly beneficial mutation in one individual can become ubiquitous in a large population in as few as 10,000 generations. In a long lived species this could take a hundred thousand years, but in short lived microscopic species this can be less than a year. Many 10,000, 20,000, and 50,000 generation experiments have been done in labs with bacteria. This would take decades with short lived insects, and thousands of years with even the quickest reproducing mammals.

Edit: spelling.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
[In Time] How would a time based economy actually work?

"In Time" money is replaced by well.. time. After there 25th birthday people stop aging but they have to earn time to actually continuing living .

 This is all supposedly to stop overpopulation but the economic actions shown doesn't make any sense, if it where truly to control overpopulation time would be distributed based on overall population density but prices are raised arbitrarily (sean especially after Will and Sylvia flood the system with stolen time) suggesting that the real purpose of time based economy is to work pour people to death and to keep them from uprising against the system because well they don't have the time to stage a rebellion.

So how would a fair time-based economy look like?

[Assistant]
There would be enormous pressure to conclude schooling before the age of 25. This would damage many professions with extended education/training periods. Doctors would be rushed through their training. In a world without age-related issues, they'd be less in demand - except to treat trauma victims as billions of people spend decades continuing to enjoy extreme sports. Scientific research would be damaged, and any other even slightly esoteric discipline (like engineering).

Aside from the technologies and knowledge needed to maintain the anti-aging system, we'd see a plateau in human ingenuity and training. You would think a world where geniuses stay young and vital would eventually balance this out with sustained creativity (as opposed to exhaustion) - but there's a mental element, not just one of raw stamina.

Replacing money with time will make inequality much more starkly clear. Today, the average CEO makes 204 times what the average worker makes. That won't last in a time-based economy. In the beginning, you'll see a surge of retirements as people at the top gain what seems to be practical immortality after a few years. "I'll come back to work in a century or two." You'll see riots as people die in the streets while the idle rich become practically godlike. People with vital or disgusting jobs will go on strike until their true worth is known.

That first year will be utter chaos. But at the end of it, the soldier on the frontlines will earn more time than the general who commands him. A garbageman will earn more time than an interior designer. Anyone whose job is enjoyable will see their work hours expand - while those whose jobs are not will work less. There will be a flood out of low-paying jobs into those who promise life.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
ELI5: Why is heartrate usually only measured in BPM? Doesn't the strength of the beats matter too?

Like your heart can be beating 110BPM with light beats, but wouldn't 90BPM with much harder beats be equivalent or stronger?

[Assistant] Blood pressure is an extremely important measure for health diagnosis and assessment, but it requires special equipment. Heart rate, on the other hand, gives some information, though much less important or useful compared to BP, but it can be measured very easily with only a timepiece.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
[Shang Chi] How did people get to Ta Lo before cars?

In the movie, they're in a car being guided by a creature who knows the way, and they're hauling ass and barely manage to get through the forest. How is someone meant to get there without a car? Do they always have to just wait for that one conjunction thing?

[Assistant] Didn't they enter the forest maze early or something? Like the path was supposed to open in three days, but Morris knew the shortcut, so that's why they cut it so close. The ten rings guys probably didn't have to deal with that when they went through later on.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User] [Batman] If im a thug and Batman starts beating me up can I just pretend to be unconcious and then haul ass when he's gone?

[Assistant]
Probably what a good portion of the henchmen do. There are only so many people in the city who do organized costumed crime id bet. Probably have a hench union and rules/guidelines for fighting the Bat.

No more than 2 (two) Direct Beatings in any one crime wave without hazard pay.

No Henchman in class One Part Time Hench will take the lead on any Fight Formation if Batman is directly involved.

Full time Hench will only take lead in the absence of a Named Henchman.

All Non-Named Henchmen are required to put up a fight for the time designated for their class.

Failure to wear appropriate padding constitutes non- compliance and may result in loss of health benefits.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
ELI5: Why do humans see vague lights better in dark environments as long as they're not looking directly at the light source?

Sometimes in a dark room, when people see just a tiny bit of light, like the glowing dot from a charger, we're able to see the light just as long as we're not looking directly at it. Why is this?

[Assistant]
To keep this answer very ELI5, the centre of your vision is filled with things called cones. These detect colour, and are densely packed to pick up detail, but they are not very light sensitive. The rest of your vision is made up of things called rods, these don't detect colour, but they are sensitive to light.

To be a little more in depth, your vision is made up of things called receptive fields. Each rod or cone is grouped together into these fields. At the centre of your vision these fields are small, so you can detect detail. At the edge of your vision they are larger. These larger fields get hit with more light (simple by virtue of being larger) and respond stronger to low light conditions.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
When did we know that birds are descended from dinosaurs?

I remember back in school, some 25 years ago, that I was taught that *maybe* birds and dinosaurs were related but that there was no real evidence.

Did paleontologists (or whoever knows these things) not know back then, or was my teacher's information just outdated?

[Assistant]
Almost as soon as the first *Archaeopteryx* was formally described by Richard Owen, other scientists noticed the many similarities between this "first bird" and certain dinosaurs. Within 5 yearsso, 1868you had Thomas Huxley loudly banging the "birds and dinosaurs are related" drum, as well as Cope and a few others. When the 1870 "Berlin *Archaeopteryx*" revealed its dinosaur-like teeth, the comparisons to *Compsognathus* were hard to miss. Owen himself never liked the idea, but a lot of contemporary biologists did. It was a fairly popular, but not *universal*, hypothesis within biology.

But in the 1920s, a Dane by the name of Gerhard Heilmann arguedquite persuasively at the timethat birds could *not* have evolved from dinosaurs. Dinosaurs, you see, had at some point in their evolutionary history lost their collarbones (clavicles). Birds *have* clavicles (fused together into a single "wishbone") and it was a popular idea in the '20s that once a trait was lost it could not be re-evolved. So birds must have branched off the reptile line before dinosaurs did. Heilmann put birds as descendants of the "thecodonts", a (now-obsolete) group containing the crocodile-like ancestors of dinosaurs, pterosaurs, and modern alligators and crocodiles. Heilmann's position was attractive enough that the "birds are dinosaurs" idea was effectively put to rest, and for the next several decades the textbook answer was "birds are some kind of thecodonts, but not *dinosaur*\-thecodonts."

It was *Deinonychus*, discovered in 1964 and described formally in 1969, that started pulling scientists back into the "birds are dinosaurs" way of thinking. Ostrom spent several more years after *Deinonychus* comparing *Deinonychus* and *Archaeopteryx*, arguing that their skeletal similiarities couldn't be the result of simple "convergent evolution". (Alan Grant in *Jurassic Park* mentions this specific argument of Ostrom's: "And look at the half-moon shaped bones in the wrist. No wonder these guys learned how to fly.")

This was still just one hypothesis, however; there were still a lot of "birds are thecodonts" advocates, and there was a competing hypothesis that, based on skull features, birds were *crocodylomorphs*. All three arguments were swirling around paleontological circles.

In 1986, Gauthier published his cladistic comparison of birds and dinosaurs, and showed thatby sheer number of shared anatomical traitsbirds pretty much *had* to be some kind of theropod dinosaur. Birds weren't "thecodonts", they weren't crocodylomorphs, they were *definitely* dinosaurs. If your teacher was telling you 25 years ago that there was "no real evidence" that birds were dinosaurs, they were giving you out-of-date information.

Of course, there was also no Internet 25 years ago, so although your teacher was at least a decade behind, not having access to the most current information was a little more understandable than it would be today.

The final clincher for any holdouts (absent a handful of ~~morons~~ "contrarians" like Alan Feduccia) was the explosion of feathered bird fossils and feathered dinosaur fossils that started coming out of China in the '90s. Some dinosaurs were even originally described *as* birds, so covered with feathers were they, and only after publication recognized as bird-like dinosaurs instead of dinosaur-like birds. This would have been right around 20 years ago, just after your school experience. By the end of the '90s pretty much every paleontologist was back on board Cope and Huxley's 130-year-old "birds are dinosaurs" train, and hopefully your teacher was, too.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
[Marvel] Does the Hulk have flexibility and full range of motion? Or are his muscles so massive that he can barely raise his arm over his head?

does he need to stretch or do yoga to get/maintain flexibility?

[Assistant]
Hulk's physiology actually alters Banner's bone structure as well as adding mass and muscle. Apparently regressing into a more primitive, apelike form which happens to provide more mechanically optimal application of muscular force. This would theoretically limit Hulk's range of motion and explain his "poor posture," BUT because of the Hulk's extreme strength, metabolism and psychology, the Hulk has no *actual* "limit" to his flexibility because tearing cartilage and tendon isn't actually a deterrent to moving into whatever position he wants.

Professor Hulk seems to have a more modern, upright posture, but he also seems slightly less "Hulk-like" in many other ways as well. The same applies here, though. His massive musculature may somewhat impede his ROM, but he can ignore the resistance, possibly bruising muscle and tearing tendons, healing the damage almost immediately.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
If you were standing on the moon's surface, would you be able to see the horizon curve?

If not, how small would a planet/moon have to be to be able to notice a curve of the horizon?

[Assistant]
This can be done as a geometry problem.

So the moon's radius is approx. 1.75 million meters (assuming a perfect sphere).
If you were standing on the moon, your eye height would be approx. 2m.

The horizon would be at the point that a tangent line from your eyes hits to the surface of the moon.  Since tangents lines of circles make an angle of 90 degrees with the radius of a circle, we can use pythagorus' theorem to calculate the distance you could see.

Horizon distance = sqrt[(Moon Radius + Eye Height)^2 - (Moon radius)^2]
= approx. 2.64km.

Okay, so now, your horizontal field of vision is about 120 degrees.  So now draw a triangle along the surface of the moon out to the horizon, coming out from you with an angle of 120 degrees. It would be an isosceles triangle with side lengths of 120km, so the remaining angles are 30 degrees each. To calculate the remaining side length of this triangle, we can use the sine law. This length corresponds to a chord across the horizon, from the edge of your field of vision on the left, to the edge of your field of vision on the right.

Horizon chord length = sin(120)/sin(30)*2.6km = 4.5km

So now, we know that from one corner of your vision to the other across the horizon is a length of 4.5km.   Because the surface of the moon is curved, the centre of this chord line should lie *below* the surface of the moon.  Now let's calculate just how far below the surface it would lie.
Again we can use pythagorus' theorem.
Chord line to surface = Moon radius - sqrt[(moon radius)^2 - (chord length/2)^2]   = 1.5m.

So to summarize, if you were standing on the moon you could see the horizon 2.6km away. The horizon at the centre of your vision would appear 1.5m higher than the horizon at the corners of your vision. If you held out a meter stick at arms length (~1m) up to the horizon, the horizon would deviate from the straight line by less than 1mm.    So you probably wouldn't notice a curvature at all.

To answer your second question, a planet about 1/4 the size of the moon would allow for a curvature of over 1mm as compared to your meter stick held up at arms length. It would take a planet with a radius of about 5.5km in order to see 1cm deviation across your meter stick.  One of Mars' moons, Phobos is about this size.

***TL:DR;   No. You'd probably have to go to Phobos in order to notice any curvature.***


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User] ELI5: Crumpets. How does dough get so holey?

[Assistant]
Carbon dioxide bubbles form in the glutinous structures due to yeast's metabolization of sugars in the dough.

It is the same reason bread rises, except that crumpets have different ratios of ingredients than bread and are intended to have a particularly spongy texture.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
[the matrix] is technology allowed to advance within the matrix or is humanity just stuck in the 21st century?

And if technology is stagnant within the matrix are all the scientists agents. Or if they are other people trapped in the simulation are they only allowed to make minor advancements?

[Assistant]
Experimentation is required for technology to advance.

Since The Matrix is a simulation, the machines can control the outcome of (almost) any experiment, and therefore guide technological development as much as they please.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
[Marvel, DC] Does anyone ever bring up how some of the royal Avengers and Leaguers are dictators?

Wise, prudent and fair dictators but dictators nonetheless. There's a reason why so few modern countries are monarchies.Atlantis and Asgard are explicitly NOT democratic; does anyone ever mention it to Aquaman and/or Thor?

[Assistant]
I mean, Namor definitly makes sure that anyone in a room knows that he is King as soon as he enters it. There is also a reason why Namor swings from hero to villain every so often, he does whats best for his people, not for everyone. He is also kind of an asshole.

Thor is a god, and gods follows their own rules. Asgard has tried to be more democraftly lately, with the congress of worlds under Freias rule, but Odin did not agree with it, most likely because he has ruled asgard for the last 65 million years or so.

As for Black Panther, who usually isnt a an avenger but works with them, he also usually makes it very clear that he is a king, and he can do what he wishes.

So no, there isnt really any need for other avengers members to point out that there are dictators on the team, becasue they will be the first one to tell you about it. And then they will not ask your opinion on the matter. If you were to mention it, they will give you some wisdom about how a country with a king will be more effective in times of crisis, and then they will point out that, being an avenger, you are constantly in a time of crisis. Or thor will say "we are not mortal men" and leave it at that.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
How would Gilligan's Island REALLY play out?

If an aging millionaire couple, a dashing and brilliant professor, a glamorous film star, a hardy sea captain, a teenage girl, and an incompetent sailor were stranded on an island, what would happen? Who would assert themself in charge? Could they survive?

[Assistant]
If the sea captain was in any way competent, he'd make sure everyone stayed calm and then would do his best to remember everything he had been taught about emergency situations like this. Once everyone was done panicking, they'd defer to his experience. (Maybe a little arguing, but again, assuming a competent captain, he'd shut them up. This is also assuming he has any actual training and is a legit captain and not just a guy who owns a boat.)

First, they'd all be checked for any kind of injury. Once it was entirely sure everyone was okay, they'd make sure to grab every ounce of food and medical supplies from the ship and find a decent shelter.

This is assuming the professor is knowledgeable of basic survival skills, maybe augmented with the captain's experience, they'd gather what they needed and work together to make sure they had a shelter that would last not only a single night, but the possibility of a longer stay.

After that, the captain would make sure everyone stayed calm while the professor worked to repair the ship's radio. If that's a total lost cause, they'd work up either a big enough fire to send a huge smoke trail or possibly flag signals. The tour was only 3 hours long, which means they didn't deviate from any well known routes that much. A ship or plane WILL come near at any time.

An island this close to a dock populated enough to give three hour tours is also most likely inhabited, even if it's on the other side of the island. Some members of the group may be tasked with walking/hiking over there to get help.

If the island is completely uninhabited and there isn't much food, the professor would be asked what is safe to eat and drink. It would be rather unlikely they'd go on any sort of hunting expedition because tropical islands either have small animals, endangered species or animals inexperienced hunters would have real trouble in catching. They would, however, do a LOT of fishing. The incompetent sailor would probably be in charge of this, since all he has to do is cast lines and pull them in.

Again, since the tour was so short, rescue would probably only take a few days at maximum. Their story would be national news for a brief time, but they'd be eventually forgotten by the public, no matter how many times they try to make a sitcom out of a desperate survival situation.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User] ELI5: Why does the body naturally wake up around the same times every day without any prompting, even if it hasn't been 8 hours?

[Assistant]
Nobody precisely knows.

Its a popular research subject.

A Harvard study found that fasting for 16 hours followed by waking up and eating had a good chance of resetting your internal clock to think that meal was breakfast, and youd start sleeping and waking up accordingly.

Why this happens is not clear, but its an experiment Ive tried and it does tend to work.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User] [Zombies] The last human just became a zombie, what next?

[Assistant] With all of humanity dead, no fresh zombies can be made which means the existing ones will all break down over time.  Life goes on for everything else that didn't succumb to the cause of the zombie outbreak and the fall of man.  Given enough time, some form of intelligent life might emerge and be able to sift the ashes to unlock the dark secrets of the past.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
ELI5: Why has there almost never been a regular working class person running for president? Do you need to be wealthy to do so?

Doesn't that skew the theory of representation?

[Assistant]
A lotof presidents used to be working class/poor.

Lincoln, jackson, johnson, nixon

But yes most presidents have been wealthy, by the time of election or were born to it (roosevelts, kennedys, etc)

Obama isnt from a wealthy family.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
ELI5: Why do people get allergies?

Why do people get allergies even with 21 years for the first time like me.

And is there already a cure with a high success rate?

[Assistant]
One analogy for the immune system could be like the role of the police within a city. Just as a city is made up of many individual people, houses, and industries, our bodies are made up of many individual cells that work together to make us alive. Just like in our modern cities, the vast majority of citizens are good but there's always the shadowy threat of bad guys lurking out there. The police have many difficult but essential tasks including:
To work out who is good and who is bad (surveillance)
To actively hunt down the bad guys (enforcement)
To always be prepared to rapidly mobilise a decisive response when something really serious happens (counter-terrorism)

Each task requires a different approach. One branch of the immune system responds immediately to crimes in a simplistic fashion when they happen, like a security guard. Later on, a second branch shows up to crime scenes, collects evidence and creates a criminal profile, like a detective. Another branch monitors traffic in streets (or the blood vessels) for individuals who match these profiles, like a traffic cop. Yet another branch carefully scans the outside of each house to determine if there is suspicious activity occurring within, like the FBI.

We know a lot about the "how" of your question, but the "why" is much less clear. What can be said is that allergies tend to be associated with a branch that acts like a warning siren. For some reason the detectives wrongly create a profile of a suspected criminal (Mr Peanut B. Sandwich) and send it to this alarm system which lies dormant until a match is made on the profile. When a match is made the response is very rapid and aggressive -- loud sirens go off all over the city and everyone starts to panic like there's some kind of terrorist attack. All available defense personnel are mobilised and start roaming the city. In the confusion, vital systems struggle. Traffic in the streets grinds to a halt (blood doesn't flow very well around the body) and the city stops functioning properly.

Now, it turns out this is a false alarm -- we all know Mr P. B. Sandwich is innocent. But the police have no way of knowing this and continue to freak out and make you sick whenever he is detected. Why do we have this alarm system in the first place? Hard to say. One theory is that it was developed to deal with parasitic worms, compared to the individual police they are gigantic monsters like Godzilla. Another is that it helps to protect from poisons (bee venom) by provoking a huge reaction against a dire threat, like chemical or biological terrorist attack.

You ask about a cure. One method of treatment that succeeds in some people is *desensitisation*. Medical personnel introduce the barest trace of Mr P. B. Sandwich into the body, say just a single hair from his head. This is identified but there's so little evidence of his presence that the reaction is small -- at most it might set off a couple of car alarms. When detectives investigate they find that no crime was committed. Exposing the body to tiny peanut fragments is repeated every couple of weeks and eventually the detectives start to put 2 and 2 together and realise that maybe Mr P. B. Sandwich has been falsely accused. With enough time larger and larger doses of peanut can be introduced without creating a huge panic (the medical word for this "panic" is anaphylaxis).


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
[warhammer 40k] The Four Chaos Gods Nurgle, Khorne, Tzeentch and Slaanesh are all born from the negative emotions, bad deeds and war from sentient beings throughout the galaxy. Are there any gods of order born from positive emotions, good deeds and peace?

Another question, do other galaxies have their own chaos gods?

[Assistant]
Chaos gods don't embody negative emotions alone.

Khorne for example is a god of blood, war and murder, but he is also the god of martial pride, honor and those who stand up against all odds and win.

Tzeentch is the god of change, evolution, intrigue and sorcery, but he is also the god of knowledge and comprehension.

Slaanesh is the god of pleasure, passion and decadence. He/She is the god of excesses as well.

Nurgle is the god of disease, decay and destruction, but also the god of rebirth.

Basically, the Chaos Gods all have a positive dimension to them. There are many ways to the corruption of Chaos.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
[Marvel][General] What is different in the lives of people who have super heat/fire powers like the Human Torch?

He sometimes says he "runs hot" and I wanted to know how being able to control fire, being made of fire, or having heat powers would affect his body or his life.

[Assistant]
Lack of control is a huge concern, particularly with persons who have to work to hold back their power rather than work to manifest it.  Liz Sherman of the BPRD is a good example here.  Sudden shocks and traumas could cause her to lose her restraint, unleashing huge amounts of fire.  Similarly, becoming angry or upset could cause Charlie McGee to lose control.

Being too hot to be around is another problem.  Being on fire or being prone to causing fire can be isolating (examples here include the Flame Princess and, again, Liz Sherman).  It can also require a lot of day-to-day precautions, such as living in a fire-proof home.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
[Halo] Exactly how technologically capable is the Covenant?

It is known that the Covenant reverse engineered most of its technology from the Forerunners and used the Engineers to copy stuff. They also had a straight ban on AI development.

But just how advanced was their understanding of said technology? surely they must have known how it worked at some level, otherwise they could not have designed ships (they looked different from Foreruner ships) or weapons or really much of anything.

[Assistant] They are one tier higher than humanity on the technology scale.  They can accurately travel through slipspace to a very small margin of error which humanity could just get in the ballpark of a target destination. They had an extremely advanced tech base but only had a small number of aliens capable of doing anything with it. Most places and ships required engineers or prophets to do any serious maintenance on machinery and some machines like scarabs were held together by hunter worms instead of actual machinery.  The most capable races were the elites brutes and jackals since they built and maintained their own technology to an extent but anything like shields or ftl engines required more highly trained help.  On a whole they had better technology but on a case by case basis they were only a few decades ahead of humanity outside of shields and plasma based technology and slipspace tech.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User] [Predator/Star Trek] If they shared the same universe, what would be the prevailing attitude of Klingons be towards the Yautja? Would they measure up to the Klingon standards of honor and be considered friends, enemies or neutral?

[Assistant] They both talk a big game about honor and they both prefer to ambush unsuspecting targets from the safety of invisibility.  They even have the same big ass foreheads!  They're probably descended from a common ancestor.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
[Star Wars Legends] If the Clone Wars era Jedi Order fell because they became "corrupt" by leading armies instead of keeping the peace, what about the Old Republic era Jedi?

So we always get this explanation that the Jedi strayed from their path by choosing to become generals during the Clone Wars and so the Force decided a reset was needed. But what I don't get is, the Jedi Order have existed for millenia and past iterations have led armies and even gotten involved in politics without having its leadership completely destroyed. SWTOR era Jedi is the obvious example, then there were the Jedi Lords during the New Sith Wars and Grand Master Biel Ductavis who even held the office of Supreme Chancellor.

[Assistant] The prequel era Jedi weren't corrupt because they were leading armies, they were corrupt because they had become complacent and part of the system of corruption in the Republic itself, which Palpatine exploited in order to foster the war and lead the Jedi down the path that they shouldn't have gone.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User] [Warhammer 40k] If humanity just let the Emperor die, wouldn't he come back from death the same way he got his origin?

[Assistant]
The Warps is a much more dangerous place now, and filled with beings who would put their entire powers into keeping him from reforming. Yeah, he *might*, he might even have a power boost from all the prayers and sacrificed psykers, but there's still chance he'd fade to nothing and humanity would go to literal hell.

There's also, if you accept *amazing* fan fics, the possibility he might become the Star Father, Chaos God of Order, and royally screw free will.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
ELI5: How were we able to get to the Moon within 9 years of going to space, but in the 42 years since we can't send someone to Mars?

Can you explain why it is so tough to get to Mars?  Why have we been able to send so many rovers but no people?  What is the biggest issues with sending someone there?  Is there a realistic time frame to getting there?

[Assistant]
The quickest answer is that it's 250,000 miles to the moon; minimum distance to Mars is 50 million miles.

Gravity on Mars is much greater, so the spacecraft has to be capable of generating a lot more lift to get off Mars.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
[Marvel Comics] Why does Thor wield a magical hammer that grants people the power of Thor?

Given that he is, in fact, Thor, and therefore already has the power of Thor.

IIRC, Beta Ray Bill fought Thor a time or two and they were pretty evenly matched. They were roughly equals in power. Things happened, and as a reward Odin gifted Bill with.... a magical hammer that grants him the power of Thor!

Why? They're already that strong. Why not find a weaker being who is worthy and give them the powerful weapon so that there are actually more worthy Thor-tier beings in the universe? Sometimes Mjolnir seems to have a variety of additional abilities, but why not tack on a different enchantment instead of one that grants Thor the power that he already has?

[Assistant]
Actually, that's happened to Thor repeatedly. He's been banished to Earth multiple times and forced to adopt a human identity until he proved his worth.

Most recently, he was forced to live on Earth as a disabled man named Don Blake. It was meant to be the ultimate test of his worthiness; in this form he was not big or strong or powerful, and couldn't rest on those laurels by fighting monsters- however, as Don he proved he was still heroic by devoting his life to becoming a physician and healer of the sick.

This confirmed that he was truly worthy of his role as prince of Asgard, and so the hand of fate guided him to Norway where he recovered Mjolnir once more. But it's implied that if some other worthy had found it, they would have taken Thor's place in the cosmos.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
[Superpowers] With the ability to communicate to animals (zoolingualism? Animalpathy?), how do the animals understand the concept of words and actions? Such as up, attack, fly etc.

Ant-man wants the the ants to point to where the villain is, do ants even understand what pointing is? Aquaman tells the shark to help Superman, what is help to the shark and what is even a Superman?

[Assistant]
There's a good scene in one of the newer Aquaman issues where he get's frustrated because he orders seafood and people get offended. He then explains that it's the same as land people eating cattle. Some object because he can speak to the fish, but he corrects them. He explains that he doesn't speak with them, he compels them.

Aquaman doesn't ask a fish to swim through a hoop, through telepathy he makes that fish want to swim through that hoop. Fish aren't friends, they're tools.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
Is there a spot where the big bang happened? do we know where it is? Is it the center of the universe? If you go there, is there a net force of zero acting on you in all directions ( gravity)

EDIT: Wow thanks for all of the answers and the support, this is my most popular post yet and first time on trending page of this sub! (im new to reddit)

[Assistant]
The big bang happened *everywhere*, right where you're sitting now included. The universe doesn't have a center; instead, *everywhere* is equally the center. When we talk about the universe expanding, what we mean is that *space itself* is expanding, not that the universe is expanding into something or away from a center point.

This is a difficult point to grasp, but it helps if you remember that the universe may well be infinite - it's only the *observable* universe that's finite, and that's because of two things: 1) light takes time to travel and 2) the universe hasn't always existed. There's more universe further out, ad infinitum, but the light from those parts hasn't had time to reach us yet. The stuff inside the universe is being carried away from the other stuff inside the universe as space itself expands, like a baking cake carrying raisins inside further away from other raisins as it rises.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User] ELI5: How did people make ice before electricity?

[Assistant] They didn't. They harvested it from lakes and ponds and stored them in ice cellars. By summer only the richest had ice left if anyone did. Ice was not for drinking or eating either. It was to keep food from spoiling.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
[MCU] So why didn't Black Bolt just tell Thanos to "fuck off" if he's so powerful?

Seems like he could have just ended it instantly.

Wanda could have too, but that's a whole different discussion.

[Assistant]
Probably due to the infinity gems ,.posse and his army

Like the eternals though some b.s reason will be invented.

Comicbook wise i think thanos (no gems) and black bolt have had one awesome (if controversial fight ) with thanos beating bolt to the point of death like a fucking boss.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
CMV: I think that bringing up rights when discussing policy is unproductive.

I'm not a fan of the way policy discussion takes place and feel it could be more productive.

Let us start off with abortion. I am completely pro choice but I don't like the way discussion in some cases takes place. For example, I saw a post on two x that didn't really refute any restrictive abortion policies but just stated the right to bodily autonomy as an argument against them. I don't feel like stating that is a proper refutation. I think that if we were to look at something like sex selective abortion policies it might be more obvious what I see is wrong with those arguments. Imagine if they were having a debate in India. One person brings up all this data about the problems with unrestricted sex selective abortion and the other person simply said that those policies shouldn't be allowed because it was their right to an abortion for whatever reason they wish. This would be bad because the discussion is far too nuanced.

I think that there are problems that arise from hiding behind this argument. The fundamental reason I would consider it bad is this. Rights are a human construct. A bunch of people got together and decided that guaranteeing certain rights would be best for the people. It seems perfectly reasonable that they could've been wrong and that guaranteeing those rights in certain situation are bad. Not trying to suggest whether or not they are. They could be though so arguing that something shouldn't happen because it is your right is a terrible argument.

I'm not trying to suggest all discussion that takes place is like this. When talking about gun rights there is a lot of fruitful and important discussion using data, statistics, and other relevant factors. However, there is a small group of arguers who would refute arguments from the other side by simply saying that it is their right guaranteed by the second amendment.

I think that rights are not relevant in policy discussion.

Edit: My view has been changed thanks to iamblegion. I appreciate everyone who commented to assist in changing my view. It definitely did feel off.

[Assistant]
If rights are irrelevant, there is no need for laws. At their base, laws protect rights via threat of physical punishment. Murder, for instance, is illegal because you have a right to life. Statistics and facts do have an important place in policy, but to temper rights.

Let's look at abortion, how do you justify abortion using only statistics and facts?


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User] [Star Wars] I'm A Jedi Knight. A sith asks me to turn to the dark side so I show him my ass. Will the Jedi council condone my actions?

[Assistant] They'll admonish you for treating such a serious matter so flippantly. But so long as you're not seriously considering joining the sith and didn't let the sith go free they'll at worst have you clean the kitchens or help on some droll task for a weekend. But it is subject to the era you're in since New Sith wars Jedi wouldn't treat not fighting your adversary as lightly as old republic Jedi. And high Republic to late Republic Jedi would be more interested in hearing about a sith existing after a millennia of extinction than how you acted.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
[Star Wars] Why do all stormtroopers hipfire?

I mean, no shit they always miss. Can't they use the aim thingies on blasters?

[Assistant] Stormtroopers have a HUD in their helmets that help them aim. Stormtroopers can be very accurate. When boarding the Tantive IV they easily overtook the defended rebels, with minimum casualties. When invading Hoth, they overran the entrenched Rebels rather quickly. Trenches are known to be insanely hard to attack (ex. WWI) For why the rebels tend to miss the "heroes" refer to many past threads on the subject.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User] What is the lowest speed of sound a material may have?

[Assistant] In liquid helium there is something called "second sound" where heat propagates through a material like a sound wave. Very close to and below the temperature at which helium becomes a superfluid, this second sound can propagate at arbitrarily low speeds, but speeds up as it gets colder. In terms of "normal" sound propagation, in gaseous helium close to its melting point the speed of sound is nominally just above 100 m/s.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
[DC general] How many people/organizations are there that can go toe to toe with a fully mobilized Justice League?

Obviously there are different versions, but most versions of the JL seem to have a large number of affiliate members who can be called in for various situations. What I'm wondering is who or what on earth, or in the universe, is powerful enough to give the Justice League pause when they're dealing with them? Is the Legion of Doom on the level of a peer or are they just a nuisance?

[Assistant]
Fully assembled, the Justice League is the most powerful entity on earth. There are only a handful of entities that can defeat them; threats like Doomsday, the Anti-Monitor, Fifth Dimensional Imps, and similarly powerful threats.

There are earthly entities that can hold them at bay for a time - Lex Luthor manages to do it by himself every now and then - but never for long. The Justice League isn't just powerful, they're *resilient*. They get knocked down, but they always get back up.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
Is communication via quantum entanglement possible? If so, would that be the very pinnacle of communications tech, because there is no latency?

Second question: Could this also be the reason why we can't hear, and cannot be heard by alien civilizations?

[Assistant] Not in the way you're thinking of, know. It is possible to use quantum entanglement as part of a communication system, for security purposes, for example. However, it is not possible to send information through entangled particles alone, and it is not possible to use them to communicate faster than the speed of light.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
[Endgame] why didnt Iron Man, War Machine, or Thor intervene either time when Thanoss ship rained fire on them? Is there any MCU vehicle or weapon besides Infinity Stones that can cause that much damage that fast?

For the first question, those 3 can fly yet neither times did they go attack the ship. Thor looked unscathed after the first blast so its like he was fine. Apparently War Machine had several seconds to react before going under.

For the second question, what other vehicles or weapons in the MCU could destroy the Avengers hq that fast or faster?

[Assistant] They may have been pinned by bad guys or trying to prevent that from happening to their allies.  If they did fly up theyd get targeted downCarols arrival proves that Sanctuary II is prepared to drop what its doing to focus on a high priority target.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User] ELI5: if google fiber is far superior and not a substantial amount of money more than regular old broadband they should have no problem getting people to sign up so why isn't it available everywhere yet?

[Assistant] Laying down the infrastructure and planning the implementation of the fibre optic network takes a lot of time and money. It has to be built around the needs of the city and the existing infrastructure (pipelines, roads, power etc)


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
ELI5: What determines the ranking or position of a collegiate level football game (i.e. Army vs. Navy) versus a service member that does a job assigned by the government?

I love the fact that the branches of military have a respected FBS team, but how exactly do you get to play football and not serve what you were assigned to do when sworn into duty?  What happens if an NFL team wants to recruit you to play professionally?

[Assistant]
All the members on the service academies football team will go into active duty in the miliatry, just like every other student at the school.

Some exceptions are made on a case by case basis for those who are pursuing being a professional athlete, and the military will try to accommodate that by allowing a student to be in the reserves, or serve primarily during the off season, or other ways, but its always a case by case decision and can vary a lot.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User] ELI5: Why does our skin turn red after leaning on something?

[Assistant]
When you lean on it, your skin actually turns whiteish because you're blocking the flow of blood to that area. This causes blood to (in an oversimplified way) build up in your blood vessels that are right before the part of your body that you leaned on. So when you let go all or that blood rushes through.

A good analogy would be a hose pipe. Imagine you step on a hose pipe while the water is running. The water builds up right before the area where you stepped on it, and when you let go all of the water rushes out quickly.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
Why is a philosopher's nationality denoted?

I've noticed in several videos, seminars, and discussions about philosophy that people who know about philosophers always seem to denote their nationality - "The German philosopher, Immanuel Kant" for example. Is it important to a philosophical discussion to understand that Immanuel Kant was from Germany or Jeremy Bentham was from England?

[Assistant] It's not always important, but it *can* sometimes serve as shorthand connecting the philosopher to a particular historical context, or indicating that primary sources will tend to be in a particular language.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
ELI5: Why do grains have so many more carbs than other plant foods, like nuts or lettuce?

Googling isn't helping, because the results are all from health and diet pages. I'm trying to find a science answer.

\[Request\] Please try and actually explain this to a 5-10yo. I have a kid in that age range who's the one actually asking the question. I can do my best to bring an "I graduated high school" answer down to his level, but I might struggle to bring an "I've completed some college and have a basic background in biochemistry" answer to his level. Thanks!

[Assistant]
Grains and nuts are both seeds that store energy differently to support a newly sprouted plant.

Grains store energy as starch that gets converted into sugar. Both starch and sugar are carbohydrates. This helps a grain seed grow quickly into a grass plant.

Nuts store energy as fat. Fat can store more energy than carbohydrates for the same weight and helps the seed grow into a mini tree.

Lettuce and other greens are the leaves of a plant. Leaves try to maximize surface area against volume to absorb the sun with the least amount of material. That's why they cook down very easily. They also are high in fiber from the support structures in the leaf.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
[MCU] How did Thanos know what he could do with all the infinity stones.

Was it purely all speculation and hoping?

[Assistant]
In MCU the Infinity Stones are legendary objects of vast power. Even one was enough to wipe out planets or bring about eternal darkness over all realms. It's not that big of a stretch to conclude that harnessing ALL of them would elevate one to a power rivaling gods.

In the source material Thanos Quest, Thanos obtained the knowledge of Infinity Gems by peering into Infinity Well, located in the Death's Palace. Probably it also lend it's name to the Infinity gems too, since until then they all were referred as "soul gems", and Elders of the Universe who held them at the time barely recognized the power that fell in their hands. Thanos on the other hand, armed with the knowledge if the true nature and scope of power of Infinity Gems was able to use them on much grander scale than Elders did, who could only tap into them unknowingly, like Gardener or Runner.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User] Why was the 2009 H1N1 pandemic less deadly than the H1N1 pandemic in 1918? Was it a less dangerous disease, or did we just have better medicine?

[Assistant]
In addition to what others already wrote, it's also worth pointing out that the 1918 H1N1 virus was a very different one than the 2009 H1N1 virus.

The HxNx classification system is fairly coarse and is based on two surface proteins of the viruses, but doesn't take other differences into account.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
ELI5: how come houses in England are made of bricks where as American houses are made of wood?

As a disclaimer I've never been to America, but I'm sure some are bricks.

Just seems weird that a country that has tornados, hurricanes and earthquakes have houses made of wood.

[Assistant]
America has a giant wood supply, therefore wood is a cheaper source of house building.

In smaller nations such as England and most of Northern Europe the wood supply is smaller than the general demand, therefore we need to make it out of something else. Hereby comes brick. Bricks are made from common materials that can be found in great supply in these nations. Therefore the supply is higher and can sustain the demand both product and economically.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User] ELI5:Chess players:What does it mean to play a 'beautiful' game and why do people say Magnus Carlsen's game are soulless?

[Assistant]
Beautiful combinations tend to be things where someone is setting up a play for a while, then pays it off all at once. The sort of thing that makes you go "Ohhhh, THAT'S what he was doing!"

Carlsen's style is very disciplined. He tends to play very safe, very methodical games, and simply wait for his opponents to make small missteps (which he can then punish them for). His games rarely allow such combinations, because he blocks that sort of setup as it happens and doesn't seek to set up combinations of his own.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
What does Western Philosophy answer about suffering that Buddhism did not?

This isn't a question meant in any snarky way. But a geniune question.

[Assistant] One benefit of studying Western philosophy for someone interested in suffering is the work that has been carried out exploring *forms of suffering that are historically specific to capitalist industrial society* - such as the theory of alienation in the Marxian tradition, Fanon's work on African liberation or Butler's feminist writings. Much of this work focuses on both structural reasons for suffering, as well as the possibilities to reduce or remove certain kinds of suffering by radically restructuring society.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User] ELI5 How does a desert oasis work?

[Assistant]
There's water under the ground in most places, that's why wells work. In some places, like deserts, it's very deep underground. But sometimes the land dips downwards, and you naturally get to where that water is, forming an oasis.

The water in the oasis often comes from underground, and the rain that feeds it could be hundreds of miles away. The water spreads out underground until it finally reaches the oasis, and replenishes its supplies.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
Who gets to define what God and other controversial words mean?

Ive spent quite some time looking into philosophy over the past few months. Ive read quite a few Stanford Encyclopedia articles and I read AC Graylings book on the History of Philosophy.

As an atheist myself, I cant help but feel that a huge amount of disagreement in society, the God debate and philosophy as a whole is just caused by confusion about what words mean.

You see this in society with debates about what Gender and Sex mean. But this also comes up in the God debate with disagreement over what God even means.

Learning about stuff like this definitely gives me much more respect for dictionaries as they have to find ways to resolve these conflicts

Thus my questions are these:

1) Who gets to define what God means? Is it really just Christian philosophers who get final say?

2) Who gets to define what controversial words mean in general?

3) Do dictionaries get final say over all of this?

[Assistant]
In general, substantive issues rarely -- or perhaps even *by definition* never -- depend on questions of whether to merely stipulate what this word or what that word means. And so this whole question, along with an appeal to dictionaries and so on, is just barking up the wrong tree.

When people dispute gender, for instance, they're not disputing merely what meaning to arbitrarily associated with the string of letters g-e-n-d-e-r, rather they are disputing what's involved with a concept they have that they've been using to navigate certain issues in the world. Consider, for instance, a debate between a Darwinian and a Lamarckian notion of evolution: if we thought this was about merely how to stipulatively define the word 'evolution', we'd have totally lost track of what the Darwinian and the Larmarckian are saying.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
I think many Indie games only sell because they appeal to nostalgia, and that this is an overall detriment to the gaming industry. CMV.

I typically put Indie games into two categories. One are the games that are very unique and often very artistic (e.g. Bastion, Braid), and contribute to the video gaming industry. However, you also have the 50 8-bit dungeon crawlers (too many to name) that are released  virtually identical to a lot of games released in the 1980s. They often end up selling respectable copies solely because they remind players of a bygone era in gaming. I think that this will alienate new gamers because they grew up with video games that were developed with more advanced resources, and will hurt the gaming industry as a result.

EDIT: I wasn't super clear here. It hurts the gaming industry in that, as these games get more popular, it cyclically discourages creativity: a dev sees that 8-bit dungeon crawler (using this as an example) do well because a bunch of 20 and 30 somethings are reminding of their childhood, more devs do it, and eventually the gaming industry is disproportionately populated by these retro-style games.
CMV.

[Assistant]
Why would they hurt the gaming industry generally? More sales and more games never hurt anyone. Lady Gaga isn't hurt come some indie band picks up a guitar, and Call of Duty isn't hurt when a small indie gaming company makes a side scroller.

Furthermore, many people never had the opportunity to play those 1980s games in the first place. Many were well designed, and continue to be fun today. No one will ever get sick of Tetris or Pac-Man no matter how advanced our technology gets. They aren't popular just because they are nostalgic, but because they are well designed compelling games. If any india company wants to try to replicate that era of gaming, more power to them.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
[Marvel/DC] Why do some villains only want to take over specific cities? Is their goal to simply be a non-democratically elected mayor? And how would this new leadership work within the context of a state and federal government?

There are a lot of supervillains who want to take over cities but I genuinely wonder what their ultimate goal is and how it would really make sense. Does "taking over" a city mean you become the mayor? And the villains who want to simply be a king of a city, how would that work in regards to the larger state government and federal government?

[Assistant] Think of it like expanding their territory they start of with some small amount of control their "neighbourhood" where they are the boss and the most powerful person around and they are looking to expand that area as far as reasonably possible. Taking over a city is a large undertaking and once you take it over it's a hard job to make sure rival gangs and upstart wannabe bad guys aren't doing jobs without your knowledge or planning to dethrone you. Even on a city scale that's a monumental amount of work it would be impossible on a world wide scale so they shoot for a reasonable goal. As for what their responsibilities are they run the underworld of the city they get a cut from things done on their turf and have to be consulted if anything big (bank heist, major robbery, political decisions, etc) goes on so it can be approved. They don't usually aspire to be a pencil pusher or a mayor more a figure head that is in charge and needs to be consulted in all important matters but doesn't need to do the other work.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
[Doctor Who] What would happen if an atomic bomb went off inside the TARDIS?

We all know how tough the TARDIS is from the outside, but what would happen if it was attacked from the inside?

Are the rooms tough enough to withstand the blast? What would be seen in the gaps between the rooms?

[Assistant]
The interior of a TARDIS is a sort of pocket dimension unto itself-- not quite outside of the universe, but nothing exists "between" the rooms per se, not even space.

The TARDIS itself is huge-- you could wander for years inside it. It would probably survive the blast if you didn't destroy anything vital like the Eye of Harmony. If you did destroy vital components it would probably go inert.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User] ELI5: How are there telescopes that are powerful enough to see distant galaxies but aren't strong enough to take a picture of the flag Neil Armstrong placed on the moon?

[Assistant]
Galaxies may be far away, but they are fucking massive, fucking bright, and not fucking moving. (At least not moving very much from our perspective)

The flag on the moon is none of those things. Sure it's close, but it's tiny, dark, and whizzing around damn fast.

Also, telescope time is valuable. Most large telescopes are booked every possible minute they can be operating years in advance. Nobody is willing to waste time trying to spot a flag that we already have great close-up pictures of when they could be doing science.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User] Eli5: What does it mean when some countries sell energy to each other? Do they just link up their power grids and send some extra power to the buyer?

[Assistant] Yes, this is exactly what it means. Countries in Europe like states in the US have specific connection points where they can share/sell electricity. The price you pay for electricity is usually an average but the generators and distributors and sometimes even large buyers are always negotiating the price. If electricity is too cheap in your area you are willing to sell your electricity for less than the sellers in another more expensive country, then you can sell your electricity to those other countries.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
ELI5: Why is it that some phones today have cameras with hundreds of megapixels but advanced DSLRs and Mirrorless cameras have only 64?

What are megapixels? How do they work? What is the difference between a 64mp mirrorless camera and a 24mp mirrorless camera of the same brand?

[Assistant]
Images are made up of squares of a single color, pixels. A megapixel of course refers to a million pixels, 64 million pixels means 64 million tiny color squares.

>Why is it that some phones today have cameras with hundreds of megapixels but advanced DSLRs and Mirrorless cameras have only 64?

Because not all pixels are made the same. A digital camera has a sensor, this sensor is divided into smaller sensors for each pixel. While phones can have higher number of pixels, the sensors that absorb these pixels are smaller and thus more prone to error. The sensors on the DSLR are not only larger, allowing them to absorb more light to avoid this error, they also take in more light because these cameras have bigger lenses to get more light.

DSLR manufacturers just have little reason to join in these "megapixel wars" since their customers know more megapixels doesnt necessarily mean better.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
[DC] If a "supervillain" began committing crimes to screw over corrupt people, would the Justice League do anything about?

Say someone with super-intelligence and high tech gear on par with Luthor's began robbing front companies for the mob, attacking and damaging company property of Lex Corp, or began stealing raw materials from pharmaceutical companies that put their own profit over the general public's wellbeing, would anyone on the justice league bother to try and stop the guy?

[Assistant]
Theyd probably send a member or two of the League to have a little chat with the criminal and firmly tell them to cut it out, because stealing is still illegal.

If it was Lex specifically then theyd probably just send Superman to stop him, since Lex is a tricky mother fucker and he probably has ulterior motives.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
[Star Wars] Say I open up my own academy for teaching the ways of the Dark Side right across the sky-street from the Jedi Council. Legally, can they do anything to stop me?

I have my reasons. And this certainly isn't a scam, if that's what you're wondering. Don't be nosy.

[Assistant]
Well, kind of. The basic teachings of the Sith Order are a philosophy, a religion of sorts. Regardless of their sizable political power, they can't stop you from teaching the ideas of the Sith. Now, the problem's going to come if they discover you're teaching these things with the intent to harm someone, or even worse, practicing them. You're in for even more trouble if they put their expansive resources towards following you and seeing if you're up to anything illegal, in which case they would be allowed to arrest you.

But strictly as a school for teaching the Sith philosophy, you're in the clear.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
Why does my microwave interrupt my wireless internet?

I ask this question for a couple of reasons.  First, I assumed my Wireless-G/N home networking would run on a wavelength that wouldn't be on the same wavelength as a microwave and that my wireless network could identify data vs noise.

Second, I assumed my microwave is shielded and not emitting radiation into my home.  My microwave is approximately 10 feet away from my wireless router (kitchen is back-to-back with my living room) and when the microwave is turned on, my ping goes from 50-80 milliseconds to 500 with a significant packet loss.

[Assistant]
A few points need to be made:

1. Microwave ovens do not operate at exactly one frequency. They are designed (and required by the FCC) to operate *near* 2.45 GHz, but the radiation created by the microwave oven typically involves frequencies spanning between 2.4 and 2.5 GHz. You have to realize that a microwave oven is not a monochromatic source like a laser or a radio antenna. It is a broadband source. Furthermore, it is an *unstable* broadband source, meaning that the frequencies emitted by the microwave oven changes from one microsecond to the next. In fact, the exact frequency spectrum of the EM waves in the oven even depends on what you are cooking and how the food is oriented.

2. Many wireless routers operate at 2.4 GHz and therefore indeed experience interference from microwave ovens.

3. To some extent, digital processing can separate out the data from the noise. But if your signal-to-noise ratio gets too low, you can't separate them anymore because the noise is so strong that it essentially makes the data negligible.

4. Microwaves *are* shielded, so that most of the radiation stays contained in the microwave cavity. This is a good thing, because otherwise you would be heating your room instead of your food. But no type of shielding blocks exactly 100% of the EM waves. Waves have a tendency to tunnel through barriers. The thinner the barrier, the more the EM waves can tunnel through. The shielding on a microwave oven is thick enough to contain most of the microwaves, but still lets some through. Making the shielding 10 feet thick would indeed contain more of the microwaves, but would make the appliance less useful. So, some microwaves do indeed leak through the shielding and interfere with the wireless router.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
I am a liberal, but I would like to consider the positions of socialists that I'm most likely to believe. What big authors in political philosophy should I be looking at?

I believe in things like private property and a regulated free market,  not in an absolute way, but just because I think they're the best we can do right now. If something better comes along, great. What I'd like to do is tell you some of what I believe, so you can pair me with some good socialist authors who have some ideas about something better that I might like.

I don't intend to rush right into any reading right now. I mainly want to get some authors in my head. Then they'll sit there, and I'll have a BaaderMeinhoff experience of seeing these authors everywhere, and I'll eventually want to look into it some more. All that really has to be done now is to whet my appetite for the author. Just tell me some context on the author so that can happen. Rushing into books makes me interested for a little while, but turning me on to an author is almost permanent, even if I never get around to reading them.

This is a list of my take on political matters:

* I am aware that the global economic system is not fair for everybody. However, I don't believe in manual political revolution. I believe in technological and social progress that evolves society into better ways of being. Some matters need drastic action, like the environment. Bogging that down with systemic revolution is not the answer for me. I believe in topical political activism, while social and technological evolutions take care of long term problems.

* Part of the above is I've never been satisfied with the idea of progressing toward even a fuzzy end goal without accounting for how we're supposed to get there. Political revolution is situated on too many favorable conditional outcomes and "what ifs". I'd rather build on "right now" than start at a vision for the world and work both ends to meet it at the middle. The political goals of the future should be taken care of by those who live in future systems.

* I am fairly democratic and anti-authoritarian. However, I think much academic and scientific knowledge is objective, and literacy in these issues is important for democracy. I believe there should be at least as much authority in society to give people a foundation of how to think about academic issues and how to critically think. People aren't stupid, and even low-IQ people can rely on the bare bones of good reasoning to at least determine the ideas they need to take seriously and be intellectually humble. I think even anarchists are in favor of justified authority.

* Even though I said I'm a liberal, one thing I'm aware of is the perverted nature of capitalism's effect on media and culture. I don't believe the media is dictated by corporations, but they skew the agenda. This is pretty controversial among people in daily life, but when I hear about terrorists attacks when so many more people die from other systemic issues, all I think is "corporate media narrative". Less controversial is my take on art and culture being perverted by corporate power skewing and in some cases determining the agenda for music. I think pop country music on the radio is largely capitalism run amok, for example. It's extremely set by corporate agenda.

Without knowing more about the options, I'd say the best bet for me would be democratic socialism. However, the logic I put against corporate news media and pop country could be extended to other things to leave me with something more radical. And I do know Adorno has a problem with popular music in capitalism, for example.

Edit: Shout out to the guy who was able to read this all in less than a minute and downvoted me. You're my hero.

Edit: This is all great, and I want to express appreciation, but it'd be pretty silly if I just kept thanking everyone individually, so thanks!

[Assistant]
You'd probably enjoy GA Cohen's *Why Not Socialism?*, which is a very good philosophical introduction to socialism.

As for the media narrative stuff, if you haven't read *Manufacturing Consent*, you probably should. It's the most important touchstone text on that topic.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
[Dragon Ball Super] Why does Krillin use a riot shield and a gun for crime fighting?

This guy has been dishing out and tanking planet level attacks for 20-odd years. Why would he ever need a riot shield (which is almost certainly less durable than he) or a gun (which cant damage anything nearly as well as he can)? Surely its less wasteful to keep his equipment in storage for someone who actually needs it.

[Assistant]
Because over the course of time, the Z Fighter's abilities have become more and more secret, to a point that stories of a kid conjuring up a blue energy beam from his hands in a martial arts tournament is simply exaggerations and tall tales told by grandiose speakers.

There's also the fact that the last 2 recorded beings (Vegeta with Nappa and Cell) were pure evil. Like "destroy an entire city" evil.

So for the sake of avoiding mass panic the Z Fighters have chosen to attempt to live normal lives, a la Superman, when in the face of the general public.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User] ELI5: Why do flavoured frozen things like icy poles and slurpees taste much stronger and sweeter once theyve melted?

[Assistant] Coldness reduces our ability to taste sweetness. This is why soft serve ice cream can contain less sugar than normal frozen ice cream... because it is served a few degrees higher so its warmer, thus needing less sweetener to seem as sweet to us.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
[Star Wars] How great of a military leader is Thrawn?

Is he a genius based on his shown feats or  because the plot demands it? kinda like how Clone troopers are praised as super soldiers while being incompetent in almost all of their depiction. (I mainly blame the Jedi,though)

[Assistant]
In the Expanded Universe, he's shown to be genuinely highly competent. His specific skill seems to be pulling together various, disparate points of information and being able to figure out connections between them. This is both in terms of predicting an enemy's actions by viewing bits of data others would see as meaningless, and in terms of putting together  a cohesive plan based on little individual points others might not be able to connect. Much of his success was based on this combination of predicting enemy actions and then pulling out a plan they had not expected.

But it goes beyond that. Unlike many Imperial commanders who viewed their casualties as meaningless and reserves indefinite, Thrawn was used to making do with little. He maximized every unit's effectiveness, avoided bloody and pitched battle while striking his enemies where they were weak, and knew when to fold his cards and retreat. He didn't let pride get in his way, and kept his eyes on the actual objective.

And, of course, he was a genuinely good leader to his men: Not just inspiring, but also fair and reasonable with them. Combine in the feeling Thrawn didn't just consider them expendable, it's understandable why other officers and even rank-and-file would have fought well for him.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
Eli5: Why do spicy foods like wasabi, mustard and horseradish burn differently to foods like chilli's and curry's?

I always feel that wasabi and horseradish effects the back of my throat and nasal more, whereas the chilli's and curry's burn my tongue. What makes the spices react differently to the human body?

[Assistant]
Different molecules, different chemistries, but the same sensory receptor.

Wasabi and horseradish get their effect from a volatile sulfur-based compound. This means it's carried very easily into your nasal passages and throat by normal airflow, where it binds to those receptors and gives you the distinct pungency.

Chili/Currys and similar foods contain oily capsaicin, which binds to the receptors in the mouth and isn't wafted up into other areas as much.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
ELI5:Why does a helmet-to-helmet hit only hurt 1 player?

Just saw the hit on Rob Gronkowski. Just wondering why he has to leave with a concussion while the other guy is unharmed? Whats happening here?

[Assistant] The defender is usually in a position in which they can deliver that blow with the crown (forehead) of the helmet. The neck is strongest against being bent backwards and the defender is prepared for impact in that region. On the flip side, the offensive players neck is going to snap one way or the other. Theres really no way to prepare for and lessen this impact. This is how concussions and spinal injuries occur.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
CMV: We can't blame companies for relying on the government to "subsidize wages" of employees.

I believe that it is incorrect to say that companies are wrong to have the government "subsidize wages" of their employees.

For starters, I believe that it is incorrect to call it a subsidy.  A subsidy would be a company receiving money from the government in order to pay their employees. That is not the case here.  People are simply receiving welfare when they can't make ends meet.

A company's purpose is to turn a profit. A company like Wal Mart does that by offering the lowest possible price for their goods.  If they do not keep labor costs as low as possible, they will not be able to offer the lowest price. Someone else would come in and undercut them in price and steal their business.

Therefore, I believe that we live in a society where the problem isn't that these companies are so evil that they don't want to give employees a living wage, but they are unable to do so and we instead must rely on the government to ensure people are paid a reasonable wage across the board.

[Assistant] Is your argument that we can't blame people for acting in self-interest, so we should just let them act indiscriminately in their self-interest? Because, sure you can't blame people for acting in their self-interest but when you see a system where someone acting in their self-interest is harming others, it makes sense to intervene. Of course companies will act in a way that benefits profits over labour. Paying the lowest wages possible is easier when you can expect government to fill in the cracks. The obvious solution is to raise the minimum wage so that this becomes a non-issue. Whether companies are at blame is a non-issue when we can legislate a solution to an obvious problem.