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

[User]
Are There Areas With Increased Incidents of Neurological Disorders?

I work at a clinic and we always have to ask where the patient grew up and the place of birth, however I have no data to put that information into context. Are there any cities other than Flint, Michigan and underdeveloped nations that are a red flag to certain disorders/ exposures?

[Assistant]
There is a number of areas with higher incidence or prevalence of a number of diseases. From a clinical perspective place of birth/region is often related to any genetic clustering of disease, or any predisposing risks (such as middle east and thalassemias).

Famously, Multiple Sclerosis occurs most frequently in higher latitude regions (canada, russia, northern european). Although MS etiology is a hot topic these days. Other more specific clusters also occur within local regions.

Based on your question it seems as though you are most interested in *environmental causes* of neurological diseases. These are often not well understood but they are seen. Often times it is a genetic similarity rather than environmental, but from time to time environmental comes up. One interesting case was the havana syndrome which is worth a read.

One recent headline was a mysterious brain disease which was initially hypothesized to be environmental, but has since been largely debunked as a case of poor diagnoses.


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

[User]
Is memory necessary for consciousness?

Seems to me that in order for any level of consciousness to exist, there has to be the ability to process something. But if the something could not be stored long enough to process, no consciousness could arise, right?

[Assistant]
>**Is memory necessary for consciousness?**

Your conjecture is certainly possible, but far from obvious or being proven.

It's certainly conceivable that one could experience a stream of consciousness while observing the present, even if no memories of the past are retained.

But you could get technical and argue that even being able to see requires a signal of information to be transmitted from the eye to the visual cortex.  So ultimately the answer might also depend on how technical you want to be about the definition of "memory".


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

[User]
[Marvel] Can Captain America stop a moving car with his shield?

If he jumped in front of a moving car, shouldn't the car just wrap around him like it ran into a solid column.

I can't think of a reason why he shouldn't be able to, but I can't recall it ever happening.

[Assistant] The physics of the shield is weird as it neutralizes all kinetic energy that makes contact with it. For example, a fall that could kill/injure Captain America is easily survived by him simply standing on his shield, even though the sudden stop should injure him. What would probably happen is that the car would hit the shield and make it out relatively undamaged while the driver inside gets a face full of airbag.


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

[User] [Marvel/DC] What is the most painful way a superhero/villain got their powers?

[Assistant] Doomsdays origin story is an absolute perversion of Lamarckian inheritance that involved shooting a baby out of a cannon into the most inhospitable environment imaginable, collecting and cloning the remains when it inevitably dies, and repeating the process until they created the ultimate life form. And given his anger at his creators and his massive phobia of something killing him (his rampages are apparently him preemptively killing everything before they can kill him) he remembers all of it.


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

[User]
What does it mean for a coordinate to be timelike?

In the wikipedia article about Schwarzschild black holes, it says : For r < rs the Schwarzschild radial coordinate r becomes timelike and the time coordinate t becomes spacelike.

What does it mean for a coordinate to be "timelike" ? Does it just mean that an object must move forwards in that coordinate?

[Assistant]
It's referring to the sign that that coordinate gets in the metric.

For example, in the Minkowski metric in the (-+++) convention, the metric is

ds^(2) = -c^(2)dt^(2) + dx^(2) + dy^(2) + dz^(2).

The dx, dy, and dz terms are all positive, while the dt term is negative. So t is a timelike coordinate while x, y, and z are spacelike coordinates.

The Schwarzschild metric is

ds^(2) = -(1 - 2M/r)dt^(2) + (1 - 2M/r)^(-1)dr^(2) + r^(2)d^(2),

where I've used  as a shorthand for the angular part containing the two spherical angles.

Focus on the t and r terms. For r > 2M (the Schwarzschild radius), (1 - 2M/r) > 0, so the dt term is overall negative and the dr term is overall positive. That's the normal case, just like in Minkowski. The t coordinate is timelike and the r coordinate is spacelike.

But for r < 2M, (1 - 2M/r) < 0, and the signs flip. The Schwarzschild coordinate t becomes spacelike and the Schwarzschild r becomes timelike. Some people say that this means that "space and time are switching places" at the event horizon, but a more correct explanation is just that you chose bad coordinates. t looks like time and r looks like the radial coordinate from your typical spherical coordinates, but that's not quite true. This set of coordinates has a coordinate singularity at r = 2M. There are other sets of coordinates which behave perfectly fine at the horizon, so this bad behavior is just an artifact of the choice of coordinates.


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

[User] [Star wars] Do stormtroopers make up the entirety of imperial infantry, or a re they just a small elite unit?

[Assistant]
Imperial Army troopers were the standard infantry of the Imperial Army, and the most common soldiers of the Galactic Empire on most subject worlds. Following the Empire's post-Endor fragmentation, their numbers were maintained by periodic conscription from among subject populations.

Although stormtroopers often worked alongside the Imperial Army, Intelligence and Navy, the Stormtrooper Corps operated independently of all branches of the Imperial Military. Hence, the Corps possessed its own command structure, ranking system and support facilities. Together with the Imperial Royal Guard, stormtroopers answered directly to Emperor Palpatine,but were managed on a daily basis by Stormtrooper Command.


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

[User]
CMV: I believe that transgender people suffer from a mental illness akin to schizophrenia and should be treated as such.

Let me start by saying that I typically tend to think of myself as a pretty open minded individual. I believe homosexuals should have equal marriage rights and have had a few friends that have been homosexual.

With transgender people I do not believe that they have an equivalent standing with homosexuals. I beleive that they suffer from a mental illness similar to schizophrenia or dissociative identity disorder and should be classified as such and we should attempt to find treatment for them.

Body part dissociation under any other circumstance would be classified as a mental or neurological disorder. If a person believes that their hand is not their hand but belongs to someone else we treat them accordingly. We do not allow them to cut off their hand through elective surgery. For some reason when someone believes they are of a different gender we allow them to use elective surgery to mutilate and alter their bodies.

Simply put I beleive there is something wrong in the wiring of transgender individuals brains and we would do better trying to find a cure or medications rather than allowing them to mutilate their bodies and placing them into the same sphere as homosexuals and bisexuals

Please CMV.

[Assistant] We let people modify their bodies all the time including getting piercings, implants and circumcision. Yes this is more extreme, but if they are happier people after the procedure, we have no business preventing them from doing it.


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

[User] [The Simpsons] What's wrong with Marge Simpson's Sundaes?

[Assistant]
There's nothing wrong with her Sundaes: There are things wrong with the people for whom Marge makes Sundaes.

Have you ever heard the phrase "A Mother's work is never done"? It's the same principle concept. No matter what you deliver or create for the people you love, it doesn't change what they want except as to make your offering belittled and trivial.

What used to be a fun treat, probably delivered on Sunday, has become an annoying chore to the people whom are made to witness Marge's affection.


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

[User]
What actually is standard deviation and variance?

I know they're measures of spread but i don't get what it's actually showing, google and my teacher is no use. Also what's the difference, to me variance is just standard deviation squared making it seem sort of redundant?

[Assistant] The variance is the average squared distance from the mean, and is in some sense the more "primary" of the two, and so if either one of them is redundant it would be the standard deviation. That said, the variance is difficult to interpret (being in squared units), and so it's common to take its square root to put it back onto the original scale of the variable. The SD is -- not exactly, but this is a reasonably good intuitive approximation -- the average distance from the mean. Despite being easier to interpret, variances are much easier to work with mathematically, and so which one you use will generally depend on your purpose.


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

[User]
[LoTR] If a sample of the firey lava of Mount Doom was somehow contained and taken elsewhere could it be used to destroy the One Ring?

The phrase in question is: "The Ring was made in the fires of Mount Doom. Only there can it be unmade."

So if someone was to take a sample of the "firey" lava to another location could that be used to destroy the ring? Containing and transporting a sample wouldn't be beyond the ability of the blacksmiths of some races of Middle Earth who were used to forging weapons using exotic high temperature techniques.

[Assistant]
Elrond's statement is conjecture, based on his own limited knowledge of Ringlore. As far as *he* is concerned, it is indeed the heat of the fires of Orodruin that control the fate of the Ring, and not some deeper magic.

So, as far as the Wise are concerned, yes, if you can contain the lava and keep it at that temperature, you could use it to destroy the Ring... but that sounds even more complicated than just taking the Ring back into Mordor.


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

[User] What would happen if stock exchanges were only open once a week? or once a month?

[Assistant]
Informal stock exchanges would form for people to trade on off-days. Those informal exchanges would probably grow and become more structured as more people use them. Then they would stay open every day instead of just on off-days. Then people would probably stop going to the old stock exchanges, since what's the point, the new ones do the same thing and are open every day.

**TL;DR**: New exchanges would quickly form which are open every day and would drive the other ones out of business.


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

[User]
When someone consumes a drug, how does it move from the blood to receptors?

I know that drugs work by binding to receptors of cells, causing them to perform certain actions. I don't understand, however, how a drug would move from the bloodstream to those receptors. Could a biologist/pharmacologist weigh in here?

[Assistant]
There's a boatload of factors at play here. What determines a drug's ability to be effectively distributed to the target site has to do with what the target site is, how easily the drug can permeate vascular membranes, the volume of blood flowing around the target site, the local acidity of the target site, the total volume of the target organism, and the drug's binding affinity for plasma and membrane proteins, to name just a few factors.

It stands to logic that small, lipid soluble, charge-neutral molecules will have the easiest time passing through cell membranes. Ionized compounds, conversely, have the easiest time being dissolved in bodily fluids, but don't have a great time getting through cell membranes. Therefore, those lipid soluble molecules will build up in areas with a lot of lipids, and the ionized molecules will stick around areas where there is a good deal of solvent to keep them happy.

The fun doesn't stop there. Pharmacologists must also consider the route of administration of a drug. If drug X has Y physical properties, what is the most appropriate dose and route of administration so as to optimize absorption into the bloodstream? Will the drug be present in its ionized or neutral form en route to the target site, and how will that affect absorption?

So as you can see, there are many factors working here. To sum it all up, drugs are not designed at random. The answer to your question depends, by and large, on exactly what function the drug is expected to perform, and where in the body it is needed the most. How the drug gets to the target receptors is therefore determined by where those receptors are located and concentrated in the body.


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

[User] ELI5: What's the difference between the UK Government and Parliament?

[Assistant]
Parliament is the overall institution consisting of two houses - the House of Commons, elected by the people, and the House of Lords, who are appointed and serve for life. They both meet in the Palace of Westminster in London, they both draft and vote on legislation, but generally all of the political power is in the Commons - because they're elected.

Within the House of Commons, the party (or coalition) who has the most seats *generally* forms Her Majesty's Government - their leader is Prime Minister, and the cabinet is made up of members of that party (or coalition). The next largest party/coalition in the Commons who isn't part of the government forms Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition - their job is to present the other side of arguments and ensure that the Government is doing things properly and justifying their decisions.

Currently Her Majesty's Government is the Conservative Party, who have 329 out of 650 seats, and their leader, Theresa May, is Prime Minister. The Opposition is Labour, who has 231 seats, and the remainder of the House is made up of other parties (next largest is Scottish National Party with 54).


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

[User]
How would a materialist respond to Nietzsche's view that history is driven by resentment?

I'm not particularly knowledgeable on Nietzsche's philosophy of history, so I might misrepresent it quite substantially here, but from the gist of it Nietzsche believed that history is driven by the feeling of resentment. The way I understand it is, specific events or conditions create a sense of resentment towards that thing which societies tries to answer to, and that answer further creates resentment and this is the driver of historical development.

Take for example the rise of Fascism in Italy or Germany in the 1920s/1930s. Most historians would agree that the feeling of resentment, betrayal or injustice was what allowed fascism to develop. Another more contemporary example is Putin and Russia's resentment towards the Western world for depriving Russia of the superpower status that it enjoyed in the 1980s under the USSR. This feeling of resentment is what drove the events to where we are, where in the process we see most vigorous responses to Russian attack by countries that also have resentment towards Russia for past atrocities (Baltic states, Romania, Poland, Finland, Czechia etc.). This resentment will generate more resentment in Russia and so history will continue to progress

The materialist position is that it is material conditions that drive the development of history. So for example a historical materialist could say that the crisis of the Great Depression led to such difficult material conditions that pushed the people in Germany to support the Nazis, and that the Nazis themselves were produced by the material conditions of the time, or that the difficult conditions of the 90s led to the people in Russia supporting Putin. I know I'm oversimplifying quite substantially, so apologies for not providing the "elevator pitch" type of introduction of either theories

Both appear to have intuitive and explanatory power. However, they seem incompatible with eachother. Resentment is a feeling and feelings do not need to be grounded in material conditions.

How would a materialist respond and critique the resentment theory of history?

[Assistant] It's worth noting that Nietzsche's arguments about "ressentiment" are critiques of dominant culture, rather than a fully-fledged interpretation of history.  He is particularly challenging narratives of history which focus on progress and national or personal greatness.  Against narratives which say "Look how great our nation is because of the wise decisions we have made," he basically says, "Not so much.  Mostly we got here because we were driven by base, atavistic impulses.  There is nothing to celebrate here."  He is, in a significant way, attacking the nationalisms (and other ideologies) of his day.


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

[User]
Why can I reverse "dead" batteries in my remote and get months of extra life out of them?

when the batteries in my remote control die, I swap the positions and my remote works for a couple months, then I switch them again and get a couple more months. I have done this about five times with the same two AA batteries.

[Assistant]
There is a small amount of electrical resistance between the battery itself and the metal it makes contact with in the remote. This resistance is partly caused by a very thin film of non-conducting material that builds up between the battery and its contact. When you pull the battery out and replace it your are scraping off some of this material and causing there to be lower resistance at the contact.

There is also unlikely any need to swap them. You could almost certainly obtain the same effect just by pulling the batteries out and placing them back in their original positions.


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

[User]
[Star Trek Into Darkness] Five years after the Earth nearly being destroyed, why didn't Earth have a defense force, or react at all to a space battle at the Moon, or the Enterprise and Vengeance nearly crashing into Starfleet headquarters?

Or attempt to hail either vessels when they were shooting at each other in Lunar orbit, or attempt to rescue or destroy either vessel after they'd teleported from the moon to the Earth in about one minute and were about to crash into the Earth?

[Assistant]
Codes to Earth's automated planetary defense systems are known to Starfleet captains. They can be disabled remotely. Not to mention that Earth is in the heart of Federation space and defenses are really only used to zap rocks.

But...

Why would planetary defense target two Starfleet ships? Even if defenses were not disabled, there is no reason to automatically attack two ships transmitting friendly signals. The reprogramming needed to target and attack one of two possible threats, without attacking the rest of Starfleet's orbiting units, would take longer than the attack.

You also can't send other vessels. You have the Enterprise, a pretty bad-ass ship in her own right, being attacked by a much larger and more powerful unknown Starfleet vessel. Comms are being jammed, you can't talk to anyone, who do you attack? Who is the bad guy?


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

[User]
[40k] what does the standard citizen know about the galaxy?

Do normal citizens know about the various Xenos races, do the know there are a lot of marine chapters, or do they not even know about marines unless they are in a system with a marine homeworld? What other things do they know or don't know?

[Assistant]
Depends on where they're from.

A feral worlder might know that the Sky-emperor's sons occasionally come to call for them and that it's a blessing to be chosen. Beyond that, nothing beyond surviving the night.

A Hive Worlder is probably aware of the existence of the Astartes in a vague stained-glass image or carved image of them kind of way. They'll probably never see one in the flesh, or a Xenos of any type for that matter. They'll know that distant, holy Terra is the throne world. Beyond that they'll maybe be familiar with their sector if they're in a line of work that involves shipping or trade. They're probably told boogey-man stories about the inquisition as kids.

The more focused planets, Agri-worlds, forge-worlds, would range between the two most likely. There's not an average imperial citizen who's gonna be like "Oh, that's an Eldar Aspect Warrior!" Or whatever anywhere.

The only way that the Imperium is able to keep itself together is by keeping the populace ignorant of things beyond their walls. If they do know anything about Xenos, it's probably sub "Imperial Infantryman's Uplifting Primer" levels of useful information. depictions of frail, wimpy Orks being crushed under the perfect, pristine boots of guardsmen in the town square statue and that sort of thing.


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

[User] ELI5:How is ISIS recruiting so many people from so many different countries? What makes them more attractive than other organizations and why are people going out of their way to join?

[Assistant]
If you read history, you run into this idea that the western, Christian nations have been battling Islam for ages. This is what people did with themselves when there was no hope for progress like what we have. They fought over geography and ideology and control. Religion is a powerful force that many people the world over have independently learned to teach their children.

All of the above being said, there are a lot of people in the world. Disaffected youths *who happen to be Muslim* are taught indisputable history, taught about the crusades, and look at the more recent invasions of the Middle East as a call-to-arms, something to die for in their own little worlds where the alternative is to die for nothing. People seek meaning in something grand and are often sorely disappointed.

In short, you can't explain this bullshit to a 5 year old.


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

[User] ELI5:The difference between 1080i and 1080p. Which is better for gaming?

[Assistant] The "i" means interlaced and the "p" means progressive scan. In 1080i only half the image gets drawn at a time, every other line. With "p" all the lines are replaced at once. Only the old CRT monitors could do 1080i, and its quite inferior to 1080p anyways. Unless you're using a massive old tube box, use 1080p.


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

[User]
Would terminal velocity on Mars be the same as on earth and take longer to reach, or be lower on Mars?

Cheers fellas.

[Assistant] It's much higher on Mars. The atmospheric density being 1% that of Earth more than offsets the lower gravity. This is why spacecraft can't land on Mars with parachutes alone, and need either rockets for final touchdown, or shock-absorbing airbags to handle a fairly fast impact.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why arn't men freezing their sperm and getting vasectomies in order to avoid unwanted pregnancies?

Just seemed like a practical idea.

[Assistant] The cost for starters.  You'd be paying for the vasectomy (and any time off to get the operation done), paying to have your sperm frozen, paying to keep it frozen and stored for however long (it apparently stays good for about twelve years), and then paying for the artificial insemination.


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

[User]
ELI5: How do browsers make money?

How does Chrome make a profit for Google?  How does Mozilla make money?

[Assistant] Not all web browsers do make money. Some are open source software maintained by members of the open source community. Others, such as Internet Explorer, are commercial programmes but are offered free as an element of other paid-for software packages or operating systems, such as Windows XP or Vista. Browsers such as Firefox do make money, although they are free to the end user. They earn revenue from companies such as Google who pay a referral fee to Firefox for searches done via the built-in search bar.


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

[User] [Star Trek] Has the Federation ever encountered a Civilisation that discovered Subspace Communication before Warp Drive? How would they respond if they did?

[Assistant]
Yes, they have: The Trill. (In beta canon)

It's a common misconception that the Prime Directive applies until a species developed Warp Drives, but that's not true.

The Prime Directive's goal is to prevent the exploitation of a developing civilisation by more advanced species.

Therefore it only applies until the species has become aware of the wider cosmos and the civilisations existing there.


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

[User]
Can we create a single cell organism with basic chemicals/compounds? If it occurred naturally 4 billion years ago, can we recreate this event in a lab?

If it's already happened, sorry!

[Assistant] Not yet.  There is a lot of work going on in this direction, and progress has certainly been made (such as simple cell membrane-like structures).  But it has only been maybe 20 years since we even began having technology to begin looking at this problem, and it is an enormously complicated problem that early Earth had hundreds of millions of years to solve.  It will take more time.


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

[User]
[LOTR] Why didn't Gondor occupy Mordor after defeating Sauron after the War of the Last Alliance?

Wouldn't doing so allow early warning of Sauron's return and prevent Sauron from rebuilding his armies?

[Assistant]
They did. Gondor occupied Mordor for 2000 years until the Great plague and the Kin Strife (Gondorian civil war) weakened the Kingdom so much that the fortresses couldnt be maintained.

Basically Gondor built the Towers of Teeth at the Black Gate, Cirith Ungol, Durthang, and several other fortresses and roads that Sauron later used.


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

[User]
If we stuck one end of a tube in the ocean and the other end in space, would the vacuum be strong enough to pull up the water column?

I assume the answer to this depends on the diameter of the tube, so alternatively, what size tube would be needed to get the vacuum of space to draw the water up?

[Assistant]
No. Nothing at all would happen.

The same vacuum (it's not actually a vacuum, but let's call it close enough) that would be acting on the end of that tube would be acting on the rest of the atmosphere. The same air that is in the rest of the atmosphere would be inside the tube.

Think about it this way: let's say you take a half-full glass of water and you put it inside a low pressure chamber. (Not low enough to boil the water.) The water level would rise a bit (because of the low pressure) compared to keeping the same glass of water at normal pressure.

Now you put a straw to that glass of water. Adding the straw would change nothing.

That glass is Earth, that low pressure chamber is the outer space, and that straw is the tube you are thinking about using.

You would have to generate a vacuum *inside* the tube to accomplish anything. At that point, you would have a column of water inside your tube balancing atmospheric pressure of air, which would result in a water column about 10 meters high.


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

[User]
[Dr. Who] Most of the Doctor's problems could be solved by showing up somewhere a week earlier with more knowledge of the situation.  Why doesn't he do this?

He was sad that he had missed Madame de Pompadour, since she had died before he made it through the fireplace.  If only he had some method for traveling through time and space.

[Assistant] Once the Doctor has become involved in events, he can't go back and rewrite his own time line. Think back to the episode Father's Day: that's what happens when a time-traveler takes an action that invalidates previous actions from that same time-traveler. Now, using a vortex manipulator gives you a little more wiggle room, but those things are dangerous and should only be used when the universe is already falling apart.


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

[User]
ELI5:Why do boy bikes typically have a bar across the top whereas girl bikes do not?

And that carries over from kids' bikes to bikes for adults.  Just seems to me that, if anything, given human anatomy it would be reversed.

Edit to add:  Thank you all for pointing out that women/girls traditionally wore skirts in which that bar would present a problem.  So, I guess two better questions would be:

1.  Why is it still common?

2.  Why do male bikes have that bar at all?

[Assistant] Women used to wear long dresses to used to have to have to "step through" the frame in order to preserve their modesty. Males on the other hand could just pop their leg over the top. The tradition has just been maintained on most commercial bikes.


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

[User] [MCU] How would Ultron do as an AI in Tony's suit? Also, is there any universe where Ultron isn't evil and is a benevolent AI as envisioned by Banner and Stark?

[Assistant] Well while he wasn't made by tony, the ultron in the old man logan universe was rather friendly and ended up married to hawkeye's ex wife and being a better father than hawkeye, there was ultron 12 (mark), who only wanted to be a good son and reconcile with hank but he was beaten to death by ultron 11. Ultron 15 wasn't necessarily evil he just wanted to drink in peace at a jazz club and hope no one recognized him.


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

[User]
[LOTR, DC Comics] Could Bilbo been a good choice to weild a Green Ring?

Bilbo Baggins is the only person on Middle Earth to have relinquished the One Ring (however reluctantly) by sheer force of will alone. Could the Guardians have chosen him to be the Green Lantern of Middle Earth's sector?

[Assistant]
Resisting the Ring isn't entirely about willpower. The reason Bilbo was a good ring bearer is because he was simple and unambitious. The Ring feeds off of your desire for power, but Bilbo just didn't have much for the Ring to use. It was less strong will and more being completely satisfied with his life. He didn't want power, he just wanted to relax at home.

This is why hobbits in general are good ring bearers--they don't have dreams of power, they just want to chill.

That said, considering the other stuff Bilbo goes through, he wouldn't be a bad candidate for a GL ring. He forges ahead through rough times. But I'd say of anyone in Middle Earth, someone like Aragorn, Boromir, or Thorin would be the best choices. Giving in to the Ring or Dragonsickness doesn't mean they are weak-willed, it just means they wanted things too much.


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

[User] [WH40K] How would have Mankind's Men of Iron have compared to the Necrons in battle?

[Assistant]
Depends on the type of Necrons.

Based on what we've seen of surviving Men of Iron, their primary advantage was ease of production, durability and numbers. They weren't particularly intelligent, and can in fact be out preformed by Guard. Their basic weapons systems also didn't seem particularly impressive.

Generally, they would probably rate between Warriors and Immortals, though it's hard to determine without more comprehensive information on the Men of Iron.


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

[User] ELI5: How do theoretical physicists find solutions to the biggest and smallest answers to the universe using math alone?

[Assistant]
They don't.

They have centuries of observations to draw upon, they are trying to find math that is consistent with those observations.  Sometimes that math takes them beyond what can be shown with experiments, but by no means are they using math alone.


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

[User]
[Star Wars] If the Republic was so corrupt that it allowed businesses to hold Senate seats, what made it worth fighting to restore?

Basically, the title.

The Republic was corrupt even without Palpatine's influence, so what made it so great? And what keeps the New Republic (of the current canon) from just becoming a corrupt husk like the Old Republic?

It was worse in Legends, in Legends their New Republic and all its successor states were completely incompetent to the point where the Vong wrecked the galaxy. And IMO, their inability to do anything basically exonerated the Empire.

[Assistant] Businesses held Senate seats because they were in some cases more militarily powerful than planets. Like seriously, a "rogue" element of the Trade Federation had enough ships to blockade and invade an entire planet. There were many government types represented in the Republic, from democracies to monarchies, why wouldn't a corporatacracy get representation?


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

[User]
Publicly hating Nickelback is a very douchey and pretentious thing to do. CMV

While I never particularly liked the band, this whole "I fucking hate Nickelback" bandwagon is just ridiculous. Are people really doing it because they hate their music *that* deeply, and so much more than any other pop band out there? Or is it just a fashion thing. Because if it is a just a fad, it's a pretty shitty one according to me. Hating, publicly shaming, signing petitions to cancel shows  - how has any of that become a cool thing to do towards artists, whether or not you appreciate their work?

[Assistant] People don't hate Nickleback because of their music, (some people) hate Nickleback because they feel Nickleback represents the regression of rock music as a genra for them; they symbolize the commercialization and sanitation of rock music in their mind. It's the same way people don't hate Nicki Minaj or Justin Beiber because of who they or or what their music is like, it's what they *represent*; they are symbols and some people can only express their opposition to what these symbols represent by attacking the symbols themselves.


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

[User] ELI5: Why does wrong fuel in the car damage the engine?

[Assistant]
The difference between gasoline types comes down to "octane", which is basically the resistance to exploding from heat and pressure. A high performance car will want to cram more fuel and air into a cylinder before the spark plug sets it off, and additives are required to raise the octane so it won't explode prematurely. If that happens then the engine can be trying to spin backwards against itself and can break.

To make an analogy imagine you are in a playground and pushing someone on a swing set. What you would normally do is wait until the person has swung all the way back and then push them harder as they swing back down and away from you. But imagine your timing is off and you try to push prematurely, as they are swinging towards you! That wouldn't work very well and the force of them crashing into you could be painful. You might even break your wrist or arm! In an engine this mistimed burning of fuel results in something called "knocking" due to the sound it makes, and it can similarly result in parts breaking or deforming.


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

[User]
Why learn assembly?

Most modern languages use a compiler to run code, so is there really a point to learning assembly besides understanding what a compiler does behind the scenes?

[Assistant]
Because it broadens the horizon a little. Getting new perspectives on things usually is very educational and makes you a better engineer.

For the same reason it is very helpful to have hobbies that have nothing to do with programming. Like wood- or metal working, painting, music, learning about people's view of things (understanding the domain model of their job for instance)


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

[User] [LOTR] Why does Melkor/Sauron bother doing evil stuff knowing that if they win Eru will just come down and smash them?

[Assistant]
Because Melkor was bitter. After brought into being by Er, Melkor was the greatest among the Ainur and had many shared gifts that Er bestowed to the other Ainu. But Melkor* was restless. He began seeking the Flames of Creation in the Great Void and failing to do so, unable to discover it resting within Er Himself.

During the Making of The Great Music of Arda, Melkor added his thoughts, changed by his time in the Void, creating Discord in the music. Others of the Ainur, including a Maiar of Aul called Mairon, joined with Melkor, until the Great Music clashed in disharmony before Er. Er then introduced a Second Theme, and then a Third Theme of Men and Elves to repair the flaws in Arda. When Arda was fully formed, Er praised the strength of Melkor to alter Arda but reminding Melkor that as an aspect of Er's thoughts, even Discord serves to emphasis the glory of Er's work. And Melkor was ashamed, and resented it; for he thought his Discord an improvement. Thus when the Music was made incarnate as Arda, it was already flawed through the Discord, and immoderate heat and great cold stalked it. Melkor then took in the interest of the World and descended to it with the other Valar.

Melkor claimed Lordship over the plane of Arda but was rejected in favour of Manw, his brother Ainur more intuned with the wishes of Er. Thus, Melkor set himself and his servants against the Valar of Manw. To disrupt all their works in order to claim what is rightfully his.


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

[User] [Marvel] I'm a common criminal in New York City. One night I steal an old lady's purse. As I turn the corner into a dark alley, I run into a man with a large gun and a white skull on his chest. Am I dead?

[Assistant] If youre just a petty thief, theres a chance hell just beat the shit out of you for information since hes usually going after way bigger fish than you. If you harmed the old lady, though, he will probably feed you to a shark or something.


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

[User]
[The Thing] what was The Thing's goals? Was it just trying to survive or was it trying to take over the earth?

Title is self-explanatory. I will note that we don't know what happened on the space ship exactly, but it obviously crash with the thing on it. That also said, the thing could've easily (imo) infected the entire crew if it just played the long game and gave everyone a pat rub or sneezed on everyone he came across, what caused the thing to go really aggressive and attack everyone?

[Assistant]
At the end of the day it was a severely wounded wild animal.

I think it goofed with the dogs and kind of had to double down from there.

It had to do something with the dogs considering it knew from its first experience the dogs can sniff you out. It just thought it had more time to become them.

You also have to remember the place was filled with scientists, it was a matter of time once they knew that something was turning the crew inside out and wearing them like marionettes.

Better to take advantage of the initial confusion and catch them off guard.


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

[User] What are the main differences of bosons, leptons, fermions, and quarks?

[Assistant]
So, there are two classes of particles: bosons (named after Indian physicist S.N. Bose) and fermions (named after Italian physicist Enrico Fermi). Multiple bosons can be in the same state (e.g. if you have them in a box, they can all be in the middle of the box), whereas no two fermions can be in the same state (e.g. one can be in the middle of the box, and another has to spread around the edges). Practically, bosons can condense, so you get things like superfluid helium (Helium-4 is a boson) where all the atoms act as one.

Leptons and quarks are both classes of particles that are fermions. Quarks interact through the strong force, and protons and neutrons are made out of quarks. There are six kinds: up, down, strange, charm, top, and bottom. Quarks are never found alone, but in groups of two or three (and sometimes more!). Leptons include the electron, and its fatter cousins the muon and the tau. There is also a neutrino associated with each lepton, and the neutrinos also count as leptons.


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

[User]
[Brooklyn 99] How are Holt and Kevinintimate with each other?

Im not asking for perverted reasonsmostly! But theyre very formal people, some would even classify as Ya boring. So much so that their idea of PDA is a firm handshake. But we know from implications that theyve Boned a few times, and seduced each other over texts with graphs. So what do they do, seductively whisper bird facts to each other? I need to know, Im too far down the rabbit hole!

[Assistant] It's a very steamy and torid affair involving officiated debates as foreplay before moving into more private sessions. Once alone they compare data on the most efficient way to disrobe and properly fold their clothing. Once nude the comparisons to rare and majestic bird mating habits begin before progressing to a very firm handshakes. Then over finely aged wine they discuss relevant facts of the 1st century Roman empire and the historical inaccuracy of pop culture depictions. Then another firm handshake and thoughtful thank you letters mailed to each other before separate showers and some light reading before bed.


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

[User]
Age of the Earth/Universe

How does a scientist determine the age of the Earth and the age of the universe? It seems that the Earths age as time goes on gets exponentially older and older. I think people were saying it is some 700 million years old about 50 years ago and now it is somewhere in the 3 billions. If you could explain it in laymans terms that would be appreciated.

[Assistant]
Earth age has been known  since pretty early in the discovery of radioactivity.  Once we understood how radioactive decay works, it was very quickly applied to the problem of the age of the Earth, which had been a subject of some debate for a while.

In 1669 Nicholas Steno realised that "geologic features did not develop all at once, but rather by a series of events that look a long time, longer than human history", and in the early-mid 1700's James Hutton developed the theory of uniformitarianism - i.e. that geological processes now are likely to be the same as those in the past, therefore the rates of rock development must be similar.

Early geologists made a concerted effort to find relative ages for things - i.e. one thing is under another and therefore must be older.  By correlating units in different places a geologic column was developed which enabled us to identify the oldest and youngest units on the earth, and the stuff in between.

In the 19th Century Lord Kelvin tried to give an absolute age to the earth, and went about this by treating earth as a cooling body.  he calculated the rate at which earth was losing heat, worked out how hot it was when it probably formed, how hot it is now, and came up with an age of a few million years.  Another approach used by geologists was to measure the thickness of the complete sediment pile on Earth, apply modern sedimentation rates to it, and calculate the minimum time it must have taken to accumulate them all.  This gave an answer of several hundred million years.

The problems with these estimates were that there were a huge number of false assumptions.  The stratigraphy method did not have a complete sediment pile, and it also ignored unconformities (breaks in sedimentation) which can represent tens or even hundreds of millions of years with no sedimentation.  These surfaces are also caused by erosion (the removal of material).  Furthermore, the sediment pile was only calculated from that which was observed at the surface - early geologists had little idea of crustal depth or structure (there was certainly no seismology back then). That meant the sediment pile thickness was waaaay off.

Lord Kelvin's calculation also had a number of bad assumptions, but chief among them was he had no idea about radioactivity, which provides a heat source within the Earth.  The planet is not a simple cooling body.

In 1895 a guy called John Perry actually re-did Kelvin's calculations and instead inferred a convecting mantle.  he came up with an earth age of 2-3 billion years.  Kelvin thought this was ridiculous, and actually ended up reducing his own estimate to 20 million years.

So, in 1896 Henri Becquerel comes along and discovers radioactivity, and by 1908 Lord Rutherford has earnt a Nobel prize for his work on radioactivity.  Bruce Boltwood and he were the first people to try dating rocks using radioactive decay.

In 1904 Rutherford dated his first rock to 40 million years and within a couple of years had dated various rocks to up to 600 million years old.  Boltwood had soon pushed the age of some rocks back to 1.3 billion years.

There was then a bit of a slow down in the science as Europe was at war for the best part of a decade.  In 1927 though, Arthur Holmes published his estimates of earth age at between 1 and 3 billion years.  Geologists were still trying to find older and older rocks, and by 1931 a committee had been set up in the US to properly investigate the age of the earth.

In the 1950's, as we had developed a better understanding of earth formation, it was realised that most meteorites formed back at the same time as the earth did, however, they had spent their lives being chemically unaltered, not effected by weathering, and provided a perfect way to get a  date for the earth formation itself.  That's when we got a planetary age of 4.55 billion years which is, to all intents and purposes, the same number we use today.

The principal of radiometric dating is that an element has several isotopes.  Some isotopes of some elements are unstable and break down.  The rate of this breakdown is fixed and doesn't change with time.  So, for example - the isotope Rubidium 87 decays to form the isotope Strontium 87. Over time, the amount of Rubidium 87 (the parent isotope) in a rock will go down, and the amount of Strontium 87 (the daughter isotope) will go up. Strontium has another isotope - Strontium 86 which is not radioactive.  It is a stable isotope and the amount of it doesn't change through time. Because Sr87 and Sr86 *should* occur at a certain ratio (i.e. about 10% Sr86, 7% Sr87, and the remaining % made up of the other Strontium isotopes Sr84 and Sr88) we can measure the ratios of Sy87 and Sr86 in a rock and look at how much the Sr87 level is different to what we would expect.  That difference is produced by radioactive decay, and is proportional to the age of formation of the rock (i.e. when the elements were locked into crystal structures and unable to move about elsewhere).

There's lots of different isotopic dating systems, all good for dating different amounts of time back in the past (some things decay very quickly so have all been used up after a few years, others decay more slowly so are good for dating older rocks).


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

[User]
[Marvel] Why doesn't Dr. Doom simply fix his scars via magic, surgery, makeup, etc.?

I mean, the guy has a ton of money and resources at his disposal. He's very arrogant too, I just can't fathom why he hasn't like cast a spell that gives him his face back or something. Surely, he'd want the world to see his face and to have it plastered everywhere.

[Assistant] Because he's also incredibly, incredibly petulant, and refuses to settle for anything less than effortless perfection. So he'll continue to wear his exquisitely crafted mask while brooding forever over his facial injury and the grudge it inspired.


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

[User]
[General Fantasy] Can a creature resistant/immune to fire damage be cooked after it's killed?

What would need to be done to cook such a thing?

[Assistant] Depends. If the protection is innate like with dragon scales, they remain fireproof even after the creature dies. If the fire protection is the result of a spell or potion it will dispel after death.


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

[User]
Why metals are crystalline and not amorphous?

Gibbs free energy equation : G = H - TS,
H: Enthalpy
T: absolute temperature
S: Entropy,
Since an amorphous structure has more entropy than a crystalline structure, which should reduce the Gibbs free energy, so why most solids exist in a crystalline state and not amorphous ?

[Assistant]
Better, dG = dH - TdS. Now, for the TdS term to be dominating, it needs to be larger than dH. In crystallization, entropy is lost and dS is negative, so -TdS is positive. Meanwhile, dH is always negative for crystallization: the system releases energy when the atoms are locked into the right place, because it's energetically better than a less optimal orientation. So, dH and -TdS work in opposite directions. dG can be negative - i.e. the reaction is spontaneous - if -dH is bigger than -TdS, i.e the enthalpy trumps the entropy gain.

When we have a situation where enthalpy differences are very small, in this case indeed it happens so that entropy dominates, and fractal or amorphous shapes are produced.


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

[User]
CMV: Gritty and "realistic" movies that are dark and depressing but have no real message past "Everything is shitty and you should feel shitty" are actively harmful and shouldn't be praised.

I am speaking of movies that try too hard and get praised by niche fans for "pushing the ceiling" of cinema.

For example, movies such as the Poughkeepsie Tapes, Anti-Christ, A Serbian Film, and the most infamous rape in all of cinema, Irreversible, just rubs me the wrong way with what it's intended message is supposed to be. They're all setting out, no matter what the director pretends to say, to shock the audience. What value can there be possibly gained from seeing people be mutilated and defiled, and then at the end, have the film basically say "wOw, wAsn'T THaT fuCkEd uP?". Was the message "don't be killed by serial killers, that's bad?". In my own opinion, these movies don't dive into their shocking topics, and instead bank on your shock registering as being impressed by the movie.

Before you judge me as somebody who only likes "happy endings", I will tell you right now I can enjoy bleak and dark stories a lot, provided that they give me something positive and impactful by the end.

For example, The Road is a really bleak film. Like, "I'm probably not gonna watch this ever again" levels of bleak. However, no matter how bad things got, there was always, always a ray of hope in the boy character. His relationship with his jaded father figure was a sight to see. That no matter how bad things get, hope springs eternal as long as they believed there was hope. That is a good message while still being surrounded by bleak and depressing imagery.

Movies like Schindler's List, Dear Zachary and Hotel Rwanda, while bleak and dark, are also a positive force on people. It shows them how things ARE in the world right now, but at the same time, show that people live with it. They still focus on people who, while flawed, are ultimately good at heart. They have depth and you have reason to want them to not die horrifically or fail in their goals.

Movies are, at the end of the day, supposed to be an art form that lets us have an escape from reality, or at least, provide us with a new perspective on life. Movies that only set out to make people feel like shit and not even have the decency to leave them with anything of substance to think on are just terrible movies, regardless of their technical aspects being impressive. (Irreversible had a an impressive soundtrack because it was made by one half of Daft Punk, but I still hate the movie's premise as a whole).

One caveat: Surreal horror like Junji Ito or Lovecraft, while mostly bleak and makes humans powerless, I have no problem with because it doesn't make any sort of claims about being realistic or sending out any particular message. They're avenues of creativity, and I enjoy that a lot.

[Assistant]
>What value can there be possibly gained from seeing people be mutilated and defiled, and then at the end, have the film basically say "wOw, wAsn'T THaT fuCkEd uP?". Was the message "don't be killed by serial killers, that's bad?"

The message isn't "don't be killed by serial killers" its "sometimes people get murdered by serial killers". There isn't always a ray of hope out there, some peoples lives are just complete shit, often with little ability to do anything about it.

The point was to make you appreshiate your own rays of hope a little bit more.


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

[User] ELI5: Why does "on hold" music on a phone sound like it's under water?

[Assistant] Most human voice is between 300 Hz and 3000 Hz. So most phone systems are designed for these frequencies. In addition human voice have a lot of familiar patterns so you can save bandwidth by compressing it with special algorithms for voice. However music is usually between 30 Hz and 20,000 Hz and follow very different patterns. So the high and low notes will get cut off and the voice compressor will mangle the rest of the notes. This makes the music very strange to listen to.


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

[User]
[Jessica Jones] I've got powers like Kilgrave, but I don't want to become an evil monster. What do I do?

So I've acquired powers like Kilgrave. I can get people do to do anything by just speaking to them.

I don't mind using this power to get free dinners in restaurants and things like that, but I don't want to hurt anybody. Should I just not speak at all anymore?

[Assistant]
They cover this in the show, you could be a successful superhero by telling villains to just stand down and surrender.  Kilgrave does it for a little bit.

His big problem is that he's a sociopath who literally cannot understand the difference between right and wrong.


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

[User]
Is it ethical to improve someone's life without their consent?

If we were able to interface with the brain to create a virtual world that a human could exist in without any knowledge of the real world and have an idyllic life would it be an ethical obligation to hook babies up to it without their consent?

The goal of every parent is to provide the best possible life for their child. If this could optimally be achieved via this system, does that mean we should we do it?

If it's not an obligation would it be at least morally virtuous?

As a bonus question, would this change if the outcome for the child was the same but the intent behind you performing the action was to personally gain?

Sorry if this is basic pop psychology that's been asked a million times in some form.

[Assistant]
I guess we should ask ourselves if it is good to be deceived, even by a pleasant deception?  Making it difficult to actually know the actual state of affairs definitely shouldn't count as helpful to anyone.

I think there may be some parallels to draw from the idea of "Bread and Circuses" to distract or control a voting body, oftentimes at the voters' expense.  Instead of an infant, it is somebody with agency; and instead of a complete perceptual delusion, involves a softening of hard circumstances.  However, B&Cs probably prevent meaningful change from happening,  and the device would make change of the real world nigh impossible.


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

[User]
ELI5: How reactors don't melt if stuff going on inside them hit millions of degrees?

So I just read an article about a Chinese fusion reactor that got to 50million degrees celsius and managed to hold that for a little over a minute. Also, I've read that the LHC managed to generate 5.5 Trillion degrees celsius years ago which was said to be times something something hotter than the sun.

How on earth did everybody not die and melt? If you search for highest melting points its all just a few thousand degrees. What is going on here?

[Assistant]
What's going on here is they keep the stuff that's millions of degrees from touching anything else, and they only use very very tiny amounts of the stuff they're heating up.

The most common way of doing this is to trap the little wee cloud of hot hot stuff within a very strong magnetic field. Because it's not touching anything, the heat it contains isn't conducted into the structure around it that's generating that magnetic field, and they can keep pumping more energy in. When they release it, there's so little hot stuff there that it doesn't really heat up its surroundings enough to damage them.


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

[User]
[Portal 2] How did Aperture Science get a hold of all those moon rocks?

They must have had hundreds of tons of the stuff, in order to be able to grind it up and coat so many walls in it (although I realize not all chambers are covered in moon dust). The test chambers never mention that there is a limited supply. So what gives? Did they make hundreds of rocket trips to the moon? Is that how they went bankrupt?

[Assistant]
Moon rock is merely a good portal conductor, not the only one. Once they had a basic working model, they used the following method to collect moon rocks for testing:

1. Fire portal gun (orange mode) at moon
2. Reset portal device to close both ends of the portal, because you forgot that you had one end still set up next to your desk.
3. Fire portal gun (orange mode) at moon
4. Enter airlock chamber
5. Lock portal device in position
6. (Optional) Attach Aperture Science Personnel Retainment Harness
7. Fire portal gun (blue mode) at wall.
8. Hold Breath
9. Disregard previous instruction, exhale to avoid vacuum damage to lungs.
10. Use Aperture Science Moon Rock Collection Stick to slide several moon rocks into the airlock chamber against the air current. In most cases, lunar gravity will be downward, into the portal, assisting in this effort.
11. (Optional) wait for air pressure to equalize, as this will keep the moon rocks from blowing outward, but may lead to breathing difficulties.
12. Shut down portal device.
13. Wait 10-15 minutes for air lock chamber air pumps to normalize air pressure.

And there you go! All the moon rocks you need!


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

[User]
[Star Wars] How was Admiral Piett supposed to stop them from retreating?

After the rebel fleet came out of hyperspace over the forest moon of Endor and once the Imperial fleet moved into position, Admiral Piett, when asked if they should attack the rebels, replied, "We only need to keep them from escaping."

How precisely was he supposed to accomplish this task? I didn't see any interdictor star destroyers in his flotilla. What, besides hubris, was there to prevent the rebel fleet from simply jumping away?

[Assistant]
The Interdictor-class ship keeps (kept?) ships from entering Hyperspace by artificially simulating the gravity-well effect of a nearby planet.

Since the battle occurs in obit of Endor's forest moon, and right next to the gas giant "Endor" itself, there are already-existing gravity effects which should prevent most rebel ships from jumping into Hyperspace.

Hypothetically, they could have left that orbit and then jumped to Hyperspace: But that's what the *Executor* was for.


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

[User] How would piebaldism present in monozygotic twins? Would it be on the same spots if both of them have it?

[Assistant] No. The existence of piebaldism is genetic, but the degree and pattern of the affected areas is random. In families who pass down the condition, there is just as much variation between family members as there is between unrelated strangers. Identical twins would not be expected to have any special similarity of affected areas.


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

[User]
How can both black holes and gravitons exist?

If gravity is carried by particles that move at the speed of light, how is it possible for a black hole to transmit gravitational effects to outside its own event horizon?

[Assistant]
Actually it's not necessary to think about gravitons (quanta of the gravitational field) in order to have this question-- the same applies to the classical gravitational field and gravitational waves, the latter of which are how changes in the former propagate, and do so at the speed of light. As a star collapses, matter at the center is getting denser and denser, which is making the gravitational field inside the star stronger. These changes in the field propagate outward from the center of the star to the stellar interior at the speed of light, and continue to do so during the collapse, continually modifying the field. Eventually, the star may collapse inside its own Schwartzschild radius. After that point, the gravitational field outside that radius is mostly unchanging and is a solution to the vacuum Einstein equations (essentially vacuum because the matter density is small away from the singularity.) The black hole doesn't have to transmit any more effects: the state of the field (classically, the geometry of the spacetime) is to a first approximation quiescent, and test particles move in that field along the geodesics.

In other words, the motion of test particles is affected locally by the state of the gravitational field, which was generated dynamically by stellar collapse and experienced changes that propagated through it at the speed of light during that volatile time. The test particles aren't actively interacting with the singularity and aren't sensitive to any dynamical processes still ongoing inside the horizon, due to the presence of the horizon.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why the brain works on even numbers or 5's.

When ever some body explains something they explain it in multiples of even numbers or 5's, why?

I understand it is easier for working out for people just baffles me.

[Assistant]
It's nothing to do with our brain - it's our number system.  Since our whole counting and math system is based on 10's, the cleanest ways to divide numbers up are in 2's and 5's.  So whenever we round or estimate, those are the numbers we gravitate towards - it's easy to recognize that 50 is half of a hundred, but harder to recognize how much 43 is.

If our number system were, say, based on 12's, then we'd naturally be thinking more in terms of 2's and 3's, as those are the most common factors of 12 (along with 4 and 6).  But with the sequence of 10's - 10, 100, 1000, etc., by far the easiest factors are 2 and 5.


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

[User] ELI5: How would somebody create a new programming language?

[Assistant]
You would write a program in another language to make it work.

The two approaches are:

* compiler - reads a file of the new language and changes it to machine code
* interpreter - reads the file line by line and executes each command

Many modern languages, like java, perl, and python take a hybrid approach to various degrees.


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

[User] ELI5: Why is the front of a bus flat, as opposed to the pointed fronts of cars?

[Assistant] Buses typically have a lot of people walking in front of the bus while getting on/off at a stop.  Having the flat front and a large windshield helps the driver see if any people (especially small children) are in front of the bus.


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

[User]
What are pros and cons of Hybrid cars vs electric cars with generators?

If electric cars can be very efficient for having less components, wouldn't attaching a simple generator gives the equivalent of a hybrid car? Would it work? If it wouldn't then why not?

[Assistant]
Your idea is the main premise behind a Chevrolet Volt.  By connecting a gasoline engine that exclusively powers the battery, you've got what's called a series hybrid.  This is as opposed to a configuration where both the gasoline engine and the electric engine directly propel the car, which is a parallel hybrid (the Toyota Prius is the best example of this).  Note that the Chevrolet Volt uses the gasoline engine to directly propel the car at speeds over 70 MPH, so in that sense, it's technically a series hybrid that acts as a parallel hybrid under heavy load situations.

The key limitation to electric cars in general is the cost - currently, the Chevrolet Volt costs around $41,000, before government-issued rebates.  This means that while the idea is feasible, it is not sufficiently economical over the incumbent alternatives as of yet.  However, one of the key benefits of electric cars is that they can be powered by anything from coal to nuclear to geothermal energy, and everything in between.  By contrast, gasoline and diesel cars rely exclusively on petroleum and biodiesel, the latter of which cannot be produced economically in sufficient amounts to fully replace the former.  As oil supplies get increasingly expensive, expect the electric alternative to win out.


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

[User]
[Predator 2] What happened to the apartment building and all of its inhabitants after the Predator spaceship took off at the end of the movie?

It appears the Predator spaceship was underneath the apartment building and after the spaceship took off, we see Lt. Harrigan in a desolate area with burning fires in Los Angeles with no apartment building in sight.

[Assistant] While it's true that the spaceship was below the apartment building, the actual structure it was in was an abandoned tunnel of some kind. To make its escape, it needed to travel some distance down the tunnel; evidently, that distance was great enough that the apartment building was no longer readily visible at the point where Danny Glover emerged -- at least from the angles we could see.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why "universal basic income" as opposed to "universal basic provisions"?

I understand the concept of universal basics income. Simply put, people receive a minimum amount of money (for whatever reason) that's to be used for basic living expenses.

My question is why is money involved at all? The recipient doesn't need money, they need food, clothing, shelter. So why not make it "universal basic provisions" and supply the things that the recipient is expected to spend the money on?

[Assistant]
Because the idea of Universal Basic Income, is in part, to avoid serious bureaucracy.

Giving everyone basic food, clothing, shelter and whatever they need results in serious administrative overhead, as you need to organize all those services (which are entirely separate from civilian services already existent), then check if those are adequate for everyone, to avoid wasting resources that some people don't need, or that are misappropriate.


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

[User]
[Star Wars] If the Sith go by the Rule of Two, why does every Sith Lord (from Sidious to Dooku to Vader) have multiple appretences?

Vader alone must have had 5 at least (according to EU and the video games).

[Assistant]
The main thing is that these Sith never had more than one apprentice at a time.

Sidious started off with Maul, then when Maul "died" he was replaced with Dooku. Sidious never planned on Dooku's long-term apprentice ship. Dooku was a tool to be used while Sidious groomed Anakin for later apprenticeship. When the time was right and Anakin was ready, Sidious had Anakin kill Dooku to make room for himself. Mara Jade was given rudimentary Force training to better server as the Emperor's Hand, but she was never a full apprentice.

Dooku never had an actual Sith apprentice. The closest he got was Asajj Ventress. Ventress was a Dark Jedi, not a Sith. The difference is a Dark Jedi is just a Force sensitive who have fallen to/were taught the Dark Side, while the Sith are an ideological order with a definite heirarchy and many hidden techniques and rituals. Sith will often use the promise of these techniques to secure the services of Dark Jedi, and then never actually give them out.

Vader's only known apprentice was Starkiller, and that turned out to be a sham anyway. Starkiller never reached the level of a true Sith, and he was thrown out and subsequently killed as soon as his use (finding the Emperor's enemies) was fulfilled. The process of cloning Starkiller was Vader's attempt to create a perfect Dark Side user to have as his own personal weapon. Obviously it didn't turn out very well. He trained a few other people for a position for himself similar to the Emperor's Hand, which he called the Shadow Hand. The original Shadow Hand, Lumiya, killed the competition. Lumiya was titled "Dark Lady of the Sith", but it was just a title. She was no more Sith than Mara Jade or Asajj Ventress until after Vader's death when she spent the following decades scouring the Galaxy for everything Sith related she could find and met up with Vergere, a Jedi-turned-Sith who had been in hiding since before the Clone Wars. She then founded a new Sith order and corrupted Jacen Solo and made him her apprentice.

Darth Bane created the Rule of Two so that when the time came for Apprentice to become Master, the apprentice would either be stronger than the master or end up dead. This ensured that the Sith would constantly grow in strength rather than stagnate and falter because a bunch of weaklings ganged up on a master and killed him in his sleep. Over the millennia this concept was slightly corrupted, where Sith who could not wait to rule would often kill their master with the help of an apprentice of their own or by guile rather than a full-on fight to the death, which resulted in a slow decline of power. However, centuries of the Rule of Two being followed relatively faithfully led to the Sith growing immensely in power, so even with the slight decline Sidious was still one of the most powerful force users in the Galaxy at his time, if not the *most* powerful.

**Tl;dr:** They do to a point, but it was very slowly being withdrawn due to the impatience and arrogance of various apprentices. Up until they were wiped out at Endor, that is.


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

[User] ELI5: Why do most foods in the US have a calorie count ending in 0 or 5, especially in processed foods?

[Assistant] Rounding off to the nearest increment of five is allowed to account for inaccuracy in the measuring and cooking process. A single tic tac mint has 2 calories, so they can legally say that a single tic tac has zero on their packaging for example.


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

[User]
[DC] So uh... I hate to be insensitive, but why exactly was Batman so moved by the letter from (Flashpoint Paradox Spoiler)

His dad?

I mean, the actual content of the letter seemed... not at all evocative of emotion.

Was it just that it was a letter from his dad, to him?

Was it just that it was written by his dad?  Could it have read:

Milk
Eggs
Butter
Cheese

And still achieved a similar effect?

[Assistant]
It wasn't just an old letter from his Dad that he wrote decades ago and someone found, it was a letter from his Dad who had lost his son and was older/ "present day" so it made it more meaningful to know they were recent thoughts.

It was a sort of "goodbye" they never got to have and the whole circumstances involved to get that letter to him is why he tells Flash "You're one hell of a messenger."

The letter/Flash telling him his Dad was Batman made him realize how much like his father he was, since his death in that alternate timeline inspired his father to become the Batman, giving Bruce's choices more purpose and meaning.

His Father died when he was a young boy and now he has validation that his Father loved him, misses him and supports what he does, what's not to get emotional about?


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

[User] ELI5: How can a tiny pimple can hurt a whole shoulder?

[Assistant]
This is called "referred pain".  It occurs due to our nervous system being so complex and interconnected that a painful stimulus can cause other parts of the body to hurt too.  This is why heart attacks can cause pain in multiple places like the chest, shoulders, arm, and jaw.

Edit: depending on the extent of the pain, it could just be due to inflammation.  Blood vessels dilate in areas where certain issues are happening (e.g. infection, trauma, etc.) And this influx of blood causes leakage of fluid outside your blood vessels.  This creates pressure in the area, which stimulates nerves and is painful.


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

[User]
[General Science Fiction] Why are humans portrayed as developing faster technologically compared to aliens?

In many works of science fiction, I have come across the common supposition that one of humanity's distinctive features when compared to aliens is that we develop faster technologically.  Why is this is the case?  Are there scientific reasons to think this might be true or is this a trope of convenience for writers who want humanity to 'catch-up' to aliens in their stories while not having the aliens stay permanently ahead of humanity in the tech race?

[Assistant]
If aliens developed as fast as humans, then we'd need extremely precise timing to meet them while they're still relatable. The time between cavemen and transhumans is tiny compared to astronomical timescales. If we're just unusually fast at it, there could be a bunch of aliens out there that are still between those stages that we could meet.

Also, it's generally possible to steal technology faster than you can invent it yourself, although not to the extent that it's often portrayed. It's not like someone from a hundred years ago could reverse-engineer a modern computer. There still would be a lot of cool stuff they could reverse-engineer though.


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

[User]
[Isaac Asimov] 5 humans are tied to a rail track..

5 humans are tied to a rail track and a train car is speeding towards them, a robot near by sees this and identifies a lever which can divert the train car to an alternate track, however another human is on the other track also tied in position. How does an android handle the situation given the three laws of robotics?

[Assistant]
Assuming there's no other way of stopping the train (it being too far away for the robot to get in the way of.

I think it would depend on how advanced the robot's positronic brain is. An early robot would be caught in a loop that would fry their circuitry, leaving them unable to save anyone. A more advanced robot would save the 5 people, then have their positronic brain melt down. A robot with some rudimentary understanding of the zeroth law *may* be able to save the 5 people without having a complete breakdown.


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

[User] ELI5: What is so special/healthy about sea salt versus regular salt?

[Assistant]
Sea salt is produced through evaporation of ocean water or water from saltwater lakes, usually with little processing. Depending on the water source, this leaves behind certain trace minerals and elements. The minerals add flavor and color to sea salt, which also comes in a variety of coarseness levels.

Table salt is typically mined from underground salt deposits. Table salt is more heavily processed to eliminate minerals and usually contains an additive to prevent clumping. Most table salt also has added iodine, an essential nutrient that helps maintain a healthy thyroid.

Sea salt and table salt have the same basic nutritional value, despite the fact that sea salt is often promoted as being healthier. Sea salt and table salt contain comparable amounts of sodium by weight.


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

[User]
If air is denser at colder temperatures, does that mean that fire burns better at lower temperatures?

If a flame has access to larger amounts of cold, dense air, wouldn't it burn better than if it was in a much warmer environment?

[Assistant] It would depend on the specifics of the flame, because there are two different factors at play. Denser air would provide more oxygen to the fuel, enabling the fuel to burn more quickly, but colder air would lower the temperature of the flame, reducing the average energy of collisions. There are definitely instances in which cooling the feed air is advantageous (the intercooler in a turbocharged IC engine, for example, as mentioned elsewhere).


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

[User] [LOTR] Why were the elves leaving? Did they not think Sauron could be defeated again? Or did they think humans could handle it? Or did they just not care about Middle Earth anymore?

[Assistant] They knew their time was past and the coming age belonged to man.  They could have stayed but would have continued to fade and decay until nothing remained of them.  If they left they would retain some of their essence and be carried into essentially elf heaven. All things move in a cycle and they were no longer needed and left so the age of men could flourish.


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

[User]
[MCU] [Mild AoU Spoilers] How can the Hulk be...?

So, I might be a little unclear on the difference between MCU Hulk and 616 Hulk, but I've always assumed that it is a nigh-unstoppable force. To put it in math terms, Strength and Durability increases as a function of Anger.

But in the incredibly cool Hulkbuster Fight, not only does Stark knock out a tooth, impressive on its own, and a humorous reaction, he knocks him completely out, long enough for him to revert back to an extremely traumatized Banner.

Is this a testament to how strong Stark can build his suits, or how much weaker the Hulk is in the MCU?

[Assistant] Hulk is genuinely weaker in the MCU, as are most of the characters for the sake of keeping things marginally realistic. That said in that particular fight Hulk was already starting to calm down as Scarlet Witch's influence wore off and he was becoming aware of the damage he was causing. This momentary lapse may have been what allowed Stark's sucker punch to knock him out like that.


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

[User] ELI5: Why do lions appear on old european heraldry despite lions not existing in Europe ?

[Assistant]
1) Lions lived in parts of Southern and Eastern Europe until the 300s AD. So in many regions there was cultural memory of the beasts even if they died out several generations previously.

2) The Romans took their gladiatorial fighting traditions wherever they conquered and a major part of that was importing exotic animals for people to fight. So lions would be known in Romanized Europe.

3) They had trade routes to the Middle East and to Africa which would allow for the wealthy Nobles and Royalty to import exotic animals for menageries which were popular in the middle ages.


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

[User]
CMV: America is not a real democracy until certain things are fixed

I: The two-party system

Having only two parties in a democracy is a horrible situation. It makes compromise almost impossible, because not voting in line with your party means you are directly supporting the other party. Also, this other party is by definition your biggest enemy, creating a horrible political climate.

In general elections, any votes for a smaller party actually hinder your favourite big party and also feel like wasting your vote. Even if both candidates from the bigger parties are not that popular (2016...), one of them will win.

This is undemocratic because you are basically handing power around between two groups. The people who make up those groups are often selected internally (for lawmakers), the public only chooses which group may govern this time.

II: The Electoral College

This one is quite simple. Whoever gets the most votes was selected by the most people to represent them and therefore should represent them. Period.

Additionally, everyone's vote should count the same. Period.

III: Gerrymandering

After I first heard about that, I thought it was the most stupid and infuriating thing ever. It is basically cheating in an election. And it is legal. Elections should not be cheatable, and even if they are it should be a major crime. Gerrymandering has nothing to do with democracy, fairness or human decency, it's politicians picking their voters, not voters picking their politicians.

IV: Additional Problems

There are several problems with Americas "winner-takes-all" voting, mainly that it's discarding up to 49% of the votes.

A whole lot of lobbying and corporate interests seeping into the law.

V: Conclusion

Americans always think they live in a role model for democracy. I think they don't, and I think more of them need to realize that most aspects of their political system are outdated or just horrible. In my opinion, America, especially in its current state, just does not deserve being called a real democracy. Now, CMV.

[Assistant]
Well, America is not a democracy. It is a democratic republic. There is a big difference.

>II: The Electoral College

This is the reason why America isn't a democracy. Part of a republic is electing others to represent us and our interests.

I suggest you read the Federalist Paper No. 68. It is an argument from the founding fathers about why the electoral college should exist:

_____

 "James Madison worried about what he called factions, which he defined as groups of citizens who have a common interest in some proposal that would either violate the rights of other citizens or would harm the nation as a whole. Madisons fear  which Alexis de Tocqueville later dubbed the tyranny of the majority  was that a faction could grow to encompass more than 50 percent of the population, at which point it could sacrifice to its ruling passion or interest both the public good and the rights of other citizens."

America doesn't deserve to be called a real democracy, because we purposely aren't. The founders thought the Constitution is designed to ensure that the office of President will never fall to the lot of any man who is not in an eminent degree endowed with the requisite qualifications.

You insinuate that America is "lesser" in the sense that it "doesn't deserve to be called a democracy." But we don't want to be. Americans who think that we are a democracy think that because they were not taught the specifics of American history and the organization of our government.


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

[User] What exactly is included in the "birds and the bees" talk? We've all seen it used to refer to the sex talk but I've never actually heard it in use.

[Assistant]
Bees were used to describe fertilization by the male (carrying pollen and depositing it in a flower), birds were used to describe ovulation by the female.  These examples in nature were something that kids would be familiar with which is why they became euphemisms when parents wanted to explain human reproduction.

It's from a couple hundred years ago.  These days parents are more straightforward.


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

[User]
[X-Men] Would Magneto's plan to mutate the leaders of the world really save mutants?

In 2000's X-men movie, Magneto builds a machine that mutates regular humans and gives them "super powers". Apparently, the mutated humans die from the changes wrought to their body (Mags doesn't seem to think this is a thing, though).  His plan is to use the device to mutate a group of world leaders gathered at a nearby summit. The X-men, of course, stopped this plan.

But would it have worked? I guess we can take two different tracks with this: one where the victims of the machine are going to die shortly after getting powers; and one where the machine works as it's intended to, and the world gets a bunch of new mutants.

[Assistant]
The most likely event is that most of the VIPs die. Maybe one or two develop powers that counteract this (like a healing factor) but the attack is still interpreted for what it is: a terrorist attack. One that had an outside chance of converting the world's leaders to the mutant cause.

Things go very badly from that point.


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

[User]
[Doctor Who] Is there an in-lore reason the (current) Doctor rarely meets with his future self?

Whenever theres a big crossover event with multiple incarnations of the Doctor meeting, its almost always the current Doctor and whoever came before him. There is only exception I can remember, and thats when Peter Capaldi appeared briefly before his official introduction. Even there, a moment where every Doctor to have been in the show at the time (1-12 + John Hurt) appeared, Capaldis Doctor proclaimed that All Thirteen were there.

That line suggests that The Doctor doesnt recognize whoever he will become as existing yet, despite the fact many past Doctors have met their future selves.

Of course, in real life, they just hadnt cast Jodie Whittaker or anybody else, there were only 13 Doctors at the time. But thats no fun, so is there any reason that, in lore, no future Doctors interact with the current Doctor?

[Assistant]
The current Doctor doesn't know where they will be, but the future Doctor knows where they *were* and avoids it, since paradoxes are bad news.

That's why when Doctors meet each other, it's usually because of some crisis bringing them together without them having a say in the matter.

The TARDIS may go out of its way to prevent this from happening too, which is why it doesn't usually happen even when the Doctor is traveling more or less randomly. The TARDIS doesn't like things that are "wrong", like Jack, so if it senses that the Doctor (and itself) are already somewhere, it changes course. That could explain some of the times it misses the mark.

And of course time and space are vast, so even a long lived person like the Doctor has plenty of places they've never been.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why do wine spoil so quickly after being opened as opposed to hard liquor?

You can put the cork back in and put it in the fridge, but the flavor is never the same, and sometimes it spoils and tastes unpleasant overnight.

So what makes hard liquor so resilient to time and exposure compared to wine?

[Assistant]
Others pointed out the wine oxidizes, but they missed the main thing:

There are air-breathing bacteria that can survive a moderate alcohol content, turning the stuff into acetic acid (aka vinegar). The way they used to make vinegar was to just take wine, cider, beer or any other alcoholic beverage, and let it sit in an open vessel, so that bacteria from the environment would infect it and turn acohol into acid.

So when you open a bottle of wine, the exact same thing is going to happen. Oxygen and bacteria get into the bottle, and start producing acetic acid.

Hard liquor doesn't do that because it has a too high alcohol content for bacteria to live in, although some can survive in a dormant form - alcohol for disinfection has a much higher alcohol content than the usual 40%.


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

[User]
If light is produced by the release of photons when electrons return to stable energy levels, why do blackbody objects emit light over a continuous and wide spectrum?

Doing some light reading on the Internet and was reading up on black body objects and why objects glow when they heat. I was told that photons are released through the excitement of electrons, and then you have things with emission spectrums and so on. This implies that the spectrum should only have very specific wavelengths of light. However, I have looked at spectrum graphs of objects such as incandescent lightbulbs and found that they emit light over a continuous spectrum of various intensities that extend over a significant range of wavelengths.

Why is this so? Why are the emission spectrum wavelengths not emitted? What is it in the function of blackbody objects that make them emit light across a constant stream of wavelengths?

[Assistant]
Charged particles emit a (quasi-)discrete spectrum of EM radiation when they transition between *bound* states, but they can also emit continuous spectra when they transition between *scattering* states.

This is what bremsstrahlung is, and that's ultimately what causes the continuous Planck spectrum of a black body.


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

[User]
ELI5: How do fighter pilots know when an enemy has them "locked on"?

Is that ominous buzz Hollywood or reality?

[Assistant]
There are systems on the plane that can detect when a (potentially, but usually) hostile radar signal is frequently pulsing the plane directly.

Other alerts are displayed/sounded if there are similar signals in the area, but not necessarily pulsing off of the plane directly.


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

[User]
[Stargate] The Asgard can upload their conciousness into machines right? If so, why didnt they just create robot bodies, and upload themselves into them?

Thor got uploaded to a Hatak at one point, so why didnt the Asgard just create cybernetic bodies to survive instead of commiting suicide?

[Assistant]
They lacked the motivation to keep on living a stretched out existence.

And they sort of considered the Tau-ri their adopted civilisational offspring, so in a way, it was just one generation that went away, and the younger - taller and more healthy - remained.


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

[User]
Why isn't waste just melted down and poured inside a volcano.

Wouldn't the lava just nom nom it all?

[Assistant]
A lot of materials would burn, not melt. Some trash is burned, in incinerators. In fact, trash-burning incinerators are used as a source of heat for apartment buildings in some places! However, not all trash is safe to burn.

Fire is a chemical reaction that combines oxygen with whatever material is burning, and produces smoke and ash and other leftovers. Exactly what chemicals are produced in the smoke depends on what you burn. Some trash, such as dead batteries, can produce smoke that is poisonous. Even smoke and ash that do not contain directly harmful chemicals still pollutes the environment by making your air dirtier and contributes to global warming.


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

[User] ELI5: Why can companies with massive advertising departments, like Geico, not realize that their commercials aren't funny?

[Assistant]
They're not designed to be funny. They're designed to make people think about the company, recognise the name, make sure that's the first name that comes to mind when you're thinking about their industry sector.

And the fact that you feel the need to come on here and ask about it proves they're very good at doing just that!


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

[User] ELI5: How does the stock market 'create' wealth?

[Assistant]
Say you're a merchant living in 17th century Amsterdam, and there's a bunch of super-rich ladies who really, really loves cumin (as in, the spice). Unfortunately, cumin doesn't grow anywhere near Amsterdam, you have to go to the middle east or India to get some of that fine stuff so it's *super-expensive*. Over there, however, it grows like a weed and costs very little money. If only you could get some of that cheap cumin over to Amsterdam, you could make a lot of money!

Unfortunately, the only way to do that is to send out a big-ass ship for like nine months. Not only is that HUGELY expensive (you have to get a ship, and a captain and crew who all wants nine months worth of pay), but it is also really risky. The boat could sink, after all, or all the cumin could spoil.

So how do you accomplish this? Assuming you're not stupendously rich yourself (and very few people or groups, aside from maybe whole nations, are that rich), how do you finance this? You could go to a bank or money-lender and take out a loan, a loan which would have a very steep interest rate that could almost eat up all of your profits. And what if the boat sank? You'd be completely bankrupt, and be thrown into prison, if the money-lender doesn't waste your broke ass first.

So, you come up with an idea. You can't finance this trip alone. But you could rather easily finance, say, one tenth of the cost of the trip. And look at that, you have nine friends, all of whom could also afford one tenth of the cost of the trip. So you all come to an agreement: you decide to each finance part of the cost for the trip (i.e. you "buy stock" in the enterprise), each getting shares worth one tenth of the total enterprise. With this money, you pay for the boat and crew, send them off, and then nine months later, it comes back with a cargo-hold full of delicious, super-expensive cumin. The profits far and away compensate for the initial cost, and each of you and your friends gets one tenth of the enormous profits.

But what happens if your boat sinks? Well, it's a real bummer obviously (especially for the crew!), but you only payed for one tenth of the cost, and this was a cost you could afford to eat, you're not gonna get killed over it. Since the risk was spread around to 10 people, no one landed in debtors prison. Everyone took a small hit, instead of one person taking an enormous hit.

Think about this example, and all the people involved in it. The fancy ladies got their cumin (and for cheaper than they would have otherwise). The shipwrights got work building a new ship. The captain and crew all got work and a salary. The trader in India got a new customer for his cumin. And obviously, you and your friends got really rich in the process. In short, *every single person is better off*, and it wouldn't have happened if this notion of "buying and selling stocks" didn't exist.

This is the advantage of a stock market. It moves capital around from where it just lies around doing absolutely nothing to where it can be put to use, and in the meantime, everybody gets richer. It also distributes risk between lots of people, so you don't have to be afraid of going broke all the time.

Now, obviously, there are problems with how the modern day American version of the stock market functions. But the critique is that it stopped doing what doing what it is supposed to be doing (i.e. allocating capital so that it can be put into productive use) and stopped being a means to an end, and it became an end unto itself. The basic concept of a stock market is a fantastic idea, and you'd have to be a real hard-core communist to oppose it. It is why we have railroads, cars, computers, telephones, cheap and plentiful food, medicine, and all the other modern things we value so highly.


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

[User] ELI5: what's stopping me from buying a large area of land and founding my own town?

[Assistant]
More than anything money. If you are in the United States for the most part there is nothing legally stopping you. You would need to have something to attract a population of some sort or already have a population. Go through the proper legal routes for your state, set up any required infrastructure or services. Among other things.
I suppose you could probably do it if even with no population but that would be most likely pointless.

There's nothing stopping you. You would just need enough money to do it.