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

[User]
CMV: offensive jokes aren't funny if the joker really means it

I've been thinking about what determines whether a joke is funny or offensive. Of course people will disagree over whether a certain joke is funny or offensive, so there are exceptions to this rule, but on the whole I think it's a good rule.

A joke that mocks a minority group is offensive if the person making the joke genuinely believes (or seems to genuinely believe) what they're saying.

Ricky Gervais, for example, gets a lot of criticism for his jokes about transgender people. Bo Burnam, on the other hand, can make racist jokes and get away with it. I think the reason for this is that Ricky Gervais comes across as transphobic in general, not just while he's making these jokes, whereas Bo Burnam comes across as anti racist. Ricky almost exclusively talks about transgender people in a mocking way, whereas Bo makes a lot of self deprecating jokes about being a straight white male and clearly understands white privilege.

Another rule I've heard is that only people within a minority group should mock that minority group. This works because people within a minority group are unlikely to genuinely believe the offensive things they're saying about themselves and their peers.

What do you think? Do jokes come across as offensive because the person making the joke seems to believe what they're saying? Do you have an alternative rule for what makes some jokes offensive and some funny?

I'm genuinely interested to hear your responses. However, anyone who's rude or arguing in bad faith will be blocked.

[Assistant]
It isn't the teller that decides if a joke is funny or offensive, it is the audience. Ricky Gervais and Dave Chappelle get big laughs. Just because there is a woke minority that thinks their jokes are offensive doesn't make them not funny. If a KKKlansman is out in public telling n* jokes most people would think it is offensive. But around the campfire with his buddies the same jokes are hilarious.

What you are talking about is what makes a joke offensive. How a black person is allowed to tell n* jokes, a queer person can tell f* jokes, and not be offensive enough to get cancelled. But that has nothing to do with being funny.

No joke is funny to everyone, or offensive to everyone. The same joke told by two people may be more offensive when told by one over the other, it may be funnier when told by one or the other. But it is the listener not the speaker who determines it's too offensive to be funny.


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

[User]
[Superman] How much does Superman weigh?

I know it's a comic book character and therefore sometimes ignores the laws of physics and such but how much does Superman weigh? Like if for some reason he just flopped down into a chair after a long night or whatever, would the chair break? Cause with his super strength he must already have a very high muscle mass, and his super endurance and skin tougher than metal it most likely has properties similar-ish to metal, such has it's weight. Yet at the same time he floats and flies with ease.

[Assistant]
As a star lab employee i have been lucky enough to not only meet superman but do some experiments  on him. superman is 6 foot 3 and 235 pounds.

As far as his skin being tougher them metal, actually our tests show it is actually what we call his bio matrix, that gives this effect and is directly proportional to the amount of yellow sunlight he absorbs.

As for flopping down on a chair, and it breaking, Superman has perfect muscle control meaning he is aware of all of the muscles in his body at all times and can control them individually, so no accidents.


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

[User] [PUBG] Why is that when I go alone and I get killed, I instantly die, but when I go with a team, I am able to take lethal damage multiple times and get revived by my team? And why do I always get in the plane where I am almost guaranteed death?

[Assistant]
It's a simple matter of hope. If you've ever seen a loved one (in person or in movies) holding on just to say one last thing, then they die once it's been said. That's hope and will to live, holding on to life just to say what needs to be said. If you're going into a mission alone, when you take lethal damage, the hope that someone will save you isn't as strong, so death takes you pretty quickly.

I don't understand the last part of your question.


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

[User]
(Star wars and Batman) Would Sidious be able to turn Batman?

Would Sidious be able to make a plan to get the Dark Knight, to break his rule or better yet, join him? He cannot manipulate his mind, only tug at his emotions. Second round, he can play mind games.

[Assistant]
Sidious could peform an essance transfer, then go around murdering and pilaging as batman, does that count?

Anyway, Batman's morals are as strong and stupid as those of the Jedi. Palpatine has just as much chance of turning him as he does Obi-Wan.


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

[User] ELI5 If our brain works with electrical pulses, why does an EMP not shut our brain down?

[Assistant]
An EMP knocks out electronics because of something called "inductance." When there are magnetic fields in motion near a conductor (like a wire), electrical currents get induced in the conductor.

An EMP is, roughly, a huge electromagnetic field ripping by, so it induces huge currents in any unshielded electronics and blows them up because the device can't handle those loads.

Our brains don't have wires in them, though. Nerve signals are carried by neurons, which are specialized cells. An electrical pulse travels from one end of the neuron to the other, but the signal is carried chemically from each neuron to the next. So, it's not like there's an uninterrupted electrical current going from one part of the brain to the other: it's really mostly chemical signals.

Neurons are very short and frankly not that conductive, so they don't pick up any induced currents from the EMP.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why does blood rush to our faces when we are embarrassed or frustrated?

Being a frequent victim of blushing, I'm curious.

[Assistant] When you're embarrassed, your body releases adrenaline, speeding up your heart rate and dilating your blood vessels to increase your blood flow and oxygen delivery. Your face will turn red because of the blood flow.


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

[User]
Why was such a massive, fundamental particle like the Higgs Boson so hard to find?

I mean, it seems kind of obvious for something tiny like the neutrino to have been difficult, because it's so tiny and barely interacts with anything.

But the Higgs, as I've heard described, is both massive... Like, much heavier than a proton or neutron, and also has to interact with all matter for it to have any mass at all.  What's the issue?

Also, same question for gravitons I guess.

[Assistant]
Having a large mass doesn't make things *easier* to study, it makes them *harder* to study. The Higgs boson is not stable; it decays with a lifetime around 10^(-22) seconds. So you can't find Higgs bosons in nature, if you want to study them, you need to produce them using a collider.

The more mass your particle of interest has, the more energy you need to give to your colliding particles.


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

[User]
Can someone please suggest a free course on the basics of economics consulting? I have been trying to find one for 3 months without luck

Hi there,

I have been looking for a free course that details the basics of how economics consulting careers work and most importantly how to do economics consulting or break into the field. That is the basics of economics consulting.

So far even after searching for 3 months I still cant seem to find any such courses. I have searched Udemy, Coursera, Google---nothing what I was looking for. There are a few for Management Consultancy but nothing about Economics Consultancy. Infact some PDF booklets on Economics consultancy are only a few pages and only provide a snapshot of careers there or some vague generalities and not in details.

Can someone please provide a link to such a course or at least guide me to a resource where I might be able to find something like this?

[Assistant]
Too much of a niche industry.  You would be better off trying to network with alumni from your school and getting first hand info.

Look for people who worked at analysis group, compass lexecon, cornerstone, CRA, Nera, or similar.

Are you looking at PhD or undergrad level?  Most fresh PhD recruiting will be done at AEA, while other staff will have a more normal application/interview process.


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

[User]
ELI5: Hacking, and what the process actually would look like

Whenever I envision hacking I just see someone at their computer mashing away at the keyboard, but what actually IS hacking? How does one do it? What does one use?

[Assistant]
Hacking, fundamentally, is to force a system to operate outside of its intended parameters. Even if the term is most widely used for breaking into someone else's computer system, using the term in non-malicious and benign situations is perfectly valid.

When talking about computer security, using the term "hacking" as described above, can be seen as forcing a system that's intended to be secure to behave outside of intended parameters as well. That would mean it's no longer a secure system. The system has been compromised.

To "hack" a computer system involves (among other things) writing code that specifically targets vulnerabilities in the system's software or hardware. By exposing a system to a situation it isn't capable of handling, you can cause the system to partially break down and start doing things it shouldn't be doing.

"All" software is designed to handle a lot of unintended situations. A program that adds together two numbers and stores the result in a space that can only hold 3 digits might have code that makes it double-check that the result isn't 4 or more digits before it tries to write it, for example. If it gets a result that ends up bigger than 3 digits, it'll stop before doing something illegal.

When a hacker tries to attack a system, they try to find the errors that a program *doesn't* know how to handle properly, and then cause it to perform an action that causes this error. Then they attempt to cause this error to change things in the system that allow for even greater changes, hopefully a change that would allow them to gain full control of the system.

When a "patch" comes out for a program, this may be the creator of the program changing the problem that the hacker found. After the patch is applied, the hacker now needs to look for a different weakness in the program, which the creator of the program again will have to fix with a new patch. As you can see, this is basically an arms race. More and more sophisticated attacks being launched at more and more robust software.

As for what's used, sometimes, it's analyzing traffic coming in and out of a system, looking for patterns or anomalities. Other times, it can be going through a program's source code, attemting to find portions of code that would be vulnerable. The "hacks" themselves are often performed with an array of viruses, malware, etc. that is sent to a system. These are written with text editors that are optimized for coding or with software engineering tools similar or the same as what "nice" coders use.

Then there is also social engineering, which is isn't as much hacking a computer system, as it is to trick the users of it. If you can fool a user into giving you their password, you don't need to attack their system directly with malware or viruses. This is what often is the case when someone on social media says they've "been hacked". Usually, they've been lead to believe they were using the real website of a service when they entered their login information, while they in reality were not. Once they've done this, criminals can often figure out the username and passwords for other sites this person uses, because a *lot* of users reuse passwords across sites and apps.

Social engineering is often used in conjunction with more technical attacks. If you can trick an employee into giving you their login info, you can use this to plant malware that wouldn't have been able to penetrate a company's network from the outside. However, if the malware was planted *inside* the company's network instead, by a compromised employee's account, it could work.


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

[User] If my body is already completely hydrated and I drink 16 oz of water, will I eventually pee out 16 oz of straight water (if my bladder is completely empty)?

[Assistant]
Your kidneys continuously produce urine. The rate may increase or decrease based on your volume status. 'Completely hydrated' is a term that doesn't really have any meaning. If you are in a euvolemic state, you'll hopefully be making about 125mL/hr. You also have what's called insensible fluid losses, like sweat, moisture in your breath, etc. The 16oz of water you take in may end up as urine or any other bodily fluid.

Your body won't be able to make urine that is just water; it will always have some solute and waste products in it. Some pathologies occur where the kidney is unable to concentrate urine, but even then the urine osmolarity will be about the same as blood (~290mmol/dL iirc, units might be off).


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

[User]
Why can my computer run games like bf3 on ultra but still takes a few seconds to render thumbnails of photos in a folder?

Pretty much as said in the title. Why can my computer easily handle high end games but when scrolling through a folder with pictures in why does it take a second or two before the thumbnail version pops up? I'm sure there is a really good reason, educate me please!

[Assistant]
This is because rendering a game and loading images are two entirely different processes. Let me explain each.

When rendering a game your graphics card will store lots of textures and 3D model information in its fast graphics memory along with the instructions about what to do with these pieces of information. The graphics card calculates each frame and pushes it to the screen.

When scrolling through thumbnails your computer will decide that it wants to display that image. It sends a request to your hard drive for the image, your hard drive will look for it (your hard drive is one of the slowest things in your computer) once your hard drive has found it it will send it along to be displayed on your screen. The delay is how long it took your hard drive to find and send the image.

This highlights the difference in speed between processing and information retrieval, between fast memory and a hard drive.


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

[User] ELI5:What is the exact mechanism by which an implosion of a dying star becomes an explosion?

[Assistant]
To understand supernovae you need to understand some basic gas laws and nuclear fusion.

First of all the gas laws. Gas expands when you heat it up (see, hot air balloons). The reverse is also true: Compressing gas will heat it up. If you confine expanding gas, it has nowhere to go and it'll cause the pressure to rise.

Now for the fusion. Fusion is what happens when you heat up a plasma to ridiculous temperatures and the nuclei begin to combine. For light elements this releases energy in the form of heat (actually radiation, but it'll be absorbed by the star and converted into heat). The crucial bit that allows supernovae to happen is that heavier cores cost energy to fuse. If you try to fuse anything heavier than iron you're bleeding away energy.

So let's look at a heavy star. As it forms from its initial gas cloud gravity is essentially compressing the star. This heats it up and increases the pressure as per the gas laws. At some point the temperature and pressure are so big that hydrogen fusion begins. This dumps additional heat into the star to further increase the pressure and a balance forms. The extra energy from the fusion counteracts the force of gravity.

The core of the star is the hottest bit, so fusion will be most intense there. This means that the core runs out of hydrogen pretty quickly. No hydrogen means no fusion, so the star will shrink and increase the temperatures. Higher temperatures allows helium fusion, which again counteracts the gravitational force. So now we have a core of helium fusion, surrounded by a shell of hydrogen fusion.

This little game continues for several steps as the star burns through its elements. You get an onion like structure with the heaviest elements fusing in the core and shells of other types of fusion around it. This continues until the star reaches iron. Now the star has a problem, fusing iron does not produce energy but instead it consumes it. So the star builds up iron in its core and depletes its supply of fuel until a crucial point is reached where iron fusion starts. Now the balance is broken: the star shrinks a bit, the core heats up, iron starts to fuse, core cools down, star shrinks some more. This happens incredibly quick as the entire core collapses at a significant fraction of lightspeed. The core reaches ridiculous temperatures and ever more exotic elements are produced. This continues until the entire core is converted into neutrons and kept from collapsing by neutron degeneracy pressure (neutron star), or the collapse just never stops and you end up with a black hole.

The supernova occurs because of the layers above the core. These contain elements that can still provide energy when fused. Normally this energy is released at a slow burn. But now the core is suddenly gone, and all these layers suddenly fall towards the center. When they collide against each other in the middle the resulting temperatures causes runaway fusion reactions in these light elements. This energy is what fuels the supernova. The spike in energy is much bigger than the gravitational binding energy of the entire star and it tears itself apart. The outer layers blast off at a significant fraction of the speed of light to form a nebula, leaving behind the remains of the core.


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

[User] [Marvel and DC] What are superheroes in each universe that are counterparts and are less obvious than Hawkeye/Green Arrow?

[Assistant]
Deathstroke and Deadpool

Blue Beetle and Spidey

The Atom and Ant-Man

Aquaman and Namor the Sub-Mariner

Selina Kyle and Felicia Hardy

Clayface and Sandman

Plastic Man and Mr Fantastic

Braniac and Ultron

And of course, the big comparison,

Dream's gothy sister and Squirrel Girl.


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

[User] [dc] how big is atlantis in comparison to the u.s.a?

[Assistant] In a way both bigger and smaller. Atlantis is spread out across the entire ocean, but is more of a collection of city-states that are united with lots of empty space in between, the total area and population of which are quite a bit smaller than the USA.


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

[User]
ELI5: Does medical marijuana differ from "regular" marijuana, and how?

I'm just thinking, just because it's prescribed by your doctor, it shouldn't logically stop you from going into a hash psychosis? Is it because it's less potent, taken in smaller doses? And do medical marijuana users still experience the recreational effects?

Edit: Thanks everyone for educating me!

[Assistant]
What the Hell is a hash psychosis? Is that just a fancy way of saying high?

But no, there's no difference aside from legally. Practically, it's the exact same stuff. Except most of it is even more potent because it's grown by growers who are more well-funded than average.

There are certain strains that contain little THC and a lot of CBD that does not get you high, however.


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

[User] How do electronics actually measure battery percent?

[Assistant]
They measure the battery's voltage. The voltage decreases gradually as the battery is discharged, depending on the battery's chemistry. NiMH is different from alkaline batteries, for instance.

If you have a device not made with rechargeable batteries in mind, this is what may cause it to perpetually think the battery is nearly dead. Alkaline batteries are 1.5V at full charge, while NiMH are 1.2V.

A battery at 0% isn't necessarily entirely dead. Some chemistries like Li-Ion are damaged by discharging too deeply, and some devices fail to work below a certain voltage.


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

[User] How soon into a chess game could a computer calculate that youre destined to lose?

[Assistant]
Are you playing against said computer? Because in that case the computer could predict your loss from the start, since chess computers have surpassed even the greatest chess players.

But when it comes to analyzing an existing position and determining if one player will ultimately win or lose (assuming perfect play) is still a very complicated matter. The number of possible positions goes up exponentially with the number of moves made and other than checkmate and the "draw after three repeated moves" rule, there is no bound on how many moves can be made in a game.

Right now, the full set of possible moves and outcomes has been analyzed for games with 7 or fewer pieces. That is, 2 kings and 5 other pieces. If you're ever in a position with that number of pieces left on the board, then a computer could determine with certainty what the outcome of the game will be if both players would play perfectly.

Note that "play perfectly" is a strong assumption, even with computer players. The analysis of 7 piece positions yielded a position from which the winning play ended in a checkmate after more than 500 moves. Unless the player, computer or human, has access to the database with all 7 piece positions and their solution, they would not naturally come up with this 500+ move play to turn that specific position into a winning one.


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

[User] Does time only go slower when I speed up in a linear fashion or does it still happen if I spin on a chair really really fast?

[Assistant]
There are a few different ways to look at this:

1- Often we model objects as a single particle located at the center of mass. For relativity problems we then generally model this particle as traveling in a straight line. From this standpoint, you wouldn't see any time dilation due to spinning.

2- Slightly more realistically, we can look at your body as a collection of particles. Now when you spin, each particle will have a certain linear speed at any given moment. The farther away from your axis of rotation, the faster the linear speed is. In this sense you could technically find a difference in time dilation at a point close to the axis of rotation and a point farther out.

3- Most realistically, there is an absurdly small difference in distance between the inner and outer portions of your body when compared to the numbers we're dealing with in relativity. The difference in time dilation is going to be negligible.

I hope that helps! (Point it out if you think I've missed something.)


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

[User]
[Rocky] Is Adrian's actually a good restaurant or is it a tourist trap?

I'm headed up to Philadelphia in a week or so for business and one of my co-workers is saying that I have to go to Adrian's because it's owned by a legendary former boxing champion and that it's an experience. To be honest, all I know about Rocky Balboa are those old internet memes from the Rocky vs Mason "the Line" Dixon fight all those years ago.

Is it just a pure tourist trap with bad food and held up by fanboys? One of those 'you have to go once' kind of things like eating a cheesesteak at Pat's or Geno's even if they suck? Or is it actually worth making a pitstop for during dinner?

[Assistant]
It's pretty good Italian food.  Not really very fancy.  In the movie "Rocky Balboa", we see Rocky shopping for fresh food at an Italian market.  So we know he's buying good ingredients.

Rocky has working class roots, and this is a working class neighborhood restaurant.  It's not gonna be that expensive.  Don't go expecting it to be a 5 star dinner.  You're basically getting Rocky's grandma's recipes, and then a guy who has had too many concussions comes over to the table and tells a couple of jokes.  He's a nice guy though.


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

[User]
[DC] Presidential candidate Lex Luthor here! I really want fellow billionaire Bruce Wayne to be my running mate. How do you think he'll react?

Sure, he's a bit of a playboy and tabloid magnate, but he seems to run Wayne Enterprises really well, and there's something in his eyes, a determination and resilience that I can't quite explain, that makes me think he'd be perfect as my vice president. Do you think he would accept?

[Assistant]
Wayne is that idealized rich dude fellows like you claim exists so the poors don't get ideas above their station.  The man actively encouraged his employees to unionize, accepted a massive paycut to keep manufacturing in Gotham, forced out most of his executives who pushed back on that, took on public works contracts at a loss just to benefit Gotham citizenry, and he's basically personally funding Gotham City's public health system while actively campaigning to expand it.

While all that would look great on your ticket, the problem is that he actually believes all that stuff.  You'll never convince him without adopting a pro-labor and pro-social platform that would be the antithesis of everything you've run on so far.

He's also given massively to, and even hosted events for, pro-alien charities.  You know that minority group you spend all your time demonizing.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why do they launch boats sideways instead of forward when first launching them?

It also looks like they just roll straight in, do they not use any mechanism to slow the boat down?

[Assistant]
Boats are designed to have their weight supported for the entirety of the keel length.

If you tried to launch long boat pointy bit first, you'd have a time when the front is in the water, the back is still on the dock and the middle is unsupported. This (potentially) kills the boat.

And there's no real need to slow one down, since they're designed to withstand many assloads of force, at least in the directions they're designed to handle force.


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

[User]
ELI5: Depression. How can someone not be able to get up and do things?

I just can't wrap my head around the concept of being in control of your body, but not being able to do something you want to or feel you need to do.

[Assistant] From a subjective standpoint, it's just a feeling of "why bother?". The room's just gonna get dirty again, going to the gym just seems like pointless work, class doesn't seem interesting. Everything feels pointless.


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

[User]
ELI5 What happens to new cars, if they are not sold?

I wonder what happens when the new model of a car arrives and they still have full stocks of an older model. Do they just get rid of the "old new cars" to keep the price of the new model up? Are the old ones recycled or left somewhere as a garbage? Is their fate similar to other products? Thank you for the answers.

[Assistant]
Usually dealers will offer more incentives to try and move old stock. Usually will combine offers from the manufacture. Like cash back with a low APR. if the stock still doesnt move, lets say for example its getting closer to what they paid for a car, they will sometimes send unsold units to the action to recover some losses. Its happens but its not super common. A good dealer knows more or less how many units it will sell any given month, what cars are more popular than others ect.

Edit: same kinda thing happens with motorcycles too, but depends on how big the dealer is. Some smaller dealers cant take a loss, so you will occasionally see motorcycles a few years old for MSRP with zero miles. But again some bikes will then go to an auction to be scooped up and sold as used.


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

[User] How was cancer treated in the 1930s or 1940s did the treatments work or did you just die?

[Assistant]
Firstly, a primary reason why cancer is the second leading cause of death (after heart disease) is that  people are living longer, allowing it to overtake other like stroke, pneumonia, tuberculosis, and diarrhea. Fewer people had to worry about dying of cancer in the early 20th century because something else was more likely to kill them first. That remains true today for certain types of cancer. For example, some 29% of men aged 60-69 have an undiagnosed prostate cancer discovered on autopsy. 1930 is near the turning point when cancer deaths rose rapidly, so a lot of treatment advancements accelerated after that point. Death rates for cancers of all types (with the exception of lung) have peaked since then as treatment has advanced, and environmental and lifestyle changes have taken hold.

There are 4 major modes of treatment for cancer. By the 30s/40s most existed in one form or another, though in their infancy.

**Surgical resection** is the oldest and most obvious way to treat cancer. If you can spot or feel a tumor on someone, you can go in with a knife or other tool and cut it out. If you can get all of it, the cancer is "cured". If you leave any cells behind, it will recur. Trouble is, cells are very small compared to a surgeon's eyes. Early attestations of surgical treatment date as far back as 3000 BC in Egypt, where a medical text describes surgery and cauterization of tumors. Hippocrates in 5th century BC Greece also wrote of surgical removal of crab-like tumors, which is where usage of the word Cancer (as in the zodiac sign) derives. The ancient writings concede that even with surgery, there was no cure.

Surgery as a treatment has progressed as far as other supportive technologies have taken it (anesthesia, imaging to find/identify tumor cells, techniques to preserve critical structures, infection prevention, recovery, etc). The major questions are "how much tissue can you remove without taking out too much", and "will the patient survive the trauma or suffer lasting effects"? While big advancements in those disciplines began in the middle 19th century, by the 30s/40s most cancer surgeries were still performed as radical procedures. That is, removing large chunks of tissue or organs well beyond the margins of the visible tumor). Radical mastectomy was the standard for breast cancer til the 70s, when better understanding of how cancer spreads allowed surgeons to transition towards lumpectomy and other tissue-sparing procedures. Modern advancements focus on minimally invasive techniques (such as laparoscopy), reductions in scarring and other morbidity, precise robotic surgical tools, and imaging/visualization techniques to make it easier for surgeons to identify and excise.

**Hormone Therapy** is the introduction or removal of hormones or hormone sources that control the rate of growth of certain glandular cancers. It was first discovered in the late 19th century by a Scottish doctor studying milk production, who found that removal of the ovaries inhibited the development of breasts in rabbits, finding a connection between the two organs via estrogen before the hormone itself was known. As a result, oophorectomy (removal of the ovaries) became an option for advanced breast cancer patients. In 1941, a doctor at University of Chicago found a similar mechanism on prostate cancer from castration. More notably, he found that systemic (in the blood) treatment with estrogen would also atrophy the prostate/tumor, but could be reversed later with treatment with androgen. By the early 1980s, drugs were developed that took advantage of our understanding of the endocrine system, creating therapeutic drugs with fewer side effects.

**Chemotherapy** is the use of systemic chemicals to cause cells to die. As with surgery, if all the cancer cells are dead, then it is cured. The trouble is, most poisons that kill cancer cells also kill normal healthy cells. The first major drug came from WWI. Soldiers exposed to mustard gas developed disorders in their bone marrow - they stopped producing healthy blood cells. During the 30s, researchers theorized that the chemical interfered with cell division. Since cancer cells divided more rapidly than healthy cells, could a derivative drug cause tumors to die off before the patient did? A trial on lymphoma patients in 1942 led to a variation under the name Mustargen.

This kicked off a half-century of drug development targeting different mechanisms of action in fast-growing cells, some of which worked better for certain types of cancer. But the trouble remained - poisoning all cells, and hoping you kill all of the cancer cells before you stop - is like using powerful weed-killer on your farm hoping the crops survive. The impact of chemo on fast-growing cells are the reason for hair loss, nausea, and other side effects, and why it is such an ordeal for patients. Beyond that, chemo's effectiveness is held back not only by a patients ability to tolerate it, but also by cancer cells that can adapt to or resist it (they are living cells that want to keep living, after all), and those that are simply hard to reach (such as in the brain).

Thus, modern research has focused on better targeting of drugs, either by focusing on mechanisms exclusive to cancer cells, or with molecular delivery devices that hone in on cancer cells while avoiding others. The study of genetics has helped greatly with the former, while delivery mechanisms such as repurposed antibodies can be pointed towards surface proteins of cancer cells, unlocking drugs or attracting an immune response. There are many of these drugs in market or in the pipeline, but they remain some of the most expensive and difficult to produce, and in some cases offer only modest improvements over standard treatments. Most people who get chemotherapy, therefore, get a combination of drugs with several mechanisms of action, as well as some other form of treatment.

Lastly, there is **radiation**. If you can induce all the cancer cells to die by irradiating them, you can cure the patient. At the turn of the 20th century, doctors discovered that x-rays could be used not only to diagnose, but also to zap surface-level tumors, or flood the whole body with radiation, which seemed to benefit some patients. Some believed that inhaled radium gas was a cure-all, though it was not well understood why. By the 1920s, however, they realized that indiscriminate radiation was as likely to cause cancer as it was to cure it.

Further development then focused on how healthy tissue could be protected while cancer cells remained exposed, as well as how to target cells below the surface. Patient immobilization and shielding was the preferred technique. Meaning, fixing a person in place (with rigid masks or casts) so they couldnt move, and a molded barrier would be shaped onto them to lessen the intensity of the beam on non-target areas. To produce x-rays that would penetrate more deeply, through skin and muscle, required jumps to higher energy radiation sources - larger and more powerful beam sources. Hospitals started turning into physics labs, limiting it only to the most advanced sites. But cranking up the dose meant that all of the tissue in between the tumor and the beam would get badly damaged. Plus, the gooey stuff inside patients tends to move around (say, lungs rising and falling). If you zap too hard and miss, things get worse instead of better.

One solution is to create a high cumulative dose over a dozen or more sessions, minimizing the risks of a one-time miss. This remains a common technique today for many cancers of highly mobile tissue. The other technique is an ultra-precise one-shot, pioneered in 1949 by a Swedish doctor. The objective is to hit a single small target somewhere immobile (say, in the brain or the spine) with multiple pinpoint beams of radiation from  different angles at once. The first major commercial success was a device called the Gamma Knife in 1968, which involved a helmet filled with Cobalt-60 placed in several channels around the skull. In 1991, another "radiosurgery" device was developed that placed a beam generator on the end of a moving robotic arm that would dance around the patient, allowing the targeting of tumors outside of the head and neck as long as the patient could sit still.

The growth of radiation therapy has hinged on several parallel developments. First is improved imaging. Higher resolution MRI/CT scans allow more precise identification of target tumor cells within the body. The second is improved understanding of particle physics. It used to be that dosing calculations were done by hand. Now, dedicated physicists and dosimetrists use computers to develop complex treatment plans. The third is improved treatment devices. The objective remains to deliver as much cumulative energy as possible while minimizing collateral damage. Modern machines take advantage of higher-energy particles with complex dosing profiles (up to and including proton accelerators) and mechanically controlled beam shaping tools that could (in theory) zap the stitching on a baseball from several feet away.


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

[User]
Is there a Journal of Failed Experiments?

Im in my first year of PhD school. I foresee many failures and long hours of wasted work. I want to sleep easy tonight knowing that I can document my ~~failures~~ bold scientific endeavours in a journal dedicated to such clown failures.

You could also argue that a journal dedicated to documenting every single mode of failure could go a long way in preventing failures.

So is there such a place?

[Assistant] Are these failures because of methodology problems (not enough N, didn't account for a confounding variable, imprecise measurement) or because of a failed hypothesis? For the former, there is not outlet, but for the latter the journals and conferences will take them the same as successes.


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

[User]
[Incredibles] Can someone explain the concept of Syndromes plan to me?

"When everyone's super, no one will be". What is he trying to say?

[Assistant]
Syndrome's plan is to wholly and utterly *destroy* superheroes, and he wants to do it in three steps:

1. Destroy the superheroes themselves. Pretty straightforwardlure them to his island, kill them with the Omni-droids, repeat until they're all dead. He's largely accomplished this by the start of the film.

2. Destroy superheroes' legacies. Once they've all died in obscurity, Syndrome wants to step into the limelight as the only "superhero" in the popular consciousness. And even if people might still remember the old superheroes, Syndrome will make sure he's the only one people want to remember by engineering epic battles (which he'll inevitably win) that dwarf any encounter a past superhero ever faced. He secretly invents chaos to be remembered as the only man who could restore order.

3. Destroy superheroes as a concept. Upon his retirement, Syndrome wants to release his tech to the world. This isn't out of a desire to uplift normal people to the level of superheroes, it's out of a desire to make sure no future superpowered person's powers will ever make them unique. Why care about someone who can fly when you can buy a pair of rocket boots that do just that, or super-strength when you have a force-field generator that lets you lift a car with a flick of the wrist? There will never be someone whose powers make them special enough to wear the title of "superhero" ever again.


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

[User]
[Star Trek] If I'm a Federation citizen, do I have the option of acquiring or purchasing my own starship and travel through space freely? Or do I have to go through Starfleet for all my space travel needs?

I guess I'm asking if space travel is a government monopoly. Or in a post-scarcity economy where no one uses money, are starships freely available for everyone to use? Is there some way I can get one that's just for me to own and operate?

[Assistant]
You can work your way up in the merchant fleet, or on one of the planets where they use currency within the federation.

Gold pressed latinum is used quite widely within the federation, but it's not used within starfleet. For example on Bolias and Andor they use it.

So the theory is, work hard, save up, get your own ship and enjoy.


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

[User]
[Full metal alchemist brotherhood] Did removing the 7 deadly sins did the opposite of what Father expected?

In the series Father says he removed his sins to become above a human but from time to time he has shown those sins and behaves more like one so did removing the sins did the opposite?

[Assistant]
I think it did...  absolutely nothing.  He still has the same plan, motivations, and behaviors that he did back when he was a dwarf in a flask in Xerxes.  Truth even mocks him for it.

The backstory is a critique of Father.  He's attempting to improve himself as a person *solely* through alchemy.  Distilling his own personality into some perfect substance while locking himself away from human contact.  The fact that it doesn't work is the point. Meanwhile, the characters that truly grow and become better people over time (especially Greed, showing even an artificial being is capable of it) do so by going out into the world and building relationships with people.


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

[User]
[Robots] Is it okay to call my robo friend a b------------?

Sometimes I hear my mechanical friend talking with his mech. friends and they call each other a  'b' (bucket of b*lts) all the time.. I'm an Oceanian human, I know it's kind of a taboo thing but we are really close friends, would he be offended?

[Assistant]
If you're gonna say it, say it with 100% commitment. That means knowing why you want to say it.

Sure, words are words, but people can feel the intent behind them. Are you saying it because you honestly don't care, or is there just a tiny bit of prejudice in your heart? Either way, say it **loud.** You can say anything as long as you're prepared to accept the consequences.


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

[User]
When a woman gets a c-section during birth, does labor just turn off?

I guess I always imagined labor to be a process that cant stop once its started, but at what point does your body send the signal to the brain to stop labor when a c section is performed?

[Assistant] The end of labor is delivery of the placenta. Whether that is vaginally or surgically, the complete detachment and removal of the placenta is the trigger for involution of the uterus to start (shrinking back to non-pregnant size).


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

[User]
Blue light affects our sleep, but do colourblind people experience sleep problems from blue light?

Blue light will keep us awake, but will the same light affect a colourblind person?

[Assistant] The cells used by the body to detect blue light in order to regulate the production of melatonin are separate from the cones that we use for our vision.  These light detecting cells are called intrinsically photosensitive retinal ganglion cells and in some cases these cells can regulate circadian rhythms even when a person is completely blind... so being color blind wouldn't prevent blue light from affecting sleep patterns.


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

[User] ELI5: Why do vehicles make those pinging and popping sounds when you turn them off after driving for a while?

[Assistant] Vehicles have lots of moving and tight-fitting parts, those parts heat up (expand) due to friction as you drive. When you stop and turn the car off, parts cool (at different rates due to differing materials and such). As they cool they shrink again, the popping happens when two parts snug against each other cool and reach a point where the static friction points (the specific points where the parts touch) slide past each other, creating sound.


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

[User]
[Iron Man] How come Tony Stark doesn't break his bones while wearing that suit?

He's a normal human being so far as I know and that suit moves in quite inhuman speed and absorbs quite a lot of damage.

[Assistant] The suit is rigid, it absorbs the force of impacts and distributes them around its shell, just like a medieval suit of plate armour would distribute the force of a sword blow to a limb without breaking that limb's bone. This doesn't explain why the G forces he experiences don't liquefy his internal organs, but not breaking his bones is exactly what you'd expect from a suit of titanium-gold alloy.


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

[User] [The Simpsons] How did the Denver Broncos do after Homer was gifted them by Hank Scorpio?

[Assistant]
Their health and well being will be inversely proportional to how much actual contact Homer has with them. If he just acts like a silent partner and leaves the coaches and managers to their own devices, then they will continue to operate like a professional sports franchise. But if he decides that he's going to step up and start making decisions, everything is going to start turning to crap because he's going to be overriding the decisions and opinions of people who actually know what they're doing; compare to Homer's management of the crew at Hank Scorpio's plant (basically let the team of professionals run themselves with occasional support, leading to great success) and his contributions to Powell Motors (dictated terms to a crew of trained engineers, resulting in an automobile that killed the company).

For example, say Homer gets a wild hair up his backside to bring back $0.25 Beer Night for certain Broncos home games, not for any business reason, but simply because Homer likes beer and likes cheap beer twice as much. There are many good reasons sports venues don't do stuff like that anymore, including the unfortunate tendency of fans to get obnoxiously drunk and do dumb things, often resulting in damage to team property, negative PR, and occasional risks to human life and limb. Or he insists on staff or roster changes based on his stupid, unstudied, layman's opinion and guts the team, or fires administrators who were needed to keep the back-office machine running, or pays an obscene sum of money for a player who simply isn't worth it.


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

[User]
Eli5 What is actually happening when you burn fat?

This might be a stupid question, I might indeed be stupid. But what is the actual process going on inside my body at 290lbs when I go hiking for example?

[Assistant]
Your body needs energy to do things.

When you go on a hike, fibers made of muscle cells must expand and contract. Where do they get the energy to do this?

That energy is bound up as chemical bonds between atoms in various molecules in your cells. The main energy source for much of your body are sugars, particularly glucose. Every cell in your body is capable of performing a complicated process of breaking glucose down to make use of the energy stored in its chemical bonds. This reaction is, fundamentally, no different from burning any organic material. You're taking some complicated molecule and breaking it down into water and CO2 while releasing the energy stored in all the bonds you broke.

Other molecules sitting in your cells, such as fats and proteins, also contain energy in their bonds and can be burnt or broken down to release energy. Fats, among other uses, serve as a long-term energy storage system when you have much more energy than you need. When you start running out of sugar to burn, your cells will start breaking down this excess fat.


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

[User] ELI5: how do some animals float so well? Like ducks and beavers. Do they just have massive lungs?

[Assistant] Feathers and thick fur can keep pockets of air under them to give animals better buoyancy, a great example of this are otters. Birds actually have an easier time floating by default since their bones are a lot less dense than those of mammals are.


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

[User]
[MCU Daredevil] So what is a Black Sky?

It's never really said what the significance of the child (or Elektra) is, but Stick and the Hand definitely act like it's a big deal.

[Assistant]
The're a person, but something more than a person.  A spirit in human form.  The reincarnation of a demon.

The black sky is phenomenally good at killing, and can become undefeatable with the proper training.  They're also naturally inclined to kill and injure others, they *enjoy* it, and will do so even when it may be inappropriate.  A black sky is usually identified as a child when a child prodigy at martial arts "accidentally" kills (or nearly kills) a fellow student who they were sparring with.

A Black Sky is a dangerous creature that will cause great harm to the human world on its own.  It can also be used in a variety of rituals that cause *even worse things* to occur.  It is related, in some way, to the ability of members of the Hand to resurrect themselves and others.


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

[User]
Why are fingerprints so elaborate and unique?

How did they develop and evolve to become so? Do they serve any particular evolutionary function in being as elaborate and varied as they are?

[Assistant] Friction ridges are used for grip and are present in several different types of animals. You can see them present on the palms of your hands and the soles of your feet. There are hereditary traits that help with how friction ridges are created, but ultimately the uniqueness comes down to the random stresses that are present during fetal growth as the friction ridges develop.


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

[User]
ELI5: Whats the birthday paradox

So the birthday paradox is where if youre in a room with 23 other people theres a 50% chance of at least two people having the same birthday. Alternatively, In a room of 75 theres a 99.9% chance of at least two people matching.

Why is this?

[Assistant] It seems counterintuitive that only 23 people need to hit a 50% chance. But it's not about the 23 people, it's about all the combinations of *pairs of people*. There are (23 x 22) pairs, or 253. That's a lot of pairs, so there's a good possibility of at least one of those pairs having the same birthday. And the more people you add, the more pairs you have, and the higher the chance you get.


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

[User]
CMV: Tickets to concerts etc should be non-transferable

When one tries to buy tickets to any kind of event these days one must compete with bots that buy as many as possible to resell later at higher prices.

The simplest solution to this problem is to make tickets non-transferable. When you buy a ticket you put in a name and an id number (for a driving license, credit card, student card or whatever) for each ticket and then you need to produce that same id when you try to use the ticket. (This is a dropped down level of what airlines already do in the name of security, and it is common in Europe) This instantly destroys the business model behind the bots and hence they should disappear.

Some people change their minds about attending an event and want to be able to get a refund. Easy enough to add a refund possibility when you buy the ticket for a few extra dollars (again, common in the travel industry)

*(Note: This will not solve all problems with trying to buy tickets. A separate issue is that event organisers routinely release a small number of tickets at a relatively low price so bands and so on can pretend not to be ruthless capitalist profiteers. Naturally the competition for those cheap tickets will still be intense, even if the bot business model no longer makes sense.)*

Updates: In answer to challenges some minor logistical tweaks that still preserve the central mechanism

1. One ID per group (e.g. 1 ID for every 4 tickets - easier to buy tickets for families and friend groups)
2. Biometric option - register your face when you buy a ticket and then show your face to enter the event (reduces time/space/personnel costs for checking id at event entrance)
3. Secure ID - if you buy a ticket for a friend as a gift then you put in their name and they have to bring a real gov issued ID (like a driving license), or else they get an email from the ticketing company and put in the id they will bring with them.

[Assistant]
Wouldnt an easier solution be to make it illegal to charge more than face value?  You could still give it to a friend, sell it if your plans change, etc. but it would remove the motivation for anyone to scoop up all the tickets.

Enforcement wouldnt be perfect, but it doesnt need to be to make a significant impact.  Anyone scooping enough tickets to make it their business would need to sell enough tickets that they would need to advertise in some way and would likely get caught eventually.  It would also be far less complicated to enforce than verifying everyones ID, especially for the consumer who is buying for their family or friend group.


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

[User]
Please define quantum.

My son asked me to define quantum, I know it's a very small energy amount but beyond that, I don't know. While I'm at it, could you define quantum mechanics to me as if I was five. I've heard the term bandied about with all sorts of ill informed definitions but what is the Reddit definition?

[Assistant]
A quantum is a finite amount. That's really all it means.

It's a bit like a volume knob- you know how some volume knobs can be adjusted smoothly and continuously, whereas others just click across maybe 10 different values, and can't select in between? The latter volume knob is quantized.

Quantum Mechanics refers to a group of theories that say that the universe is quantum- there's a finite increments of length, energy, mass, whatever. It's not continuously variable. You can have a length of 1 or 2 or a billion, but you can't have a length of 1.5.

It really came in existence with the photoelectric effect in 1905, and the field of study flourished in the 1920s and 1930s, with famous physicists you've probably heard of like Fermi, Bohr, Heisenberg, Dirac, etc. Prior to 1905, the common belief was that the universe wasn't quantized- you could have any amount of anything you wanted. The photoelectric effect, conducted by Einstein, was the first experiment that showed that light is quantized- it exists as photons, and there's no way to absorb a fraction of a photon- you either absorb the whole thing, or nothing.

At the heart of it, that's really what quantum mechanics means.


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

[User]
CMV: Praying/thanking god for food/water/shelter etc is stupid

I am not at the point whether god exists or not, lets say he does exist:

Thanking for these things is stupid because youre essentially thanking the source of the problem for solving that problem.

Let me put it into other words:

Say i purposely start a fire in a building, and i save people. Now if you were one of those people and you do know that i started the fire, would you thank me for saving you? I bet no.

Its really the same scenario. The reason you need food/water/shelter is god himself. He created problems like hunger, thirst, need for shelter etc and you thank him for solving those. It doesnt make any sense.

Its stupid.

Change my view.

[Assistant] You're definitely missing the point.  It's more about meditating on the concept of gratitude in general than thanking any specific entity.  People take a lot of the comforts and conveniences of modern life for granted, and rituals like prayer are a good way to be reminded of all the nice things we have.


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

[User]
[DUNE 2021] What would've happened if House Atreides declined the Emperor's relocation order?

"*We are House Atreides. Our eyes are trained to see through lies and deceives, and the latter is what we see in this moment. This here Emperor's order is nothing but an ATTEMPT on our lives. House Atreides DECLINES!!"*

[Assistant] Unless there's solid proof of the conspiracy to bring before the landsraad house atriedes is declared renegade and it is every house's duty to bring them to justice. Within days or weeks everyone but atriedes most loyal allies would descend on them like locusts to carve up whatever they could and gain favor with the throne or atriedes wealth for themselves.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why are celebrities invited to state dinners?

It makes sense for celebrities that are politically active or who are there to perform, but what about people like Kendall Jenner, who Obama even mentioned in his speech and said "I'm not sure what she does...". Why are they invited and who exactly invites them?

[Assistant] A mixture of things, but he most likely (other than pure fandom) would be celebrities have massive audiences, who will often follow the shepered (aka the celebrity) if they can be turned on vocally for or against a political view, hey will often get millions of others on the same page. politicians use this to swing public opinion to or from something they need support on.


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

[User]
[Fullmetal Alchemist] Why do the alchemists that we see in the series all practice just one type of alchemy?

I'm sure it's in part due to them specializing in that type of alchemy -- a theory supported by the fact that state alchemists are required to present research in their chosen fields -- but is that all there is to it? If so, why don't more alchemists research and use the techniques used by, say, Mustang or Kimblee, considering how powerful they are? Is it all "just science," as Ed has said? Or does it ride off of Hohenheim's explanation that only a few people are able to draw upon the energy necessary for alchemy, and, as such, people are better attuned to different types?

**TL;DR:** Alchemy: "Just science" or innate characteristics?

[Assistant]
Throughout the series, alchemy takes a lot of study. It might be "just science" but most alchemists spend considerable time studying.

State Alchemists are military. Just like the military has a standardized style of combat, the state alchemists learn a standardized method of fighting with alchemy.

And just like there are many different martial arts of varying effectiveness, some alchemists work with special styles or methods. Like the Armstrongs who apparently pass their techniques down the family line.

So yeah it's just science. Most of our scientists also get stuck doing routine work and research while a few rock stars stand out. So it is with state alchemists and their more talented peers.


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

[User]
What are your main reasons for being anti-capitalist?

[assuming you are]

[Assistant]
The duty to maximize profits can lead for example to environmental degradation, colonialism and worker exploitation.

The incompatibility of the unfettered accumulation of private wealth with democracy.


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

[User] Why don't operating systems need to restart when installing a new program anymore?

[Assistant] Sometimes they still do, but not as much. new programs don't hook themselves into the operating system as deep as they used to. There used to be shared libraries and all sorts of other stuff that needed to be dropped in all over the place now everything's more contained.


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

[User]
Why is there a communications blackout when entering Earths atmosphere?

What about re-entry means that signals are unable to go through ?

[Assistant] During reentry the gas around the spacecraft is heated so much that it essentially becomes a plasma. In a plasma the electrons are more or less free to move. If you send radiowaves through those free electrons they will start to wiggle and either absorb or reflect the radiowaves, making it impossible to communicate.


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

[User]
I believe that mankind would be better off if everyone spoke a universal language CMV

I feel that so many social barriers could be broken down if everyone spoke the same language. People from all around the world would be capable to interact with one another.

[Assistant]
Sometimes the very thing that preserves a culture's uniqueness is it's obscure language. Basque is one good example of that where a very, very old culture has existed beside and within a modernizing Spain. Another that has stuck with me for years is in one of ethnobotanist Wade Davis's books. His mentor, (Edwin Schultze?), was down in the Amazon trying to obtain rare plants for studying at Harvard for their medicinal qualities. After months the scientists were frustrated because they could not chemically isolate and identify medicinal chemicals in these plants that that knew had to be there. They were picking the species identified by the tribe they were working with as having been used as local medicine for centuries and yet scientifically they just weren't seeing the proof.

Then a linguist studying the tribe mentioned that the tribes peoples had 23 different words for green and even toddlers could distinguish different ripeness and growth stages of the local flora to a level that was completely lost on the Harvard scientists who had simply been lunping the species of the plants together by species, not subtle shades of green gradiation. The tribes people called the same species by different names depending on just exactly how green they were. They unlocked that key and all of a sudden had the provable results that they sought. The "simple" tribes people had a linguistic trick for knowing and communicating differences that nobody who didn't live in the forest would have reason to know or care about. And, in so doing had kept some of their most valuable knowlege alive for centuries by word of mouth in an illiterate culture that had more grasp of the ethnobotanical uses of their resources than did the Harvard scientists.


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

[User]
[Harry Potter] What was the Salem Witch Trials like in the Harry Potter universe?

The series contains a bunch of wizards and witches using magic of all kinds (as long as theyre legal), magical creatures, so on and so forth. We also are aware of some stuff about muggles hating the wizards and witches as there have been other adaptations showing a muggle protesting them. So if thats the case, what were the Salem Witch Trials like?

[Assistant]
From the first chapter in The Prisoner of Azakaban:

>"Non-magic people (more commonly known as Muggles) were particularly afraid of magic in medieval times, but not very good at recognising it. On the rare occasion that they did catch a real witch or wizard, burning had no effect whatsoever. The witch or wizard would perform a basic Flame-Freezing Charm and then pretend to shriek with pain while enjoying a gentle, tickling sensation. Indeed, Wendelin the Weird enjoyed being burned so much that she allowed herself to be caught no less than forty-seven times in various disguises."

Witch hunts clearly weren't a big threat. It probably went similarly in Salem.


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

[User] [Marvel] How heavy does Thors hammer feel for people who are actually worthy enough to wield it?

[Assistant] As others have pointed out, the canon weight is 42.3 pounds but also it should be noted that if you're worthy you get a massive strength boost to match "the power of Thor" so you'll never have any difficulty swinging it as a weapon. So Captain America (in the comics) is supposed to be at the peak strength of what a non-superpowered human could be, which means he could pick up and wield a 42 pound hammer for a little while but ultimately would get tuckered out in an extended fight. But when he lifts Mjolnir, he gets the strength of Thor so the 42 pounds feels like nothing.


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

[User] If light is constantly speeding towards us from the edge of the observable universe, have any new galaxies or stars popped "into existence"?

[Assistant] Any light we receive right now from the particle horizon would have been emitted shortly after the big bang (about 380,000 years or so). So galaxies were not yet formed. But, in principle, if we wait long enough, we would see galaxies slowly form and "pop into existence". (This is assuming the galaxy was close enough for the last receivable signal to be after the galaxy was actually formed.)


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

[User] [Men in Black] I was on vacation on Earth and, long story short, I was caught doing chin-ups on a street-light completely out of disguise. What kind of punishment should I expect?

[Assistant]
Whatever you do don't make it worse by trying to flee off planet before they nab you, and don't try and fight them. They might look funny with their puny heads and four skinny limbs but humans have evolved to be pretty savvy. Your best shot is to act humble, admit you did wrong and promise to be more much careful - there are plenty of Agents who'll let you off with a one off warning if they believe you're earnest.

Having said you very well could have caused a global incident; all it takes is one of those jumpy, violent dumb-ass human civilians to spot you and you've ruined the day, possibly the week, of a lot of MIB agents, and they work hard enough as is.

And some Agents are just straight up trigger happy. They're trained not to be, but it happens. For your own good, be more frickin careful in the future!


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

[User]
What is the logic behind an unemployed PhD being "stale goods on the market"?

Quite a few times now I've heard people say that you need to land a position within a year or two of receiving your PhD, because otherwise you become "stale goods on the market" and... your PhD is... worth nothing, I guess?...

Can someone explain to me how this makes any sense at all? It seems like the most utterly childish thing.

[Assistant] Anyone unemployed for any length of time is considered "stale goods." People think there's something wrong with you or wonder what the reason is for your not working for a length of time. You could also just take a lower position though and work up in a company.


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

[User] ELI5:  How do we know that there is an infinite number of digits in pi?  Is it possible that it's actually just a really big but finite number?

[Assistant]
Truth be told, pi isn't big at all. Pi is approximately 3 (3,141592...), it's just impossible to display exactly. Any approximation you make, will necessarily be off by a little bit.

So, let's see. Let's fill the circle with a square size 2. Then we've still got 4 parts left, so let's try and fill those up with squares. As you may be able to see, this will never fill up. A similar thing happens to pi, no matter how many digits you list, you never "fill up" the number.


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

[User] Why is it so satisfying to rub our eyes for long periods of time? And why do we see all the pretty "shapes and colors?"

[Assistant] I don't know why it's so satisfying, but the pretty 'shapes and colors' are called an 'endoptic phenomenon'. It's caused by applying pressure to the eyeball, which raises the intraocular pressure, or the pressure inside the eye which in turn affects blood flow to the capillaries that feed the retina, causing strange retinal activity which the optic nerve interprets as pretty flashing lights and colors. It's basically the same idea as wiggling your monitor cable until your computer monitor starts flicking and doing weird things.


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

[User]
ELI5:Why do toddlers love to hand you things?

I'm babysitting for my nephew (20 months old) and for the past hour we've done nothing but essentially play fetch. He's grabbed just about every toy in the room and runs to bring them to me. By the time I've tossed it back, he's grabbed another and is running it over to me with a smile on his face as wide as the Mississippi.

I'm curious as to what part of development makes this so joyous for him.

[Assistant]
In a recent post on here talking about kids and films/TV, the top answer mentioned that one thing that makes kids so prone to certain kinds of movies (and to watching them over and over again) is that the Toddler brain thrives on predictability.

Facing a world that can be scary and unpredictable (and having a sort of inborn biological drive to learn about the world through positive and negative feedback) the toddler quickly fixes on anything that has a predictable positive result.  This is especially true -- cribbing from that answer -- when the toddler has the power to do something they already understand (like get a toy) and still get the same result (positive interaction with you.)

Eventually they'll tire of it or get distracted, but to them that kind of predictability and control is as valuable as hitting GM in overwatch or watching whatever the last episode was of GoT that you thought was good.


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

[User]
[Her] Is there money in the future world shown in the movie Her?

I can't seem to remember a moment when anyone bought or paid for anything. I also only spotted a few professions, card writer, game designer, and the folks working on the pier he visits. Is it possible they all work out of passion or to have something to do rather than getting paid? Does the world of Her possibly express a future much like that of Star Trek where there is no form of money? Or was money just not an important part of the story and thus never shown?

[Assistant] I just assumed it was all digital currency, everyone seems to be wired. Like purchasing the OS just ask for it and the computer handles the financial transaction without having to pull out a credit card.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why do we remember some skills (e.g swimming and cycling) our whole lives?

Went to community pool yesterday with my friends after 5 years. Swam like a pro. Then this question struck me.

[Assistant]
It's called procedural memory. More specifically, it's 'muscle memory' or 'motor learning' which is a type of procedural memory.

Your brain's cerebellum, in particular, is very good at encoding sequences of muscle movements into long-term memory storage.

Procedural memory is very robust. Even people with dementia and amnesia often still retain procedural memories for skills like playing a musical instrument or riding a bicycle without any conscious effort.

Interestingly, for people with anterograde amnesia (a condition characterized by the inability to form new memories), it's still possible for them to learn new motor skills and encode them as procedural memories.

In other words, you can have someone with anterograde amnesia learn to ride a bicycle (as just an example) for the first time in their life and each day you get them to ride they will have no recollection of ever riding before, but each day they will continue to get better and better at riding the bike.


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

[User]
Student researcher lied to regarding publication and recognition

For context, everyone I mention (including myself) are student researchers at a very prestigious research university. Im going to try and omit genders, ages, our field of study, etc. to try and keep this post from potentially biting me back. I can try and share more details in PMs or comments if itll help.

Earlier this year, as we were preparing to submit our research paper to a conference (on par with NIPS), our papers lead author lied to me about how we were going to be recognized in our work, literally seconds before s/he submitted our final draft to our journal. It was clear that my colleague lied in order to try to gain more recognition for himself/herself in our work. (Im sorry for being vague as this situation is highly-specific to us. Happy to talk more in PMs.)

I thought it was an extremely egregious lie so I asked other more senior colleagues in my group about it. They all agreed it was extremely sketchy. One even remarked that it should be grounds to no longer work in our group. Yeah, it was that serious.

I approached our advisor (a full professor, highly-respected/admired, etc.) about the lie. S/he told me s/he noted the lie and my objection and told me to let it go. I trust my advisor to do the right thing and s/hes been highly supportive. However, it irks me beyond belief that my advisor has trusted my colleague with even more work involving leadership of other students. And, nothing's been done to rectify the situation, either by correcting the error or disciplinarily.

I dont know what to do and Im frustrated beyond belief that I was cheated out of something I was clearly promised earlier on. I dont know how to approach the situation anymore. I really just want to leave our group now but I dont want to throw away the rapport I built with my professor.

I'm usually an extremely chill and composed person who has never lied in a professional context. However, being outright lied to by a colleague is beyond reproach for me, especially in academia. I don't know what to do... :(

[Assistant] Are you a grad student or an undergrad? Is the lead author a grad student, postdoc, or other professor? What was the type of contribution you made to the project (experimental design, data collection, analysis)? What percent of the total work in the project does that equate to? How much of your data is actually in the paper submitted for publication?


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

[User]
ELI5: Why do some electrical prongs have holes and some do not?

What purpose does it serve?

[Assistant] If you were to take apart an outlet and look at the contact wipers that the prongs slide into, you would find that they have bumps on them. These bumps fit into the holes so that the outlet can grip the plug's prongs more firmly. This detenting prevents the plug from slipping out of the socket due to the weight of the plug and cord. It also improves the contact between the plug and the outlet.


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

[User]
If I orally took a morphine tablet, what happens from when the pill lands in my stomach to make the it start relieving my pain/generating a pleasant feeling? Why is it more effective (and often preferred) to use the intravenous method?

I have been reading about active and passive transport, and I understand somewhat, but I am unable to put this into the context of something practical/everyday such as taking medication. I have used opiates as an example as I understand they can be taken orally, but that they are often injected so that less of the drug is wasted. Is it something to do with the pH levels in the stomach? If you could explain what happens from the moment the pill lands in the stomach, that would greatly assist me in understanding the process from the get-go.

Thanks in advance!

[Assistant]
You're thinking on the wrong level when you're thinking about active/passive transport. This is simple pharmacokinetics.

When you eat a pill, the pill usually dissolves in the stomach, and the material enters the duodenum/rest of small intestines. From here it is absorbed through the endothelium of the intestines and into the blood of the hepatic portal vein. Here is passes through the liver and onto the rest of the body and hopefully the target organ. In the case of opiates, the target organ being the brain and spinal cord.

There are two primary reasons why a drug is given via a non-oral route. The first is because some drugs have poor oral 'bioavailability'. This could mean the are rapidly metabolized in the walls of the intestines/liver (first pass metabolism). The opiate Buprenorphine is an example. It could also mean they are poorly absorbed from the GI tract.

The other primary reason why drugs are given non-orally is because of timing. If someone is in a lot of pain, expecting them to way 20 minutes for a drug to be fully absorbed from the GI tract might be too much to ask.


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

[User]
What's going on in an animal's brain when it doesn't react to its reflection in the mirror, but will react to another animal?

How does this relate to self-awareness?

[Assistant]
Many animals don't use vision for identifying other animals but rather other senses - primarily smell.

So if the animal ignores a mirror but reacts to an animal it probably uses smell.

Animals that fail the mirror self identification test don't ignore the mirror - instead they think it's another animal.


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

[User] ELI5: The new "Unlocking cell phone law."

[Assistant]
To understand the new law, you need to understand what the law was.  So first some history.

In 1998 the U.S government passed the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA, the same thing you see if you see a takedown notice on Youtube or Google).  Included in that (in addition to the copyright provisions themselves) was a prohibition on circumventing what are called "Digital Rights Management."  In laymen's terms it's a bit like both making it illegal to take your television *and* making it illegal to break your door lock in an attempt to get your television.

The DMCA gave the librarian of Congress the power to exempt certain things from DMCA regulations.  Basically, he could say "so, yeah, rooting your iPhone *is* a circumvention, but all it's doing is letting people use their phones to their fullest capacity, so we're going to exempt it" (which actually happened).

The issue of cell phone unlocking came up, and the Librarian of Congress elected *not* to exempt it.  But did provide a window for people to unlock their existing phones without running afoul of the DMCA.  The idea was that while it made sense that anyone buying a new phone could simply buy an unlocked version, it wasn't fair to stop people who got their phones prior to the rule coming down from unlocking them.

So, about a year ago, that grace period ended and it became illegal (under the DMCA) to unlock a cell phone.  Recently, Congress passed legislation to amend the DMCA to exempt cell phone unlocking.


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

[User]
[The Killing Joke] Why does Joker think that what he does will break Gordon?

A regular guy watching his daughter be brutalized  fine. But Gordon is police commissioner *of Gotham*. He sees bizarre, brutal stuff every day. And he still chose to raise his child there. Did Joker really think thats all it would take?

Is there something he did in the comic that wasnt included in the movie?

[Assistant]
Joker grew up in Gotham, experienced the worst that city had to offer. Details are sketchy but he saw some pretty hard shit. And he broke easy.

Joker honestly believes everyone else is just like him (Im not a monster, just ahead of the curve). Everyone would be just as gleefully violent, sadistic, and cruel as he if they just had an excuse to ditch the trappings of polite civilization.

He honestly cant accept that some people genuinely dont want to go down that road no matter the provocation.


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

[User] [Pokemon] How did Pokemon that weren't Fairy type before suddenly gain fairy's resistances and weaknesses?

[Assistant]
Classical evolution.

There were variants with the dominant fairy type already, but they were a minority in the population.  Occasionally one would get caught and oddities would be seen.  However, it was anyways written off as a quirk before fairy was recognized.

Meanwhile the classic examples of the Pokemon species you were likely over caught.  This lead to an increased proportion of the gene pool being faeries.  So successive generations were quickly overwhelmed by fairies.

The speed of which seems to imply it is a dominant trait, but environmental pressures weighed heavily against it.


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

[User] Scientists, what are some mysteries in your respective fields that us lay people might find fascinating?

[Assistant] For me, it's always been somewhat magical that convex lenses do Fourier Transforms (FTs).  Suppose you had a transparency of a spider on a grid.  If you place the transparency just in front of a lens, the FT of the image appears at the focal plane.  You can even filter out parts of the image if you block parts of the light at the focal plane.  If you place another lens behind the first (so their focal points overlap) you get back an image of the object but with some parts removed!  You can remove the spider from the mesh if you want, all without computers!


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

[User] why don't dogs acknowledge/recognize themselves in the mirror?

[Assistant] What you're talking about is "the mirror test." It takes a certain amount of intelligence to look in a mirror and recognize that it is a reflection rather than just another space. Those animals are also able to recognize a reflection as themselves. Only a few animals pass the mirror test. Humans, chimpanzees, gorillas, orangutans, elephants, dolphins, and possibly pigs pass the mirror test. Some intelligent birds also have passed the mirror test--I believe crows and blue jays.


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

[User]
CMV: Most of the current efforts to 'solve' global warming are a complete waste of time

Global warming is a massive issue. Unchecked it could literally wipe out civilization as we know it.  We're already experiencing some negative effects from it (probably to a greater degree than we actually realize) and this is only going to exponentially grow. We've already moved past multiple 'tipping points' or 'last chances' to sort it out yet CO2 emissions actually continue to grow. Developing nations like India China, Indonesia, Nigeria will see that continue (fair enough considering us Western Nations also benefited from coal etc. Even our own industry/business continues to release so many gasses it's almost unbelievable (look up the CO2 emissions of large ships).

In the face of this problem most of our solutions are so small. On an individual level using a bike/public transport, choosing to become a vegetarian/vegan or getting solar panels have a completely negligible effect (even if millions upon millions are making these changes). Even on a country level instituting a carbon tax or investing more in renewable energy (at least in a non-drastic way) barely makes a scratch. Particularly for smaller countries. Even if these movements continue to majorly ramp up (at least in Western countries) we won't even come close to turning this ship. A fair few people actually believe this but take it in a different way (imo a more pessimistic way), believing that it just means we're doomed.

I don't. Scientific/technological advancement is incredible.  What we as a collective have achieved with the internet, mobile phones, computers, air-planes, space-flight, medicine and hundreds of other areas in relatively short spans of times is awe-inspiring. Yet some CO2 in the atmosphere is going to be the end of us? I mean come on, have some faith in science.

Global warming is definitely a problem we have to solve and we need to continue to put pressure on governments to pump money into science to fix it, (which incidentally they'll do themselves once we start feeling more serious effects from climate change) but all these individual efforts are just a complete waste of time. There's some value in 'being the change you want to see' and 'setting an example' but we'd be much better off saving our time and money and putting more pressure on big business/government who actually have the ability to solve the problem.

EDIT: While I haven't found anyone that has dissuaded me from my view that science is a far and away better option than relying on incremental change from individuals (and hence should be prioritized at all costs) I have opened my eyes a little more to the value of these small changes while science continues along in the background as measures taken 'just in case' that generally are beneficial to the person anyway.

Am pretty steadfast in my opinion though that the view that incremental change on a global scale will enact changes quick enough is driven by just as much faith as my view about science. I just cannot see how these changes transition from rich westerners and go global in time for any sort of real preventative measures to be taken.

[Assistant]
The best way to put pressure on big business is to put cost on not having a solution. That's what a carbon tax does. It adds financial incentive for any improvement, big or small. If you want solutions, add incentives.

Most scientific advancement is incremental. A lot of small advances are much more likely than one big one.


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

[User]
ELI5: What causes sociopathy?

Also, how do you recognize it in a person?

EDIT: Thank you for all the informative responses! Although this was more of an academic query, people have said that I may have sociopathic tendencies so I wanted to learn more about it :P

Again, thanks everyone!

[Assistant]
You will not, it's part inherited, part developed through childhood trauma. You will not likely recognize it in a person, because a sociopath has learned to emulate all emotions like a regular one.

However since they are unable to feel empathy or love you could approach them with those subjects.


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

[User] ELI5: why has nasa's curiosity rover only travelled 10 miles in the space of 5 years.

[Assistant]
Because its goal isn't to travel; it already landed where it needed to be. It drives a few inches, takes pictures and soil samples and does related testing. It would need to travel really long distances in order to get to someplace that different, geologically speaking, and it's just not worth it. There's plenty of interesting things right where its at.

Also, we've sent other rovers to different parts of the planet. *Spirit* was active from 2004 to 2010 and its sister rover (which landed on the other side of the planet), *Opportunity*, is still going.


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

[User] ELI5: Why is the ozone layer higher up than oxygen gas? Should not ozone(O3) weigh more than oxygen gas(O2) and therefore closer to the earth?

[Assistant] Ozone is found lower down in the atmosphere as well. You can even smell it. It is what produces the smell of lightning or other electric sparks. However ozone is very reactive and will quickly react with other elements. So even though ozone is heavier then oxygen you will usually not find it far from where it is being created. The reason there is a layer of ozone in the upper atmosphere is because oxygen will react with ultraviolet light to create ozone. And the upper atmosphere gets a lot of ultraviolet light from the Sun.


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

[User] ElI5: Why do mobile companies insist on fully charging the phone on first use?

[Assistant] Theres no easy way to measure the charge level of a lithium ion battery, especially at higher charge levels. Battery controllers wont pick up self discharge that happens over time so charging the device thats been sitting for a while to full and leaving it on charge for a bit is necessary to recalibrate the devices measurement of the state of charge.


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

[User] [Star Wars] How can clones tell each other apart?

[Assistant] They have numbers, they get tattoos and strange haircuts, they paint and mod their armor, they carry specialized weapons, and sometimes you can just know someone well and be able to tell them from people who look like them.


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

[User] [Toy Story] What is the life of a $100 anime figure like in this universe?

[Assistant]
Probably borderline nonexistent. From what we see in Toy Story 3, the "spark of creation" as it were chiefly seems to be the imagination and emotional investment of children. Unless said $100 figure is of a character that captures the imagination of children, it likely won't animate; a $100 Goku or Totoro probably moves, but a $100 hentai figurine probably just stands there.

For the ones that do move, Prospector Pete is probably the exemplar. As much of their value is in staying pristine they have a strong incentive to stay parked where they are, and the lack of regular play means they don't have a lot of cover for moving around without accidentally gaslighting their owner into insanity by constantly being found in locations and poses they weren't placed. So they chill on their shelf or computer desk, commiserate with their fellow $100 figures (and talk shit behind the back of the $200 convention exclusive), and overall have fewer adventures than an actual child's toy.


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

[User] ELI5: Why don't woodpeckers all suffer serious traumatic brain injury by later in life?

[Assistant]
Three reasons,

1) Woodpeckers' brains are tightly encapsulated in their skulls, so the brains do not bash against the skulls with sudden accelerations as do human brains.

2) Humans have many ridges at the surface of their brains, and woodpeckers do not - their brains are more smooth.  This distributes the force of impact across a large surface area, meaning parts of the brain gets squished less.

3) Woodpeckers don't have any rotation in their heads when pecking, meaning the brains don't experience rotational stresses.  Rotational stress is a major factor in human brain injuries in cases like car accidents, etc.


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

[User] Why is energy released during fusion and fission?

[Assistant]
Iron (Fe-56 to be specific) is the most stable atomic nucleus.  Other nuclei want to be iron.

So nuclei lighter than iron are more stable (that is, release energy) after fusing.  Nuclei heavier than iron release energy after breaking apart.


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

[User]
[Iron Giant] What would have happened to Agent Kent Mansley? Where is he now?

He wasn't killed, but was instead arrested.

Where is he now?

[Assistant]
Well, he's been deceased since the early 2000's, but after spending some time in jail, his sentence was quietly commuted by the Nixon Administration for reasons still unknown.
After being released, he became a born-again Evangelical Christian activist, and helped lead the charge during the rise of the American Religious Right in the 70's and 80's, staunchly supporting Ronald Reagan's campaigns and promoting moral hysteria during the Satanic Panic. He became a friend of Jack Chick's at one point, and rubbed shoulders with all the big-name town mouses, quack psychiatrists, and moral guardians of that era.
Mansley refused to publicly speak of the Giant incident, and when journalists and critics would press him on it, he'd make threats of litigation. Kent Mansley's last public appearance was on a Televangelist talk-show in May of 2001, where he railed against the rise of Nu-Metal, claiming the genre was just as satanic and immoral as Industrial and Heavy Metal.

He died of acute liver failure in August of 2001, wherein the public became aware of his well-hidden alcoholism that he had struggled with since the late 1970's.


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

[User]
Why doesn't our brain go haywire when magnetic flux is present around it?

Like when our body goes through MRI , current would arbitrarily be produced in different parts of our brain which should cause random movement of limbs and many such effects but it doesn't why?

[Assistant] The current produced would have to be strong enough to overcome our neuron's threshold for activation. All neurons have a base level of electric activity called a resting  membrane potential, which is about -70 millivolts (mV). In order to cause that neuron to send an electrical impulse we must depolarize that same neuron to about -55 mV. This can either be done internally, with the release or intake of various electrically charged ions in and out of the neuron, or externally by inducing a current strong enough to penetrate the skull, depolarize the neuron, and be focused to be specific enough to hit just one neuron or a cluster of geographically associated neurons. This can be achieved with very strong and local electromagnetic transducers, such as with transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS). Although an MRI produces a powerful electromagnetic field, the current it produces in the human body is not typically enough (strong enough, specific enough, or possibly even at the correct angle enough) to cause specific or generalized depolarization of the neurons resulting in activation.


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

[User] In deserts and beaches, why do dunes form instead of the sand uniformity flattening out?

[Assistant]
Wind.

If you had a perfectly flat plane of sand, then any wind would form ripples in it that would accumulate into dunes - just like a surface of water, which "should" be perfectly flat, gets turned into waves by the wind.

In order for a flat surface to stay flat, it needs to be solid and stick together with itself - for example, like the dried out surfaces of salt lakes that are sometimes used for racing; also if there's vegetation then the root systems will hold the ground together and prevent erosion by wind. But loose sand (like deserts and beaches) will be re-arranged by wind.


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

[User]
CMV: For certain professions, it's okay that interviewers and interviewees have drinks during the interview process. [And for clarity I'm NOT talking about drinking related jobs such as wine tasting.]

In my profession (academia) it is common after the end of a 2 day interview (that can take up to 12-15 hours overall) to have dinner and drinks. My department is hiring right now and if it weren't for COVID all of our campus interviews would end that way, just as they do at most universities.

Since you may be spending 10-30 years working closely with a small group of people, having dinner and drinks is an important aspect of the interview, as it showcases your more personal side. Of course drinking is never mandatory, but when I used to interview 10 years ago I would usually have a couple of glasses of wine or scotch at such interview dinners and I really enjoyed loosening up a bit while discussing research, art, culture, travel, family, and so forth.

I don't know how common this is for other professions, but my claim here is that for at least one profession---and possibly others---getting to know one another over dinner and drinks is an acceptable way to get a sense if the candidate and department are a good fit.

[Assistant]
So this might say it's strictly voluntary, but if this social outing is part of the interview then it certainly gives people who participate a leg up on those who choose not to. As you are more likely to pick those who you can bond with in a social setting. This can have a discriminatory results as women are more likely to be uncomfortable in these kind of situations and Muslims are forbidden from drinking, so certain groups are affected more than others

It can also favor those who do like to drink and perpetuate a "bro" culture, where only the people you like socially (and probably closer to you demographically) get hired or promoted.