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

[User] ELI5:what is a libertarian?

[Assistant]
A consequentialist libertarian is someone who thinks the government's functions should be limited to the activities that require force.  Consequentialist libertarians think the government should:
1. Prevent body crimes like murder and rape
2. Prevent property crimes like theft and fraud
3. Adjudicate the terms of contracts when there is a dispute.

Some consequentialist libertarians would also include providing certain public goods (like lighthouses) that cannot be easily be provided by the free market as a legitimate government function.

Other libertarians, known as deontological libertarians, follow the Non-aggression principle which is the philosophy that it is immoral to initiate force or fraud against another person or their property.  Everyone, including the government, must follow this philosophy in order to be moral, accoding to deontological libertarians.

All libertarians are united in wanting a very small, limited government.


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

[User] [Sesame Street] If you were to be bitten by The Count, would you turn into a puppet? Puppet vampire?

[Assistant]
Nothing would happen.

Believe it or not, according to internal Sesame Workshop documents (specifically the 2001 edition of *Sesame Street Muppets Drawing Guide*, the official reference for drawing Sesame Street characters for tie-in books and the like) the Count is not, in fact, a vampire.


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

[User] ELI5: If a "female" identifies as a male would they be **legally** allowed to be topless on tv?

[Assistant] I doubt it. Trans women can be arrested for being topless (something only a woman can be arrested for) then tried and imprisoned as males, which has happened in the US, so the gender of the person displaying said boobs seems irrelevent in the eyes of the law right now. All they care about is that they see boobs that are classically "female" and decide it's illegal.


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

[User]
ELI5: why does the FBI need manned Cessna's and shell companies for surveillance when we have unmanned drones that would suffice?

I'm thinking we're all pissed but numb to American mass surveillance and they know that so they went with it. Logic tells me that they have technology such as satellites, drones, etc that would be much more efficient and effective. That's not even taking into the account the spying tools they have that we don't even know about. A guy circling the city in a fake company Cessna is unlikely doing surveillance.

[Assistant] FAA permission to operate drones over the US is highly restricted.  Liability concerns for a crash caused by simple engine failure make it difficult to covertly do things without shell companies.  Somebody has to buy the insurance and pay the premiums.


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

[User]
[harry potter] what happens if one person invents an original spell using an incantation, and a different person invents a different spell using the same incantation?

let's say someone creates a new spell that gives you cancer. the incantation they use for it is "fibbledink binkle-dee-borf". someone else who has never heard of the cancer spell, comes up with their own original spell that walks your dog for you, using the same words.

what happens if a third person learned both of those spells, that have the same incantation? if they could do both of them using the same words, then couldn't every spell all have the same words, and the only difference is your intentions?

[Assistant] You're making some assumptions about how spell invention works that are very likely wrong.  Take a look at sectumesempre.  Sectum means cut.  Semper means always.  So we have always cut, a spell that makes a person bleed until a counterspell is applied.  So are spells invented, or are they discovered?  In either case, you are unlikely to get spells with such widely different effects using the same incantation.


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

[User]
ELI5: What does it mean to float a country's currency?

Sri Lanka is going through the worst economic crisis in history after the government has essentially been stealing money in any way they can. We have no power, no fuel, no diesel, no gas to cook with and there's a shortage of 600 essential items in the country that we are now banning to import. Inflation has reached an all-time high and has shot up unnaturally over the last year, because we have uneducated fucks running the country who are printing over a billion rupees per day.

Yesterday, the central bank announced they would float the currency to manage the soaring inflation rates. Can anyone explain how this would stabilise the economy? (Or if this wouldn't?)

[Assistant]
In general all currencies float.  The market demand decides how many dollars you get for your euro, and so forth.

Most central banks attempt to stabilize this float by buying the currency when it is low and selling it when it is high.  This buffering effect can keep the currency in a narrow trading range, if the central bank has enough money.

Some of the time, like your Sri Lanka case, the central bank doesn't have enough money to keep the currency in the trading range.  At that time, they make an announcement that they are going to drop their support for the currency and let the market find it's own level.  This is typically much lower, and so everybody who has the currency will see their account values drop dramatically relative to a baseline currency like the dollar or euro.  That gets all the inflation out of the way, in one big painful event, rather than depressing everyone for months.


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

[User] [General] What is the difference between a Mage and a warlock?

[Assistant]
A warlock is someone who got their magical powers from a demonic bargain or pact, compared to wizards, who get their powers by studying magic, and sorcerers, who are born with magical powers.

Or, in the eloquent words of 1d4chan: "a wizard gets "A"s in class by studying really hard, a sorcerer gets "A"s by having natural talent, and a warlock gets "A"s by giving the dean a blowjob in his office."


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

[User] ELI5: What causes people to 'jump' when frightened?

[Assistant]
Its An instinct that causes your muscles to start tensing up as if youre about to have to quickly move or fight something.

Theres a reason that people when startled often stand up and/or being their arms up closer to their chest/head, it gives the body and head some extra protection than if your arms were at your sides and when your arms are in your  pretty much ready to start punching.


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

[User]
[MCU] If Wakanda was never colonized, why do Wakandans speak English?

I know they also speak Xhosa, but why do T'Challa and Shuri speak English when they're alone, for example?

[Assistant] They might've learned it out of necessity, English is now classed as a global language spoken by over 2 billion of the planets populace. With many different varieties such as American English, South African English, Australian and New Zealand etc. So with English being such a common language they would have learnt it as a way to better communicate with the wider world.


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

[User]
Hey thermodynamics experts, why do stringy things tangle?

Whenever I try to reason this out, I always come back to thinking that in the process of knotting or tangling a string (or headphones cord, or whatever), the number of possible configurations is being constrained, thus reducing the overall entropy of the system, which is illogical, given that things *always* tangle. Also, something something partition function.

What is actually going on?

I am looking for a thermodynamic or statistical explanation - not something relating to jones polynomials or persistence lengths.

I'm looking forward to a fun discussion! Thanks.

[Assistant]
Actually, it's that there are very few ways where you can be untangled.

If you have two strings that start parallel and are in a confined space, you can only really call them untangled if they remain in that initial state or a state very similar to it (a low chance, as this is only a few states of many), or end up being located far enough from each other that they can't tangle with each other whatever they do (also a low chance in a confined space, depending on how small the space is). For any other configuration - twists, loops, knots, whatever you want - there are many more possible choices.

For example, you can add many more combinations to the initial parallel strings just by twisting them together, dependent on where the twists are, how many twists there are, and so on. Add more strings, and the amount of combinations where *all* of them stay untangled gets very low indeed!


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

[User] ELI5: Why does intense hunger sometimes cause nausea? That seems like the opposite of what should happen.

[Assistant]
Because your body is trying to encourage you to eat! Here are the two possibilities I've read about:

According to when you eat, your body will release a hormone called Ghrelin which makes you feel like you're starving, possibly to the point of feeling nauseated. So if you normally eat every four hours and you missed a meal, your stomach starts to release ghrelin whether you need food or not because you've trained it on a schedule. Ghrelin normally stops being released after 30-60 minutes so it doesn't impact you actually getting food and that feeling of nausea will go away.

It could also be low blood sugar! Your body could be releasing the hormone, Glucagon, which can cause nausea. If your diet is higher in refined carbohydrates, you're not used to burning fat because you have more sugars in your diet. If those sugars run out, your body starts to burn fat and this might cause a dip in your energy levels, headaches and nausea.


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

[User]
ELI5: why are we set up to not eat healthy?

In America, there was an obesity scare in the 1970's-1980's that told Americans "fat is bad" and so they've removed the fat content from many foods. by doing that, they became less tasteful and so to replace that they added sugar.

But also, we've been told every day to eat our grains and oats. But the thing is, most of the bread that we consume is actually really bad for us, even the whole-grain breads. It isn't the same oats and grains are grandparents consumed.

Many companies too try really hard to make things seem healthy when they aren't.

So how is a person in this society supposed to be able to eat healthy? Do you have any tips and tricks to make it simple? Can you point us to sources we as consumers should be able to trust?

[Assistant] If by "set up" you mean biologically it's because some nutrients were much rarer then others and over time we became hardwired to seek those particular nutrients more so over others since obtaining those nutrients required more effort. Now in modern times those nutrients are quite abundant but we still retain that need to seek those once rare nutrients which causes problems due to excess. Also those rare nutrients: salts, sugars, fats, etc. are not unhealthy.


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

[User]
How do we know how ancient languages sound?

Like the title suggests, how do people who study ancient languages like Latin or Ancient Greek know how the letters are pronounced? Do they just compare it to modern languages, or is there another way?

[Assistant]
in part, they look at the offspring languages and study how they sound. they also look into the morphology of pronunciation and see how people change speech over time in general.

that being said, we don't actually know much, we have made a lot of educated guesses where each separately have have a medium-high degree of accuracy.

if you learned one of these languages and went back in time to one of these ancient cultures you'd probably sound something like a chinese student attempting to speak english after two months of study. that is to say you'd be nearly understandable and you'd not understand much of what is being spoken.

the exception is latin. if you study latin today with good instruction you'd do very well. we have too much information on how latin was pronounced excepting about 4 sounds (w vs v is one of the hotly contended pronunciations). similarly with greek though not as good.

the most interesting case is proto indo-european.


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

[User]
CMV: a "good actor" has more to do with writing, directing and overall production than with a particular actor's skills.

Now I'm not saying that actors are not talented and that it is not difficult to act out difficult scenes. My qualm is with the separation of "good actors" and "average actors".

Matthew McConnahey is the obvious candidate who was thought of as nothing special until he had an opportunity to work with a good script, good production and good directing. Heath Ledger was another example. Robin Williams, too, would not have been thought as much more than a comedian until given the right opportunity. Or Will Smith. We may soon be saying the same for Jesse Eisenberg.

Given the quality of script, the careful directing, the number of takes and feedback and cues an actor may take to get a scene right, the music which can be an emotional trigger; it is hard to imagine any professional actor who could not be coaxed into giving stellar performances.

Obviously people will cite examples to the contrary, but to compare Gary Oldman who is widely regarded as a master actor, I've recently noticed the previously unremarkable aussie actor Joel Edgerton being cast as Rameses in the upcoming Exodus, and I think that it may not take much to make a competent actor "chameleonic".

Basically, I believe any competent or trained actor can be coaxed to give outstanding performances with the right directing and production. There is less variety in the capabilities of professional actors than the fandom of A-listers suggest.

Edit: to clarify my position: I think there is less validity to the claim "X is a brilliant actor and Y is a bad or average actor" than  there is to "X got a good role, script and director whilst Y has been unable to find a role or script he can really shine in."

Edit2: okay guys, took a bit of discussion but you did change my view. A few guys highlighted the inverse of my position, good movies dragged down by bad acting (Keanu in Dracula is one I'll never forgive) and average movies saved by an outstanding performance (no one would be mentioning Good Morning Vietnam without Williams). But most importantly was the talk of theater, which removes all of my talk of takes, editing and music and lets it be the bare actors. I never considered that, but it is absolutely contrary to my position and changed my mind. Dishing out the deltas for the 3 who changed my view.

[Assistant]
I think there is definitely a major impact on an actor's performance when given a good script and good direction, but there is also a skill to the actor themselves and they way in which they go about their work.

A good actor will try to understand the character and their motivations, and will give feedback to the writers and director about how a line feels and sounds in that context. Also, a huge thing about great actors for television and films is their ability to self-choreograph otherwise improvised motions. Something as simple as how they hold a prop like a cigarette or a drink, and the timing of when they take a sip in the dialogue, and making that consistent goes a long way to making the editor's life a hell of a lot easier when editing for continuity. A lot of novice actors will move around at random, just reading the lines and trying to act as it comes to them. When you take the footage back to edit, it can often be a mess trying to line up shots where the actor's arms or legs are in the same position at the same word in a dialogue, and you end up having to edit around them instead of editing around how it would feel best.

But of course, any production is a culmination of all its constituent parts.


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

[User]
How is caffeine physically addictive and why does a person experience withdrawal?

What causes caffeine to be physically addictive, so that an addict experiences withdrawal when they do not get a dosage?

[Assistant] Caffeine acts as a competitive inhibitor for the neurotransmitter Adenosine. It does this by binding to adenosine receptors without activating them.  During continuous use, the body works to counteract this effect by increasing the number of adenosine receptors in the central nervous system.  Because of this adaptation, the body is then more sensitive to adenosine in the absence of caffeine.  The body's heightened reaction to adenosine involves the unpleasant symptoms typically referred to as withdrawal.


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

[User]
[X-Men] How many kids has wolverine had? How many mutants might be his descendants?

Assuming of course that he's fertile.

[Assistant]
James Howlet, the mutant famously known as Wolverine, had many children during his long life before his recent final (/s) death.

First, there was Akihiro, the son of Itsu, James' Japanese wife. Akihiro was born in 1946. He possesses some of Howlet's abilities : enhanced senses and bone claws, most notoriously. He also has an uncanny ability to manipulate his pheromones. You might know him under his alias, Daken.

In the Savage Land, there is someone, named Erista, who is claimed to be the son of a man named Wolverine and the leader of a tribal group. Not much more is known about him.

William Downing is an human, son of Dolores Dowing and James Howlet. William Downing took the name Gunhawk, and became part, and later led, a mercenary group. This mercenary group, called the Mongrels, had an interesting membership :

* Downing, as previously mentioned
* "Saw Fist", son of Howlet, mother unknown
* "Cannon Foot", son of Howlet, mother unknown
* "Shadowstalker", daughter of Howlet, mother unknown
* "Fire Knives", daughter of Howlet, mother unknown

All the members of the group known as the Mongrels were killed by James Howlet, unaware at the time that it was comprised entirely of his children.

You also need to take into account Laura Kinney, code-named "X-23", created from the genetic material of James Howlet. Another clone, about whom not much is known, is Avery Connor. Both those clones manifest a set of powers very similar to the mutant James Howlet.

Those are only his known children and clones - given his very long life, it may be possible that he has multiple other children, unbeknownst to him.


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

[User]
[Batman] Why didn't Batman call backup during Knightfall?

From anyone in the Batfamily, or Justice League?

[Assistant]
Batman had just gone through a crisis of faith in himself and his abilities. Black Mask had really shaken his confidence after a pretty nasty scheme and then getting away with it. A few other villains showed up right after, making it impossible for Batman to take even one day off to recoup and re-focus his mind. He got run so hard and so brutally even before Bane arrived in Gotham that it made Batman succumb to a minor sickness.

Of course, Bane's first move in Gotham was to break EVERYONE out of Arkham, which made a shaken and rapidly worsening Batman to capture them one by one.

Batman wasn't in a state, mentally or physically, to even think about calling for backup. On top of his natural affinity for working alone, the sickness in his head and body made it worse and worse until he could barely stand, which is when Bane struck.


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

[User]
[neuroscience]Is there any limit as to how much information that the human brain can hold?

Is there any theoretical limit as to how much information that the human brain can hold?

What would happen if someone reached that limit?

[Assistant]
Ultimately the brain has limited amount of material for data storage so it can store limited amount of information. It is impossible to store infinite information to finite possible entropy. However the brain also does not store the information in quite the same way than a computer does. Information in the brain often needs refreshing and unimportant things tend to fade in memory. Probably because same "circuits" are used to store other things too.

Think of it like in artificial neural network classification in machine learning. You can teach it to classify a class but if you then stop showing it that class and feed it data about other classes the network might get modified in a way that the first class is no longer reliably recognized.

I am not aware of anyone hitting the limit of their memory capacity though. And it's good to remember that even the most informed answers you get in the neuroscience field involve a lot of "informed opinions" instead of hard fact.


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

[User]
[SCP] Has anything useful ever come out of studying SCPs?

Like, have the studies done on contained SCPs ever produced tech or other advancements beneficial to humanity?

[Assistant] Well, there is that one *thingy* that has allowed them to "reset" reality after world-ending catastrophe on a couple of occasions. That seems pretty useful, but the vast majority of artifacts are more dangerous than useful.


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

[User]
Why do some shows like Dexter, Game of Thrones and Sherlock "look" like movies whereas shows like The Big Bang Theory or Friends do not look like movies?

I am talking about the "look" and "feel" of the images in the show. I do not mean the content or the storyline of the show. Does it have something to do with the framerate at which they are shot? Is the video technology used for shooting these shows very different?

[Assistant]
American sitcoms like the ones you listed are typically shot in front of a live studio audience with a multiple camera set-up and a higher frame rate than films. They shoot with several cameras at once so they can get all the shots they need from a single performance of a given scene and that also means they have to light the whole set evenly, which doesn't look natural at all.

It's more like recording a play than making a movie.


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

[User]
How do small birds survive sub zero temperatures with such little body mass?

I understand the concept of hollow, thus insulating, feathers, but it just amazes me that these little creatures are still flying about. It's been below zero for several days where I live. Their bodies are so small, they cannot possibly produce much heat.

[Assistant] MS in biology here...not sure about that specific species of bird, but usually keeping warm is going to involve a few things, 1) maintaining body heat through the expenditure of energy, so metabolism needs to be supported by adequate food consumption, and 2) preserving that body heat through insulation such as fat and feathers.  They may/will also have behavioral adaptations such as huddling together, or being able to find the warmest places in their immediate environment to find shelter.


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

[User] ELI5: Why are there flat head and Philips head screws and screwdrivers? Are either better than the other?

[Assistant]
Each has it's own advantages. Flat heads have the advantage that they're simple to make, and in a pinch can be worked with other flat metal objects.

Phillips heads screws are specifically designed so the bit slips if too much torque is applied. This is especially important for electric drills, so that if a screw gets stuck it doesn't damage the motor.


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

[User] Eli5: If water can't be compressed under normal conditions, then how does water pressure work?

[Assistant]
Water is compressible, just not by very much. For example 4 km under the ocean, waters density is increased by just 1.8%. This is so small that saying water is in-compressible make for a good approximation.

Pressure does not depend on how compressible a substance is. It just depends on the total weight per unit area of all the substance above, pressing down.


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

[User]
Are problems with inbreeding faced by humans mirrored in other animals?

Inbreeding I know is linked to higher rates of mental disabilities in people, but is the same true for fish, birds, and other mammalls?

[Assistant]
The problems in humans are very minor, relatively speaking; laws and social mores greatly limit the amount of linebreeding/backcrossing/inbreeding.

In domesticated animals, these techniques are how humans create different breeds.

Specific examples:

Dogs: hip problems in German Shepherds, severe breathing problems in brachycephalic dog breeds, or the semi-retardation of many Irish Setters and Golden Retrievers.

Chickens: Cornish Cross are too stupid to do much beyond feed themselves, and many Polish/silkies/breeds-with-a-head-poof need to be trimmed so they can see.

Pet ferrets are so severely inbred, just keeping them alive can be a tricky proposition.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why is glass the dominant window material, as opposed to higher-grade plastics?

I understand why car windows should be glass, given the high speeds, and potential benefits in a crash. For home windows or buildings, I would guess that plastics might be more durable, longer-lasting, and potentially cheaper. I assume I'm wrong and someone must have put far more thought into this than me, so I'm curious to hear what that is.

[Assistant]
Glass is far more durable than any plastic, most significantly it doesnt degrade due to UV exposure.

It also does not let UV through which protects the interior. Items in plastic conservatories will bleach much faster than in glass ones.


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

[User]
CMV: Talking about CEO compensation as a socialist is an incoherent and harmful distraction

People on the left, including those who call themselves socialists, often complain about the pay gap between CEOs and low wage employees. The reason some employees are paid too little, the story goes, is because the CEO is paid too much. This is a harmful distraction from the true nature of the situation under a socialist world view, which is that employees (labor) are paid too little because the *owners* (capital) are paid too much.

I will start this by assuming that every socialist who complains about CEO compensation being too high actually knows what a CEO, or chief executive officer, is. I dont necessarily think this is a reasonable assumption, but in the interest of making the complaints seem as coherent as possible, I think we have to start with a baseline assumption that everyone is operating in reality. A CEO is an employee who is hired to make the management decisions of a company. Thats it. The CEO is not the owner. The CEO is not the founder. The CEO is not capital in general. The CEO, unlike the owner, does not take distribution in the form of excess rent leftover once labor is paid. The CEO earns a salary for his or her labor. The CEO is on payroll like any other employee. Bottom line: the CEO is simply a highly paid employee.

It is important for socialists to draw a distinction between capital and labor. Labor are those who make money from mental and/or physical and/or emotional acts of work, and the term labor most explicitly refers to those employed by an employer. Capital are those who make money from their ownership of the means of production. This distinction between people who earn money through working and people who earn money through ownership underlies all of socialist thought. And it is important in a practical matter because the inequality and other negative aspects of capitalism do not result from people who work too much and add too much value through their labor. Those negative aspects result from people who own too much and extract too much rent through their ownership.

Socialists should view CEOs as a member of the labor class. Under a socialist world view, the working class is not so much an income level as it is a way to make money. If you make money from working, youre working class (or at least youre a member of labor rather than capital). Terms like middle class and upper middle class only seek to divide the people who earn money through their labor. If I could articulate the socialist world view with two examples, it would be this: a landlord who owns one rental property and makes $12,000 a year from it is a capitalist. A surgeon employed by a hospital who earns a salary of $500,000 is a laborer. To say this is not to villainize one and lionize the other. It is simply to acknowledge the coherent world view that earning money strictly through ownership is different from earning money through labor.

Now you may think that CEO is simply a stand-in for capital in general. And I admit that the owner is a hard concept to pin down. For most large companies, its the shareholders, and there are plenty of large companies where the CEO is in fact the sole owner. But the way people talk about it suggests that they know the CEO is an employee, and legislative definitions make it very clear that what people are talking about is highly paid employees. The Tax Excessive CEO Pay Act, for example, defines the pay gap as the gap between the highest compensated employee and the lowest compensated employee. In placing a limit on this value, the Act would place upper limits on the amount a highly-paid employee could receive but no limit on any distribution to the owners.

This type of messaging is harmful because it sends the message that any labor fight is between employees who are paid too much and employees who are paid too little. It never even acknowledges the rent extracted by the owners of the company. That distribution is taken for granted. The owners will get their share, and then the employees can fight over the rest. If a janitor is not making enough money, its because the CEO or their manager took too much.

It also works to divide the labor class the other way. If you go into any hospital and ask any doctor who do you have more in common with? The cleaning crew of the hospital or the CEO the doctor is going to say the CEO. Thats true for plenty of middle class laborers. They relate more to the highly paid managers of the company than they do to the low-wage employees. So if some regional manager of a department store thinks he or she isnt making enough, theyre going to blame the low wage employees. Theyre going to see any complaints against the CEO and other highly paid employees as attempts to take their own money. And this perception wouldnt even be that unreasonable in many cases. In fact, in the hospital example, the CEO may not even be the highest paid employee. In other words, its likely that the Tax Excessive CEO Pay Act, if implemented, would limit a doctors salary.

I want a world with class solidarity. That means the *entire* labor class, no matter how well compensated. From the janitor to the doctor to the regional manager to the CEOanyone who earns their money through labor, whether they went to business school or not. Im not sure how to do that, but a good start would be to acknowledge the concept of economic rents and stop using the CEO as some boogeyman who is hogging the entire payroll. That is not what socialism is about. It is not a fight between employees who are paid too much and employees who are paid too little. Theres more money to go around than focusing entirely on employees would have you believe. And theres nothing the owners love more than watching the employees bicker with each other over who is getting paid too much.

[Assistant]
>which is that employees (labor) are paid too little because the owners (capital) are paid too much.

In most cases, the owners are shareholders.

>The CEO is not the owner.

The CEO almost always is a shareholder and is, therefore, an owner. You even concede the CEO is sometimes the "sole owner." Can you even given an example of a CEO who has no ownership of a company? How exactly can you separate the CEO from ownership if not? The CEO makes decisions about compensation. They decide how little to pay everyone else to boost the value of their ownership.


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

[User] ELI5:Athletes seemingly get better every decade as we learn more about nutrition. Does this mean we truly don't know the capabilities/limitations of the human body?

[Assistant]
There's so much more to learn about the human body.  No question.

Just consider the amount of conflicting studies re: nutrition and sport-specific training.  In the 80s, carbs were good.  Now, carbs are bad.  In the 90s, fat was bad.  Now, it's making a nutritional comeback with a vengeance.


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

[User] If I had a super precise weighing scale, would my weight change as I breathed in and out?

[Assistant]
Yes, water leaves our lungs as we breathe out, also we breathe in O2 and breathe out CO2.  You would lose weight for both reasons.

It wouldn't however be an up and down cycle, for reasons others have posted.  It would be a slight drop with each exhale.


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

[User]
If I shine a white LED light through a prism, would I see a spectrum, or would I see a red line, a green line, and a blue line?

I've been thinking about this since I got some of those little window hangers that put shine little rainbows into your room by ~~refracting~~ dispersing(?) sunlight, but I don't have a white LED light bright enough to actually see anything if I shine it through.

[Assistant]
You'd most likely see a strong blue line, with a broad spectrum covering the other colors (on the long-wavelength side of blue).

The reason is the typical white LED is actually a blue LED which lights up a phosphor that produces the other colors. But the phosphor can only produce colors with lower-energy photons than the blue that excited it.

ETA: It's also possible to make a white LED by combining blue, red, and green LEDs, in which case you'd see 3 distinct lines in the output spectrum.


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

[User]
ELI5:Why did the U.S. win the Korean war but lose the Vietnam war?

Or perhaps put in another way: why is there a South Korea, but there isn't a South Vietnam? What made South Korea possible when we just barely made it out of Vietnam before Saigon fell?

EDIT: I was specifically trying to avoid getting into the semantics of "win/lose" in both wars with my comments above. I fully understand that the Korean war is not officially over.

EDIT 2: Apparently, no one read anything I typed above :(

[Assistant] They're not very good comparison candidates, they're 3,000Km apart with vastly different terrains & political situations. It's also arguable that the USA did not win the Korean war, given the existence of North Korea it would seem to validate the claim that the USA only partially succeeded. Vietnam was much more a war of the USAs own making than something the locals wanted any part of.


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

[User]
[DC] I'm Chemical King! I speed up or slow down chemical reactions! What does that mean?

So, I'm Condo Arlik from the planet Phlon. I'm a mutant with the power to be a catalyst, I can slow down or speed up any chemical reaction! Now I'm Chemical King, a member of the Legion of Super-Heroes! Mainly I just make things rust. Sometimes I can make things burst into flames. Brainiac 5 says I have the potential to do way more with these powers, but is too busy in his lab to explain anything to me. So, what sort of things can I do with the power to slow down or speed up chemical reactions? How can I save the galaxy?

[Assistant]
Get into medicine, and speed up the time spent mass producing medicines. You'd be astonished how long certain medicines take to make, and that's just the chemicals slowly combining in the right way for ages. Or perhaps get into engineering, by speeding up chemical reactions you can decrease time spent slowly building things like nanotubes. The thing you must remember is that practically all of existence runs off of chemical reactions of a sort. By speeding up these chemical reactions, you can speed up life. You can slow it to a stasis, even. Slow down a humans chemical reactions enough and they become basically inert. They can't move, the chemicals needed to power them just can't activate fast enough. Alternatively, increase chemical reactions in a human, and they become faster.

There's more here than just controlling how fast chemicals react. You're creating a very specialized time field, one that can accelerate or slow down reactions. Put some study into chemistry, get a degree in that stuff. You would be astonished how much more you can accomplish the more you understand what you're able to control.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why is it that the stool is always the same brown color (almost) regardless of what we have eaten, and same thing with urine. But if we eat beetroot both feces and urine becomes red?

All day one eats food of different colour but the "outcome" is always the same, except in this case. Why is that?

[Assistant] The red coloring in beets (betanin) isn't digestible.  Mostly, though, the color of waste products is mostly not based on what you eat - it's a product of the breakdown of red blood cells.  Specifically, urine is colored yellow by urobilin and feces are colored brown by stercobilin, urobilin, and bile (a liquid produced by the liver which helps digest fats).  Stercobilin and urobilin are byproducts of the breakdown of hemoglobin.  Since your red blood cells are recycled at a set rate, there's relatively little variation in the color of excretion.


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

[User]
How is it possible that the Haskell compiler is itself coded in haskell?

Hello, as the title indicates I am a little confused by the fact that the haskell compiler is coded in haskell. I suspect there are other languages as well, but I wonder how in the early days of haskell the creators did to run the first Haskell program  ?

[Assistant] It doesn't start in Haskell.  Say you design a language, and it compiles to executable code.  You write your first compiler in python, because it's easy.  As your language matures, it can understand more concepts and has all the features of a "full language". Then you write a compiler in your language, compile it with your old compiler.  Now you have a compiler written in the language it compiles.  For funsies, you then recompile the compiler using the new compiler, and now you're self hosting.


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

[User]
[Star Wars] What is the deal with the Anti Jedi sentiments?

There is something that I had been wondering about since the prequels, why are some individuals critical of the Jedi? I know there aren't the Jedi weren't perfect and they made careless mistakes especially with Vader and Exar Kun but the Jedi had been peacekeepers for centuries and they kept order throughout the galaxy. The Sith are obvious but why do some people hate the Jedi?

[Assistant]
Not everyone likes "peace."

Let me borrow a quote from a different part of the universe:

> True peace is not merely the absence of tension: it is the presence of justice.

Throughout the galaxy there are people who see injustice.  Maybe it's that the Hutts are in control of your planet.  Maybe it's that the policies coming out of the Senate have left you at a distinct disadvantage when it comes to trade with your neighbors.    Maybe you think its abhorrent that sentient beings can keep sentient droids as slaves, wiping memories as they see fit.

Hell, maybe you're just an asshole who thinks that what belongs to others should, by violence if necessary, belong to you.

To the extent the Jedi are keeping the peace, they are the faces of the system that prevents you from achieving your version of justice. And so, in turn, you dislike them in proportion to your grievance.


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

[User]
Is the carbon that makes up a tree the same actual molecules that are taken by the tree from airborne carbon dioxide?

Does this mean that trees literally make themselves out of thin air?

[Assistant]
Yes, the functional enzyme, called RuBisCo, is one of the only proteins which can take free CO2 and "fix" into a chemical that biological specimens (such as trees) can use. Once fixed, this carbon either goes into structural elements (such as plant tissue/cellulose) or into glucose that gives the plant energy when the sun is not shining.
It is interesting to note that RuBisCo is the most common protein on the planet, owing partially to extremely low catalytic turnover rate.


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

[User]
[MARVEL] Can characters like Doctor Strange or Reed Richards reach alternate universes like DC or our reality?

Are there any hints that the multi dimensional heroes are aware of or can access the DC universe, our universe the MCU and so on?

[Assistant]
There have been crossovers, so it's at least theoretically possible. The question is if they have the raw power (or backing) to get it done.

First, let's define terminology. A universe is one continuity, like 616 or the MCU.

A multiverse is a collection of universes: 616 *and* the MCU, as well as universes for each TV series. DC and Marvel each have their own multiverse.

The Omniverse is the collection of all multiverses. Marvel, DC, WH40K, Telletubbies, and so on.

Crossing over into a new universe is difficult enough. It generally involves very special circumstances, like Doom killing a guy who happens to be a multiversal singularity, or Superboy Prime punching the barrier between worlds. Strange can (sometimes) pull this off, because his patrons are powerful enough to make it happen. Richards can (sometimes) pull it off, because his tech is insanely advanced.

Crossing over into a new multiverse is an order of magnitude harder. Strange can't do it by himself, because his biggest patrons are still multiversal entities. Galactus can't even pull it off, and his tech is more advanced the Richards', so Professor Stretchypants is probably out, too.


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

[User] [Avengers: Endgame] I know he had no other choice, but using the whole Infinity Gauntlet with all of its stones was way too overkill to snap away Thanoss army. Which stones wouldve actually been enough to kill off Thanos and his army?

[Assistant]
In that moment? No way to know. Technically you could use the Space and Mind stones (anybody that is on Thanos team gets warped into the center of the sun) or Power and Mind/Soul to turn them to dust, mind stone and power(?) to change their allegiances, power and time to reverse everything that had happened- Any combination could likely have done it.

But.

Tony had to be sure. He couldnt risk any of them taking the gauntlet if hed died using just one (Quill is a demigod and almost died with just one.) and failed in eradicating all of them.

Its one of his first lines we see- I prefer a weapon you only have to fire once. Thats how dad did it, thats how America does it- And its worked pretty well so far.

He couldnt be sure he wouldnt die no matter what he did- Might as well be damn sure and take them all out then and there.


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

[User]
[Dragon Ball Z] So what would've happened if Vegeta hadn't killed Nappa?

Could he have adapted to Earth culture.... or at least as much as Vegeta did?  Would Frieza have been an easier fight if they had 4 Saiyans fighting instead of 3?
Would Ghost Nappa have become so popular?!?!?

[Assistant]
Nappa was raised in the Saiyan Culture far longer than either Goku or Vegeta. Vegeta himself said he only knew violence and destruction. Odds are he would have rejoined Frieza's army instead of turning on him because he simply didn't care.

Goku and Vegeta both spent a massive portion of their life on earth. They made friends, fell in love, and had a proud fighting spirit none could rival. They also had a deep hatred of Frieza and the emotion and pure hearts to go Super.


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

[User] ELI5: Why does powdered baby formula dissolve perfectly in water, but protein powder (or even chocolate for chocolate milk) usually clump up?

[Assistant] Baby formulas only like 10-15% protein by weight.  They're about 50% sugar by weight (mostly lactose).  Most protein powders are going to be 70-90% protein by weight.  Lactose dissolves into water much easier than proteins.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why does our sense of taste generally prefer unhealthy things (pizza, burger etc.) over healthy ones (broccoli etc.)?

If I were a body I would make my soul eat more healthy things. Soul: "pizza vs broccoli?" Body: "Go for broccoli dude!" But no, our sense of taste just tells us to get Pizza. Why?

[Assistant]
We evolved as wild creatures where crucial nutrients like fat, salt and sugar were hard to find, so we crave them.

Now due to modern technology/agriculture they're everywhere, but our urges haven't changed.


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

[User] Why does a wound itch when healing?

[Assistant] Cytokines and histamine make you itch. They're released by the body in areas of injury and promote healing. The itching is a by-product. Also, as the wound begins to heal, the new skin cells and collagen sort of entrap the small pre-existing nerves as they grow, which is perceived as itching.


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

[User] ELI5: Why is prostitution illegal? If both parties are consenting why is there an objection to those that sell their bodies for sex and those that pay for it?

[Assistant]
short answer.  prostitution is illegal because the governing body of a locality (aka government) deems it illegal.

long answer.  most governments are rooted in religious background and just haven't caught up to modern times.  there is also the issue of human trafficking or forced sexual servitude, by making prostitution illegal, you [un]successfully prevent/reduce those crimes as well.


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

[User]
Are tritium illuminated watches truly safe to wear when bremsstrahlung is considered?

Manufacturers of these GTLS (gaseous tritium light source) watches love to claim that they are completely harmless because the beta decay of Tritium cannot penetrate intact skin. They never mention the X-ray emission caused by bremsstrahlung - the reaction between the phosphorus and tritium.

Having an always-on low energy x-ray source strapped to your wrist can't be safe... can it?

[Assistant] The Q-value for the beta decay of ^(3)H is only 18 keV, so that's the maximum energy that the beta particle can possibly have for each individual decay. That means that the maximum energy of a bremsstrahlung photon emitted by one of these beta particles is 18 keV. Both 18 keV electrons and 18 keV photons are very strongly attenuated in condensed matter. So it's not really a worry.


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

[User] ELI5: How do people with amputated Appendages (Arms mainly) control prosthetics to the point where they have control of the prosthetic fingers? Awesome technology, seems it's only getting better, but was wondering how the connection is made when they attach the prosthetic like a glove.

[Assistant]
A robotic neuroprosthetic (a prosthetic that you can move with your brain) works by implanting electrodes in the brain on specific locations where your brain will activate when you are trying to move the missing limb.

Your brain has a designated motor centre, where the signals to move come from.   When you move, your brain sends a message from this part of your brain down your spine to the nerves in the body part it wants you to move.   Those nerves activate your muscles, and they contract, which moves your body part.

When you lose your body part, you do not lose the accompanying part in your brain that was able to move that body part.   Its like having a remote without the television.

The prosthetic is attached in place of the natural limb, and the electrodes are attached to your brain.   These electrodes are able to sense your brain sending those messages.   The electrodes are activated by the brains messages, and the prosthetic moves.


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

[User] Do astronauts need to clean the outside of space station windows?

[Assistant]
There's not enough "stuff" in space to dirty the windows of the ISS naturally. However, departing and  incoming shuttle thrusters give off enough particulate to dirty the windows over time. Back in 2015, the Russians on the ISS did an EVA to clean the windows.

So yes, but very slowly.


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

[User]
ELI5: That moment you feel more awake after staying up late for hours.

I'm tired, it's getting late, around midnight. I know I should go to bed, but I press on and continue browsing web pages/ TV channels.
Fast forward it's 2am. I'm physically and mentally exhausted, my eyelids are heavy, I start dozing off, but I force myself to stay awake.
3am. I decide to go to bed. However, I can't fall asleep as easily as I anticipated. Almost as if I missed my window of opportunity to fall asleep. Now I lay awake, unable to rest my eyes. Am I the only one?

[Assistant]
Don't confuse tiredness with sleepiness.

Your body releases sleep hormones in a particular rhythm. The interval is these releases about 1.5 hrs, and the window is about 10 minutes. If you do go to sleep during that time, you'll probably be out almost as soon as your head hits the pillow. The very worst thing to do when you feel this sleepiness is to go "ok, I'll just finish this level/chapter/email and then go to sleep."

Actually, reading in bed is a good way to find that sweet spot. Once you start losing focus and the letters start floating a bit, it's lights out.


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

[User] ELI5: How do TV torrent uploaders capture, edit, encode and upload their files so fast and consistently?

[Assistant]
Automation.

They use a TV Tuner to record the program. Then use utilities such as dvr-ms toolkit (for windows) to edit the recorded TV (calling routines like "ComSkip" to cut out commercials) and re-encode to more friendly formats (MKV h.264, etc).

From there, it depends, but likely, they have a script that is called when the above processing is done to create and upload a torrent to a tracker of their choice.

I used to do all of this, minus to torrent stuff, and it's very nice once you've gotten it setup and working.


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

[User] If it takes ~365.256 days for the earth to travel around the sun, shouldn't we, in addition to leap years, add an extra day to the calendar every 1000 years?

[Assistant]
We do. Every fourth year is a leap year, *unless* that year is divisible by one hundred in which case it isn't, *unless* that year is in turn divisible by four hundred in which case it is.

That's why 2000 was a leap year, while 1900 wasn't.

That scheme gets us accurate to within one day about every 5,000 years or so, which is more than we need since the precession of the equinoxes is not perfectly predictable that far out anyway. Assuming we're still using the same calendar in the year 7,000, we'll have inserted ad hoc adjustments as needed by then.


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

[User]
[Mathematics] If Euclid derived a formula for finding a prime higher than all the other primes, why is us discovering a new prime so important?

For example... Euclid said there are infinitely many primes because you can multiply all the primes you know together, add one, and that number will also be prime. So can't we just use that method to get more primes easily?

[Assistant]
You've misunderstood the proof; given the first n primes, it is not, in general, true that multiplying them together and adding 1 will give you a prime number. For example, the first six prime numbers are 2, 3, 5, 7, 11, and 13. If you multiply those together and add 1, you get

(2\*3\*5\*7\*11\*13) + 1 = 30031,

which isn't prime since 30031 = 59\*509.

What Euclid's proof really says is that *either* that number is prime *or* there is a prime, call it p, that divides it. However, p can't be any of the primes you started with, because that would imply that it divides 1 (take the number above and subtract the product of the primes). Thus, there is a prime not on the list.

Note also that if you take some arbitrary collection of primes, you can't even guarantee that the "new prime" you get will be bigger than all of the ones with which you started.


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

[User] ELI5: Why am I hungry before I sleep, don't eat, then wake up not hungry anymore?

[Assistant]
Hunger isn't just the feeling of an absence of food in your stomach. Hunger is a sensation caused by your brain when it detects that your immediately available energy (a chemical called glucose) doesn't match up to how much it thinks you need for your current activity rate.

When you sleep, you aren't very active, and your body can get by on reserves of energy (a chemical called glycogen, stored in the liver) that take longer to convert into useful energy. Immediately after you wake up, you're still in a restful state, so your brain doesn't think it needs to tell you to get more food.

Once you've gotten up and started your morning routine, you might find that you begin to feel hungry again as you become more active, and your brain starts to realise that you will soon be needing more energy. And then it's time for breakfast :)


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

[User]
The solar system completes an orbit of our galaxy every 240 million years. How do we know we won't pass through a region of our galaxy with hazardous conditions and how could we possibly look ahead to forecast something like that?

Obviously the Milky Way is massive, can we look ahead and extrapolate the orbit of our solar system to see if we are going to pass through a region of space that is unfriendly to life as we know it? Also, does this orbit bring us closer to anything of interest in the galaxy that allows us to get a better view of and or study?

[Assistant] The Milky Way is a disk galaxy. All the disk is rotating together and our sun is mostly just following along in that rotation. That means that as we rotate around the Galaxy the environment around us is also rotating along with us. So it will look more or less the same in 100 million years.


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

[User]
[Star Wars] If the Dark Side, as Yoda said, is quicker and easier, then how is it not more powerful? It's so much quicker an easier that a 60 year old Sith defeated an 800+ year old Master Jedi? Doesn't that make it more powerful by virtue of its quickness?

Also, Yoda was known or being exceptionally strong with the force naturally, even without his 800+ years of experience.

[Assistant]
Legends, but one quick example - a lone mediocre Jedi who happened to be in the right place and the right time was able to single-handedly hold off an entire army of extragalactic invaders and brought down the entire building that Yoda and Palpatine had dueled in. Ganner Rhysode went from being a brash, aggressive, and overconfident Jedi to a god of the Yuuzhan Vong. How? By finding within himself, in one crucial moment, the perfect state of being that the Jedi preached and dedicated their entire lives to discovering.

The ideal of the Jedi (which the Order of Yoda's time arguably fell far short of) is that they devote themselves to the will of the Force entirely, such that the Force can act through them - the Force using a Jedi to accomplish a task, rather than the other way around. In such a state of oneness with the Force, the entire concept of "more powerful" is irrelevant; the Jedi becomes merely a conduit for the cosmic power that surrounds and binds all life in the universe.

No Sith could ever hope to match such an event, as they would be fighting against the very power they are drawing from. Not the person, not the Jedi, but fighting against the Force itself made manifest.


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

[User]
ELI5: What do seniors with no savings do if they have no family?

Where to elderly folks who depend fully on social security go when they can no longer care for themselves if they have no family? Are there state funded nursing homes that take in residents?

[Assistant]
They live off of a combination of SSI income ($700/mo), food stamps, and there are many senior-specific services designed to help them stay in their homes as long as possible (that is both better for them, and cheaper for the fed govt). Some such programs do home repairs, home dr visits, and there are programs to drive sr's to dr visits. also community senior centers for fun little things to do for cheap/free.
Medicare pays for nursing homes. They aren't good ones.


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

[User] ELI5: What is happening when our eyes "glaze" over?

[Assistant]
Check out Brain Games on Netflix, it has a lot of info on these types of things.

Your brain uses 30% of its energy processing vision. When your eyes gloss over, your brain has realized what you are looking at isn't needed information in conjunction with what you are thinking about and has reallocated some of that 30% energy to another thought process. Temporarily.


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

[User] [Mad Max] Max was a cop before the apocalypse and Furiosa's backstory implies she was born after the apocalypse. But they appear to be the same age. What gives?

[Assistant]
Mad Max doesn't have one specific, instantaneous apocalypse.

- Things were already going down the drain long before 1, with oil shortages resulting from a Gulf War that blew up to be much larger than it was in reality leading to economic collapse, government instability, and lawlessness in many areas. Furiosa may have been born in an area that had already effectively experienced the apocalypse, with supplies no longer being delivered due to fuel shortages.

- At some point between 1 and 2, secondary fuel sources like coal and lower-grade oil were cut off as well. It's important to note that the wells did not absolutely run out; rather, large-scale distribution systems broke down. Water becomes scarce as filtration and pumping systems cease to operate without power. Some areas with more local fuel sources may have clung on during this time, as planes were evidently still flying.

- Between 2 and 3, a global nuclear exchange occurred between governments trying to control access to the last remaining oil supplies. This results in the state of affairs we see in 3 and Fury Road.


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

[User]
[Star Wars] Spoiler question in post re: fleet chase

Not sure how best to do the spoiler but desperately want to know the answer.

The Supremacy can take out the Raddus easily by itself, assuming no fancy suicide hyperspace attacks. The rest of the First Order's fleet can damage or outright destroy the Raddus without the Supremacy.

THE ENTIRE FLEET CHASES THE RADDUS IN SUBLIGHT FOR HOURS - WHY DID THE FLEET NOT JUST JUMP TO HYPERSPACE AHEAD OF THE RADDUS!?!?!? IT WOULD HAVE TAKEN LITERALLY SECONDS!

Phew. Sorry. Thank you kindly.

[Assistant]
Because you should never fight a battle when you can win just by waiting.

The First Order fleet had all the time in the world: the Resistance fleet was burning through its fuel and if they tried to jump again, they could just follow them (and the Resistance would have wasted even more fuel in the process). Any alternative to just waiting until the Resistance ships are out of fuel and dead in space is the poorer one.


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

[User]
ELI5:How can I only be allergic to a specific berry and seemingly no other ones? In my case I'm only allergic to strawberries.

EDIT: I just found out that a Strawberry is not a berry. However, it is the only thing I know of that I'm allergic to. So why could someone be allergic to Strawberries and not other similar foods that are of its class.

Can someone be only allergic to apples and not other fruit?
Can someone be only allergic to carrots and not other vegetables?

[Assistant] You can be allergic to anything that has a unique antigen, which is just a protein tag on the surface of a cell. Your body sees an antigen that doesn't belong and sends an immune response after it. If the tag is found in multiple food items, like glutens of various forms for people with severe allergies, then you will be allergic to all of those things. If the tag is unique, then it will only be triggered by a specific food item.


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

[User]
"This structure has novel features which are of considerable biological interest," Watson & Crick's famous understatement in their 1953 cover letter to Nature. Does anyone have any further such examples?

Science writing has been typically passive with the utmost care not to overstate; let the results speak for themselves and all that. So I was wondering, from the most famous or influential papers ever published, what single lines or short passages boil the entire discovery down into such brevity. Would love to read through further examples, if anyone has any. Thanks!

[Assistant]
Ronald Fisher:
>"The value for which P=.05, or 1 in 20, is 1.96 or nearly 2 ; it is convenient to take this point as a limit in judging whether a deviation is to be considered significant or not.".


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

[User]
eli5 What is a Candidate Key? [Normalisation Process]

I know it's a basic question but I can find a simple answer.

Is it just multiple primary keys?

[Assistant] It is a key which is eligible to be a primary key, it is also unique. There maybe multiple candidate keys in a table out of that we select one as the primary key, which is the most suitable for a particular table. For an example in Employee table there is employeeId and passportNo, both are unique so they are eligible to be primary key so they are called the candidate key. But out of that employeeId is the most preferred to become the primary key since it is the Employee table.


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

[User]
[Star Trek] How the heck do you burn food when using a replicator?

One of my buddies who was stuck on Voyager during its extended trip in the Delta Quadrant always tells stories about during potlucks the great and powerful Captain Janeway always managed to burn food that she made with replicator. How in the world did she manage that? That said apparently the burnt food was still better than anything the chef Neelix made.

[Assistant]
You can specify what temperature you want your food to be. Janeway could be setting it too high, so the food burns after it's been made.

It's also possible that replicators can toast food after it's been replicated. Some present-day microwaves can do that. Maybe the interface is fiddly, or Janeway is an indifferent cook.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why does sugar get viscous (form a syrup) at high concentration but salt doesn't?

I just had a flash back to trying to thicken something as a kid with salt but it never got syrupy. The sugar isn't forming polymers is it? What is it about about sugar that can make a syrup but salt cannot?

[Assistant]
Firstly, they are very different chemicals. When salt dissolves in water it breaks apart (dissociates) into sodium and chlorine ions which are individually herded (conjugated) by water molecules. Sugars are much larger, complex molecules which do not generally break apart when interacting with water.

Because sugars are carbohydrates, they can participate in hydrogen bonding which increases viscosity and surface tension. Each molecule's "heads" try to stay close to their neighbors' "butts". Because they are larger and are mostly planar they can more strongly interact through van der Waals forces (this effect is small compared to the hydrogen bonding in solution)


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

[User] ELI5:Why do couples so often experience a decrease in sex drive shortly after marriage?

[Assistant]
There isn't one good answer for that because for one, it isn't the same with each couple and two because it doesn't necessarily always happen.

One common reason though is simply time. A married couple will most likely spend their days working and by the time the day is done, sleep sounds like a much better idea than sex.

Another reason is that after a while, a couple's sex life tends to become a little bit boring. When you first start having sex, you're both willing to try different positions and other stuff to please yourself and your partner. After a while, you figure out what works and it becomes more relaxed and not as exciting.

Third, as you get older, your libido drops simply because that's how your body works.

But really, tons of married couples still have plenty of sex drive, but they often have to actively "spice things up" to keep their libidos up and continue to make sex exciting.


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

[User]
ELI5: why is 12 the magical age for drug store medicine?

Every time you read the back of a medicine box the age is always 12 when you are considered an adult. Why is this?

[Assistant] Children have underdeveloped immune systems, at around 11 years old the metabolism of the body begins to change in preparation for/as part of puberty. So children 12 and older have a better way to regulate body temperatures, develop specific immunities, and process toxins, all of which make it so that they are closer to adults and can take medicine differently.


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

[User]
ELI5:How exactly do Saline pools work?

How does a saline pool system work compared to a chlorine system? Is it as effective?

[Assistant] Salt water pools still use chlorine, the difference is that the chlorine is produced through electrolysis using the salt as the base material. The advantage is that the salt electrolysis process creates free chlorine ions (the type of chlorine that kills bacteria) and burns off chloramines (the type of chlorine that burns your eyes and smells like strong bleach). As long as they are maintained they will work just as well at killing bacteria, and people tend to find them less irritating, especially if they have sensitive skin. The salt system also has the benefit of "softening" the water. They tend to have a higher initial setup cost though, and saltwater is more corrosive than freshwater so you have to keep an eye on the internals and plumbing of the filtration system.


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

[User] [The Thing/Terminator] Can the Thing assimilate the living tissue of a Terminator?

[Assistant] I think it would be able to digest and absorb the tissue, but would find it functionally useless once it broke down the tissue and reached the machine components below. The Thing is intelligent enough to build a spaceship (at least, maybe, after it has assimilated with multiple people) and to use deception, so it would likely be aware enough to realize that there's no survival advantage to merely disguising itself as the living tissue surrounding an otherwise inorganic being.


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

[User]
[Star Wars] Does Luke misuse the Force when attacking the Death Star?

Under Obi-wan's guidance Luke switches off his targeting computer and uses the Force when firing torpedoes into the Death Star, killing millions of people.

Yoda says that the Force should be used for knowledge and defense, never for attack.

Obi-wan should be aware of that teaching, so what's up with Obi-wan telling Luke to use the force when attacking the Death Star?

[Assistant]
No. He let the Force guide him, which is inherently how the Force is supposed to be used.

And Yoda was speaking about directly using it to attack, choking people and lightning and throwing people around.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why is it acceptable to wait an hour to see a doctor when you have an appointment?

It's 52 minutes passed and he just started with the guy ahead of me.

[Assistant] Because we understand that while nobody likes to wait, doctors aren't making you wait because they are reading cosmo and taking the fun quizzes. You have to wait because sometimes emergencies happen and doctors have to attend to that. Or because people make an appointment for something they believe is a tiny issue which then turns out to be not so tiny.


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

[User]
ELI5:how is boxing scored

Why is floyd mayweather winning when he isn't taking initiative or throwing more punches? How do they decide each round and how do they decide the overall winner?

[Assistant]
Boxing is most commonly scored with the winner of a round being given a 10 and the loser a 9.  A draw gives both a 10.  Any knockdowns mean another point is deducted from that boxer.  Once that score is established, any point deductions for fouls called by the referee are calculated in, so that if the winner has a foul called, the score becomes 9-9.

Examples:
X wins a round over Y: 10(X) -  9(Y)

X wins a round, knocking down Y twice: 10(X) - 7(Y)

X wins a round, knocking down Y, but also committing a foul: 9(X) - 8(Y)

The winner of a round is basically determined by who landed more "clean" punches.  Shots that just graze the body or get blocked are "worth" far less than a clean punch to the body or head.  It's better to land a few solid punches that to be continuously throwing misses or into guards.


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

[User] ELI5: Why, in humans, are males generally larger than females when it is the opposite in most other species?

[Assistant]
Humans, like most non-human primates, have sexual dimorphism in which the males tend to be larger than the females. Some primates (like chimpanzees and bonobos) see the males almost twice the size of females. Sexual dimorphism appears in body size, muscle mass, canine teeth, craniofacial structure, and even sometimes deepening voices.

There are very few primate species that have reverse dimorphism (females larger than males), so it appears to be "normal" that humans display the same dimorphism that other primates "typically" have.


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

[User]
[Fallout] Are there any operating educational institutions (other than the Institute) and where are they?

In fallout there is an emphasis on science and technology and a lot of characters are experts in these subjects. Some even have the title of Dr. Do the doctors of the fallout universe actually have degrees? Where did they learn all that they know?

Side note: theres a guy in New Vegas who convinces the NCR to hire him because he has a theoretical degree in physics. Fun joke, but it suggests that degrees are obtainable in the post apocalyptic world.

[Assistant] Most doctors and scientists are more apprenticeship style learning where assistants learn their craft from former masters. There are also groups like the Followers of the Apocalypse who provide education for a wide variety of subjects. In places like the NCR there no doubt they have universities and colleges.


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

[User]
CMV: Adopting kids is better than having them.

I know some people want to have kids they gave birth too and all that, but I feel like the stakes of child birth are too high. Wouldn't it be easier to just adopted a kid(s) thats already been through enough, instead of giving birth to something? I understand, raising a kid that's from foster care is tough. Really tough and time consuming, but isn't the same for giving birth to a child???

Don't know why anybody would want to put themselves through that. On a scale to 1-10 child birth is like a freaking 9! a 9....

I just don't get it, please explain.

[Assistant]
> . Wouldn't it be easier to just adopted a kid(s) thats already been

Not even close. Having sex is much easier than all the red tape to adopt. Its also much cheaper.

And most people want to experience their childs whole life, beginning at infancy. There are far more people wanting to adopt a newborn than there are newborns that go up for adoption.


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

[User]
[Lord of the Rings] What was Sauron's endgame?

So say Sauron got the ring, conquered Gondor, Rohan, etc. Say he won everything there was to be contested. Then what? Would Sauron have commanded the Orcs to build spaceships and start invading other worlds? Waged war on some higher plane, perhaps? Yes, I just recently watched the trilogy again.

[Assistant] At the end of the First Age Sauron was offered a chance at redemption.  He would have to prostrate himself in front of the Valar and perform some sort of penance.   He was too proud to bear the shame and hid on middle earth.  While its impossible to fully know his mind.  His goal appears to be that of his old master Morgoth...  To stand apart from the Valar and their lord, to be free of their influence, and to shape the world according to his own desires.   Sauron being of a lesser order cannot hope to truly shape middle earth in the same way that Morgoth was able to, but what he can do is reverse the out come of the War of Wrath, to stand apart and rule unchallenged by the Valar or Mortals...  Some might say... to be free.


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

[User]
[Men in Black] What becomes MIB's role on an Earth where humanity meets an alien race after becoming a spacefaring species?

So I work at MIB headquarters, and it may have been brought up in orientation, but I can't recall what the protocol is in the event of humanity's ascension to an interstellar species. Do we go public with our existence, do the aliens already living here shed their disguises.

[Assistant]
Exodus of experienced MiB to trading companies, manufacturing licensees of alien technology, arts organizations, cultural sensitivity training providers, and universities.

Also bodyguards.

Given this expectation, writing a post-contact protocol is viewed as fanfic.


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

[User]
Number of citations?

In a science field (edit: AGU journals, IEEE journals),  I was wondering about the different 'citation scores'.   If an author (as lead author) has 5 papers with over 100 citations,  is that something that is really good?

There is not a lot of papers, so the h-index and i10 index are not all that impressive.   Is there an i100 index?

[Assistant] It is something that is really field dependent, and even community-within-field dependent. There's not really a great way to generalize this! Some fields love conference papers, others journal papers, others books and so on and so forth.


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

[User] [ASoIaF/GoT] Could Barristan Selmy have succeeded in cutting his way through the Kingsguard?

[Assistant]
Doubtful.

Barristan Selmy is an incredible fighter but there is a few things to consider.

1. It's 1v5. This might not be so bad if it's Selmy in full armour against a group of random peasants, but he's up against five capable fighters in full armour. Robert's Kingsguard were poor in comparison to Selmy's former brothers, but they're not pushovers.

2. Selmy is about 63 at this point. Once again, he's an incredible fighter, but age doesn't discriminate. He's up against five men who are 20-30 years younger than him.

3. Not only are there five other Kingsguard there, but there are also the Goldcloaks and Sandor Clegane present as well. Starting a fight against them all would be suicide.

It's more of a boast brought on by the heat of the moment, and it's also him venting his frustration at the state of the Kingsguard. This is a man who served besides Arthur Dayne, Gerold Hightower, Oswell Whent, Jonothor Darry, and Lewyn Martell. He's basically seen the Kingsguard go from the best it could possibly be to rock bottom in the space of fifteen years.


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

[User] [Dark Souls] Why are all the animals in Lordran so huge?

[Assistant] The rats are large because they feed on humans. Their humanity empowers the rats.  In the depths there are still small rats scurrying around. The crow is (maybe) an avatar of the god Velka, so that explains that one. What other animals are big?


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

[User]
ELI5: Why has evolution favored external testicles for temperature regulation of sperm rather than just favoring sperm that flourishes in any body temperature?

I would imagine that the natural selection process would originally just favor the sperm that's able to survive in harsher environments rather than developing a whole dangling contraption that's prone to injury and environmental influence.

[Assistant]
Because the natural selection process does not necessarily favor the *best*; it favors what works *well enough*.

Having a dangling contraption may be an inelegant, imperfect solution, but it worked well enough to keep us around.


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

[User] ELI5:Was there ever a "wood age"?What do we know about wooden(and other perishable) tools?

[Assistant]
No, there was never a point in human history where we could use wooden tools but not stone tools.

The "stone age" is just a term used to describe when we used tools that were naturally occurring.

We used fire hardened spears and flint knapped with stone.

Edit- Flint knapping not flint mapping.


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

[User]
[Star Trek] If a human doctor wants to join Starfleet, how many different species' physiologies do they need to study?

I mean, obviously the Tricorder helps with a lot of stuff, but if they were caught without one would McCoy, Bashir, etc. be able to perform invasive surgery or even prescribe an indigestion cure for a Vulcan or a Klingon? How about for something more unusual, like a Kelpien, or a Jem'Hadar? Is Starfleet medical school more like veterinary school?

[Assistant] Due to our common ancestor, most humanoid species in the galaxy are similar enough to cross-breed; So it's reasonable to assume there's a lot of medical overlap between them, enough to generalize medical training.


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

[User]
[Pacific Rim] More practical alternatives to the Jaegers

Why did the world governments see giant monsters coming out of the see and say "Giant robot"

I get the plasma shots.

But why didn't they just use plasma turrets around the city.

What about nuclear options do those work.

Why not use satellites that would just cook the monsters from space.

[Assistant]
The short version is that they used Jaegers because Jaegers worked.

For the long version, let's run through your suggestions in no particular order:

They actually *did* use nuclear weapons; in fact, the very first kaiju (Trespasser) was killed in Oakland, CA, USA by three nuclear missiles. Nukes are pretty bad options, though, strictly weapon-of-last-resort - they're horribly messy. Sure, you kill the kaiju, but you also destroy and irradiate everything around it, and everything downwind of the blast. It works, but badly.

Plasma turrets around the city would require a *lot* of plasma turrets, around every population center, enormous energy infrastructure, and some way to keep the kaiju away and targetable until the turrets could do the job. And the moment you lose a few turrets, your defenses are wide open and the kaiju can just waltz on through. This isn't an awful design, and you could protect a few key locations like this, but it doesn't scale well and it's extremely inflexible.

Worse, plasma turrets are only usable if the kaiju comes near the city. You don't want the kaiju to come near the city, they're toxic. Sometimes you'll *have* to fight them there, but if possible you want to kill the kaiju as far away from a city as you can.

A satellite solution would require even more infrastructure than the plasma turrets. You can't just have one - you'd have to have a whole big network of them, all spread out across the globe, all engineered to be powerful enough to fire down into Earth's atmosphere and still have enough energy left to cook a kaiju. And you'd need to maintain them. And if you ever need to adapt or improve them, you'd have to be sending up new space missions. And kaiju aren't going to just stand there and be hit - you probably can't cook them while they're underwater, and on land you'll be trying to hit a relatively small, fast-moving target from a long, long, long way away. Maybe you could do this with infinite resources and a lot of space-based infrastructure, but it isn't practical.

(If you knew where the kaiju came from, and it wasn't protected by a whole lot of energy-dissipating water, you could maybe position one over the breach and snipe kaiju as they arrive - but that's not really an option for how things played out.)

So let's re-examine our problem, here, and our needs: We have big, combat-ready monsters showing up at initially unpredictable times, in unpredictable locations, on unpredictable terrain. We can't build a wall around the whole world, but we need to kill these things before they can do too much damage, and ideally before they get too close to us.

We need war machines that can respond and deploy quickly, handle all kinds of battlefields, armed and armored to the teeth. We need to pilot them *extremely* well to keep up with the likes of the kaiju, and since each kaiju is different we need to be ready for the unknown. We need enough weapons to act as a rapid-response team, but a small enough number to be maintainable and upgradeable as tech becomes available and our understanding of kaiju grows.

We need super-tanks. That's really all a jaeger is - a manageably big all-terrain armored combat platform. Since we have the technology to pilot them in part by human brain, to make them more responsive and effective in the field, it's easiest to make them also physically resemble people so that the brain can make better sense of the input and output. So: big, armored, heavily-armed human-shaped robots.

The details, of course, are up to whoever makes the things - their priorities, their resources, their pilots, their tests & upgrades. But the basic idea, the fundamental platform, was tried, worked, and rolled out as a solution - short term or long term, depending on who you asked, but a solution none the less.


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

[User]
[DC] Why is Batman (almost) always portrayed as a/the hero in elseworld stories?

Likewise, Superman is usually turned/is evil. Personally, I find it far more likely that Batman turns evil. Or, at the very least, another powerful hero like Martian Manhunter/Wonder Woman being evil.

[Assistant]
Because that is Batman character. He is someone who walks that very thin line and refuses to budge and has sacrificed so much of his humanity to do so. It's his greatest strength as well as his biggest weakness. The others have more of their humanity and therefore are more susceptible to becoming their greatest fear.

I also don't know what you mean when you say Superman is usually turned evil. That only really happened in Injustice and the general consensus is that it's a pretty crappy portrayal of Superman despite it being a good story.


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

[User] ELI5: What is 'cultural appropriation'? Haven't cultures been influenced by one another for-ever?

[Assistant]
'Cultural Appropriation' is when one wealthy, famous, and politically influential culture co-opts another culture's practices in such a way that it ruins the other culture's ability to connect with it.

The most famous example is Rastafarianism. You'll see a lot of young stoners with pictures of Bob Marley in their rooms talking about pot and God who would have no idea who Haile Selassie was or what the Coptic church was all about. It permanently associated the spiritualist practices of the Rastafarians with general stoner culture, and made it so that people look at ordinary Ethiopian religious practitioners like they were a bunch of stoners. You have ruined it for them by making the wrong meaning or a very small part of the meaning the only meaning that people think of when they see it.

It's not cultural appropriation to wear an Islamic ring in a Viking culture. But let's say that they wore it, looked for a few minutes into 'halal' and decided it meant having multiple wives, and then wore it as a symbol of their wife-swapping viking sub-culture. Then they've 'appropriated' it, because people who see actual muslims wearing that style of ring will assume they support that sub-culture. Cultural appropriation creates misunderstanding and ruins practices. Just wearing a ring is just wearing a ring, but beware associating someone else's culture with your sub-culture.

Because of the cultural appropriation of the Rastacap (for example), an old monk who truly believes that the second coming of Christ appeared in Ethiopia preaching anti-colonialism and a whole host of other things cannot wear his religious headwear in court, because the Jury will think he's just an old stoner.


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

[User]
CMV: "Negative Voting" (i.e. a vote against someone and not for someone) should be allowed

This is something I have been thinking about and I havent been able to find a significant or dangerous flaw so I figured Id open it to some fresh eyes.

Everyone should always vote. I really don't care what kind of election it is or who is running, but your vote should always be submitted and counted. However, many people see voting between multiple "bad" choices as a futile effort and choose not to vote at all. I believe a Negative vote option would eliminate this mindset.

If only 2 people are running in the election, one could argue that a vote for A is a vote against B. But (as is usually the case) when there are more than 2 people and you do not want to vote for A, having only the option of voting *for* B or C (if you dont really like them either) adds disincentive to vote. But if you know you have the option of a "Negative A" vote, then you can still make your strongest opinion known that you dont want A and that B or C is more preferable but you dont really care between them that much.

A difficulty of this system is that counting could take longer if the ballots must be counted by hand. However, many systems are available that would allow for automatic counting to not take any longer (i.e. all you would need is a bubble to fill in that says "NEGATIVE VOTE" above or near each name). I do not want to hear that this would be confusing. It could be made confusing if that was the intent, but a ballot that is:

> Name(Party)         Vote For[]             Vote Against[]

Is not confusing (and if it is, then there are bigger issues besides a negative voting system).

The best counterpoint I can think of is that rank choice voting allows you to rank your preferred options, but they are still votes *for* someone in the end. If you are in a position where the options do not instill any confidence, RCV doesnt help you; all it does is allow you to rank your options from "dont care" to "dont want". But Negative voting can also be used in RCV as long as the whole ballot is a negative vote (i.e. you would rank them from "dont want" to "dont care" so that your negative vote applies just like someone elses positive vote). I do not advocate for a system that merges RCV positive and RCV negative votes; either the whole ballot is votes for OR votes against.

Theoretically, this could lead to a situation where all participants garner negative votes, but I feel that more people would still prefer to vote for somebody as opposed to against someone and so the chances of this are very slim. A negative vote option could help the minority of people who feel their vote *for* someone is unimportant that their negative vote would have more of an impact.

So let me know what you think: should a democracy allow for a "negative vote"? Would a "negative vote" severely impact the structure, function, and form of a democracy? Is giving a "negative vote" a logical conclusion in a democracy for total fairness (i.e. I can *vote for* or *not vote* or *spoil ballot*, but why should "vote against" be excluded from my options?)

[Assistant]
Where i live, people vote in order of preference for political positions. There is pretty much never an election with just two people, and there are a lot of parties for a variety of political beliefs.

The voting system has a list of candidates listed in a random order, with their photos, names, and parties next to them. Next to each candidate is a box. You write a number next to the ones you like in order of how much you like them (1= first choice, highest number=last choice). If you don't like them, you don't write a number next to them at all. Could that be a better system than you suggest? checking two boxes seems like a great way to lead to confused ballots.


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

[User]
How come diseases and conditions where motor functions of the entire body are lost, but the mind remains intact (such as locked-in syndrome), individuals can still retain minor control over muscles in the face?

Is there a link between muscles in the eyes/cheeks/chin/forehead and the brain that differs from the other muscles in the body? Why is it that even with degenerative diseases, voluntary movement can be entirely lost but still some movement is retained in the head/face/vocal cords?

[Assistant]
So the nerve supply to your face is different than the nerve supply to the extremities. The muscles in your extremities receive innervation, or neurological stimulation, from nerves that originate from motor cortices, while the nerves that innervate the face/cords directly arise from the brain/brainstem itself. To be more clear, the motor cortex itself does not control the face, but it does control the extremities.

This doesn't mean that the cranial nerves themselves won't be affected by the disease, but it means that if the motor cortex is the only thing that has notable damage from the aforementioned disease, then then cranial nerves (CN) may be spared, leaving a portion of the face untouched.

*as pointed out below, the corticobulbar tract originating in the motor cortex, does provide some innervation to the face.


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

[User]
cmv: IQ tests are not an accurate measure of intelligence and their use should be discarded and replaced.

The idea that you can capture intelligence in a test seems very ridiculous to me. Some people are artistically intelligent. Some people are socially intelligent. Some people are emotionally intelligent or empathetic.

People will boast saying I have an IQ of blah blah blah and I think its absolutely ridiculous. I also think its a poor metric of how someone will contribute to society. Someone with a 120 IQ may not perform nearly as well as someone with an 80-100 range IQ.

Whats the point of even continuing to use it or put people into gifted programs considering it isnt even a consistent metric of their potential performance in a field? Idk.

[Assistant]
The problem with the IQ test is in the name only.  The test is one of the best indicators we have for specific types of logical or spatial reasoning aptitudes, but not for general intelligence.  So it should really be re-named, not discarded.

People who boast about their IQ rarely have anything else to boast about.

Statistically, what is currently called IQ does correlate to higher achievement in academics, standardized testing, college graduation, and lifetime income.


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

[User]
ELI5: If I bred a red-eyed hedgehog and a blue-eyed hedgehog, I assume there'd be no chance of a purple-eyed offspring. But why not?

I had trouble looking up the exact information but I'm assuming that blue eyes are recessive in hedgehogs, and red/ruby are dominant? (I know for a fact they're both possible - mine has blue eyes). Assuming this is true, wouldn't 50% of the offspring end up with incomplete dominance, or a mix of blue and red eyes?

[Assistant] Because the genes doesn't mix that way. There's one gene for blue eyes and there's one gene for red eyes. When the baby is made the DNA from the parent's doesn't mix by just being added onto each other, some genes from the father is used and some from the mother is used. Therefore when you breed a red eyed hedgehog with a blue eyed one it's either one of them.