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

[User]
In the US today, you cannot protect your rights from being infringed upon by the government with guns. CMV

I'd like to keep this CMV with a narrow focus just on this issue, and to not get into a discussion of other aspects of the gun control discussion.

"A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed."

My view basically comes down to this: I can't see any individual or well organized militia successfully preventing the government from taking away their rights. To me, this divides into two categories, (1) inability for you to prevent the government from taking a non-physical right (tracking you through the internet, attacking you with a drone, charging a tax that is an infringement of your rights, not letting you obtain a marriage license, preventing you from voting) and (2) arming yourself with a gun and fight for some physical space.

For the first point, there are many, many rights that can be taken away and whether or not you have a gun is irrelevant. Abortion could be outlawed tomorrow. I cannot marry a woman. The government is collecting data about me to a degree that's not known. I have to file income taxes. I will have to pay taxes to one day inherit my parent's money. I cannot build any building I want on my own property. My driver's license can be taken away from me. These are not all examples of rights I feel I deserve or want but they are examples of rights where having a gun cannot help me.

Now, for the second point. I simply can't envision a situation where a group of people with guns is able to overpower a police force, the National Guard, a State Militia, or the US Military. So I don't see any situation where people could prevent the government from being in a space and controlling it for a sustainable time period.

Please, CMV. I have not been able to think of any counter examples to these arguments.

Edit: My view has been changed. I think the main problem with my view was I saw this as a plausibility question, not a possibility question. It's not likely that this will happen in the us in my lifetime, but that does not mean it is not possible. This is also the reason I didn't consider comparisons between places like Syria, Iraq, or Vietnam with today's US because the differences are so obvious and the political troubles are on an entirely different level. But that has no bearing on the existence of the phenomenon of small armed groups overthrowing governments. There may be situations that would make it more difficult in the US for this to happen but it hypothetically could.

And thanks to everyone who responded!

[Assistant]
Small groups of motivated people with guns have stymied the US Army for years.   See the Vietcong or the Taliban. Right now in Syria groups armed with improvised weapons and small arms are in year 3 of a civil war vs a fully equipped military force.

Guerrilla tactics and the support of a native population can greatly change the tide of a conflict.   The citizenry doesnt need to march in parade formation and engage an army division on teh open plains.  They need to cause enough damage to make the government over-react... the overreaction will enrage the rest of the population and probably a good chunk of the army itself (made of citizens and unlikely eager to kill their own countrymen).

So, in the most direct way, you are correct. Owning weapons will not allow a small group of people to assault the White House and conquer hte Federal government... but widespread weapons ownership DOES have a realistic shot at creating resistance and fracturing the government and army.    It would be a horrible bloody mess... but thats why its a last resort.


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

[User]
[Mario] Does everyone in the Mushroom Kingdom have an evil doppelgnger like Wario and Waluigi?

Is Warios origin ever explained anywhere? Bowser-commissioned clone? Mario super fan turned evil? Distant cousins? Do other people in this universe have Wa-counterparts? Would a Wa-Bowser be a good guy?

[Assistant]
So, Wario is from the future (bowser brings him back to the present) implying he's a *descendent* of Mario. Alas, he doesn't get on well with his great grandpa.

Walugi is more unnerving- at no point, in any of the decades of games, is he *ever* given a backstory. It's not even hinted at. He's just...there.


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

[User] ELI5: Why do cysts keep coming back over and over if the sac isn't removed? Does the sac generate more sebacum (sp?) or is it something else?

[Assistant]
To answer your question, it is important to define the terms which describe what laypeople call "cysts."

There are abscesses which are pus-filled pockets within the skin and associated soft tissue.  They form when bacteria get into the tissue and multiply.  Pus is a thick, typically off-white fluid which is made of dead bacteria, body fluids, and dead white blood cells that are trying to fight the infection.

A sebaceous cyst (sometimes called an epidermoid cyst) is a sterile (not infected) pocket of material under the skin.  It is like an abscess but not filled with pus.  There are several different types but the difference is not important for this explanation.  They form most commonly when skin cells start growing underneath the layer they are supposed to.  They form a round structure that fills up with dead skin cells.  Usually when skin cells die, they flake off the body but since these skin cells are trapped under the skin, the dead cells fill up the cyst.  The material inside a sebaceous cyst is called sebum and it is much thicker than pus; sebum is like toothpaste while pus is like gravy.

You treat abscesses and sebaceous cysts differentially.  An abscess must be cut into so pus can drain.  This takes pressure off the surrounding tissue, improves blood flow, and allows white blood cells, healing cells, and antibiotics into the area.  An abscess will not heal until it drains because the bacteria can hide inside the pocket from white blood cells and antibiotics.

On the other hand, if you try to remove the sebum from a sebaceous cyst (I say remove because it is so thick that it will not drain on its own even if you cut the cyst open), it will decrease the size of the cyst temporarily but it can recur.  This is because the skin cells that formed the sebum in the first place are still there.  They are the "sac" that you referred to in your question.

As an aside, sometimes sebaceous cysts can become inflamed if bacteria gets inside the sebum.  In those cases, doctors typically prescribe antibiotics and allow the infection to resolve before attempting to cut the sac out.  It is difficult to remove an inflamed sebaceous cyst because the sac becomes very fragile and will tear into multiple little pieces rather than come out in one or a few large pieces.  If you leave just a single tiny portion behind, then the entire cyst can return.

For bonus material, people can develop recurrent abscesses in the same place as well.  This is not due to failure to fully remove a "sac" (there is none in an abscess), but rather due to scar tissue that forms in the skin and underlying tissue.  If that area becomes infected again, an abscess has an easier time forming in the same location because of that scar tissue, like grooves that form in the couch cushion encourage you to sit in that spot again.


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

[User] ELI5: What exactly is diarrhea? What's going on in our body when it happens?

[Assistant] Your body goes into purge mode to get something out of its GI track. In this, it pushes the contents through the intestines quickly, not allowing the large intestine enough time to absorb as much water as it usually does.


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

[User]
How effective are the black bars football players put under their eyes?

I understand it helps with the light, the glare and the reflection from the lightspots, I was just wondering if someone had answers concerning the usefulness of the black lines football players put under their eyes.

[Assistant]
Eye black helps to reduce veiling glare (lens flare) which, in turn, boosts your ability to differentiate between light and dark. Being able to see that contrast helps players judge an object's speed as it travels towards them. So a receiver in football being able to judge when and where the ball will land while it's in the air. Or a batter in baseball judging the speed and type of throw.

*But* some sort of visor is basically necessary for any noticable difference. Just the eye black on it's own is negligible. But a hat and eye black helps to alleviate more glare than wearing just a hat.

Edit: it's fairly effective as long as you also wear a visor of some sort. When you reduce glare to your eye, you also reduce the amount of light your eye takes in. This means your eye will take in more light from things you're directly looking at and allow better focus and contrast. Eye black maybe also helps keep sweat from clinging to your cheeks and creating more glare.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why are some flat trailers carried by big rigs arched?

Got stuck behind one in traffic today and couldn't figure it out.

[Assistant]
It increases the load capacity of the trailer.   If a similar trailer were to be loaded with the same payload, but it was flat, it would flex downward slightly.  Think of it like a leaf spring, they are arched upward to support weight.

You might also ask why they don't put coiled up springs underneath the middle if it helps carry heavy things, but the answer boils down to design simplicity.


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

[User]
Why was Being and Time more influential than Process and Reality?

One thing that has always puzzeled me. Both Heidegger's Being and Time and Whitehead's Process and Reality were released around the same time 1927. Both were groundbreaking texts but obviously Being and Time was the much more influential text. What's interesting about this is that I tend to view Process and Reality as being the more radical departure of the metaphysical tradition at the time, but i could honestly be wrong here. What are your thoughts?

[Assistant] The obvious answer here is that you probably couldn't have picked a better date for *Being & Time* than 1927; it is decidedly a book of the 1920s, both in terms of the questions it deals with and the thriving German intellectual landscape that it emerged out of. This is, ultimately, how books find their audience: Not by being the most "groundbreaking" but by adressing the right questions at the right time, at the right people. Meanwhile, Whitehead was a perennial outsider to philosophy and published *Process & Reality* in English, at a time when in the Anglosphere, the driving intellectual forces largely considered grand speculative metaphysics to be a dusty relic of the 19th century. Since then, Whitehead has simply faced the fate of all highly idiosyncratic, non-canonical thinkers: They are just too much effort to get into and too peripheral to common debates to be worthwhile for the general philosophical public (unless there is some sort of revival; Deleuze, the great gravedigger of philosophy, seems to at least have slightly increased interested in Whitehead over the last few decades).


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

[User]
[Game of Thrones] Why didn't Robb send an envoy to the Tyrells and Dorne?

Robb never sent an envoy to High Garden or Dorne to form an Alliance. What was the reasoning behind this? Why not send Karstark to Dorne to garner support? Surely Dorne would be pissed about Elia Martell and want to side with Robb for revenge.

Edit: Many of you have pointed out that they had the Tyrell's support through Renly. I understand that Renly brought the Tyrells with him. What I do get is why not send an envoy to Highgarden anyways to make sure a Tyrell stark alliance is secure. Surely the Tyrells would find it easier to deal with the Starks than the Lannisters?

[Assistant]
The Martells and the Lannisters had arranged a betrothal between Myrcella and Trystane so in Robb's mind it would've been dishonorable for Dorne to fight against the crown. He probably thought they would never join him and the proposal would be seen as an affront. Obviously we know that's not quite what's going on since Doran is secretly plotting to backstab the Lannisters but Robb just doesn't operate on that brainwave frequency.

As for the Tyrells, he botched it. In the books he mentions he should've exchanged Jaime for Sansa then arranged a marriage between Sansa and a Tyrell son. Had he done that, the Tyrells would've joined him instead of the Lannisters and he would've insta-won the war. Oh well. Robb was a brilliant military strategist, but he was quite inexperienced with diplomatic strategy.


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

[User] ELI5: How can some people be allergic to cats but not dogs?

[Assistant] All cells have surface proteins. When you inhale, get a cut, eat something, etc... and your body internalizes foreign cells, it creates an immune response. If the immune system says "this could hurt us!" it will fight it, even if its harmless, like cat or dog dander. This immune reaction to harmless things is an allergy. Cat and dog cells have different proteins recognized by your body, so if you're allergic to one and not the other, your immune system at some point in your life overreacted and created a response, thinking it was something infectious.


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

[User] [MCU] Why people keep saying that Captain America is on peak human level? Isn't he like orders of magnitude above what any man could ever be?

[Assistant] This is always an interesting question. Everyone saying that MCU CA is an order of magnitude (or more) above a normal human is correct. Thats the way hes shown - ffs, he pulls a helicopter down to a building, clearly beyond the normal level. Earth 616 CA is just peak human, but in EVERY physical way (and several mental and spiritual ways, but lets focus on the physical). Hes as strong as he could possibly be, AND as fast as he could possibly be, AND has the best durability and endurance he could possible have, AND fast the fastest reflexes he could possibly have, etc. Olympic and professional athletes are all amazing, and some are literally the best in the world in their activity/sport, but CA is the best in ALL areas. And thats not even counting the decades of experience and training both on earth and in other dimensions or on other planets.


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

[User] [MCU/Black Panther] How effective would it be if T'Challa, or anyone else, wears the Black Panther suit but didn't take the powers of the heart shaped herb?

[Assistant] Black Panther habit for the most part only enhances durability thanks to vibranium mesh in it. Without heart-shaped herb treatment, it would render one a nigh-invulnerable human with strength and speed of ordinary human. Now, T'Challa is highly trained of course, so he probably would still be more or less effective in his role, but naturally nowhere near to the extent of his enhanced self.


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

[User]
CMV: All the kids with behavioral issues should be put in the same class so they don't diminish the education of the kids who want to learn.

Schools are supposed to be centers of learning, but that gets hindered by the one or a few class clowns or just down right misbehaving children that the teachers are forced to stop class to address. This is unfair to the children who actual take school seriously and want to learn as well as the teachers who are forced deal with the added stress of problem students.

The easy solution is to put all the behavioral problem children in the same class, let them disrupt themselves and if they refuse to get quite and learn then its only their grades and success that will be hampered, can't pass tests because they couldn't get a lesson done oh well.

Gifted, Standard, Below grade level, and behaviorally challenged should be the 4 divisions for students in school.

"Gifted" or above grade level get taught at their pace and are able to cover more ground and not get bored to death, I know a lot of schools do this, but it should be universal.

Standard or grade level is self explanatory, its the kids who are on the level that they are supposed to be for their grade and so they would be in the normal classes.

Below grade level would be for either Math or reading/English and they would be in their own class separate from the kids with low grades due to behavioral issues. When I was in school for some reason they put both IEP and Behavioral challenged in the same class, it was stupid to say the least.

Lastly Behaviorally challenged, self explanatory those students who can't sit in a class without being disruptive get to take their classes with the circus that is filled with all the class clowns. They can get out of it if their behavior improves but they are no longer able to affect the learning of other students.

[Assistant]
And what happens to the kids with behavior issues who have a significantly worse educational experience in order to not impact anyone else's at all? Are we fine with making them have to deal with constant disruptions so no one else has to deal with any disruptions at all? You're already writing them off as lost causes.

Not to mention, there are a lot of motivations behind 'behavioral disruption', and you could absolutely make some of them worse by doing this. If, say, someone is autistic, then shoving them in a room full of loud people is going to make their own disruptions worse.


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

[User] ELI5: What is the need for an conductor in an orchestra as everyone knows what they have to play?

[Assistant]
The conductor is like the coach.

What you are not seeing is the weeks and months of preparation that the conductor has put in with the orchestra before the performance.

Additionally, on the day of the performance, the conductor does, in fact, keep time, and communicates a great deal with the musicians as they play, letting them know their cues, telling them to be louder or softer, speed up, slow down, etc. However, as above, the majority of the work goes in before the actual performance.


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

[User]
CMV: Defunding the police is a flawed idea and would make the current problems even worse

For the past few months I have heard many people calling for the significant reduction in budget for police departments, and I struggle to understand the reason why people think that this would help reduce police brutality and police shootings, for a couple of reasons.

1. It would mean lower quality training. If these multiple controversial shootings have taught us anything, it's that a lot of police officers are poorly trained; many people have been calling for officers to use more de-escalation techniques. If you take away the money, the quality of the training would go down, and how do you expect more competent officers when they receive less training than they do now? It currently takes around 12 weeks to become a police officer, and I agree that it should probably be longer, but how do you expect better training when they have less money?
2. Less money would lead to less officers. People are already complaining about how officers use tear gas etc. to disperse protests. If there were less officers to deal with riot control/crowd dispersal, it is only natural to assume that they would rely even more on the use of tools such as tear gas/rubber bullets.
3. With less officers, less training, officers are more likely to resort to lethal gadgets. Defunding the police isn't going to change the fact that one in every three Americans have firearms. Therefore, if a department was given less money, they would prioritise lethal weapons over non-lethal ones such as tasers or bean bag shotguns. With this combined with the fact that the officers are now less trained, the number of police shootings (justified o unjustified) will likely increase.

These three reasons makes me think that defunding the police is a bad idea. Instead, departments should look into the distribution of the money they have (less military grade vehicles, more training). Change My View.

[Assistant]
"defund the police" isn't the clearest set of words. It's more like "reallocate existing police funding". Part of that is diverting money the police currently spend on military equipment, because holy shit, the police do not need tanks. Part of it is just generally reducing the amount of money police departments get (although not without some strings) and putting that money elsewhere.

To give an example, police used to take people to the hospital before there were ambulances. Because police were not trained as healthcare professionals, they didn't do a good job here, and patients frequently died en route or shortly after. Then some black people got together, formed an ambulance company, and got medical training from a doctor. And just like that, survival rates skyrocketed.

So when people say "defund the police" they're asking for that money to go to similar programs. We've seen significant successes in having mental health first responders deal with those having mental health crises (and the mentally ill are frequently shot by the police). Police are also not social workers, and similarly aren't well equipped to deal with children acting out in school, victims of sexual assault, or domestic violence. These can all be handled better by other, better trained people, and in many places, already are.

And to touch on some of your points, defunding wouldn't just be cutting the budget and letting the department figure out what to do. It would involve other measures like restricting what can and can't be spent on (and what must be, like essential trainings). The big thing would be fewer police, since it would involve shrinking the scope of what police are asked to handle. There's also measures to reign in the massive overtime abuse police often engage in (Boston has over 500 officers who made more than 200k last year).


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

[User]
Can a Statistician using only R get a DS job not having a strong CS background?

Hello, Im majoring in applied statistics in a Ph.D. program and mainly using R and SAS. I want to get a DS job after graduation, but when I saw the job qualifications, it felt the world wants a CS programmer with a bit of Statistics like Python+SQL+Hadoop+TensorFlow..etc. However, I believe that I can do something with my Statistics background, especially for ML (I just skimmed some textbooks about ML, and I dont think it is far from what Im studying), but not sure I can get a decent DS job dealing with ML. I tried to do Python, but every time I realized that I didnt like it and wanted to hone my R skills. Sorry for the not clear question, but the point is Im curious whether the statistician only using R can get a DS job dealing with ML or it is not the most cases.

[Assistant]
Most data-related job descriptions in this area are written to look for the *most* qualified candidate conceivable. Sometimes you'll even see descriptions that ask for more experience with a particular tool than the developers of that tool (e.g. 10 years experience with a thing that has only been around for 5 years). Apply to the things that interest you.

But R is basically computer science, and don't let any gatekeeper tell you otherwise. You code in R, just like any other programmer. So, if you're good at R, you're probably pretty good at CS. So, yes.

Having said that, knowing other CS stuff will help you. Python is not as stats-focused as R, but it is much more flexible. And knowing more than one programming language makes you more versatile, and able to take advantage of more opportunities.


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

[User]
[Avatar: The Last Airbender] Why does the Fire Nation bother with eliminating the Avatar?

The Fire Lord was able to kill the Avatar before Aang, but the Avatar just gets reborn when the last incarnation dies. The Fire Lord has to know about this, so why bother with it? Why not instead just try to conceal him in a cave or imprison him?

[Assistant]
Avatar Roku was not killed by Fire Lord Sozin and he most certainly was not killed by Fire Lord Ozai, who wasn't born for decades afterwards.

And that is exactly what he wants to do at the start. As time goes on it becomes increasingly clear that Aang is becoming very close to fully realizing his role as The Avatar, and he wouldn't be able to be imprisoned for long and it would just be easier to kill him and imprison the next Avatar before they could become a credible threat.

Or he is trying to speed along the cycle for the next Avatar to be born in the Fire Nation, so they can indoctrinate them for their cause. Not necessarily possible, but it probably at least crossed his mind.


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

[User]
Why can a single individual react so differently to drugs in the same family (i.e. Xanax vs Ativan, both benzodiazepines)? And why do different individuals experience just as much variance between drugs, but not the same experiences on the same drugs as other individuals?

I hope I was coherent, but I'll give some examples to clarify.

Individuals A and B have been prescribed both Xanax and Ativan. (A) reports that Xanax has had a stronger effect on their anxiety, while Ativan is too mild and ineffective. (B) reports that Ativan is stronger and more effective, while his Xanax is too mild.

Assuming similar BMI, same sex, and same treatment method, why are the experiences so different?

[Assistant]
* Because there is a tremendous amount of molecular variation from person to person, due to both genetics and environmental factors (including exposure to other drugs and other non-drug chemicals).
 * Because drugs are put in the same class based on the therapeutic effect they have, but they still have a tremendous amount of variation in chemistry, which includes how quickly they are absorbed, how much they are absorbed, how quickly they are excreted, etc. Even small chemical differences between drugs can lead to dramatically different potency and effects.


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

[User] ELI5:Why is high blood pressure bad for you (due to the damage to the arteries and blood vessels) but regular exercise, which also increases blood pressure, doesn't cause the same damage?

[Assistant]
1. High blood pressure leads to enlargement of your heart (because it needs to pump harder in order to overcome the resistance of your narrowed/blocked/damaged arteries). This leads to all sorts of heart problems, particularly dilated cardiomyopathy.

2. Exercise leads to a *transient* increase in blood pressure. People who exercise excessively tend to have larger hearts too (particularly left ventricular hypertrophy) and this also has the potential to cause problems, however, you would have to exercise *a lot* for this to happen. There are two key differences between transient high blood pressure from exercise, and high blood pressure from clogged vessels. Firstly, exercise only raises your blood pressure momentarily, however, the longer-term effect of exercise is reduced fat clogging your arteries leading to an overall reduced blood pressure for the majority of the time. The second difference is that in exercise whilst your heart needs to pump harder (to move more blood around), however, this is against low resistance. This process of pumping harder makes the heart stronger. By contrast, when you have high blood pressure your heart needs to pump harder *against resistance*, leading to dilatation which is far more problematic. Dilatation is like filling a balloon with water - the balloon expands, but it does not get stronger/more elastic.

3. High blood pressure causes damage to the heart and the kidneys. However, high blood pressure also indicates clogged arteries and/or kidney disease (amongst many other things). These things that you have when you have high blood pressure cause damage too, damage somebody who exercises well does not have.

Difficult, but great question!


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

[User] ELI5: Why is malt liquor significantly less expensive than beer?

[Assistant]
The first malt liquor was an attempt to deal with a shortage of materials in WW2. Barley, that you would normally use for malt, was rationed. Experiments started taking place to replace the use of malt with materials such as sorghum, corn syrup, etc.

So, how alcoholic a beer is depends on the amount of sugar that yeast can't convert into ethanol. More sugar= More booze.

After the war, some breweries decided to take their experiments to market. The most famous, of course, is Colt 45. At first it was marketed as an upscale alternative to beer. It never captured the buying public, until they discovered a whole different market.

People, mostly inner city, who wanted more "bang for the buck" in an affordable form.

Now, up until the craft beer revolution (made possible with Jimmy Carter legalizing homebrewing), the quality between malt liqour and beer was pretty equal, really. If Colt 45 really worse than Budweiser?

With the resurgence in craft brewing, however, malt liquor was left to languish in the cheap section of cheap liquor stores...it's quality never having gone up.

So long story short, malt liquor uses cheaper ingredients, hence the price difference.


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

[User]
[Avengers movie] When struck by lightning why was the suit at 400% capacity?

Thor stuck Iron Man with lightning and his Jarvis says his suit as at 400% capacity... How can an electronic device be at 400% capacity?

[Assistant] The super capacitors have a specific specification of what is safe and stable. The top of that spec is 100%. When Thors lightning hit him, it over charged the capacitors yet they remained stable.  Tony acknowledged this by saying "cool".   His super cap designs held up far better than he expected and retained a charge ~~3x~~ 4x of what he designed them to.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why does it feel better to curl up in a ball when you have a stomach bug?

Every time I get a stomach bug, pain, or other ache in my stomach, I just curl up in a ball and it gets better, but why?

[Assistant]
It seems that lying in the fetal position (curled up in a ball) has some sort of deeply comforting physical and psychological effect on people. Many people who have gone through severe trauma will go into this position. Most people also sleep in some variant of this position - lying on their side with their knees tucked up and body curled forward. People also tend to be comforted by having a thick blanket put on them. For this reason emergency workers have such blankets on hand for victims of trauma. Even some animals respond to this - blankets are used in rehabilitating orphaned elephants to provide psychological comfort. So one reason that curling up makes you feel better could be psychological comfort.

The other thing is that curling up reduces the tension on your abdominal area. If you lay out all straight or stand up, your abdomen is being pulled taught and increasing the pressure/stimulation to your GI tract. As you probably have experienced even something usually insignificant like a waistband or seatbelt can worsen nausea. So a position that decreases stimulation in that region would help you feel better.


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

[User]
[Nolan-Bale Batman/MCU] How long would the MCU Punisher be able to operate in the Nolan and Bale Gotham, and how far would he get?

Frank's family is killed in a cross fire in a Gotham park, in a shootout between gangsters 18 months before the Joker comes on the scene. How wildly does this disrupt the already looming weeks of chaos the Joker is about to unleash?

[Assistant] I don't think it would disrupt anything at all. It would just be another gang shootout in Gotham. Batman would probably be more focused on The Punisher for killing people and The Joker would have more time to enact his plan.


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

[User]
How does a computer remember what programs I had open after a power outage?

Wouldn't programs currently running be stored in RAM? In which case shouldn't the RAM flush itself after every reboot?

[Assistant] Some applications will persist data to non-volatile memory (HDD, SSD).  Office documents, open tabs in a browser, etc.  You're not storing the total DRAM state of a running application, but information that can be used as configuration when it is run again.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why does the method of cooking change the taste of food so drastically?

Things like tomatoes and onions taste completely different when they are boiled, versus when they are fried or baked. I would just assume that, providing the food material reached a comparable temperature (for instance boiled at 100C or baked at 100C), the food taste would be comparable, but it still tastes completely different. What factors are responsible for this difference?

[Assistant] When they are fried they are infused with the oil you fried with, when boiled they are more filled with water, when baked they are as they are minus the burnt juices (speaking of onions as the example given)


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

[User]
Is Trauma dictated by cultural norms?

It sort of got me thinking, since I have experienced things that some people would feel traumatized from experiencing, but I dont feel affected or consumed by it in the slightest.

In Ancient Greece, it was socially acceptable for adult men to have sex with prepubescent boys, it was somewhat a platonic/mentoring sort of thing as far as I can tell. Today, that boy would be traumatized and require therapy. In that culture, why would it traumatize them?

In the Americas pre Columbus, the various Indian tribes had a culture of violence. It was a harsh world. Whether they were sacrificing babies or virgins, or playing football with heads, scalping their enemies, torturing for recreation. Constant intertribal warfare. Slaves, raping. Killing women and children. Obviously some tribes were much more peaceful, they were not a monolith. I have a hard time believing the people raised in that culture were constantly being traumatized and triggered by what they saw, simply because that is what is normal to them. Its a good thing.

I have a thought that maybe with this epiphany that it is your minds programming that makes you feel trauma and anxiety, not the person that did an action to you. It is the context in which you perceive those actions, that is where the trauma comes from. So in a way, you can take back control, and work on reprogramming your mind.

Do I sound like a moron?

[Assistant] I hear that one aspect of a very traumatic event is that it shatters your view of the world. If you think youre safe, and you get jumped and assualted it fractures your sense of safety. In a similar vein some victims of childhood abuse get relatively desensitized after repeated exposures often abuse because its not surprising and in their scheme of the world existing includes being abused.


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

[User]
[Batman] Which Batman Rogues can be reformed and are beyond help?

Let's face it; no amount of therapy and/or outside intervention can ever fix the joker. He's pure evil and there's no chance of reforming him. At the same time ; guys like Mr. Freeze or arguably Harely Quinn could be reformed if given competent psychiatric help and a way to support themself out side of crime. So which ones can be helped and which ones are beyond saving?

[Assistant]
**Penguin**: possibly. On occasion it's shown that he might consider abandoning crime if he could find someone who genuinely cared about him. Unfortunately, this doesn't look likely anytime soon; on one occasion the object of his affection was just prank dating him, and in another she found a scrapbook he made of his former victims and left him out of horror, leaving him to return to crime.

**Riddler**: No, really! Riddler once went legit and became a private investigator. His need to intellectually show people up was fulfilled by solving crimes instead of being Jigsaw. It obviously didn't last, but that was because of some pretty extenuating circumstances involving demonic possession.

A few of Mad Hatter's underlings, like Carpenter (since she sucks as a villain but would be really good as... a carpenter)


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

[User]
The Poor Should be Discouraged From Having Kids CMV

People should be encouraged to only have kids if they can actually afford those kids and provide them with a good quality of life. Having kids in poverty only perpetuates poverty because as we all know, most people born in poverty stay in poverty. A kid also means that a low income family now has less money to focus on taking care of themselves. Ideally, this policy would be enacted like so:

Any low income stairwell will have a box of free condoms at the bottom with pamphlets explaining effective birth control methods, Information on abortion, and why it is a bad idea to have a kid if you can't afford it.

Any woman who makes less than $20,000 a year wanting an extra $1000 from the government can earn said money by coming into a clinic every 6 months and confirming via ultrasound that she is not pregnant.

If you are low income and you are pregnant, you lose that $1000 yearly bonus for five years.

Currently, a family can get additional welfare money if they have a kid. For my proposed system, this rule would be thrown away as it would defeat the purpose on the incentive for not having kids.

This is how I think poverty in America should be solved, I know there's a good chance I might be wrong, so please CMV if you can.

[Assistant] Consider that the birth rate in the US is currently not very high. In 2010 it fell below 2.0 children per woman. 2.0 is the minimum required to sustain a population. If you start falling below that number, there are serious economic consequences, such as what is happening in Japan right now. Your solution for decreasing poverty, if successful, would decrease the birth rate which is already below a healthy level.


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

[User]
CMV: The United States has never regressed on social issues at the Federal level and it isn't going to happen now either.

The first part should be easier to CMV than the second part since all you've got to do is show an example where we have regressed on a federal level.  And by regressed, I mean a situation where rights were legally granted either by legislation or clarified as a result of a Supreme Court decision, and then at some later date those rights were taken away at the federal level.

A few caveats:

* Don't tell me about the state representative that tried to make interracial marriage illegal in your state - that isn't on the federal level.

* Don't tell me about state laws that limit access to abortion.  That's not only at the state level, but isn't removing a right (just making it more difficult to exercise).

* I'm going to carve out prohibition.  We were given the right to consume alcohol, that right was taken away, and then that error was corrected.  So we *did* temporarily regress on that one.

* I say "never" in my thread title, but let's limit it to the past century or so.  I'm not sure if there's something that was "progressive" back at the founding that was taken away in the 1800's.

* And this one is going to be the most subjective and blurry, but let's limit it to shit that most people on reddit would actually consider regressive.  So, yeah, we used to have the right to own slaves and beat our wives, and then we "regressed" and can't do that anymore - that ain't what I'm talking about and you know it.

**EDIT**
Since this post is still getting a lot of activity, I guess I should post an update.  There have certainly been regressive laws passed, the Patriot Act being the one that most changed my view.  I still don't think that there is any genuine risk of abortion becoming illegal or gay marriage getting rolled back.  My original view would have been better stated by saying that we currently have no regressive federal laws on the books that are being enforced.  That would still be shot down by the Patriot Act, but most other regressive laws that people have mentioned in the comments have been overturned once we saw the error of our ways.

It is also a difficult discussion because, as I anticipated, the same law can be interpreted as either progressive, or regressive, depending upon your point of view.

[Assistant]
Section 213 of the PATRIOT Act normalized sneak-and-peek warrants. These allow law enforcement to raid a suspects house without notifying the recipient of the seizure for months.  These orders usually don't authorize the government to actually seize any property  but that won't stop them from poking around your computers.  Again, sneak-and-peek warrants could be used for any investigation, even if the crime was only a misdemeanor.

From 2006-2009, sneak-and-peek warrants were used a total of 1,755 times. Only fifteen of those casesa microscopic 0.8%involved terrorism. The rest were used in cases involving drugs or fraud.


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

[User]
Why does powdered sugar taste different from granulated sugar?

Is it just beacuse one has more sugar molecules per cubic unit or does it have something to do with our taste buds?

[Assistant]
Although taste is highly subjective, what you're perceiving may be the 3-5% cornstarch or tricalcium phosphate frequently added as an anti-caking agent, or simply the texture difference.

Try grinding regular granulated sugar with a coffee grinder or mortar and pestle and taste-test that, the regular granulated sugar, and some store bought powdered sugar.  That may shed more light on your perceptions.  Powdered sugar should be chemically the same as granulated sugar, the only change is the size / shape of the particles and the resulting change in texture.


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

[User]
ELI5: After a monopoly lawsuit about 15 years ago, Microsoft was required to let Windows users uninstall Internet Explorer, but Apple currently blocks Mac users from uninstalling Safari, iBooks and other programs. Why is one legal but not the other?

I realize there was a lot to the lawsuit, but I'm curious about this one portion: on my Windows machine I can uninstall Internet Explorer, but on my Mac I can't uninstall Safari -- why isn't it illegal for Apple to prevent it if Microsoft was legally required to allow it?

[Assistant]
Microsoft was requiring Internet Explorer to be included with copies of Windows being licensed to third party hardware manufacturers like Dell, HP and Gateway. If these companies didn't want Internet Explorer on the machines they shipped, then Microsoft wouldn't agree to sell them copies of Windows.

Another part of the lawsuit involved Microsoft requiring a copy of Windows to be purchased for every computer sold - even if the customer wanted it OS free or with Linux.

Apple makes both their own hardware and software, so there is no licensee being forced to bundle something they don't want to.


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

[User]
Gitlab for personal/lightweight usage

hi, i'm a cs student and i wanted to ask if gitlab is considered overkill or not for personal and lightweight usage compared to github or butbucket.

thanks.

[Assistant]
IMO more important is what other people in your group/school use (students, professors) that you might want to collaborate/share with or if they have standardised on one platform for coursework.

In terms of personal usage it doesn't matter.


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

[User]
[Star Wars] Groovy Lightsabers

Are there any "out there" Lightsabers designs? Maybe like an axe or something? Or are they all just straight swords?

[Assistant]
Of the ones that have been officially recorded, there's swords, a couple kinds of staffs, a rotating type that has no standard weapon equivalent, a combo blaster/saber, and that greatsword type that Kylo has.
There's legends of shotos, pikes, and one really odd story about a lightwhip.  I've not heard of any axe-type lightsaber weapons.


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

[User] If the common cold is a type of coronavirus and we're unable to find a cure, why does the medical community have confidence we will find a vaccine for COVID-19?

[Assistant]
The "common cold" is not a single virus.  It's a term we use to describe a whole lot of different viruses, some of which are rhinoviruses, some are coronaviruses, and others too, all with varying degrees of danger to health and wellness.

Some of these viruses mutate frequently as well so we can't make one single vaccine that will work for every infectious virus.

The SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes COVID-19 is a SINGLE virus that has a relatively stable genome (doesn't mutate too much).  So we are all over this.  This virus was made for a vaccine.

edit: Thanks so much for the gold, kind strangers!


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

[User] ELI5:Why does going to bed later than usual but sleeping the same amount of hours as you normally would, feel worse when you wake up?

[Assistant]
The major contributing factor is your circadian rhythm. This rhythm is basically your natural biological clock. However it does not run exactly on a 24 hr cycle, there are slight deviations naturally and other factors can contribute to altering your biological clock.

The next factor to take into account is which stage of the sleep cycle you are waking up from. There are typically 5 stages of sleep, stage 1/2 are "active" sleep cycles, your brain activity is still highly active and almost indistinguishable from a wake person. In stage 1/2, you are also more likely to respond to stimuli, such as someone calling your name. Stage 3 is regarded as "inactive" sleep cycle, this is the stage where your brain activity drastically drops, preparing your brain and body to enter stage 4. In stage 3, a person is much harder to wake up and waking from this stage leaves a person exhausted and generally disorientated. Stage 4 sleep is where actual rest and rejuvenation occurs. In this stage, your brain activity is picking up slightly but still in a mild manner, not too much to be called wakefullness, but enough to signal repairs in the body. Lastly is REM stage, this is where your brain is now increasing activity and causing dreams. After REM, the cycle repeats back from stage 1.

Basically as you sleep, you go through this 1-4+rem cycle over and over, with each cycle lasting about 90 mins. Depending on what your body needs, stage1/2 will shorten as you go through the sleep cycles and lengthen stage 4 for rest and recovery or REM sleep. If you wake from REM, you will feel refreshed and ready, that is why most people dont remember dreams or recall a dream suddenly disrupted by waking up. If you wake up during stage 3/4, you will feel tired and exhausted, your brain was trying to turn down the power after all, and signal the body to recover from things like exhaustion or injuries.

So thats it, a bit long for ELI5, but its a complicated question that takes many things into account, as is common when talking about neurological issues

Edit: forgot to talk about sleep deficit and how that also contributes alot, but im on mobile and cant continue forever.


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

[User]
Eli5-Why are humans so smart in comparison to other mammals but human babies are so helpless?

For example even puppies will understand to crawl over and latch to mother, primates come out clinging to mother, horses and goats can walk, yet babies have to be taken care of for so long and are helpless!

[Assistant]
One is actually the cause of the other.

We've evolved to be smarter because the smarter Apes were better able to survive.

But one of the big trade offs for that is that we have such large heads even as babies that we have to be born effectively pre-mature compared to other animals to get through the birth canal.

So having helpless babies is a side effect of being so smart, but being smart is what helps us raise helpless babies.


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

[User] ELI5: How close are cameras to the quality we see with our eyes?

[Assistant] Not even remotely close, but it isnt easy to make a comparison given that they work in very different ways. First and foremost the eyes help the brain update a mental model of our world we maintain, theyre highly mobile, sensitive, adaptable to different conditions, and insanely energy efficient.


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

[User]
CMV: Uber's Greyball program did nothing wrong.

The front page of reddit is telling me Uber faces criminal scrutiny and public backlash for it's Greyball program. So far as I understand it, the program was designed to circumvent regulations aimed at restricting or banning Uber in some locations, by detecting undercover law enforcement trying to entrap Uber and thwarting their efforts to hail a cab with phantom car icons, etc.

In my opinion, though, all of the regulations and restrictions local governments were attempting to emplace on Uber were bullshit. The government has no business banning or regulating any peaceful and voluntary agreements between drivers and passengers, and most of the regulations were corrupt protectionism for entrenched industry interests and massive cab companies in bed with the local government. Offering people cheap and convenient cab rides in defiance of law is the very definition of a victimless crime.

Accordingly, my view is that if private individuals and organizations are engaged in victimless crimes that aren't violating anybody else's rights, they are perfectly justified in attempting to fool, avoid, ignore, outsmart, conceal from, or otherwise circumvent those enforcing the laws which render their conduct criminal.  This applies to smoking or sellng pot, it applies to jaywalking when there are no cars around, it appies to smuggling Kinder chocolate eggs into the United States from Germany - and it applies to Uber's greyball program.

You can change my view by convinving me one of two things:
a) the regulations Uber was evading were legitimate and important protections of people's rights (aka, that Uber was engaged in something more sinister than victimless crimes), or

b) that even when the law strikes us as dumb and corrupt, we have an obligation to follow it and/or to at least not decieve those attempting to enforce it.

[Assistant]
>b) that even when the law strikes us as dumb and corrupt, we have an obligation to follow it and/or to at least not decieve those attempting to enforce it.

Yes we do, because if each individual gets to decide which laws they follow and which they don't, then laws are meaningless. There are already 2 mechanisms within democratic systems to get around laws which are dumb and/or corrupt. The laws can be changed through legislative action or they can be struck down through courts.


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

[User] ELI5: Why aren't recording devices allowed in courts but artists and stenographers are?

[Assistant]
It depends......

The big thing in the US (more specifically the state of Wyoming) is that the court is as impartial as possible (within reason). So in a Jury case for example. The Judge is there to mediate. The stenographer writes everything down. Word for word. This becomes the official record of the proceedings.

The Court artist is also impartial, but this is where we get into details and the whole "it depends" bit.

Depending on the judge's preference he may choose to allow reporters and the press in. Also depending, they may be able to bring in recording equipment.

Now, here's where this comes into play. The press doesn't *have* to keep everything literal. They can do whatever they want with what information they have. (Within reason. If they do something too much, they may get sued themselves for libel) So they can destroy context, and this is why the court report is very important. For example:

In the court, the defendant says something along the lines of "I did it for self defense" the court knows this and writes it down as he said it. However, say the press for some reason doesn't like him. They can take their video and cut it so that it says "I did it". Completely different meaning, and it *technically* is true.

This is why as a jury member you are told to completely avoid the media so that you have no bias towards the plaintiff or the defendant.

Mind you, if it's a case that only has a judge, they may have a bias already, and in that case, there's nothing you can do about removing that. You only have to hope that the court in question has regulations regarding the court recordings so that you can be granted an appeal or some such.


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

[User] ELI5: Is it possible to rid humans of certain diseases/illnesses by "selective breeding"?

[Assistant]
This is commonly called Eugenics, advocating the use of particular practises that could potentially improve the human gene pool.
It obviously has its upsides and downsides, but yes it's hypothetically possible to rid humans of certain genetic diseases, but if we don't fully understand the entire genome, we could be inadvertently losing genetic diversity which has always been seen as the primary way of "improving" the gene pool. Losing that diversity could potentially and rapidly result in extinction if the impacts are not fully understood ahead of time. That reduction in diversity could center tagger lights a pine cone and chucks it over the basket and the whack-batter tries to hit the cedar stick off the cross rock. Then the twig runners dash back and forth until the pine cone burns out and the umpire calls hotbox. Finally, you count up however many score-downs it adds up to and divide that by nine.


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

[User] ELI5: What is behind the "patina" or warmth that most video footage from the 70's, 80's, and sometimes 90's? What technological advancements (aside from transition to digital) caused it to go away?

[Assistant]
Of the 3 colors used to develop filmred, green, and bluered is the most stable. This means that as time passes, the blue and green colors fade quicker than the red (which takes quite a while to fade in some cases).

The video footage you are watching was on film that faded for some time before being transitioned into a digital format. The result is that the blues and greens are faded slightly (or significantly) more than the reds, which is why the footage has a "warmer" color.


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

[User]
[DC] Why does Superman not identify as Superboy's dad?

In pretty much every version of the two I've seen, it's confirmed that genetically, Clark is Conner's father and Lex Luthor is the other.

Lex has no issue acknowledging him as such, but Clark would rather call their relationship "brothers." Why?

He had his own kid not long after in a lot of versions so I don't think it's because he wasn't ready to be a parent. Is it because of his age, the fact that he was force grown to a teenager right away? Is the thought of him sharing a child with his main foe too much for him to process so this was his way of coping? I'm trying to figure this out.

[Assistant]
Because hes not Superboys dad. Superboys his clone, theyve never had a father-son relationship.

I mean, why WOULD he call himself the guys father. Kind of weird to declare yourself a random teens dad because you are sort of related.

Lex declares himself daddy because he wants control and dominion. Superman doesnt want an inferior, he wants a peer. And Superboy is of the same mind, he doesnt see himself as Supermans baby.


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

[User]
CMV: Democrats/those of the left should not support the PPACA, or 'ObamaCare', since it is not really addressing universal coverage.

Democrats should not be so supportive of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, as it stands today, due to the changes that have been made to the law and given how it has failed to truly address the two main issues that plague the current U.S. healthcare system: rising costs and uninsured. There are also issues with the law that give preferential treatment to insurance companies and other rent-seeking healthcare enterprises.

Originally, the PPACA was to include a government option for insurance, which would have helped give coverage to those who live in states that have failed to set up health insurance exchanges or where the basic plans were to expensive. Insurance companies lobbied against it, and it was removed from the bill. Without the public option, the individual mandate handcuffs citizens into buying excessive/expensive coverage. The public option would have been a step towards universal healthcare coverage for Americans, whereas many Americans still are uninsured today.

The bill also does very little by way of slowing increases in medical care costs. The individual mandate, in the absence of a public insurance option, has helped to raise costs by encouraging non-price competition. As more people have gotten insurance, medical care providers have sought to capture the expanding market by providing unnecessary/excessive care. This leads to medical care cost increases that are not directly borne by the consumer of care, but rather by the insurance companies - who, in turn, raise premiums/co-pays/reduce coverage. The PPACA also gives subsidies and tax breaks to those who cannot afford insurance, which seems great on the surface; however, doing so shifts the burden of costs onto the government and, as such, those who receive help from the government seek more care - and higher quality care - subsequently raising spending.

There is also the issue of insurance companies and high administrative costs. The United States spends more than most countries, in terms of their GDP, on healthcare administration costs - most of which are going to profits. The PPACA is relatively powerless in its controls on how much insurance companies can charge for coverage. As a result, premiums and co-pays remain high.

Therefore, Democrats/those on the left who seek to implement a true universal coverage system should be pushing for more stringent controls on medical care prices and should be pushing to reintroduce the public option rather than being on the defense when it comes to healthcare and the PPACA.

(Personally, I am for a a Beveridge system such as the one in the United Kingdom, but I try to remain a realist).

Tl;dr: the PPACA has not turned out the way those on the left intended it to, and as such, has not been addressing the key problems facing the current U.S. system. Democrats should be doing more to change this.

[Assistant]
Of course Democrats should be trying for more, but the political capital on healthcare issues right now is rather spent.

Do you remember how much of a tooth-and-nail battle getting the ACA passed was, and that was when we still had Democratic control. Right now Democrats control neither House nor Senate. And the issue of repealing the ACA has never really diminished from Republican minds.

If Democrats hadn't supported the ACA in its current incarnation, we'd have ended up with nothing.

You say you try to remain a realist. Being a realist means recognizing that this is a good intermediate step and that Democrats must bide their time until political capital is replenished to address further healthcare issues.

That may take some time, but that is the nature of progress.


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

[User] ELI5: Why do printers use cyan instead of blue?

[Assistant] The primary colors of light are red, green, and blue. Pigments though absorb light and reflect portions of the spectrum so their primary colors are cyan, magenta, and yellow. Printers have to use cyan because they aren't printing light, they are printing a substance which absorbs light.


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

[User] [Wh40k] Why do Orks speak english?

[Assistant]
Orks don't speak Gothic, Orks speak Ork, a guttural and filthy language often punctuated with blows to the head for emphasis. Members of the Ordos Xenos hypothesize that Orks were originally created by the Old Ones, to fight the C'tan. As such they were given rudimentary intelligence, high reproduction rates, and a very basic form of language to facilitate instruction. This language is referred to as Old High Ork. It is not Ork. Orks use a bastardized pidgin Low Gothic as a lingua franca because Orks steal and pervert all that they use, including language.

Filthy greenskins.


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

[User]
[Star Trek/General] How would a phaser fare if used against a dragon?

We always hear about how tough the hide of a dragon is, but that comparison is almost always against magic or more primitive weapons like swords and arrows. So how would a phaser, or even just a regular gun with bullets work? Could you hurt or kill a dragon with either?

EDIT: Please address the question as it applies to both the "Stun" and "Kill" settings.

[Assistant]
A regular knight's sword doesn't penetrate a dragon's hide, so it's stronger than steel.

However, rifle rounds of 7.62mm caliber or higher can easily penetrate quite a bit of steel plating. The bad news is that their effect is rather limited on a massive creature such as a dragon, so killing it with a rifle or anything man portable would be like trying to kill a human by stabbing them repeatedly with a metal toothpick.

Phasers, on the other hand, melt and even disintegrate steel, and in fact, disintegrate anything that isn't durasteel, plasteel or other high-tech super dense materials. Unless there is some kind of magic involved, the dragon's hide and anything beyond it will be torn apart at the atomic level.

On the kill setting a phaser will at the very least remove a large portion of the dragon's body, probably resulting in death or outright disintegration, and a sufficient caliber firearm round will breach the hide and cause damage, but likely would require a massive amount of hits to score a kill.

Obviously any kind of bullet that would stun wouldn't be used on a dragon, so we're left with a phaser on stun setting. The phaser stuns by disrupting the normal transmission of impulses inside the nervous system of a living creature. Assuming the dragon's nervous system uses electromagnetic impulses to function, it's nervous system would be scrambled by a sufficiently powered phaser hit just as well as any other creature.

The problem would be how much energy you'd have to use to get the job done. Particularly tough humanoid races have shrugged off mini- and hand phaser shots, so a creature twice the size or more of a T. Rex would likely shrug them off as well. One would probably need a phaser rifle, phaser cannon, or several hand phasers draining their batteries in a continuous stream simultaneously in order to have any appreciable effect.


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

[User]
[Evangelion] Is the rest of the world just...okay?

I know that the second impact pushed the earth off its axis, so theres massive global climate change. I get that. But the angels are only attacking japan, and exclusively the area around NERV headquarters and Tokyo-3, right? Do people in other countries just live essentially normal lives, punctuated by the news of a giant alien attack at the same place in japan? How does no one get suspicious? Part of the US/UN navy is attacked by an angel when theyre transporting Asukas eva , but afaik thats it, right?

Also yes I know theres an alien attack thats not in japan in Rebuild but thats a story for another day.

[Assistant] Yup.  During the timespan of the series, the Angels are specifically trying to get at something underneath Tokyo-3.  Their motivation for attacking means it's pretty meaningless to attack anywhere else.


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

[User]
[LotR] Why did Melkor lose power and strength over time?

Initially, Melkor was very powerful, and could contend with the other Vala by himself.  Later, an elf king (Fingolfin) was able to fight him one-on-one and wound him several times.  By the War of Wrath he is described as quite weak.  Did other ainu lose power, too?  Does it have something to do with all the works and creations he made, like he was pouring his power into orcs, dragons, Angband, etc.?  If that's the case, did Aule lose some power when he made the dwarves, did Yavanna lose power when she made the Two Trees, etc.?

[Assistant]
You're right about him pouring his strength into his creations. The theme of divesting oneself of power in order to create great things is seen throughout the Legendarium as translated by Professor Tolkien.

Fenor was diminished by the strength he put into the Silmarils and couldn't just create some more. The Teleri were diminished by the power they put into creating their ships, hence their reluctance to simply give them to the Noldor and the kinslaying that followed. The prime example, of course, is the power of Sauron put into the One Ring, though he was advanced enough in his art to retain a rapport with that power even when it wasn't in his immediate possession.

Morgoth's Ring is, in that sense, more crude as he poured out his power in a fashion that was lost to him, but to be fair to what was once the mightiest of the Ainur, it was infinitely more colossal. Morgoth's Ring was the corruption of Arda itself, the breeding of Orcs and Trolls and Dragons and all the foul things that have beset the world since its creation. Morgoth's Ring is the world and all its strife.

Which is naturally going to leave you a bit tuckered out right?


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

[User] ELI5: What are the biological/natural reasons Humans have mental disorders like ADD, ADHD, Bi-Polar, Depression, etc - are there any purposes and/or functions outside a civilized society?

[Assistant]
Evolutionary explanations for a human trait *T* need not take the form, "*T* is beneficial because..." Indeed, very often their form is, "*T* persists in the population despite..."

What's generally going on there is that some combination of genes that do serve some very useful purposes also happen to have a side-effect that is not at all useful, but the benefits of the useful things outweigh the drawbacks of the nonuseful one, at least enough to cause that combination of genes to continue being handed down to successive generations of offspring.


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

[User]
CMV: I don't think I should personally make changes to my life to fight climate change when multi billion dollar companies couldn't care less.

Why should I stop using my car and pay multiple times more to use exorbitant trains?

Why should I stop eating meat while people like Jeff Bezos are blasting off into space?

Why should I stop flying when cruise ships are out and about pumping more CO2 into the atmosphere than thousands of cars combined?

I'm not a climate change denier, I care about the climate. But I'm not going to significantly alter my life when these companies get away with what they're doing.

I think the whole backlash against climate change is most often not out of outright denial, but rather working class people are sick of being lectured by champagne socialists to make changes they often can't even afford to, while the people lecturing them wizz around in private jets to attend their next climate conference.

[Assistant]
1. If everyone thinks as you do, then change is not possible.
2. Helping *a little bit* is better than no help at all.
3. Reducing your meat consumption and walking or using public transportation when possible will neither change nor impact your life in any significant way.


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

[User] Chemistry, How does hydrogen become other elements?

[Assistant] Its the process of fusion. Inside stars Hydrogen is at such high energy and density that it can overcome the coulomb repulsion (liked charge particles repel) of the two nucli to a distance where the strong nuclear force takes over. This force is really strong (it has much higher binding energy than the coulomb force), but only works at really small distances. That gives you He. Repeat for larger elements. All the way up to Iron.


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

[User]
Are any skincare products worthwhile in the slightest?

Particularly moisturizer - most other types seem to have been strongly proven to be of no real benefit. Or should I just get more sleep and eat better?

EDIT: I have no acne, I would just like to maintain the quality of my face for as long as possible.

[Assistant] One skin product whose effectiveness has been proven in countless clinical trials: sunblock. Regular application of sunblock whenever you go outside for more than half an hour will keep your skin healthy and minimize sun damage.


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

[User] Eli5: How are we able to hear sounds or even songs in our head even though theyre not actually there?

[Assistant]
When you truly hear the word "house", you don't actually hear it at "when it comes to your ear". There's a sound wave that gets interpreted by your ear and then your ear send the instruction to your brain to interpret that sound wave as the sound "house". Of course the speed which all of this occurs is very fast to perceive so it pretty much appear as instantaneous for us.

So in a way, all sounds (the way we hear) are in our head waiting for some external stimuli to tell which combination of sounds we should hear. Our ear send the information to interpret those sounds, the place they're coming from, the volume, etc...

Think of it as a piano. In a way, every chord is there and all possible sounds are there waiting for someone to press something. It's pretty much the same with our brain. We have within ourselves every possible thing we can hear waiting for some stimuli to trigger it.

Thing is other factors can activate those neurons that codify sounds, like thinking about a music. Of course, not in the same intensity as actually hearing a sound does.


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

[User] We know that photons has no mass yet are affected by gravity and have momentum. Using measurements of those two interactions could we work backwards to find what mass a photon would have if it had mass?

[Assistant] Yes, we could work backward from the energy and momentum, but we'd find that the photon *should* have zero mass based on its energy and momentum. The relativistic equation relating energy and mass is (E/c^2 )^2 = (p/c)^2 + m^2 . When we measure the energy and momentum of photons, we find that E = p*c. If you plug this back into the first formula you find that it can only be satisfied if m=0.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why does my laptop still have a huge box on the power cord?  Every other part has gotten smaller but I still have to carry around a big chunky box of a power cable.

Laptops are tiny now compared to just a few years ago but the box on the power cord is still about the same size.  Is there just no demand or is there something about the power cord that makes it impossible to get any smaller? Why can't it be the size of a quarter?  Thanks.

[Assistant] This is because it's an adapter that reduces the voltage from the power source to the voltage required by the laptop. To do this, a small transformer is required (the chunky box) and this has to contain two coils of wire of certain sizes to convert the voltage from X to Y. Until transformer technology is re-invented to become more compact, the chunky box on the charger lead will always be present.


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

[User]
[Star Wars] How come no one uses hyperdrives as weapons?

Space travel is ubiquitous and hyperdrives, though expensive, are cheap enough for even small companies to afford maybe a single spaceship. What prevents some tech-savvy terrorist from modifying the navigation computer of an unmanned star fighter into crashing into the Senate Building at superluminal speeds? How come the Republic/Empire never developed a hyperspace-torpedo to destroy enemy ships with a single blow?

Even a small amount of mass moving that quickly should have a considerable amount of power behind it, so why does no one use it?

[Assistant]
A sufficiently sized gravity field will pull a ship out of hyperspace, and force the hyperdrive to disengage. This will occur long before the ship gets anywhere near the atmosphere.

That will stop anyone decided to use hyperspace to sneak a suicide bomber in close to a planet.

I've always wondered about the possibility of using a hyperdrive to drop a missile or ship in behind a ships shields, as the weapon could be able to bypass the shield and revert to real space inside, then cause significant damage.

This tactic is probably hampered by the difficulty of timing/range. You are FAR more likely to drop it a few kilometers in front of or behind the actual target.


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

[User]
[Halo] How did the Forerunners test the Halo array.

I haven't read the forerunner trilogy so it may have been explained in there, but how did the forerunner know that the halos would kill all sentient life? a WMD on that scale would have to be tested on some scale to guarantee its success, which seems backward since the forerunner built it to save biodiversity in the galaxy. Any ideas?

[Assistant]
It's explained in the Forerunner Trilogy. The original Halo's were bigger (considerably, like 30,000km in diameter instead of 10,000) and were more... Directed. You could specificity target things with them instead of just generating a spherical pulse.

The first known test of a ring was at Charrum Hakkor. It was used again on the San'Shyum (Prophet) homeworld by the Master Builder, then again in the destruction of the Forerunner Capital World. The final confirmed use was during the battle of the Greater Ark, where in a show of defiance the Master Builder obliterated whatever life may remain in the large Magellanic Cloud.

The rings which were later used to defeat the flood were designed with a limited, omnidirectional 'blast radius' before being deployed with overlapping fields of effect. They actual technology had already been tested, it was just being used in a less targeted manner.


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

[User] [My Hero Academia] What percentage of their budget is Japan pouring into hero training programs?

[Assistant] It actually costs less than you'd think, because so many people involved have cost-saving quirks and are authorized to use them.  For example, a lot of the seemingly expensive looking training facilities are made very quickly by Cementoss.


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

[User]
[Star Wars/Rebels] how does a planet like Concord Dawn (the shattered planet) rotate and have seasons?

How does the planet sustain itself with so much damage to its structure? The gravity should be horribly messed up!

[Assistant]
Eh, it is mostly intact, it probably behaves mostly like it always did, if just though inertia.

it will probably collapse into something rounder at some point, but at a geological time scale, so it will happen slowly and far into the future, at least in regards to the average persons lifespan.


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

[User]
How much 'stuff' is in space between the Earth and Mars?

I had a student ask how empty space is, and I told them I really did not know. So, in an area like the orbital path between Earth and Mars (leaving out human space junk) how many objects would you find? Any? None? added question, if anyone knows: How much stuff is in true outer space - beyond out solar system, how often might you encounter an object of any size? Thanks
**EDIT: Thank you for all the top-notch replies! You guys really know your stuff!**

[Assistant]
There's some but not much stuff out there. Even the asteroid belt is mostly empty space. For example, Ceres alone is estimated to hold about a third of the asteroid belt's mass even though the asteroid belt is much denser than most of the space between planets.

All in all space is mostly just empty with scattered planets, stars, nebulas and dust. If it weren't empty we wouldn't be able to take such clear images of galaxies that are billions of lightyears away.


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

[User] ELI5: Why do large-footprint buildings like supermarkets have such high ceilings?

[Assistant]
1) To make it feel more open. Large buildings like that actually feel very claustrophobic if they have low ceilings.

2) Heat management. There are a lot of people in that building and that produces a lot of body heat. Having high ceilings gives a place for that heat to go and makes cooling the building cheaper. Intakes will be up high and AC outputs will be lower down taking advantage of natural air currents.


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

[User] [DC/Marvel] Does DC have an equivalent of Marvel's Superhuman Registration Act?

[Assistant]
Nope, because they wouldn't allow themselves to be under the control of any government, Aquaman and Wonder Woman especially due to them being Royalty of foreign powers,  it'd be like if the Queen of Britain, was told by President Biden to register as a US citizen.

It's a mixed bag, but the idea of a government trying to control them wouldn't work, Superman doesn't hold to it, but he will turn up to court if he is required, because nobody can hurt him and it's the right thing to do, Batman and other masked heroes need their identites to be anonymous.

Remember the SRA in Marvel was *kinda* pointless, being that most superheroes in Marvel have publicly known identities, everyone knows Cap is Steve Rogers, Iron Man is Tony Stark. One of the biggest issues with the SRA is that it follows the same logic some people have about banning all forms of weaponry, it's all well and fine that the civil and good people will follow the law, but the bad people and asshole most definitely won't.

You think The Joker will step up for registration? General Zod? **Trigon?**


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

[User]
ELI5: Why is swelling as a response to an injury a bad thing?

I've been rehabbing a grade 3 ankle sprain, and I've been following R.I.C.E. as closely as one usually can. (Rest. Ice. Compress. Elevate.)

It would seem to me that we are pretty finely tuned from an evolutionary standpoint, and if my body wants to swell when it faces trauma, then there must be SOME benefit to it. Why is this a natural reaction that we have deemed as unhelpful?  I'm not questioning that I should do continue to do it, because I have experienced the benefits of this method of healing in the past, but I (as a complete laymen in the medical field) would just like to understand why it works, and why my body reacts in this way if it isn't beneficial to me.

[Assistant] Swelling isn't a bad thing, it's actually a good thing.  Swelling is basicaly a sign of increased blood flow to an area of the body so it can heal it's self faster.  That being said, swelling is inconvenient, it increases sensitivity to the area, can reduce or eliminate functions of body parts, and can even be painful sometimes.  So instead of suffering through the pain and losing function of body parts we develop ways to stop or eliminate swelling because it's more convenient for us to have use of said body parts and let the healing take a little longer.  We can afford to forgo the swelling and pain and let our injuries take a little longer to heal; where as our ancestors needed to be able to heal as quickly as possible because their lives usually depended on them being healthy and able to hunt and avoid predators.


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

[User] ELI5: Why do hot things like car engines and tabletop electric burners make ticking and clicking noises after you turn them off and theyre cooling down?

[Assistant]
When most materials heat up, they expand.  What you are hearing is the metal "shifting and popping" as it contracts once it starts cooling down again.

I work in a storage facility constructed of metal and can hear the building doing the same thing once the sun comes up and it is heating up.  It disturbs some of the customers because it can be quite loud sometimes.


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

[User] [Code Geass] If Lelouch can only use his Geass on an individual once, but can give the command "from this moment forward, you shall obey my orders" why doesn't he just do that for everyone? Isn't it basically like wishing for more wishes?

[Assistant] Earlier on, he refuses to make someone his slave because he values free will. Later on when he decides on his plan, Zero Requiem, he is a bit more reckless with his power since he plans to die anyway.


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

[User]
[Far Cry 4] Ajay Ghale decides to kill Pagan Min, Sabal, and Amita. What does he do now that three power-hungry dictators are dead?

Ajay Ghale ends up siding with Amita and kills Sabal since hes not a fan of religious fanatics trying to imitate ISIS and form a theocratic state.

Ajay later decides to not immediately kill Pagan Min and he ends up placing his mothers ashes next to Lakshmanas ashes in the little memorial place, accomplishing his original mission. After Pagan Min leaves in his helicopter for China, Ajay pulls out an RPG and shoots his helo down since hes also not a fan of crazed dictators who brutally oppress their citizens.

After finding out that Amita is forcibly conscripting kids to become child soldiers for the Golden Path and ~~slaves~~ forced laborers working in drug fields and factories, Ajay decided to kill her since its only a matter of time before she ends up being Pagan Min 2.0 and becomes drunk on power.

Now that the three power-hungry tyrants of Kyrat are dead, what does Ajay do now? Does he stay and take his place on the throne after Pagan Min abdicated (and was later killed)? Does Ajay help transition Kyrat from being a monarchy/authoritarian dictatorship towards a democracy? Or does he say fuck this shit, Im getting my ass out of here. Good luck. and proceed to flip off Kyrat with two firm middle fingers while heading for the Indian-Kyrati border to get a new passport at the US Embassy in order to go back home to America?

[Assistant]
Ajay if he survives getting down the mountain through the inhospitable environmental conditions and also through the loyalist remnants of each faction.

He ends up at the US Embassy gets a ride home arrives home for an indeterminate amount of time attempting to come to terms with the death of his mother and all of the people he's killed only to die in the nuclear Apocalyptic events that unfold during Far cry 5.

Because Far cry 5 is canon.


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

[User]
[General] Is there a fantasy setting where introducing firearms *wouldn't* drastically alter the world?

I daydream a lot, and a lot of the time it's about fantasy settings, going back in time, stuff like that. One mental roadblock I always run into is, "If i were to travel there, I'd want to bring a handgun or a rifle for self-defense." But in some settings [to name an example, the world of The Witcher or Avatar:TLA], I can't help but feel that if I were to die there, my firearm would be recovered and reengineered and drastically alter the course of that settings future.

So what setting would it NOT make that big of a deal in?

[Assistant]
Most. We've had cannons for a long time, and arquebuses for a similarly long time. They're expensive and difficult to manufacture safely, but they could be made. With that, they're basically more expensive, more brutal, and substantially less effective crossbows.

Things only really change when firearms are widely available, and the technologies neccesary to support their use are affordable and widespread. LotR would be the same, because no one could realisticly afford to support a gun that, when compared to the other options on hand, was impractical.


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

[User]
ELI5: How do countries increase their currency value?

Like do they have to have alot of money to make their currency high in value? Like why is a euro 14 cents higher than a us dollar?

[Assistant]
Currency values mostly don't matter, in terms of which one is worth more, at any given moment. You use them to exchange things. If you paid in units of ten dollars, one would be worth more than a Euro.

The extremes, however, are more important - currencies which lose all their value and get exchanged in enormous amounts (millions, billions, trillions) for everyday goods are the result of inflation - the government has the ability to print more money, so they do so in order to pay for debts etc, but by diluting the value of money each one is worth less.

At the opposite end are currencies like CHF and USD have gradually become more valuable compared to others. 200 years ago, 1 GBP was worth 5 USD, now it is only 1.20 or so.

The strength of a currency generally reflects the long term stability and expenditure of its government - bonds (debts) are issued in that currency, so it is in the interests of a government for people buying those bonds (lending money to the government) to believe that the value of the currency will stay high.

Governments sometimes default (fail to pay) on their debts - this has been a problem in some regions, and also reduces the value investors place on the loans.

A government that wanted to increase the value of its currency relative to others in the long run would be well placed to create an independent central bank and give it a target interest rate, usually around 2%. This starts to offer investors hope that the government will stop just printing money. However, it also relies on a strong economy; when governments have good tax income, they need less borrowing and can sustain debt payments.

For this reason, a common theme has been for currencies which have lost a lot of value to be replaced by a new currency by a new government. When they do so, they are free to choose what the starting value would be, which is why the exact current value is far less important than the rate at which it is changing vs other currencies.

Some currencies are locked to others, either by the government guaranteeing an exchange rate or by entering a currency union (e.g. the EU projects of the ECU and the Euro).


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

[User]
[General fantasy] So, is evolution a thing in fantasy?

Like, did species naturally evolve, like on real world earth, and creation myths are just that, myths? The khajit never came from elves, they were just bipedal felines. Orcs, elves, and average humans are all just hominids that split at different times, etc? Or is it all magic?

[Assistant]
It depends.

A couple of examples:

There are hints that evolution does occur on Planetos - some of the Maesters have fossils of creatures that are no longer known.

All the evidence is that Arda was indeed created by Eru Iluvatar. However Hobbits seems to have evolved - over a remarkably short time - from Humans, rather than being created as a species themselves.


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

[User] ELI5: Why does grape "flavor" not taste like actually grapes.

[Assistant] You're probably used to eating red or green grapes of the species vitis vinifera, the common grape. However, grape flavor is designed to mimic the Concord grape (species vitis labrusca), which is what's usually used to make grape jelly, grape juice, etc. If you'd ever eaten a Concord grape you'd taste the similarity, but they are not very commonly eaten the way red/green grapes are.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why do so many game devs tie physics and other calculations to frame rate?

So many games ported to PC have horrendous support for higher refresh rates, which I know is because the developers have tied certain things like physics calculations to the frame rate.  Is this done for a good reason today, or is this a relic of the bronze age of gaming that should and will get better?

[Assistant]
Because it's easier. There are two other options:

1) make physics and logic still tied to the actual framerate but scale it by the time between each frame

2) run physics seperately at a fixed rate and interpolate data when you render. So the FPS may be, say, 100, but physics calculations is still running 30 or 60 times a second.

---

1) has issues, notably that if you have very high framerates then you'll get into stability issues with 32 bit floating point numbers. It's also not deterministic (testing issues) and for games with replay systems, well, no luck here.

2) is the most "complete" option, but it's also very complicated to implement.

To tie physics and kinematics into frame rate is a simple solution that does the job. For consoles where you'll only target one framerate, it's a practical solution.

These days, as third party engine use is more common it's not as much an issue, since the hard engineering work is already done by Unity or Epic.


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

[User]
ELI5 - Why is Citizen Kane considered to be the pinnacle of movie making?

What is it about Citizen Kane that makes it such a highly regarded movie?

A lot of the time when someone is talking about if a movie is good or not they'll say something along the lines of "It's no Citizen Kane or anything". It almost seemed to be used as a benchmark of moviemaking.

So why is this movie so highly respected? What makes it such a good movie? Is it the acting, cinematography, sound design, etc? What factors make it the pinnacle of movie making?

Also do you believe it deserves all the praise? Is the name it's built for itself deserved?

[Assistant]
It's less about being the pinnacle of movie-making and more about being the _start_ of modern movie-making.

In _Citizen Kane_, director Orson Welles revolutionized how films were shot. There are a number of cinematic techniques that were introduced in _Citizen Kane_ including low angle shots, multiple dissolves, deep focus, non-linear storytelling (in particular supported by the film editing), people talking over one another (most films were shot then as back-and-forth dialogue), full sets with four walls and a ceiling (most films then were shot on sets like stage plays -- 3 walls, no ceiling), incorporation of fake documentary/news reels (which Welles had pioneered on radio with _War of the Worlds_), expressionistic lighting, and more.

All of these things are so commonplace today that you'll see them in many 30-second commercials, never mind feature films. But in 1941 they were all almost entirely new innovations that people had never seen until _Citizen Kane_.

Watching _Citizen Kane_ today, you'd think "What's the big deal?" But the *reason* you think "What's the big deal" is because of all the techniques that _Citizen Kane_ introduced to cinema.

Possible recent analogy: think about how the special effects of something like _Jurassic Park_ or _The Matrix_ in the 90's or maybe _Avatar_ in 2009 changed the way that people thought about how films could be made. _Citizen Kane_ had _ten times_ the impact that those films had in people's thinking about how films could be made.


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

[User]
[World of Darkness] How many vampires are there? Like. In total? What are some interesting population statistics?

I'm curious how many Vampires there are in the contemporary World of Darkness. Are they in the hundreds? The Thousands? A few million? How large is a 'large' accumulation of vampires?

How many of these vampires are active? How many are ancients, methuselahs, and neonates? What's the average 'age' of the vampires?

[Assistant]
The closest approximation is that there is about 1 vampire for 100 000 mortals. This of course includes only curently active vampires, not the ones that lie in torpor.

Realsitically, big cities might have much more dense vampire population, even 1/10 000, since blood is easier to come by, and population of vamps is harder to control.

So conservatively, we are talking about something between 60 000 to 80 000 active vampires, and probably around 10 000 in hibernation.

How many ancients? This nobody knows, but probably less than 100, and most of those are in torpor.
As for methuzelahs, probably a 1000-2000 or so. Ancillae, neonates and weak blooded scum make up the rest.
With each generation, vampire population rises more or less 2-3 times, but there were times of culling (example: the first war with Sabat), and great increases in population (late days of the Roman Empire, or today)

As for the average age, the numbers of vamps rose in the recent years so much that the average is probably below 50yo, including less than 30 years of being an actual vamp.
So, if you were to meet a vampire, it would be most likely that it was alive longer than it was undead.
Also, its worth noting that each generation of vamps is shorter. Father Cain, 2nd generation and 3rd generation waited centuries before siring another generation. Further generations waited at least 100 years or so before making another one of their kind. Up to the late XIX century, we only reached, on average, 8-9 generation, and then in less than 100 years, we reached 15th generation. The youngest weakbloods wait less than a year before siring their own childe, and its only the impotency of their blood that prevents them from literally vampirizing the whole planet due to stupidity and exponential numbers.

(OWoD) By far the most numerous clan is Brujah, followed by Toreador and Gangrel. The number of Nosferatu is unknown, and the other main clans are fairly small by comparison.

Vampires also outnumber both werewolves and mages by a a significant margin, and are (as far as we know) the most numerous supernatural creatures in the World of Darkness.


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

[User]
[Nolan Verse] How did Batman survive that bomb?

I feel like it was explained in movie, and I just couldn't remember it.

I also checked to see if this question was asked before, I didn't see anything for the key words "batman" "bomb" and "survive" so please cut me some slack if this is a repost.

[Assistant]
When Lucius Fox and his engineers are working on the Batpod at the end, one engineer notes that the problem with the autopilot mentioned earlier in the movie had been fixed by a software patch added by someone using Bruce Wayne's ID.

He wanted people to think that the autopilot didn't work so he would have to fly the bomb away manually. He didn't want people thinking the trip was survivable.


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

[User]
Are the three spatial dimensions actually one dimension, represented by three vectors? Are the three dimensions actually "separate"?

While we represent position in three dimensional space using three coordinates, it occurred to me that the universe may not have a discrete x, y, and z axis.  If these dimensions can be mixed in to each other depending on your reference frame, are they really a separate phenomenon?

[Assistant]
You cannot say which dimensions are which. There isn't a canonical triple of x, y, z axes.

However, you can say there are 3 dimensions. (Formally one says space has dimension 3, but in common language one says there are 3 dimensions). The dimension of a space, the *number* of dimensions, is always a well defined concept. Since you like vectors, in the case of a vector space is the maximum number of linearly independent vectors you can take in that space. Sure, there's no preferential choice of 3 lin independent vectors, but you can choose up to 3, so the dimension is 3.