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

[User] [DC] My house got wrecked when Superman punched Doomsday through the city. Where do I turn for compensation? Superman's not going to just leave me high and dry, right?

[Assistant] Bluntly its common enough that the government just pays it off like a disaster.  You get to talk to FEMA's superhero division and they will repair your house.  Superhero's are walking disasters, but supervillains are far worse.


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

[User]
Are we able to determine the effects a substance would have on a body just by knowing the chemical composition?

For example, if we knew the chemical composition of THC, would we be able to figure out what it would do to our body and how we would feel if no one had ever tried it?

[Assistant] Not trying to be a smart ass, but, no. This is why drug research exists, because we can't figure it out. We can make guesses. But until we put it in a living being we have no idea. And even then, we still are only making educated guesses based on "generally what happens".


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

[User]
ELI5: How are there not billions of fruit flies all over the grocery store?

I bring home a couple peppers and an onion, now a couple weeks later I have tons of fruit flies in my house.  What does the grocery store do to keep them from infesting?

[Assistant]
Fruit flies generally go after rotten fruit, not regular fruit, because then they can get through its peel or rind to lay and hatch eggs on the nutritious sugary part. The rents and tear in rotting fruit allow the insides to gives off gasses and esters that strongly attract them. Then their eggs hatch and they breed very quickly, taking only a few days to mature into flies that buzz around the area.

Supermarkets do their best to remove damaged or rotten fruit as quickly as possible, and they usually have a very high turnover of produce so nothing sits around and goes bad like the apple that fell behind the bowl out of ~~site~~ (Edit: sight *sheesh!*) or the pepper that was mishandled and cracked open on the wall-facing side of the counter.

Traffic is also very high unlike areas of our house. The minute the produce section guy spots a few fruit flies buzzing around something, they get rid of it to avoid disgusting their customers. The produce department is not left unattended for the hot part of a full day, unlike our kitchens or larders when we're at work.


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

[User]
The universe is expanding, but gravity always works, no matter the distance. So will expansion ever start reversing?

I mean, on an astronomical timeline, theory suggests that there is a continuous force, no matter how small acting over infinitely large distances. So given enough time, it makes sense that an unfathomable long period of time, the momentum will stop and things will reverse towards a central acceleration. Right?

[Assistant] For a long time that is what peiple thought. It wass assumed that the universe would eventually collapse back into itself in an event called 'The Big Crunch'. In order to prove this theory astronomers needed to measure how the expansion of the universe has changed with time. As it turns out you can do that by looking at supernovae occuring billions of lightyears away. The measurment was made but instead of finding a universe whose expansion was slowing as they expected, what they found was that the universe was accelerating. Something is acting against gravity to push the universe apart faster and faster. This repulsive force was called dark energy and we still don't really know what it is.


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

[User] ELI5: Why do we subconsciously immitate others' body gestures?

[Assistant] It helps us feel empathy for others. When you talk to another person, you will also subconsciously imitate their facial expressions. The small changes in muscle tone of your face muscle will send feedback to our brain which can identify the corresponding feeling better. Infact, experiments have shown that people who use BOTOX(a chemical which is a toxin to nerves that is injected to your face to remove wrinkles. No working nerves serving the facil's muscle= lesser skin stretching= lesser wrinkles formed) will show a lesser degree of empathy compared to those who did not use BOTOX.


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

[User]
ELI5: Spirits

What is the difference between popular spirits such as whiskey, scotch, bourbon, and rum?

Also when a scotch or whiskey is 'single malt', what does this mean?

[Assistant]
There are a few basic differences.  To make a spirit in the first place, you have to start with a base product.  This can be a grain, as is the case with whiskey, or can be a fruit, such as grapes in brandy, or can be molasses from sugar cane, such as in the case of rum.  Where you are in the world is likely going to dictate what base product you would use to make your booze.
The next thing to consider is the type of still you're using for distillation.  Some people like to use traditional copper pot stills, which give spirits kike Scotch or Bourbon a nice heavy, rich flavor.  Other people, like vodka producers or Canadian whisky makers, like to use special column stills that specifically strip out as much flavor as possible, leaving only ethanol.
The last major thing to take into account with spirits is the aging process.  Many spirits are put into barrels to take on rich flavors over time.  If this barrel is brand new and heavily charred on the inside, it will affect the distillate differently than a barrel that has previously been used for aging something else, like Sherry.
Where the barrel is aged also affects flavor.  A barrel will age more aggressively in a climate that changes from extreme hot to extreme cold, like Kentucky.  Scotland is more moderate in temperature, so barrels there age more gracefully over long periods of time.

"Single Malt"  simply means that all the whiskey in your bottle came from the distillery on the label, vs. a blended Scotch, which could come from multiple distilleries in Scotland.


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

[User]
[Dc Comics] With all Superman does for Earth, why doesn't he invest some time in bettering it technologically, medically, or pretty much any other way than punching out villains?

If the answer is that he does not want to mess with the advancement of the human race, then why bother doing any thing at all, save for maybe an intergalactic baddie every now and then?

[Assistant]
This is answered pretty well in Red Son, actually.

Basically, the more Superman tries to help by solving problems, the more two unintended side effects occur:

1.  Humans depend on Superman more and more, and put less and less effort into solving their own problems, and

2.  The solution to each new problem requires more and more constant control by Superman.

For instance, let's say he can't cure AIDS.  But he could probably eliminate it within a generation by watching every single person who has AIDS (trivial for him) constantly, and intervening any time they would be about to spread the disease, via unprotected sex, accidental blood contact, etc.  Except that, horrifyingly, means Superman is constantly watching your every move.

In Red Son, Superman becomes the ruler of most of the world, and the resultant world is nearly crime-free, poverty-free, etc. - but it's also filled with people lobotomized by Superman in order to make them more pliant (for their own good) and every single aspect of the society is directly controlled by him.  It's peaceful, but advancement grinds to a halt and Superman ends up a dictator.


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

[User] While driving, if you look at dips in the road that are far away they seem to reflect light from ahead like a mirror. Why?

[Assistant]
Other answers touch on this, but a substance's refractive index changes with it's density.

The refractive index affects the angle at which incident light is "bent" at the boundary between two media (specifically, it obeys Snell's Law). When the angle of incidence (measured from a normal line perpendicular to the boundary) is great enough, the light can undergo total internal reflection, and reflect off the boundary rather than refract through it. A common example of this is if you have a fish tank, shine a laser at the top surface of the water from underneath at a wide angle, and it will reflect off rather than go through.

Total internal reflection only happens when the light is travelling in a medium of higher refractive index compared to the medium it borders (refractive index of water is greater than that of air). In your case, on a hot day the road heats up and creates a layer of hot air over it, which has a lower density than the cooler air above (the ground has to be substantially hot to combat the hot air eventually rising away). The light from far away, then, is in higher density air - and hence air with a higher index of refraction, and so it undergoes total internal reflection with the lower density hot air and bounces off, just like a mirror.


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

[User] ELI5:why are adobe products so expensive?

[Assistant]
There are many reasons why:

Adobe's softwares are the results of a long time of research and programing, they are to say the least, products of great quality and gives other businesses tools to create their activity and make profit for themselves.

Adobe's consumers are mainly businesses and they can afford a larger cost than individual people, the price is chosen in order to make adobe's products professional more than personal, the bigger your business is the most expensive it gets.

Adobe changed how they priced: before you bought photoshop for example but now you monthly subscribe and you get many of adobe's products with photoshop, like premiere, after effects, indesign, illustrator, etc... And adobe's cloud capabilities.

Adobe also gained a reputation, because their products are well known and give a certain level of quality, Adobe can easily rise their prices without risking a huge fall of their clients.


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

[User]
In Nietzsche philosophy does "will" and "will to power" means the same?

In Nietzsche philosophy does "will" and "will to power" means the same?

[Assistant]
The short answer is no. Nietzsche sometimes attacks the idea of will as it has been conceptualized by other thinkers. For example, in *Twilight of the Idols*, look at the section called "Reason in Philosophy," section 5. He writes:
>At the beginning stands the great fateful error that the will is something which *produces an effect*--that will is a *faculty*.

The point he's making is that thinking of will as a faculty is wrong because it makes it seem like will is something you have just sitting in you like a potential, and then you activate it or not as you choose. Nietzsche is arguing against this notion of will, and his own will-to-power tries to indicate that will is always active (never just potential).


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

[User] If OPEC is a cartel and oil a good with inelastic demand, whats stopping them from increasing the price further and further? What would happen if they did it?

[Assistant] They only have a \~35% market share, so if they did that, they'd probably get more money in the short-term, but in the long-term they'd be undercut by cheaper production, similar to what happened in 2013.


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

[User]
[BSG reimagined]What are cylons really?

I'm watching the reimagined series. And I'm getting more and more confused with the cylons.

Were they originally an AI 'species' developed by humans that rebelled?
When they rebelled, how smart was the average cylon?
Were there models that could think on the level of humans?
What made them rebel?
The 'skin jobs' or numbered cylons are new, as in they weren't made by humans. But Cylons are apparently unable to make new models, only able to clone the existing skin jobs and tin cans/raiders. Where did the skin jobs come from?

What is their obsession with religion? Is this some part of their programming?

[Assistant]
There are two sets of cylons. You have the hardware type cylons, these are the more robotics, metal centurions and raiders. They originally had circuits and microprocessors just like you'd expect of a computer. Their AI was incredible advance, it was actually based off profiling humans and using that profile combined with an advance processing chip to produce human like individuality.

These "centurions" were all based on the same, original human profile. This human was radical in her religious beliefs and believed in the "One True God", rather than the more prolific polytheistic religion that dominated in the colonies. As these cylons became integrated into society, they continued to believe in their OTG and would actually worship in churches.

Eventually, the cylons rebelled against their human overlords, leading the Cylon War. During the war, the cylons began experimenting with more biologically based hardware. These new forms would have less mechanical and cybernetic internals and would appear to resemble other biological species.

Eventually, five humans from Earth had made their way back to the original colonies. Earth humans had already developed articifial biological forms that would more exactly resemble their more natural human counter parts. The most significant advantage of these advancements was that they could effectively be immortal through the technology of "Resurrection" that would upload one's consciousness to a new body at the point of death. However, the Earth humans also had their own internal war between their "Cylons" and humans that lead to total destruction, except for the five who escaped.

These five Earth humans made contact with the Cylons and they traded the technology to perfect their biological forms and Resurrection in exchange for ending their war with the humans. The Cylons accepted and the war came to an end.

This lead to the creation of new Cylons that were biological in nature. 7 new Cylon models were created, although their were thousands of each model and each individual Cylon was a free thinking individual like any human.

Why did the colonial Cylons rebel? It was most like a combination of a war for freedom as well as a war of religion and ideology. The humans were blasphemers who believed in their fake gods and denied the OTG. Also, the humans were their slave-masters. The second war was caused by one of the Cylon leader's, First, hatred of humans and his own biological limitations. Since humans ultimately made him, he resented his creators.

The Cylons can't create new models because they don't fully understand the Resurrection technology. First killed the Earth humans after the seventh model and messed with their memories after resurrection so that they would live among the humans. However, First did so before they revealed all the secrets to Resurrection. Without these secrets, the Cylons could not create new models or even recreate their Resurrection Hub when it was destroyed by the Cylon rebels and Galactica's fighters during their Civil War.

The new Raiders are a hybrid of the Cylon's original research into creating biological Cylons and the Resurrection technology. Which is why they are able to resurrect. However, they are not as advance as the human form Cylons, as seen by their lack of representation among the leadership. The Centurions are like the Raiders as well, but without the Resurrection ability. But they are at least as advanced/free thinking as the original Cylons when their brain functions aren't being inhibited.


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

[User]
Why, when spaceships lose power do their orbits decay so fast that a crash in to the planet below is an immediate future prospect?

As far as I know it actually takes effort to get out of orbit. So a broken engine should just mean you're stuck.

Right?

[Assistant]
Yeah, but a stable orbit like this is inconvienent. What if you want to do detailed scans of one area, for example? You want to be low, but also to stay over one point on the surface. Orbital mechanics disagress with that, so the solution is to simply continuously use your engines rather than your orbital velocity to counteract gravity. That's a ludicrous idea with our terrible chemical rockets, but if your propulsion is good enough, it's a reasonable thing to do.

One downside is that when your engine fails, you start falling.


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

[User] [The Incredibles] Syndrome's plan is to sell everyone his supertech, so that "when everybody's super, no one is". What does the world actually look like if he pulls this off?

[Assistant] It's a world of oppression. The technology in his gadgets isn't something you can just mass produce like cars or televisions, these are all bleeding edge inventions decades ahead of their time. Only rich will be able to afford to live in this new world and poor people will no longer have a means to resist against them.


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

[User]
[Star Wars] I'm a Sith whose counterpart was killed and now I need to get a new apprentice for the Rule of Two. What is the suggested amount of time to spend deciding on an apprentice?

If I wait too long, something could happen to me and the Sith would become extinct but if I pick an apprentice too soon, I might pick a low quality one and he might get us both killed due to clumsiness. Showing off his Force lightning while we are in a room full of explosives kind of thing.

[Assistant]
Ok, the rule of two is more of a guideline. It's main purpose is to prevent your apprentices from ganging up on you and killing you before they are individually powerful enough to do so.

What that in mind, there's no reason you can't start taking on multiple candidates for apprentice (if you're gonna get killed by a couple of upstarts with a month's training, what kind of sith are you?) . When it comes time to focus on a single apprentice, simply play them against each other and train the victor (who should thank you for the excellent practical experience in doing battle with other force users).


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

[User] Does the heart get microtears like any other muscle? And if it doesn't, why can it keep going non stop unlike say your bicep?

[Assistant] There are three types of muscle: striated/skeletal muscle (as in what you think about when you think muscle, the things that move/stabilize your body and you can chose to use then), smooth (in blood vessels, the gut, all your automatic bits that you personally have no control over), and cardiac (heart muscle). Suffice to say although they have the same basic property of being able to contract and relax they are different on a number of levels. The muscle making up the heart being so specialized and different that it is its own subtype. It starts getting more complex from here on in but in short the different/additional chemical pathways in heart muscle and the special way the electrical impulses travel around the heart make the heart the unique organ that it is.


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

[User] ELI5: Why does looking up at the sun make you sneeze?

[Assistant] Not for everyone, some people posses a genetic "flaw in the wiring" of *nervus trigeminus* that innervates parts of the nose (and triggers sneezing when irritated in a particular way), part of the face and parts of the eye. The glitch in wiring of the cables makes your brain think that the strong stimulus from the eye (stong sunlight) is coming from the nose as well and something should be done about it - a sneeze.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why do people black out when drinking?

I'm sure we've all had one of those nights. What is going on in our body when we blackout? Why does it happen?

[Assistant]
Well, quite simply put alcohol is poison, and as such it has some negative effects on your body.

To be spesific, there is a part of your brain called the hippocampus, that is the part of the brain that is responsible for learning and memory. It uses a metal called Zinc to do this. Zinc is also known as spelter.

Alcohol messes with your bodys ability to absorb and process zinc, so when you have too much alcohol in your system your body can't process and store the memories, and thus you can't remember anything.


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

[User]
ELI5: How can a diary be admissible as evidence? Couldn't it be completely forged the night before?

I see diaries often mentioned as great tools for keeping organizations honest and a few big political cases where diaries or personal journals became major evidence.

Is it just so the journal-keeper can keep better track of his or her own memories better or are they validated in some way?

edit: The ELI5 gist I'm getting is that it's usually considered something along the lines of a verbal testimony, and not usually used by itself to decide a case, but that there are a lot of variables involved such as how important the diary evidence might be, and it has the added weight that it's already written and cannot be changed later. And there are ways to at least validate that it was written when it was claimed to have been written.

Thanks for the answers guys!

[Assistant]
They can be evidence as much as any other written document can be. Yes, a diary could have been forged. But so could any other written document. Just like a witness might be lying, computer evidence falsified or any other kind of evidence corrupted. Evidence has to be critically examined to ensure that, as best as can be determined, it's genuine.

For example, if the relevant diary entry was in a different hand, different pen and on a page stapled into the rest of the diary, there would be good grounds for assuming it was false.


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

[User] [MCU] How did Tony find out Peter Parker's secret identity?

[Assistant]
Geographic Profiling. Peters heroics are clustered nearby his place of residence which narrows down the list of potential suspects considerably. Even more so considering there are two clusters, his house and Midtown High.

Then you exclude the ones that dont match the physical dimensions of Spider-Man and you are left with a small number of potential suspects.

Once you have that small list you check their social media to see if you can find a digital alibi for the person. Because of the number of Spider-Man incidents its fairly easy to show that each false suspect has been online during at least one of them and thus cant be Spider-Man.


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

[User] ELI5: Why do we have specific names for other planets' moons but we simply call ours "the moon"?

[Assistant]
When ours was named, people thought it was the only moon in the whole universe, because telescopes had not been invented.

Once people realized other planets had moons, they had to name them -- but ours was already "the moon" and attempts to give it other names in English (such as Luna) were ignored by most people.


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

[User] ELI5: Why does electricity "want" to be grounded. If there was a bigger planet then Earth here would electricity jump to it instead ?

[Assistant] The more general rule is that a system will tend to minimize its potential energy. For example, a ball on the top of a hill "wants" to roll down to minimize its gravitational potential energy. Similarly, a circuit "wants" to minimize its electrical potential energy, or voltage (technically voltage is electric potential energy per charge aka electric potential). *Ground* is defined as voltage=0, so a circuit being grounded is like the ball reaching the bottom of the hill.


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

[User]
ELI5- What are blood groups? Why do they differ from person to person? Why can't a person of one blood group receive blood from a person of a different blood group?

Edit: Whoever it is, thank you very much for the silver! This the first award I've recieved on Reddit! I love you!

Edit: Whoever gave me the gold... You're a legend! You're a fucking legend!! Thanks a lot Redditor!! It means a lot!

[Assistant]
In some blood types, it's like the blood cells are wearing little hats. If you get some blood cells wearing hats and you don't normally have them, your body is like, whoah, these shouldn't be here, and it attacks them. Type A only likes type A hats, and type B only likes type B hats. Type AB is cool with either kind of hat. Type O doesn't have any hats itself, so the bodies of Type O people will attack A or B or AB blood cells. People with A, B, or AB blood types are ok receiving the hatless Type O blood cells.

The positive and negative refers to Rh blood types. Rh blood types are like the cells have mustaches. Rh+ types, they've all got mustaches but they're ok accepting blood cells with no mustaches. Rh- types, they don't want any of those stupid mustaches. Maybe they could tolerate it a bit, if it's an emergency, but really no mustaches would be better. So an AB+ person is cool with blood that has any kind of hat and mustaches or no mustaches, so they can take any kind of blood, while an O- person can only accept blood with no hats and no mustaches.

There are other accessories that affect blood type, representing more detailed blood types. For surgery and stuff usually ABO type and Rh type are all that matters, but for some transplants you really need the closest type possible, like blood with the exact same hat and facial hair and jewelry and clothes and haircut. That's why people who need kidneys or bone marrow will sometimes ask lots and lots of people to check if they're a potential match, and maybe never find anyone.


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

[User] ELI5:Why doesn't lightning striking lakes/ocean fry all the fish, yet swimming during a lightning storm is a terrible idea?

[Assistant]
When lightning hits the ocean, the discharge spreads over the surface of the water.  Any fish/human near the surface will be electrocuted.

Edit: humans are also better conductors than fish so the damage will be more substantial.


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

[User] Eli5: Why do birds and fish come in such a spectacular variety of colors and shapes compared to other animals?

[Assistant]
Well, two things:

1. Their colors only stand out compared to other reptiles and mammals. Amphibians and nearly every kind of invertebrate come in just as many spectacular colors. The better question is "why don't mammals have such a spectacular variety of colors compared to other animals?"

2. Their variety in shape doesn't really stand out amongst anyone; obviously invertebrates all have enormous variation, but even boring old mammals have everything from tiny/round mice to lanky/springy deer to weird long ferrets to giant stocky rhinos.

It's also worth noting that fish in particular may be so widely varied because they're miscategorized; there's a push among some biologists to split up "fish" into several differently groups because there's so much more variation among "fish" than among equivalent groups.

Mammals don't have as much color variety because our color comes almost exclusively from melanin, which can only do shades of tan/brown/black. Most other animals can synthesize more pigments than that.

But birds in particular do have some other tricks up their sleeves:

Some birds, famously the flamingo but also plenty others, can absorb pigments from their food that their body can't make by itself.

Most green and blue birds actually don't use specc pigments, but their feathers structurally create that color (which is why they're so iridescent).

I don't know if either of those apply to fish.


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

[User]
[Game of Thrones] Why was King Robert so concerned with Daenerys's child when Viserys was the rightful heir to the throne?

Surely Viserys was a greater threat to King Rob's rule than a child who wouldn't have even been in the line of succession.

[Assistant]
Didn't he not find out about her pregnancy until after Viserys had been killed?  Because then Dany was the person with the best claim to challenge him, and her son after her.

But even with Viserys alive, as long as he was childless, his heirs were Dany and any children that she might bear.  The possibility of a Dothraki-backed Targaryen keeping the khals loyal to him because of his part-Dothraki heir was a big deal.


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

[User] What evolutionary advantage does a virus have if it kills the host?

[Assistant] Traits that evolve do not necessarily have to have an evolutionary advantage. Biological effects often have unintended consequences. The fact that an effect that kills the host can evolve from the properties that allow it to spread successfully is an accident and has no evolutionary disadvantage as long as it's still capable of transmitting itself to more hosts that can spread it before it kills them.


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

[User]
CMV: girls flirting with guys just to get drinks (with no genuine romantic interest in the dudes) is manipulative and shouldn't be glorified as "finessing"

No one's making these dudes buy her a drink. Totally agree on that, if he chooses to buy her a drink then he made that choice himself. But if a girl's deliberately trying to get free drinks like this, that's just being a bad person imo. I don't see how [some] girls can celebrate stuff like this as "finessing" or anything like that. Leading people on- no matter what the genders or orientation is- is not cool. Even if you just ask a guy to buy you a drink without being overly or noticeably flirty, imo you can't blame him for being annoyed when you just leave after he gets you a drink. It's reasonable for a guy to interpret a request to buy her a drink as a show of interest. Now to be clear, just because he buys her a drink doesn't mean she owes him anything. She's not obligated to do anything just because he said yes and bought her a drink. He made that choice himself. But it's still a crappy and manipulative thing to do if girls intentionally try to get free drinks from guys if they're not genuinely interested in them.

Change my view- is it ok (or not manipulative/leading on) when girls try to get free drinks like this? All comments and perspectives are welcome and encouraged.

[Assistant]
Clarifying question: do you think it's actually common that girls flirt with guys while asking for a drink, and then simply leave without even any conversation (minimal though it might be) once the drink arrives?

Parallel clarifying question: Do you have any opinions about guys that buy a girl a drink without any expression of interest or request?


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

[User]
ELI5 (or like... HS): Why does my stomach get upset when I'm stressed?

I just realized I totally take this for granted, but have no clue why it actually happens...

[Assistant]
stress is a response left over from the era when it was very likely for a lion (or some guy who wants our food) to try to kill us with very little warning.  so when you feel like a lion could pop out at any moment, you become stressed.  when you are stressed, your body's long term functions (digestion, immune system, cell growth) start to shut down in favor of your short term functions (running fast, reaction time, breathing).  so when a lion finally did jump at you, you could run away faster then if you were trying to digest your food at the same time.

however, that situation doesn't happen as much in america.  instead of lions, we have things like morgages and shitty jobs.  your body has the same stress reaction to these situations is it does to a lion, however, unlike a lion, these problems will remain for years at a time.  so your body is in full stress mode 24/7, ready for it's fight-or-flight response, and feels like that is more important then digesting you hamburger, which will just sit there for much longer then it should.


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

[User]
ELI5: If it takes up to 6 weeks for an antidepressant to work its way theough the blood-brain barrier, how come it only takes an aspirin 10 minutes to start working?

And many other drugs too ...

[Assistant] Because it doesn't take weeks to cross the blood brain barrier. It gets there in mins to hours like everything else, But ssri's take weeks to change the way your brain works. Which is when you will start feeling them "work".


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

[User] How did we determine the shape of electron orbitals?

[Assistant]
The "shapes" you are referring to are probably the probability densities as a function of spatial coordinates. It's a postulate of quantum mechanics that the state of a particle is represented by a wavefunction, and that the modulus squared of the wavefunction is the probability density.

The wavefunctions for electrons in an atom come from solving the time-independent Schrodinger equation. For an electron in a Coulomb potential (the hydrogen atom).


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

[User] Why do certain sounds sound appealing and others don't?

[Assistant]
Three incomplete explanations:

1. A sound can be appealing because it is associated with a pleasant experience. If you grew up near the ocean, for example, a distant foghorn might be a pleasant sound.

2. As for the quality of sound, it might be that we are born appreciating certain sounds that are associated with well-being or survival, such as kind human voices or trickling water. Both could indicate safety and security.

3. In music, we tend to appreciate certain harmonies. These tend to feature a moderate amount of dissonance. Two tones played in unison (both the same tone) sounds nice but is uninteresting, as the frequencies (as measured in Hertz) have a simple 1:1 ratio. An octave has a 1:2 ratio and sound a little more colorful. Other harmonies have more complex ratios like 2:3, 3:5, etc. These are more colorful still. As the ratios get more complex they start to sound sad, and then eventually hideous. The most complex ratio within an octave on a piano keyboard is 45:32, known as a tritone. It sounds very "ugly". To hear a tritone, play the notes C and F# simultaneously.


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

[User]
ELI5:What is wrong with insider trading and how could the government proved you were involved?

Part 1: I just can't figure out why someone should go to prison for making an otherwise legal transaction just because they know something. If I think a stock's price will rise I will buy it and if I think it will fall I will sell, if I have any information about a stock I will factor that into my decision. How can this be illegal, and at what point is the line crossed?

Hypothetical situation for part 2: Lets say I own a large amount of shares in a big corporation (I.E. Nike or Coca Cola). One day I decide to sell all my shares, only because they are worth a more than I paid for them and if I sell now I can retire with enough wealth for my whole family to live in luxury. I sell and life is great. The next week the stock crashes and is totally worthless and the SEC decides to investigate me for insider trading even though I had no knowledge of the impending crash. How could I prove my innocence and how would they prove me "guilty"?

[Assistant]
Insider trading is when you have information that the general public don't have. It might be because you are an employee of the company, or because you are a major customer of the company who is about to sign (or cancel) a contract.

It can be proved by things like e-mail records. If a big contract is about to be signed, there are usually months of negotiations before the information is made public. There will be records kept (by the company and by their customer) of meetings that have been held, who attended them, what the outcome of the meetings was, etc. Often a contract will be signed before the information is made public. It would be very easy to prove whether someone knew about the kind of thing that would make any significant difference to a share price.

In your scenario, whatever caused the crash, there would presumably be no record of you having attended meetings about it, seen e-mails about it, met people who would have known about it, etc. So you're pretty safe. And of course (depending which country you're in) you are innocent until proven guilty, so the lack of evidence is in your favour.


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

[User] Why is it that men's sperm need to be at a lower temperature, while women's eggs are ok at body temperature?

[Assistant] As sperm develop, they are metabolically inactive. During spermatogenesis sperm lose nearly all their organelles and are dependent on Sertoli cells for protein synthesis and other functions. It is only after ejaculation that swimming activity is triggered presumably due to other components in semen. So the decreased temperature may be protective, slowing random chemical reactions and allowing the sperm to be stable in the their inactive state.


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

[User]
[Star Wars] How do planetary blockades work?

When a planet is blockaded we usually see capital ships and such arranged in a ring around the planet's equator.

Why don't the invading ships or the fleeing populace just enter or leave via the planet's poles?

[Assistant] At least with the blockade of Naboo it is clearly shown that an advanced ship like the Queen's yacht can run the blockade and make it through with minimal damage.  What can't make it are freighters carrying supplies and trade goods.  Just like a real naval blockade a fast motorboat can get through but thats not what the blockade is tryign to stop.  The want to stop trade like a medevil seige.


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

[User]
CMV: Black Lives Matter is a racist organization that is anti-white, and does more harm than good to its own cause.

I am mainly focusing on the biggest recent events I'm aware of, which are the Toronto Pride Protest by BLM, and the protest at DePaul University when BLM activists stormed the stage during a debate with Milo Yiannopoulos.

There is so much to dislike about Milo from my perspective, being completely opposite to him politically, yet he necessarily points out many things wrong with the radical left that need to be acknowledged. And he claimed himself - if you want to beat him, debate him.

Black Lives Matter - they seem to be taking the Malcolm X approach as opposed to the Martin Luther King option, and I can't imagine it really to be the best course. They don't debate, they don't sit down and argue good points. They protest, they storm, they shout. Such cliche situations of "if you have nothing to say, say it louder". They're anti-white, professional victims, and are just as racist as the racists they are trying to defeat. They project that racism onto innocent people accusing anyone who's white and not actively defending their cause to be racist, and at the same time either belittle and deny the defense of whites, or accuse whites of being racist by default regardless of their actions. In Toronto, a woman tried purchasing a t-shirt from a BLM booth and donating to their cause, but was denied service because she wasn't black.

I admit to not doing much research on the topic and coming at this from a point of significant ignorance, but from what I have seen, this is a large group of people behaving like children, and spitting in the face of their own cause by behaving in a way that can't be taken seriously. I'm not coming at this with flawed statistics or propagandized media - I am ignorant of statistics but recognize their purpose as a movement is valid - I'm speaking specifically of the approach and behaviour that I have seen from BLM activists. By that point alone, am I wrong? Change my view.

[Assistant] It seems like the reasonable discussion about race has been tried already, and failed. We now live in a time where the mere mention of inequality results in dismissive groans about "PC culture". No debate can be had when you just get called "SJW, libtard, PC, etc". Real change happens when people get upset. If there wasn't an organization constantly drawing attention to the issue, it would just be dismissed and forgotten.


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

[User] [Star wars] whats the difference between a Sith and a Lord. Why do some people call Anakin Lord Vader while others Darth Vader.

[Assistant]
The full title of people like Darth Sidious and Darth Vader was "Dark Lord of the Sith".  This was sometimes abbreviated to "Sith Lord".

"Darth Sidious" and "Darth Vader" were the names of these Sith Lords.  The "Darth" part of their names was part of a tradition passed down by the earliest Sith Lords, whose names all started with Darth.  Supposedly the word means "Lord" in the original language, but the primary purpose of the "Darth" prefix is to identify its bearer as a Sith Lord.

Thus, calling Anakin "Darth Vader" is akin to going up to the President of the US and calling him Joe Biden.  "Lord Vader" on the other hand would be equivalent to "President Biden".


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

[User] ELI5: What would happen if I put superhydrophobic spray on the business end of a snowboard and tried to use it?

[Assistant]
It would be the same as using really really amazing snowboard wax. The reason you wax your snowboard is that wax is hydrophobic.

So, noting magical would happen, it would just be like using a ridiculously high-quality wax.


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

[User] ELI5: how can facial skin be dry and oily at the same time?

[Assistant]
If you over wash your face or use a cleaner that is a stringent, your skin becomes overly dry and your body over produces oils to compensate.

I used to have a pretty wicked case of the issue you are describing.

I found that a sensitive face wash without any type of salicylic acid to be best (burts bees foaming cleanser works great for me)


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

[User]
What are some real life examples, if any, where a bug turned into a feature?

There's always the joke "its not a bug, its a feature" but I was wondering if there were any real life instances where developers embraced a bug and made it into a feature.

[Assistant] Civilization infamously used an unsigned byte to store a player's aggression stat, and set Gandhi's to a very low number. Given sufficient benevolence over the game, it would then underflow from 0 to 255 and reach maximum aggression. Thus we all got Gandhi nukes.


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

[User]
[Marvel] Can someone please explain Godhood to me?

So the world seems to be filling up with "gods" lately. Between all the Asgardians and the likes of Ares I feel a wee bit confused. Can someone explain the concept of "godhood" to me?

[Assistant]
To an extent, it's a failure of our (human) vocabulary.  We don't really have a snappy way of explaining metacreatures with fantastical power to one another without the term "gods" getting thrown around.  But in most cases, "gods" must at least meet the following criteria:

1.  Immortality - either definite (will survive the heat death of the universe) or practical (as in, can live a few billion years).
2.  Invulnerability - once again either definite (transcendent beings) or practical (supernova can go off in their face)
3.  Vast knowledge - not necessarily intelligence, and certainly not "all knowing," but at the very least a massive volume of available information at all times, especially about the entirety of the universe/metaverse.
4.  Multi-dimensionally aware - Not aware in the sense they exist, aware in the sense they can see the different threads between multiple universes and in some cases, can jump between them, or blend multiple ones together.

After that you start getting into specific powers, like unlimited strength or unlimited manipulation of time/space - things that violate our conception of the laws of physics.


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

[User] Why is cancer much more relevant now than it was a century ago?

[Assistant]
Don't quite understand the question, but cancer tends to be a disease of older people and people live much longer nowadays.

So, if you die of an infection at 32, you don't live long enough to die of colon cancer at the age of 55. Also, diagnostics have improved, so people are now correctly diagnosed with a cancer where in the past they may not have been.

Cancer has been around for a long, long time.


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

[User]
[Mad Max] If gas is so scarce then what powers everyone's cars?

Title is as it says really, I noticed in re-watching the newer Mad Max film it says something along the lines of all the gas running out... so if it's so sparce then what powers everyone's cars?

[Assistant] It's running out in a sense like energy crisis and ordinary people can't afford to buy any meaningful amount of it.  It becomes a resource similar to radioactive material today, highly controlled and hoarded.  Same thing with water and bullets that's why three of the 'towns' regularly trade with each other.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why Do Big Ship Pull Water From Shore?

When I was growing up near the mouth of the Detroit River, we always could tell when a large ship was approaching.  The water level in the canal behind our house would lower significantly, then rise again as the ship passed.

Today I saw a video where a cruise ship sucked the water away from Ft. Lauderdale beach.

Why does this happen?

[Assistant]
These things are moving so much weight that when they're moving they push tons and tons of water behind them. That creates a bit of an up-lift behind, and a depression in front. The water around the depression moves to fill in the depression which pulls it away from the shoreline.

I passed an oil tanker in a channel near the Gulf of Mexico that was going in toward a port and it evacuated an area of water probably 300 yards across as it went by. We had to park the boat near the shoreline and as the tanker passed our boat was left 100 yards from any water for probably 10 minutes before the water finally returned to normal.


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

[User]
[Jurassic World] Could they have just as easily filled the gaps in the Dinosaur DNA with DNA from birds?

Instead of lizards and amphibians.

[Assistant]
Hello thank you for your interest in the Science behind Jurassic Park!

First off yes we could have filled those DNA chains in any number of ways, but the dinosaurs we grew up with had scales and so we decided that this was the image we desired for Jurassic park. We did produce a few test batches with bird DNA since we were told it would be "easier" and less "playing God." These test produced decidedly less scary feathered dinosaurs which frankly just looked silly. So we took the road less traveled and went with Frog and Lizard DNA despite the difficulties.


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

[User] ELI5: why does 60 degree water feel freezing compared to 60 degree air?

[Assistant]
Two reasons:
1.	The water touches your skin everywhere because it gets through your clothes and
2.	it conducts heat faster than air, which is a gas.

The air doesnt touch your skin where its covered by clothes. Theres a layer of warm air (warmed by your skin) between you and the clothes youre wearing that insulates you. Being nude in 60 degree weather would be pretty cold, but it would still take much longer to feel as cold as 60 degree water because water conducts heat much faster than air. Liquids conduct heat faster than gases and solids conduct heat faster than liquids. (Conductivity goes solid>liquid>plasma>gas, and its because of the way molecules line up in those states.).

This works the other way, too. You can survive for awhile in 140+ degree air (as long as its low enough humidity and youre drinking enough water), but if youre in a 140+ degree pool, youre going to die pretty damn quickly. Like five to ten minutes to full-body deep-tissue burns...


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

[User] Why are Garlic and Onions Poisonous to Dogs and Cats and Not To Humans?

[Assistant] Antioxidant metabolic pathways in cat and dog erythrocytes are less efficient than in human  leading them to be more susceptible to the oxidative stress caused by the organosulfur compounds resulting in hemolysis and anemia.


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

[User]
Why do some philosophers talk like Yoda?

Ive read Aristotle, Kant and Aquinas (albeit the readings were translations) and they all phrase their sentences so weirdly and there are so many double negatives everywhere. Its so hard to read.

[Assistant]
> Why do some philosophers talk like Yoda?

If you mean why are philosophical writings written in a manner that you're not used to reading, usually the answer is that you're not used to reading philosophy--which is, of course, the context of most philosophical writings. The good news is that if you keep reading philosophy, this is a problem that solves itself.

Depending on the case in question, this factor may be complicated by their writing in a different language than the ones you speak, their writing in a different historical period than that you're familiar with, and their writing in a different cultural context than that you're familiar with. Though the same good news largely applies here: the more you read material which challenges your present reading level, the more your reading skills will improve, and the less you'll struggle with these sorts of issues.

These are challenges which may be exacerbated in our current climate, insofar as primary and secondary education does not seem to be reliably teaching functional literacy to the level one might wish. But again, this is a problem that the individual can fix for themselves by committing to an ongoing habit of reading.


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

[User]
ELI5: Car tire dimensions, why oh why 205/55/16.

Why is a tire's dimension described using inches, millimeters and percentage? Is it to annoy ppl or to make the believers of the imperial and metric system happy, all at once?

[Assistant]
It's basically because early on the US dominated auto manufacturing so wheels got to be measured in inches.

Later on Europe dominated tire manufacturing, cause of the introduction of radial tires from Michelin.

One hitch was added in because the US ended up requiring inch rim sizes in different regulations so to sell in the US tires had to be marked with the inch sizing.

The aspect ratio seems like it's thrown in to mess with you even more. However the aspect ratio is meant to convey performance changes from wider tires. This doesn't scale with an absolute width though. The same width in a small tire performs different than that of a big tire. So we get a ratio instead.

And so now we have different measurements and no one really wants to bother having two systems in place for like a decade of transition to make it more consistent.


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

[User]
Eli5; Metal implants not being rejected by body?

Why can a body accept metal appliances without trying to expel it? Like a bullet lodged or hardware used to repair a broken bone. Wouldnt our body try to push the foreign body out, like it does a splinter?

[Assistant]
Splinters get pushed out because they are stuck on the surface layers of our skin. The upper layer of the skin is made from dead skin cells that get pushed up from the living skin cells dividing to replenish the upper layer. Other forces could be due to muscles flexing to push foreign particles in a direction.

When the implants are stuck into our bones they really don't have anywhere to go.

With that said there are many ways for our body to "reject" an implant. Focusing on bone implants, the metal can corrode the surrounding bone, making the connection between implant and bone weak until it fails. The metal can release ions or other chemical reactions that actively harm the nearby cells or body.

 The body is also a pretty harsh environment for metal since it's covered in mostly water. This can corrode the metal in the implant and cause it to fail. Corroding the implant can also cause the implant surface to roughen so that moving it in the body hurts the surrounding cells, causing inflammation. You also want a metal where the body doesn't recognize it as an enemy so the immune response doesn't attack the metal directly.

In general implants are quite difficult to both design and approve for use since there are many ways for it be rejected over the lifetime of the implant.


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

[User] [DC Comics ] why is it that the Martian manhunters weak to fire?

[Assistant]
The guardians gave their ancestors the genetic fear because they were violent and war focused while being constantly on fire, having the ability to produce fire and im pretty sure feed off sadness to reproduce asexually, as well as all the other Martian powers.

They were just stupidly OP and violent, the guardians stepped in when they were close to achieving space travel from memory.


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

[User]
[ST:TNG] Why does Chief O'Brien have the pips of a Lieutenant?

They're clearly visible on S4E12 at 35:55. They changed it to an enlisted insignia on DS9.

[Assistant]
The role of enlisted personnel within StarFleet has always been an odd one. From the perspective of a 21st century Earth military, StarFleet appears ludicrously top-heavy, with almost everyone being an officer except for the odd man here and there when officers should be leading groups of enlisted personnel who carry out the many tasks.

Throughout its history it has alternatively provided enlisted personnel with their own insignia, no insignia, or used the same insignia as officers.

It would seem that, during O'Brien's tenure on the Enterprise was during a period of change regarding uniforms and insignia, and enlisted used the same pips as officers to denote enlisted ranks.

O'Brien is (almost) consistently referred to as some sort of chief, and ordered about by officers who would have been subordinate to O'Brien if his pips represented an officer's rank.

This was not without its confusion, and there are instances where someone did refer to O'Brien as "Lieutenant", but we can dismiss this as a mistake on behalf of those individuals.


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

[User] I know of absolute zero at -273.15C, but is there an absolute hot?

[Assistant]
We don't know if there's a maximum temperature.

In certain models -- string theory is one of them -- there is a maximum temperature called the *Hagedorn temperature*.  This arises because the number of possible high energy states increases sufficiently fast that as you put more energy into the system, it gets spread out over more and more states in such a way that the temperature decreases less and less for a given amount of heat put in.  Net result is that there's a temperature that is the upper limit of the temperatures that can be reached.

I'll add that even in string theory, some people think the Hagedorn temperature might not be an actual limit, but more an indication that there is a phase transition (like when a liquid turns to gas), but that's even more speculative.


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

[User]
[MCU] Why is Wakanda so bad at basic warfare?

It's not like they're unaware of the concepts of war. This is a culture that really values learning, to the point that they consider MIT on par with elementary school. They have a battle focused culture, several standing militaries, and leadership positions dedicated to leading armies.

And yet the times we've seen them engage in proper battle they are really bad at it. When a civil war broke out between dueling BP's, they just ran at each other. When aliens invaded and they had to open a gap in their nearly impenetrable force field, they just ran at the enemy.  When they faced an aquatic military they went out to the ocean to meet them and all stood on a boat, even though they had multiple flying super suits.

Why aren't they better at simple tactical planning?

[Assistant]
>They have a battle focused culture

They have a culture that *ritualises* combat. They don't have a culture that actually tries to do what's effective in combat.

In a culture focused around what's effective, the duel for the king (if they still had one) would be done in combat armour with ranged weapons - it might even involve each candidate having a force of warriors under their command - but in Wakanda it's done almost-naked with melee weapons.


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

[User]
[Rick and Morty] So why exactly did Mr Meeseeks get pissed at Jerry? (more detailed question inside)

Did they get pissed at Jerry because it was taking so long to accomplish a task that should of taken a short time? Would they have the same problem if I asked them to remove an entire mountain by hand? Something that would take them hundreds if not thousands of years. But that is the expected normal time frame. Or would they in a matter of a few days in go bonkers?

A simple way to ask my question is what makes them go nuts the same time frame every time or a time frame relevant to the task. Or was it because the task was starting to look like it was incompleteable?

[Assistant]
Because it's a sissyphean task. When you move move a mountain by hand, you can actually see the results of your labor, even if it's going slowly. But with Jerry it's one step forward and two steps back. You see him start actually improving and taking some advice, but it doesn't go exactly how he wanted it and gets frustrated. He decides the working that you gave didn't do anything and goes right back to ignoring you.

They only reason Beth was able to get through is because while Meeseeks are submissive, she's very dominating and controlling which is what Jerry needs. Like Rick said, they're not gods. There are tasks they can't complete.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why are there more right handed people than left handed people?

The ratio of people that are right handed is significantly greater than the people who are left handed.

Why is this?

[Assistant] The part of your brain that controls the right side of the body is in the left frontal lobe of the brain (the left motor cortex).  Very near the left motor cortex is Broca's area (the part of the brain responsible for language).  The presence of Broca's area causes the left frontal lobe to have a higher density of nerve cells than the corresponding area in the right frontal lobe, and, in most people, this greater density spreads to the motor cortex as well.  So, most people have more nerve cells controlling their right hand than their left hand.  This same relationship holds in other hominids that had language (like Neanderthals).  Neanderthals show the same ratio of right to left handers as humans do (9 right handers for every 1 left hander) because they had language functions lateralized to the left hemisphere.


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

[User]
[Superman] If Kryptonians are aware that a yellow sun basically turns them into gods, why the hell stay on Krypton???

If I was a Kryptonian I would be on the first bus to a yellow star system. I wanna fly.

[Assistant]
They did, they had a whole empire thing going for a while. Then they stopped and went home because something something enlightenment something something petty squabbles something something ALL HAIL RAO.

Quite a few of the aliens who don't like Superman are holding a grudge over how his great grandparents punched the hell out of theirs.


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

[User]
CMV: If NFL players were kneeling for veterans, it would be a non-issue. It's not the kneeling that has so many upset, it's the cause.

The act of kneeling is typically viewed as a humble show of respect. People kneel in prayer, athletes kneel when a player is injured on the field, service members kneel before graves of fallen soldiers, etc. In fact, it was the later that convinced Colin Kaepernick to kneel in protest after a conversation with a veteran who fought in Iraq and Afghanistan. The veteran told him that kneeling would be considered more respectful than sitting down. So why do so many consider kneeling to be offensive now? If he was kneeling during the anthem to honor fallen soldiers, it likely wouldn't be an issue. That leads me to believe it's not the act of kneeling that isn't palatable for so many... It's the cause. Change my mind.

[Assistant]
Most people opposed to the protest don't even know the cause, do they? So many people seem to think it's about protesting the flag, or the armed services, or something.

The problem they have is with *who* is protesting.


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

[User]
[MCU] Why is Thor viewed in a similar train of thought to the Hulk, according to Ross and the government?

I understand why the US government and others view the Hulk as an unstoppable rage monster, who could be viewed as a huge risk to... well, everything. Yet, why is Thor (at least, to General Ross) viewed in a similar way?

Sure, he might not be *completely* familiar with Earth customs, and he is a powerful being; but Thor is a civilised ~~dude~~ ~~man~~ pirate-angel, from a more advanced civilisation (or was).

The god isn't going to randomly start smashing things; he is more likely to take a selfie with fans, which he is done so, and make awkward yet funny jokes. Is it (partly) because he is of royalty, as well as super powerful?

[Assistant]
It's less "he's a brainless menace" and more "we have no way to control him". With Bifrost, Thor can pretty much show up anywhere, anytime, and bail out just as quickly, and his strength and speed means that pretty much no one but the Avengers is equipped to tell him "no". If Thor decided to walk into Bumfuck, Iowa and skullfuck the mayor, the mayor has no recourse but to grease up his eyeball, lie back and think of America until Iron Man gets there.

Sure, Thor is chill as hell, but what happens if he hits zero chill?


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

[User]
ELI5: Timeshares

So, are they scams, or can savvy people actually benefit from them? Who is actually making profit? Also, what are timeshare presentations exactly?

Basically, what is the deal with those timeshares?

[Assistant]
Imagine you've been to Florida a few times, and you really enjoy it.  Maybe you'd like to own a vacation home there, but you can't afford it, or it does not make sense for you to buy a home/condo if you would only use it a week or two a year.

Let's say you can find 25 other people who are in a similar position: they'd each like to go to Florida for a week or two every year, but that's  all.  So, you all agree that if you pool your money, you can buy a beach house.   Then, you divvy up the weeks, and everyone gets two weeks per year to have the house.  What you own is the right to use the vacation house for two weeks every year.

Now you can probably see some problems with arranging that, like how to get all 25 people to agree on the property, price, week divisions, etc.  So, to solve that, a company takes control of the property.  The company is now responsible for finding people to buy "shares" of the house.  They are responsible for the upkeep of the house, too (but the "share owners" have to pay them a fee every year).

Companies that manage the time shares sell off "shares" and sometimes make a profit on the sales, sometimes not.  But they do also charge annual fees for maintaining the property and managing it.  On this, they make a boat load of money.  Share owners might be forced to pay $500-$1000 a year for the fees.  If they sell 25 "shares", thats $12,500 to $25,000 per unit that the company manages. (On average, it might only cost them $2-$5000 a year to maintain the properties).  These fees are where the time share management companies make big bucks.

Time shares are a good value if you intend to use it every year and you know that the fees are not that high.  However, they often hide fees in fine print, or give promotional deals ("No fees for 2 years").  It is also extremely difficult to sell time shares, unless you give it back to the company and pay more fees.


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

[User]
ELI5: If we know that the interior angles of all triangles add up to 180 regardless of triangle type, why is it a theorem and not a postulate?

To me, it just feels kind of pointless. Why does it need to be proven that the interior angles add up to 180 when we know that, yes, they're going to add up to 180 in the end?

[Assistant]
How do you know that? Do you understand that it's not true in non-Euclidean geometry?

At the heart of mathematics is the idea of proving as much as possible using as few postulates as possible. So the main reason for not treating it as a postulate is that we can prove it from simpler postulates.

An example of the significance of this approach is the Axiom of Choice. It took a fair bit of discussion for mathematicians, way back when, to accept that this needed to be an axiom. The bias in math is for fewer postulates, not more.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why do our bodies have a mechanism to detect malnourishment (hunger) but not a strong one to detect overnourishment (obesity)?

Like most people here I'm sure, if I don't eat for like 8 hours I can feel my body telling me that I need to put food in it.  My stomach rumbles, I can get irritable, maybe even light-headded.  I'm pretty sure it's the bodies way of saying "Hey! You're killing yourself!"

But if you believe that excessive eating and obesity lead to a shortened lifespan, why don't our bodies shout across that same message?  I guess you could say that there are some physical signs that can come from being overweight, but they aren't as immediate or strong.  You can be full....but being full won't stop you from gaining weight.

[Assistant] Well for the majority of human existence being overweight was never an issue. That excess energy was needed to fight off predators. Sugars and foods high in fat contain a lot of energy which releases dopamine, these foods are not easy to come across in nature. Fat is just extra energy for survival or atleast it was.


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

[User]
[LOTR] What would have Gandalf done if he *had* taken the ring from Frodo.

Frodo offered Gandalf the ring, which Gandalf refused, saying that he would be too tempted to use its power.

If Gandalf had taken the ring, how would he have used it? How much of its power could he have accessed? What would he have turned into?

[Assistant]
Professor Tolkien gives us a direct answer. Gandalf, a Maiar like Sauron, was one of the few who could have wrested the Ring from its master, and withheld it from Sauron. Sauron would have been destroyed, and Gandalf would gain full power of the Ring.

> Gandalf as Ring-Lord would have been far worse than Sauron. He would have remained 'righteous', but self-righteous. He would have continued to rule and order things for 'good', and the benefit of his subjects according to his wisdom (which was and would have remained great).

> [The draft ends here. In the margin Tolkien wrote: 'Thus while Sauron multiplied [illegible word] evil, he left "good" clearly distinguishable from it. Gandalf would have made good detestable and seem evil.']


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

[User] ELI5: Half of infinity is still infinity... 1% of infinity is still infinity. I get why and how, but how is it interpreted using math?

[Assistant]
Infinity isn't a number, it's an abstract concept which represents something that has no end or limit. Therefore, technically speaking, there's no such thing as "half of infinity" - it depends on the context of the infinity.

For example when talking about infinite sets (such as the integers), then if you were to create a new set using only "half" the elements (such as the odd integers) then this set will still be an infinite set. If you take a function such as f(x) = 1/x then the function approaches infinity as x approaches 0, so if you take "half" of this function f(x) = 1/2x then it will still approach infinity when x approaches 0, it will just do so "half as fast".


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

[User] ELI5: Male Pattern Baldness. What gives?

[Assistant]
Okay, I'll have a go. If this doesn't make top comment I'll flatten you.

So, boys and girls have different parts you see, women have ovaries and men have testicles. These pairs of parts are part of what you can call primary sex characteristics. Anyway, the point is, they both secrete sets of substances called estrogens and androgens, and these substances, the things they do, and their proportions, are responsible for basically 90% of the visible differences between men and women, breasts, body and facial hair, skin thickness and smoothness, bone density, fat distribution (where you put fat when you get fat). As proportions, a woman has more estrogens and less androgens, while for a man it's the reverse, he has more androgens and less estrogens. From here you should kind of understand the general gist, estrogens make you womanly, androgens make you manly.

Androgens, these are the guys you want to know about, mainly two of them, testosterone and dihydrotestosterone (DHT). Testosterone is a pretty cool guy by itself, he's responsible for your mood, muscle mass, libido, sebum production, etc. If you wanna be a man, you gotta like this guy, you need this guy, don't blame him for baldness because it's not really his fault. Your body also has a lot of substances called enzymes, which perform different roles. One you should know about in this case, is called 5-alpha reductase. 5-alpha reductase "transforms" some of your testosterone into dihydrotestosterone. Dihydrotestosterone is mean, he's 4 times stronger than testosterone, so many of the things testosterone does, dihydrotestosterone does better (worse).

So, your body has hair follicles, they're what hair grows from. All hair follicles have what you can call androgen receptors, as in, androgens mentioned above bind to them. The follicles on your head are different from the ones on your face and body however, so, as androgens bind to them, while the follicles on your body react with androgens to form androgenic hair (facial and body hair), the ones on your head don't do that, they choke and their ability to grow healthy "head-hair" diminishes over time. The thing is, either way you put it, only a small amount of your testosterone gets converted to DHT, but DHT is so powerful, it chockes your follicles right up.

Baldness depends on:

* 5-alpha reductase activity and other processes deciding how much DHT you have. The more, the worse, but of course you need a bit of it. This can be corrected with meds and some mineral supplements with usually good overall success rates depending on how far you take this. Less explored is also how DHT gets used or further metabolized.
* Follicle and androgen receptiveness. This is probably the main genetic factor, and the only one you can't do anything about. If your follicles absolutely love androgens, nothing short of castrating yourself and/or taking estrogens to become a "woman" will stop the balding.
* Lifestyle, diet and exercise. You mainly want low blood pressure and overall good blood flow, it helps the follicles deal with all the androgens bound to them, but in the end, if you're doing badly in the second factor, this won't help much.


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

[User]
How much would things cost if negative externalities were accounted for?

How much would things cost if negative externalities were accounted for?

It costs me a couple of dollars for a gallon of gas, and a couple of cents for a napkin.

It makes sense for me to consume these resources perhaps more than I should.

How much more would they cost if the price included things like the cost done to the environment?

Of course this is a hard question to answer, but surely there have been attempts?

Bonus question: positive externalities.

[Assistant] I think the scope of the question is a bit too broad to answer with any sort of accuracy.  A couple of current examples for policies that attempt to offset negative externalities might include carbon taxes and special taxes on alcohol and cigarettes, which differ significantly between government bodies.


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

[User] ELI5:Why is it "Notary Public" and not "Public Notary" which sounds more natural?

[Assistant]
It's direct copy of the french office "notaire publique", where the adjective is after the noun. It's the same with words like "attorney general" and "court martial".

Lots of legal terms in English have french influences, like the tradition of saying two synonyms where one has a French/Latin origin and the other old English, i.e. "law and order", "null and void", "will and testament", "cease and desist" etc.


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

[User] How is it possible that this sub has 734k members at the moment but the top post of all time has only 700 upvotes,that`s like a standard top post for a sub with only 3-4k members.

[Assistant] I suspect it's because lots of people stop using the sub but never unsubscribe. Lots of people ask one question, then never interact again. Lots just read one or two answers, then go away. Those people don't necessarily unsubscribe.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why is water blue in a large area but clear if you were to cup it up in your hands?

I'm sure it's because of refraction, but why does it refract blue in a large area?

[Assistant]
Large amounts of water are blue for several reasons.

Water is blue because it absorbs red light due to its chemical structure. When a photon with the amount of energy that makes it red hits a water molecule, it is absorbed and allows the water molecule to vibrate with its O-H bonds at a more excited state.

This results in blue color overall. It's simply not visible in small quantities because the light hasn't passed through enough water for your eye to be able to detect the blue tone. If you took a gallon of water and stretched it into a long tube and looked through the end, you could see the blue.

There are other factors when considering large amounts of water in nature, like reflection from the sky and scattering of blue light by suspended particles (eg, runoff from glaciers containing fine silt)


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

[User]
[GTA San Andreas] Plenty of folks, particularly Sweet and Ryder, roast CJ's ability to drive, yet CJ is almost always the designated driver why?

One would think that if Carl's driving was actually that bad they wouldn't let him drive when chasing or fleeing, or just in general.

[Assistant]
Because CJ is simultaneously a great and a terrible driver. He's won dozens of street races and escaped the cops more times than anyone can count, but he is also prone to smashing into other cars in traffic and seems to have no conception of traffic lights or lanes or anything like that.

They roast because they know he is good enough to win national level races, and it's funny to rib on the dude who knocks down 50 streetlights a day.


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

[User]
ELI5: What network did 70s and 80s car phones connect to?

How did car phones call people back in the day when there werent cell towers all over the place? What were they connecting to? Ive heard there were car phones as far back as the 1960s. How could they get on a network to call people that were on landlines?

[Assistant] There were cell towers, there were just fewer of them and they weren't available in as many geographic areas.  To make up for the sparse distribution of cell towers, old cell phones had far more powerful radio transmitters (about as powerful as CB radios) so that they could broadcast over a much farther range in order to connect with a tower.


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

[User]
Eli5: CERN discovers 3 new 'exotic particles'

Can someone explain this in laymens terms? I don't know what Pentaquarks or tetraquarks or whatever else this stuff mean. And what does this change about what we know about physics or sub atomic particles etc?

[Assistant]
most stuff is made out of what we call atoms.

those in turn are made up of neutrons, protons and electrons.

neutrons and protons themselves are made up of quarks.

unlike the other, bigger "thingies", quarks cant be found separately. basically they always appear in pairs or groups of three. when you try to separate them, you need to pump so much energy into them that you create new ones (that combine with the ones you have in pairs or groups of three).

well, now they've found that with enough power you can get groups of 4 or even 5 quarks to form an extremely shortlived kind of "cousin" of protons and neutrons.

those wont exist for more than the millionst part of a second (usually much less), so the immediate impact on our world is small.

HOWEVER this allows us to refine our models and our predictions and since there's often "symmetries" it might lead to other discoveries.

The odds are that this will essentially "only" further our basic understanding of the universe, but there's a fraction of a percent chance that it will also directly or indirectly lead to some crazy tech or power source (very unlikely though!)


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

[User] [One Punch Man] Does Saitama really have to eat to survive, because it's a habit even though he doesn't feel hunger pain, or because he likes the taste of convenience store food? If to survive, can he really be starved to death?

[Assistant]
Saitama wanting food and other human comforts is whats keeping him grounded, and preventing his becoming a monster. Saitama got his powers by going the monster route, and getting obsessed with a single aspect of power (the common thread of all the villains is obsession).

What separates Saitama from the monsters is that Saitama loves his mundane human life. He likes eating food, cutting coupons, walking for groceries, playing video games, loafing around his apartment, etc. Without that grounding him, Saitama would be a top-tier monster threat.


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

[User] ELI5: when your feelings are hurt or have a broken heart, how and why are you able to actually feel a painful burning sensation inside your chest?

[Assistant]
Hormones.

Cortisol which is a stress hormone increases while your happy hormones such as dompanine and oxytocin decreases. Even though its emotional feeling, your brain is still registering it as pain in your body.


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

[User] ELI5: Why is glow-in-the-dark paint not used for things like fire hydrants or road striping?

[Assistant] Reflective paint is plenty bright (probably brighter even) when headlights are used, and it's *far* more durable. The Netherlands recently tested glow in the dark road markings. It was faded within about a month. So you get very little to no real world benefit on roads where headlights are used, and currently you have a huge downside with it's longevity.


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

[User] [Any Werewolf] If I'm a werewolf and I dye my hair, will my fur be dyed the same color?

[Assistant]
Like most mammals, we have hair everywhere.  The werewolf's body hair is just thickened and lengthened from the places it normally grows.

If you dyed the hair on your head your werewolf form would have a "wig" of colored hair on your head, but not anywhere else.  If you dyed your arm, back, and leg hair you'd get the color in those places too when you transformed.

The *real* question is if you wax your body hair do you come out as a *naked* werewolf?


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

[User] ELI5: Do the same species of animals have different accents if they are in different places in the world?

[Assistant]
Yes, animals do have regional accents. It has been *"proven"* for various animals like cows, goats, parrots, dogs and whales.

For example, cows in different herds will moo at a different pitch. Not only do they have different sounds, outsider cows who are introduced in a new herd will by time moo the new moo.

Another example would be blue whales, there are at least 5 main groups roaming the ocean. All of these groups have a distinct accent using different combinations of tones and pitches.


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

[User] ELI5: Why does twisting off things like Oreos or cheese crackers work so much better than simply pulling them apart?

[Assistant] Aside from stuff that's already been mentioned, one big difference is how concentrated the forces are. If you're pulling straight apart, you're trying to break the whole surface area loose at the same time. If you twist, the perimeter breaks free first, followed by smaller and smaller circles, because the center doesn't move as far as the outside does. You also have some leverage on the center parts of the joint that you don't have when pulling straight apart.


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

[User] [Star Trek] Borg seem like their semi-biological bodies are really limiting them when it comes to their capabilities. Why don't they just make legions of androids instead?

[Assistant]
Because the core of the Borg isn't just to run roughshod over the galaxy smashing the shit out of everything and making it into Borg. It's to take those civilizations into themselves. As far as we can tell, *everything* that was created was initially done by organic life of some kind. Every spacecraft, every computer, every campfire, every war, every written work, *everything* was started by organic life. The cybernetics are an improvement with that developed technology.

But, organic life dies. It fights among itself. It *consumes* resources and often eventually kills itself off, along with others. It has destructive emotions, chemical imbalances, deviant impulses. Organics keep *secrets.* Can you imagine how inefficient it is to *have* information and then for that information to be just *lost* - forever - because your feeble meat shell stopped working?

The Borg will come to your world, hopefully sooner rather than later. They will make you one with them, your body, your cube, *might* eventually be destroyed. But your mind, your memories, your thoughts - the *important* parts of you will still exist. And not just in some repository somewhere, but in the greatest galaxy-spanning constructed and shared consciousness ever known.

TLDR - The Borg aren't out to destory, they're out to *preserve* the galaxy and it's most valuable asset - creative, vibrant, organic life - and adding the mechanisms and connecting it to the Collective is simply the best current way of both accessing and preserving the awesome legacy of the galaxy.


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

[User] [LoTR] What if the Nmenoreans hadnt become greedy and resentful, always diligent allies of the Valar and Elves?

[Assistant]
Middle-Earth's history just becomes much more simple. Sauron tries to subjugate Middle-Earth and eventually gets defeated by an alliance of elves and Nmenoreans. Since now the Nmenoreans don't see themselves as competitors to Sauron they don't run around claiming to be the Kings of all Men and Middle-Earth just becomes a really chill place to live with elves and sometimes Maiar showing up for a nice chat from time to time.

Sauron along with the One Ring will probably be sent to Valinor for judgement. The Valar either just imprison him or go nuclear and throw him into the Void to join his master.

There will still be conflict and wars but nothing quite as literally earth-shattering as Sauron's machinations usually end up being. We essentially skip half of the Second Age and the entirety of the Third Age and end up directly in the Fourth Age just with Nmenor still being around.


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

[User] Why do some mints make water 'taste' colder?

[Assistant] You have cells with enzymes that act as receptors to signal warmth and cold. The molecule menthol, which gives mint its taste, activates your cold receptors and gives a 'cold' sensation. Capsaicin, the molecule that gives chili its 'hotness' works in a similar way, activating heat receptors.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why does it take a couple of days to feel the effects of a solar flare, while it only takes 8 minutes for sunlight to reach earth?

What is the process of a solar flare and why does it take so long to feel the effects?

[Assistant]
A solar flare is *not* light. It is a stream of plasma ejected *at a fraction* of the speed of light.

Therefore, although the sun is only 8 light minutes away, it takes days because the plasma is travelling at sublight speeds, *not* at light speed.


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

[User] How do herbivores like horses, bulls, rhinos etc, get so big and muscular when they barely eat any protein or carbs?

[Assistant]
You're assumption is wrong, there are plenty of carbohydrates, proteins and other nutrients that these animals require in pasture.
The digestive systems of horses and rhinos are quite different to those of cows, but they all have methods for breaking down fibrous plant material that we can't digest.
The exact nutritional make-up of pasture land depends on the which plant species are present and where they are in their growth cycles. It can also depend on what nutrients are available to the plants from the soil and what the climate conditions are like.

In the wild these animals would employ a nomadic style of grazing where the herd moves from place to place thereby allowing nutritious plants to regrow. For animals kept in captivity farmers will monitor the nutritional balance of their fields and will add plant species as necessary. For example Alfalfa grass has a very high protein content (20% or higher during the spring when it's growing most rapidly), clovers and legumes are also popular choices for adding extra protein. As for carbohydrates the sugars that plants produce during photosynthesis are stored as carbohydrates and they are used as the building blocks for growth. For example the cellulose that forms plant cell walls is built from carbohydrates. So anything that can digest fibrous plant matter can get to them.


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

[User]
[DC Comics] Why is Superman weak to magic?

I know it's been posted that there's a misconception that superman is't weak to magic, he just isn't resistant to it. This isn't true. Superman from New 52(which I've followed) seems actively weakened by Magic. He got cut by Magic "teeth" in justice league dark. In Batman: Graveyard Shift, he actively gets weak, and experiences nausea in a place filled with magic. Batman, who's beside him, is unaffected. Batman then says that the very presenc of magic is killing him.

 In Rebirth Trinity, the current arc, he's weakened enough by the presence of magic that he can't draw enough strength to lift a boat and has to be helped by Wonder Woman. In the arc before that, he couldn't use xray vision because "the air is full of magic", etc, So what is it about magic that weakens superman?

[Assistant]
The effect of magic on Superman has never been consistent, and there are numerous explanations for why he is weak to it, it depends on the writer really.

The one i prefer is that humans, have an extremely high number of magic users for a variety of reasons, and humans, having interbred with magic users over the ages, developed some innate resistance to magic as a result, in a way that never happened to Kryptonians, who were an entirely science based society, and never had any contact with magic, or any native magic users.

The out of universe explanation is that they needed another threat to Superman apart from kryptonite.


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

[User] ELI5: Becoming bipedal worked out extremely well for Humans. Why don't we see lots of other bipedal/humanoid species?

[Assistant]
Several dinosaurs were bipedal. And birds are too. If you don't count flyers as bipedal, then ostriches and emus and other such flightless birds count.

But in terms of modern mammals, someone has to be first. In the next 100,000s of years, other bipedal mammals may evolve. No one can know for sure.


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

[User]
[Halo] I'm a mechanic stationed aboard The Pillar of Autumn. She's a decent ship, except that the service corridor seems like it's been designed to be difficult to navigate. What gives?

I mean hell, I've fallen out of my Warthog multiple times because of ramps in seemingly pointless locations. There's even ramps built into a curved hallway. Who thought this would be a good idea?

[Assistant] The Pillar of Autumn is an outdated, retrofitted ship that was originally designed with durability in mind first and foremost, perhaps to an excessive degree. Her reactor does not have the highest output in the fleet, but by God it will remain a stable power source unless deliberately overloaded. She does not have the the most efficient engines in the fleet, but by God they'll keep her mobile even after a grueling inter ship slug fest in deep space. She is not the most heavily armed ship in the fleet, but she is probably the most heavily armored. Her internal layout is a goddam rabbit warren of tunnels, switch backs, elevators, vehicle ramps, stair cases, ladders, and crawl spaces, but that's because they are twisting around to accommodate the lattice work of redundant support beams that form her super structure. In a more conventionally designed ship, their would be a logical layout of navigable paths for crew, supplies and vehicles to move around the ship. But this is not a conventional ship. This is the Pillar or Autumn, a flying rock that will plow through a plasma bombardment, a slipspace jump, and an atmospheric crash landing with only superficial exterior damage. The downside is that  vehicles travel via walkways, supplies travel via crawlspaces, and crew travel via dumbwaiters, all because the shortest line between points A and B has ten tons of titanium armor blocking it off.


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

[User]
[Star Trek] Why are the Borg so bad at multi-tasking?

This is something I always wondered. I would think that the strength of the Borg Collective is that you have the processing power of millions of minds working on multiple tasks all being directed from a single source. But every time we see the Borg, they really only seem to be good at doing one thing at a time.

In the very first encounter between the Federation and the Borg, they only do one task at a time. They send a single drone to scout the Enterprise. He barely defends himself, and when he is shot down they immedietly send another one in his place. They then begin the aim of capturing the Enterprise, but as soon as the Enterprise fights back and does some damage, they stop attacking and focus solely on repairing, even to the point of ignoring intruders from the Enterprise on board.

We see this again following the battle of Wolf 359. As soon as Picard issues the "sleep" command, it overrides all other commands and they stop their attack immedietly. Again during the First Contact encounter, the Borg completely ignore the Starfleet strike teams, armed to the hilt with modulating phaser rifles, until they are in a position to interfere with their current goal.

A 20th century PC is better at multitasking than these guys. How come?

[Assistant]
Imagine people as computers. Each one has a different lineage of manufacturers and vintages; and consequently has different firmware, OS with a long history and different quirks that evolve because of variation in installed software. The differences mean that when faced with a problem there can be a variety of solutions. There may be 16 different word processors each with different strengths and weaknesses and 9 different browsers and 99 different spreadsheet programs and various permutations and which ones. Any exploit will only affect some of the machines and the rest live on.

The Borg Collective would be forcefully overwriting the firmware with the same one for all machines and putting a OS image on that wipes every night and re-images. There is no variation except in the base hardware and even then the sys-admin tries very hard to make that consistent. The hive mind may have billions of entities in it but they are all essentially the same person that reacts the same to the same stimuli. There is 1 word processor, 1 browser and 1 spreadsheet program. Find a exploit in 1 and you can compromise every machine.

They suffer the further problem of being uncreative. They don't seem to discover technology for themselves; they only steal it. Their 'adaptation' is more scanning their impressive memory of stolen technologies to find one that might be appropriate and apply it to the current problem. They don't seem to actually think ahead or innovate.

In a way it separates the Borg from natural selection because of the homogeneity of thought and structure. While they 'adapt' to problems they've already experience they've destroyed their own ability to adapt to things they haven't seen severely limiting their ability to deal with the universe.

So basically they don't really learn; they do the same thing over and over and if doesn't work they don't ever come up with new idea's. Single file drone zerging is the only strategy they know and they won't ever get any new ideas because of the weakness of their systems; they forcefully homogenize new members and remove non technical knowledge that way. As soon as a civilization exceeds them in key technologies they will likely dismantle the collective and the collective will just send drones in single file to address the problem.

**Addendum/TLDR**: Essentially the Borg are billions of the same person; thus they uni-task because it's really just one person who isn't too smart and is fixated on stealing technology. They can't think outside that box.


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

[User] Why are deep vein thromboses such a risk while on bed rest and long trips but not while we sleep?

[Assistant]
Virchow's triad describes the three categories contributing towards thrombosis- hypercoagulability, endothelial injury, and stasis. This is a simplified understanding, but sufficient for this purposes. The factor which changes between best rest/long trips compared to sleep is that of stasis. In bed rest, the period of time with less venous blood flow is prolonged. Also contributing to the DVTs within the bed rest cohort would be these are often less likely to be "healthy people" (they are receiving bed rest for a reason!), and other pathologies, medications, treatments, etc. may be increasing the risk of DVT beyond that of bed rest alone. In long trips, we are seated rather than lying whilst sleeping. The seated position is less conducive to blood flow compared to the lying position (ELI5: the veins kink off). Some have hypothesized that lesser air quality in commercial air travel contributes to the hypercoagulability of blood, and some experiments suggest this may be the case but the mechanism of action has not been elicited.

Source: physician and researcher specializing in thrombosis.