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

[User] ELI5 How do RV dealerships really work? Every dealership, it seems like hundreds of RVs are always sitting on the lot not selling through year after year. Car dealerships need to move this years model to make room for the next. Why arent dealerships loaded with 5 year old RVs that didnt sell?

[Assistant]
An RV dealer once explained to me that most RV purchases are impulse decisions. So it's important to have the inventory on the lot ready to deliver, or you miss the sale. The manufacturers love that, of course.

As for how so many people can afford to make these impulse purchases, apparently financing terms can be much longer for trailers/RVs (like 10 years) so the monthly payment can seem affordable to the impulse buyer. Doesn't make it a good financial decision, but that's how many people look at it.


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

[User]
eli5- Why and how are babies so strong? What advantage does having a strong core give babies?

Ive read a few things in the past that say that babies pound for pound are stronger than bulls. Also they seem to have ridiculously strong cores (abs) without training. Plenty of videos show them being able to hold their legs up over grass for large amounts of time when they dont want to touch it. How are they able to achieve this without training? What advantage does this give them if they cant naturally cling on to mom or dad?

[Assistant]
This is explained by the square-cube law. In short, strength and durability are proportional to the size squared (X*X) and weight is proportional to the cube of the size (X*X*X) so if you take a human and shrink him proportionally to half size, he will become 4 times weaker but 8 times lighter, so in total it would be twice (8/4) as easy for him to lift his own body.

Babies have different proportions and their muscles are less developed, of course, but still they are much smaller than adults so it's easier for them to do these tricks.  Babies appear to have lots of strength, but it's realistically only in relation to their size.

They are super good at clinging to their parent.  Their strength doesn't "go away" as they age, it just doesn't grow proportionally to their size. They do get stronger as they age, but they get a lot heavier too so some of that "innate strength" (and the strength they gain) goes towards just lifting their increased bodyweight rather than feats of strength like holding their legs up easily.


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

[User]
ELI5: How much of an effect do daily vitamins have on someone? Is it ever noticeable?

I take one of those daily vitamin/calcium tablets every day cuz I'm sort of a picky eater and I just keep wondering to myself how much they really even do cuz it kinda seems like they don't do anything.

[Assistant] Assuming you're eating a reasonably decent variety and quantity of food, and have no other outstanding medical issues that would require a supplement, they don't do all that much. If your diet is unusually narrow or light, then they'll smooth things over a bit (i.e. you won't get healthier, but you won't get sick either). It's mostly a form of preventative medicine that covers gaps left by a bad diet to stop you from developing issues in the first place.


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

[User] [Monsterverse] Simply put, what is the "Hollow Earth"?

[Assistant] Hollow Earth is an old theory - dating back at least to the late 1600s. Basically the idea is instead of our planet being a solid ball of rock and metal with a molten core, it's more like an eggshell. Exactly what's inside depends on who's proposing the idea, sometimes it's hollow with a star or two inside for light, sometimes there's concentric smaller shells.


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

[User] ELI5:If 'rest' is such a critical biological necessity, why do the heart and lungs (made of the same material as the rest of the body) not need it?

[Assistant]
When an animal sleeps, (delta anyway, there is a bit more action during REM sleep) you'll notice a general slowing of the breathing and heart rate.  When a person is lying down, it also reduces stress on the heart, since it doesn't have to fight as much with gravity to keep blood moving to the head.

That said, 'rest' as in sleep doesn't really apply to any autonomous bodily functions.  Digestion continues, liver and kidneys keep functioning, and cellular respiration carries on at a more or less normal rate.

The biggest functions of 'rest' - aside from resting after exertion, when the body gets an opportunity to clean up nasty byproducts like lactic acid - seem to have to do with the brain.


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

[User]
A button that blows up the world

If there was a button that had a 1% chance of blowing up the world every time it was pressed, what would be the chance that the world would explode if someone were to press the button (up to) 100 times? My baby, non-statistician brain says that it has to be more than 1%, but it also seems like it wouldn't be 100%. What am I missing?

Thanks in advance.

[Assistant] Take the probability that it *doesn't* blow up the world in a single press, 0.99. Now take the probability that every press doesn't blow up the world, 0.99^100 . The probability that it blows up the world is now simply: 1- the probability it doesn't, 1-0.99^100 , or 63%.


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

[User]
Why is the number three significant to human's memorization or language processing?

For example, we usually start something on the count of three; why is it not four, five, eight, or ten?

I've studied a few languages and in many of them, the more popular abbreviations also have no longer than 3 characters (not to mention chants such as U-S-A; I can understand 2-character abbreviations since we have a pair of many things in our body). I were usually told by my language professors that it would be easier to learn vocabulary if you study new words in groups of three. Many English verb phrases also do not exceed the length of three words.

[Assistant] Well for the counting thing, going on three is the least amount you can use to synchronize something. You have one pause between one and two that sets the standard and then everyone knows the pause length between two and three to go on three.


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

[User]
[The Witcher] Why do so many people try to kill Geralt?

The man's somewhere over 100 years old by the end Blood and Wine, how are there still random assholes who don't know they'll fucking die if they try to kill him?

Not just strangers, but people who've personally known him for decades and have watched him slaughter 30 trained soldiers in less than 3 minutes. Why do they even bother throwing more bodies at him?

[Assistant]
Geralt is sort of cartoonishly strong in the game, as a result of being a video game character.

In the books he's introduced having gotten his ass kicked by a monster and limped away, and he spends much of the series with his leg aching from when it was completely shattered before being healed at Brokilon. The game actually completely ignores that aspect, though. Vilgefortz absolutely kicked Geralt's ass. Like mopped the floor with him. What you expect to be a dramatic climactic battle is Geralt getting twisted into a pretzel because he mistook stars reflected in the pond for the night sky. A video game isn't going to have something like that.

Except maybe the first one, and not intentionally, just because the controls were complete and utter ass.


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

[User] Why can't quartz be grown epitaxially?

[Assistant] Ceramic engineer here - it can be grown epitaxially, but generally if you try to deposit silica onto a substrate that isn't quartz or something with a very similar structure it's deposited as amorphous silica rather than one of the crystalline forms of quartz.


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

[User]
How do surgeons open you up without you bleeding to death?

It seems that whenever I get a cut on the surface of my skin, a bunch of blood wells up. But then I see pictures of people completely opened up on the operating table, there doesn't seem to be any profuse bleeding, just a bunch of organs lying there. How do they do that?

[Assistant]
* When you cut yourself, the cuts are usually smaller than the large cut a surgeon makes. You perceive there to be more blood lost in the smaller cut. We actually bleed at a pretty slow rate, provided we don't rupture an artery.
* Have you watched a surgery? You still *do* bleed profusely during surgery. There's constant blood loss throughout.
* The surgeon masterfully cuts around major blood vessels and ligatures / sutures / tourniquets / cauters any vessels that cannot be avoided.
* Scalpels are extremely sharp and minimize collateral damage to smaller blood vessels.
* Anesthesia helps keep the blood pressure of the patient down, reducing overall flow speed.
* Spilled blood is removed via sponge or drain in order to prevent further loss through cohesive capillary action.
* Surgeons act quickly. You never want to leave a patient open for too long, obviously. The less time you spend in there, the less bleeding.


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

[User] [Star Wars] Why weren't battle droids more effective? They have computers for brains. They should bullseye every shot. Right?

[Assistant] They were all controlled by a solitary brain. Remember that big ball-shaped ship? That was holding the singular droid brain that remotely operated every single one of the battle droids. When that was destroyed, all of the droids were shut down. This might not seem relevant, but let me assure you it is. The battle strategy for the CIS was one that was later adopted by the Empire: Victory through numbers, not skill. It's incredibly expensive to mass produce especially deadly and skilled droids, so they decided to instead super-mass-produce relatively frail and weak droids(that being the B1 series Battle Droid), mass produce some decent droids(The Super Battle Droids), and low produce "elite" droids(The Droidekas), among others.


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

[User]
ELI5:Why is it that TV shows can show vulgar images of sex, rape, murder, suicide, racism etc on TV shows but have to censor out the word Fuck?

Just finished watching a new popular show on USA called "Mr. Robot" and it seemed really odd to me that they showed gay sex, suicide on live tv with blood everywhere, racism, sexism, talked about child rape and the list went on but they always censored out the word "Fuck", which seems like nothing compared to other activites on the show. Why is that word not  allowed on cable TV but the other things are okay to show?

[Assistant] I feel like it's just one of those weird backwards things in censorship. Kind of like Japanese porn blurring out genitals. Or nicotine products being legal while marihuana is considered a drug even if it's not as harmful.


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

[User]
[Lovecraft] Can humans hurt Eldritch beings?

I understand that Eldritch beings are extra dimensional creatures beyond our comprehension, but does that mean that they cant be hurt by us? The European government is incomprehensible to a rat, but it can carry even smaller bubonic plagues carrying fleas that kills half the population. What about a thin piece of paper or a thin sheet of steel? They are effectively of lesser dimensions then is, but try cutting a person with it a hundred million times and they would probably take considerable damage. You probably cant directly hurt these abominations, but the fact that they even notice us(Earth being a place of slumber) probably means that were worth some consideration, no matter how small.

[Assistant] If we're going by the pure canon of Lovecraft's books, then yeah. Some guy crashed a boat into Cthulhu and made him go back to sleep for another thousand years. If we're going by the more extreme examples, then sometimes you can hurt them, but similar to how an ant can hurt a human, it does nothing to stop them and set best highly irritates them.


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

[User]
Acceleration due to gravity and density of a mass

I am in physics class and we just derived the value of 'g' based on Newton's Law of Universal Gravitation, but I know I've been told that black holes have a large amount of gravity because of their mass and density.  I though that density played a factor in determining 'g' but the formula we derived is g= (mass/distance^2 )*Gravitational Constant

Is this an incomplete formula or does density not play a role in this?  I guess, because the black holes will have so much mass that it is almost incalculable that density shouldn't matter much, but what if a heavenly body had an equal amount of mass, but it was spread over a far larger area, like a nebula or a star?

[Assistant]
It is included, as distance. Think of it this way, imagine that you tried to go closer to the Earth's center. Would g increase? No, because as you travel closer, you go under ground, and more and more of earths mass is now no longer below you, but "above" you, so to speak.

Now imagine that we squeeze Earth, decreasing its radius, increasing its density. The more you squeeze it, the greater its density, and consequently, the smaller the distance from its center you are able to be. Eventually, if we reduced the radius of Earth enough, while maintaining its mass, g would be so large that not even light could escape the surface, and we would have a black hole.


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

[User] [ELI5] Why are the cones in our eyes blue, red, and green, instead of the primary colors that make up everything (Blue, red, yellow)?

[Assistant]
> the primary colors that make up everything (Blue, red, yellow)?

You are talking about the subtractive primaries used for painting and printing and their correct names are cyan, magenta and yellow.  They are what you use when you start with a white canvas and add paint or ink to subtract light.  For example, yellow paint subtracts blue light leaving only red and green light for your cones to detect.  Using the names blue and red for the paint primaries cyan and magenta is common but technically wrong.

The colours of your cones, red, green and blue, are the additive primaries used by TVs and similar displays which start with a black screen and add colour.


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

[User] ELI5: how come you can donate more than half your liver and it'll grow back in aa few months, but excessive alcohol will permanently scar it?

[Assistant] Alcohol damages cells indiscriminately; and once you have a lot of damaged cells, the repair mechanisms cant keep up. When you chop off half of a healthy liver, the remaining healthy cells regrow the missing part.


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

[User] [ELI5] What's happening when you take a pill, but it feels like it's caught in the back of your throat?

[Assistant]
A few possibilities.

1. The pill actually is lodged. Fairly uncommon but some people have difficulties swallowing pills.

2. The pill rubbed/scratched against the back of your throat and you're feeling that, not the pill.

3. Psychosomatic. There's no pill but the thought/idea/fear of the pill getting lodged is causing the sensation.


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

[User] ELI5: What is a tensor?

[Assistant]
A vector is an arrangement of values in one dimension, like this:

    V = [a, b, c, d, e]

etc.

A matrix is a vector of vectors. For example

    v1 = [ a, b, c ]
    v2 = [ d, e, f ]
    v3 = [ g, h, i ]

          v1,       a, b, c,
    M = [ v2, ] = [ d, e, f, ]
          v3,       g, h, i

You can think of a matrix as a two dimensional arrangement of values.

A tensor is a vector or matrix of matrices. You can think of it as a three or higher dimensional version of a matrix.


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

[User] ELI5: How do our ears not flood when we go underwater?

[Assistant] Hi, studying audiologist here! Basically there are separate sections to our ears: the outer ear (what you can see) the middle ear which is between the ear drum and the cochlea, and the inner ear (cochlea). The ear drum is a complete wall sealing the outer and middle ear apart from each other, so unless theres a medical issue which you would KNOW from the pain, theres no way that water, dirt, dust etc could get through your ear drum and into your ear :)


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

[User] ELI5: Those black rubber tubes that cross the road and appear to count cars. Why are they counting and who puts them there?

[Assistant]
They're very simple and cheap methods to gather traffic data for road and traffic planning. They're generally put down by local government and/or highways agencies, or companies working under contract to them. Potential questions they could be asking:

* There are planned road works on this road. How much traffic will we need to account for to divert on to other roads?
* There are high rates of accidents near this point. How fast are people generally travelling?*
* The signals down the road are often getting jammed up. How many cars regularly pass this area?
* Are large numbers of people using this side street as a cut-through to avoid a main road?
* Are the traffic signals further down the road creating enough natural gaps for pedestrians to cross, or do we need a specific pedestrian crossing here?

In short, those tubes are an extremely cheap and effective way of measuring lots of things about traffic for planning purposes. There's also no potentially identifying information collected, so nobody tends to care about being monitored by them.

[Edit]

*To answer a very common followup question, these lines are usually put down in pairs a few yards apart so that speed can be measured. Measuring speed with a single line is indeed very unreliable because of varying wheelbase lengths, but with two lines you're literally measuring the time to travel between two points which is exactly what speed is.


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

[User]
How much do our organs move?

In addition to the heart and lungs, what's the extent and type of movement of our organs like the intestines, stomach, kidneys, liver, etc.?

[Assistant]
Each organ has its own little sack, and that sack is embedded inside a larger sack, so imagine everythings pretty organized on where it is based on the sack system, with tissue allowing for some movement (like a few inches in any direction temporarily) but still having central locations for everything. Also some organs are not intended to move, and when they do move thats very very bad (like the brain).

If you are asking about movement in terms of proper functionality. Organs that do filtering such as the liver or kidneys dont move at all. The stomach and intestines move constantly, expanding and contracting with smooth muscles.


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

[User] ELI5: Why is it that you often have to "use the other door" when entering restaurants? Sometimes the half of the door is even bolted.

[Assistant] A lot of double doors are nested, one has to be closed before the other.  Customers aren't going know this, and will often close them wrong,  resu;ting in the door getting banged up and not shutting all the way.  Leaving the door that should be shut first closed and locked prevents this.


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

[User]
Why is lack of complete enamel coverage of herbivore teeth not a problem?

Deer and horse teeth appear to lack the chewing surface enamel which we're used to seeing in our own teeth. What's the reason for this?

I suppose that since horse teeth grow continuously it is not geometrically possible for their teeth to have enamel caps. How is the absence of complete enamel coverage in horses and deer reconciled against the fact that enamel destruction on the chewing surface of human teeth leads to catastrophic problems if untreated?

[Assistant]
Herbivores such as those mentioned above have dental anatomy that is referred to as hypsodont which essentially means they have long tooth crowns. Humans and carnivores are what we call brachydonts i.e short crowns. This alone allows for a much greater degree of tooth wear to take place before the highly sensitive pulp cavity is exposed. As a tooth is worn extensively and exposure of the pulp cavity begins it is converted into secondary dentine hence losing its innervation and blood supply.

Additionally this arrangement become beneficial to herbivores as the differential rates of wear between enamel and the outer cement and inner dentine create what can best be described as a protruding ridge of enamel. Imagine 3 substances in direct contact with each other in creating a smooth surface, if the middle substance were, say, steel and the outer 2 wood and each of these were to sanded down separately with the same force for the same amount of time you would no longer have a smooth surface across the 3 layers but you would have a protruding peice of steel between the 2 planks of wood. Practically in a horses mouth this creates a series of transverse ridges across the tooth to create a rough, abrasive surface best adapted for masticating their rough, fibrous diet.

A horses tooth can suitably resist attrition with this arrangement for 25-40 years before developing the condition colloquially referred to in equine dentistry as "smooth mouth" at which point the horses days are numbered.

Source: Veterinary Student

Edit: Accidentally wrote root instead of crown when describing hypsodont.


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

[User] ELI5: how did guys like Marconi discover or knew radio waves exists without ever seeing them?

[Assistant]
Electromagnetic induction had been known about since Faraday discovered it and worked out the math in the 1830s. Induction basically allowed magnetic fields to move electrically conductive things and moving magnets to generate electricity so *something* must have been there.

Maxwell then worked out the math that showed that there was an electromagnetic field that permeates space during the 1860s. Maxwell's math also said there were ways for this field to have information pass through it in the form of electromagnetic waves.

Through this, Heinrich Hertz was able to prove the existence of these electromagnetic waves. He was also kind enough to provide a means to both produce them and detect them.

From there, it was basically piecing all of this together into a coherent and practical system. Which is where Marconi and his brethren step in.


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

[User]
Why do dusk and dawn look different?

They're the same basic thing happening, yet it's pretty easy to tell if it's morning or evening. It's it to do with the axis tilt if earth making the sun has a different angle of incidence on the atmosphere? Because that's the best I can come up with.

[Assistant]
During the day, the atmosphere increases in temperature, causing dust and particulates to rise with the natural convection currents. These particles give a sunset more of a reddish tint, whereas in the morning, the atmosphere has been cooling all night, it is relatively calm in terms of thermal currents.

However, if there are turbulent currents in the morning, it can kick up particles giving a red sky, a typical sign of bad weather to come.


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

[User] ELI5: Why is Australia so overwhelmingly dry when nearby places like Papua New Guinea, New Zealand, Indonesia, and Tasmania are all so wet and lush?

[Assistant]
There's a variety of factors

Australia's geographical position has a lot to do with it. Australia is south of the high-moisture tropical belt that Indonesia and New Guinea are in. It sits under the subtropical high-pressure belt, which prevents the lifting of air required for rain.

Another factor is sheer size. The coastal areas of Australia actually get a lot of rain, but this drains the moisture out of the air so there isn't any left to get to core of the continent. Where-as New Zealand is much narrower so the clouds get a chance to rain on the whole sub-continent.

The other part of this is mountains, or the lack there of. Australia doesn't have any significant mountain ranges so there is no geography to force moisture laden air upwards to seed mountains and glaciers with snow. This prevents river systems from forming like we get in North+South America. The Amazon in the South and Prairies in the North only exist because of the climate caused by the mountain ranges to their West.


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

[User]
ELI5: The role of producers in Hollywood

How much control do they have over a movie?

[Assistant]
Well, there are several different *types* of producers.  Here are the main ones

### Producer

Usually responsible for getting all the different people together to make a movie.  They usually find the script, the director, the actors/actresses, deal with securing locations for shooting, getting money from the major studios to make the film.  Basically, all the behind-the-scenes decision-making and scheduling that needs to happen to make a film is done by the Producers.  Producers can also finance the film as well.

### Line Producer

This person is usually on set leading up to and during production to make sure shit is getting done.

### Executive Producer

Often, they're mainly financiers of a project, or they are someone with a big name that can lend credibility to a project to secure funding from the major studios and get big name directors and actors to sign on to a project.  Sometimes, they're the one who actually pushed to make the film, but then delegated the day-to-day producer tasks to another producer.


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

[User]
How effective is CPR if applied immediately after cardiac arrest?

So, according to the statistics, the vast majority of patients don't make it, despite CPR (<5 percent survivors), and I wonder if that's the case because it's simply administered too late to be effective.

Are the chances significantly higher if emergency measures are taken immediately?

[Assistant]
One way to look at this is to compare the survival rates of cardiac arrests which happen outside of hospital compared to those that happen within the hospital. Although the in hospital population may be sicker, it is also reasonable to assume that CPR will be started sooner, and be more effective, for an in hospital arrest.

Not surprisingly, outcome for in hospital arrest is better; survival to hospital discharge has been given at around 17%, compared to 8% for out of hospital arrest

(source:BMJ 2012;345 Published 3 October 2012)


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

[User] If somone gets the COVID-19 vaccine, would the PCR test come back positive in the weeks to follow?

[Assistant]
The RT-PCR test looks for the presence of certain RNA sequences, and will only give a result if those exact sequences are present. From a quick look at the COVID virus genome, neither of the regions used in the official CDC test are in the spike protein, which is the part of the virus used in the front-runner vaccines.

So in theory, an mRNA vaccine could be detected by a PCR test (the vaccine itself, not the body's response), but the PCR test used in the US at least is testing the wrong parts of the virus for that to happen.


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

[User]
[Star Wars] As far as Republic leadership was concerned the clone army was created secretly by a Jedi for unknown reasons. Did the Empire ever use this as propaganda against the Jedi?

Such as accusations that the Jedi had secretly created the army to seize control of the Republic, etc. I'm not sure how much the public knew about the clone army's mysterious origins, but I'm wondering if after the Clone Wars the Empire might have revealed the actions of Sifo-Dyas as evidence of the Jedi's treachery. It seems like a prime opportunity.

[Assistant]
Propaganda 101: Don't accuse your enemies of doing good things.

The Empire was forged by those armies - giving the people they want to discredit credit for creating said armies does nothing to benefit them.


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

[User] ELI5: What's the difference between screws and nails in terms of strength and in which situations does one work better than the other?

[Assistant]
Nails are cheaper and faster to install so usually when a nail will do the job a nail is used. Screws hold better but take a little longer to install, so typically when someone needs the extra "grip" a screw will be used.

However, when creating replaceable parts, screws have the advantage that they can be removed and reinstalled multiple times without compromising (to a significant degree) the effectiveness. So many things that a nail would be able to secure just fine, a screw is used because a part of it may need to be replaced in the future, requiring the screws to be removed and then screwed back in, whereas if a nail was removed and then nailed back in it loses a lot of its hold each time that happens, assuming you can even get the nail out without bending it or breaking something.

This is of course assuming you understand the difference between a screw and a nail.


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

[User]
CMV: Capitalist practices are seriously causing negative mental health impacts on society.

EDIT : Consumerist practices is probably more apt - in my head they kinda went one and the same.

Understand that Iv been trying to come to terms with this issue and its a bit complicated - but Ill do my best to keep it kind of sectioned into paragraphs with points for you to CMV on.

Everything in society feels as though its geared to make you spend money -

If something gives you pleasure - there will always be a company to make you feel like youre missing out and need to buy more to enjoy it fully. This is mainly in the realm of media for me - think Disney You like marvel movies? - heres a new one pay this premium price to see the new one., new games, like Pokmon? Make sure you buy the newest games to get the latest and greatest etc. Of course you can always choose to not buy into the hype. Get the show or game later. But then -

Social media - perhaps just media in general - there seems to be a trend to me - of constant posts/ memes etc on all accounts relating to these newest shows/games etc. If youre not with latest - youre kind of excluded because your not in the loop. I know that a lot of these posts etc may be sponsored content or viral marketing - but that paired with adverts etc can cause a feeling of exclusion within society (or at least your bubble)

In addition to this is advertising - just in general - isnt the base aim of an advert to make you feel like youre lacking or not enough - and you should buy this product to feel better. Be it something to make you look better or feel better - or try this limited edition whatever (the base idea of a limited edition anything is to create scarcity and cause fear that you will miss out to induce a purchase). Every food company has limited edition flavours - shoes have limited edition sneakers - every product category I can think of does this - and it can all kind of culminate -

If something gives you pleasure - the company behind it will always try to find a way to milk your happiness for money - and with the advent of subscription services this is feeling almost like a literal milking sometimes. Do you like Mario? Prove it. Buy the Mario shirt - and cereal - see the movie - get the limited edition Mario branded console and dont forget you like Levis jeans and Mario and Levis are now doing a limited edition collab - you might miss out.

TLDR; Everything in my life feels soured and tainted by advertising and capitalism. I no longer can find any way to enjoy things because theres a cynical advertising executive in my head who points out all the ways Im being marketed to and to like or enjoy something is just giving companies a new way to exploit you. Please try and change my view if only for my ability to find pleasure in something again.

[Assistant] It seems that by "capitalism" you might be more accurately be referring to "consumerism." Capitalism is an economic market, price, a system of property and labor. The way you're consuming media and goods is, within a capitalist system yes, but not "capitalism."


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

[User] ELI5: If a mosquito bites me while I'm under influence of a drug, does it experience the same effects as me?

[Assistant]
Your question is pretty complicated. The first issue is whether or not drugs that affect humans would have an affect on an insect, and the second issue is whether blood contains remnants of those drugs.

Alcohol, for example, does have an affect on insects. It can disorient fruit flies or even cause bee's to fly upside down. And, when you drink, alcohol does actually get in your blood stream while it is processed... however, it is so diluted that for it to have an affect on a mosquito, you'd likely need to drink to the point of death before it'd have an affect on a mosquito.

Other drugs get more complicated. Drug tests, for example, don't really find "drugs" in your system, they often find the "metabolites" of drugs (the remnants that are left over when a person has taken drugs). For example, if someone ingested a lot of Marijuana, it could show up very clearly in their blood for weeks... but what shows up is not anything that would cause the affects of marijuana. Rather, it is the left-overs chemicals from your body processing the marijuana.

So the answer to your question really depends on the specific drug in question -- however, given the other issues, it is unlikely that a drug would leave any residual active components in your blood which could then have an affect on an insect that drinks your blood.


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

[User]
Cmv: I am pro choice, but I cant help but feel theres some pro life arguments pro choicers dont directly address.

First off I will say that I am pro choice. Why would I want my rights taken away from me?

That said, I feel like some of the points pro lifers make are either ignored or tangentially addressed by pro choicers so I wanted to know what you guys think.

Pro lifers love to call abortions baby killing. I dont agree, but I honestly think people who call fetuses clumps of cells are missing the point.

What the fetus is missing out on is their future life and personhood. I dont think most prolifers consider a fetus nearly as developed as a born baby, rather they place the emphasis on the chance at life the fetus was robbed of.

For example if a baby dies in a car crash, people say things like they had very loving parents and a bright future ahead of them. Why doesnt that apply to fetuses? Just because theyre temporarily biologically dependant on their mother?

I dont think its fair to call them clumps of flesh or even compare them to tumours(a common argument I see all over Reddit). I mean, a tumour isnt going to grow into a fucking person with emotions and self awareness. Yet redditors will go ballistic when humans are compared to objects in those dumb boomer memes. (To be fair they are dumb)

Second point I feel isnt really addressed is the abortion is mostly used as birth control argument. Rape victims definitely deserve the right to abortions if they want one, but I havent really seen pro choicers address the fact that MOST people use abortions as a form of birth control. If its used as birth control and if you consider a fetus a person, I feel the morality of aborting normal, non rape babies becomes mildly questionable. If you consider a fetus enough of a human being due to religion or whatever reason, you would essentially be weighing the importance of a life against a costly mistake.

Third point is the men have no say in womens bodies point. That makes sense if you consider a fetus a part of their mothers body, but not if you consider a fetus a human. If you consider a fetus a human, the debate is no longer about womens bodies, its human lives, and that concerns the entire human race.

I feel like most pro choice arguments are only completely sound if you consider a fetus a 100% non living thing with 0 rights or desire to live. I haven't figured out how much of a person I consider fetuses yet, so I can't say much about that.

Anyways I know this is a touchy subject so I tried to word it in the best way possible. I really hope I didn't sound completely ridiculous or upset anyone.

Edit: just woke up, this is gonna take a while to read. I want to clarify that my birth control point was that most people who get abortions are using it as birth control, not to prevent their body from collapsing. I obviously dont think that people willingly have unprotected sex because abortion is legal anyways.

[Assistant]
Umm even if yo consider a fetus a human with personhood, it is *still* not entitled to a womans body. No person is entitled to another persons body, why do you want to give a fetus *extra* rights?

And yeah, when most abortions happen, it *is* just a clump of cells the size of a pea, that looks like a tadpole and is indistinguishable from any other mammal at that point in development.

Pro-fetus crowd loves to use the 9-month partial birth abortion straw man to appeal to peoples emotions, of imagery of fully-formed babies being chopped up.

When in reality, later term abortions only occurred when the fetus is already severely deformed to the point that it wont survive beyond childbirth, and continuing to carry the fetus presents serious risk of harm to the mother.


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

[User]
[Ben 10] Does Ben feel pain when transforming into his Aliens?

I mean his entire body shifts, enlarges, adding extra appendages and other physical forms and Im curious if he feels pain?

[Assistant]
Time stops. Everything goes black.

Trapped in a moment, Ben wonders what's going on. He can't move, but ... things... are happening.

He notices it bit by bit, his body is changing. He remembers pressing the button, but as time wears on and he continues to morph, the moment of hitting the button gets more and more distant.

There is only the transformation.

It's not pain he feels, but something else, and with it he goes mad.

Effectively days go by as he continues to change, effectively held in place and immobile, feeling this intense feeling as more and more of him is replaced. He quickly goes mad, but in the brief moments of clarity, he recalls a distant sensation of pressing the button and the life he once knew.

When it's a hyper intelligent alien, he can get brief glimpses of sanity. It is these brief moments that are the most horrifying, as he knows the process of transformation is necessarily slow. Such a physical change using normal science would take weeks, months, decades, years. To work around this, this temporary time bubble is created, accellerating the physical process but allowing "real" time to slow to a crawl. Unfortunately, the mind cannot be separated from the body, and must endure the decades, here, alone in the dark time bubble.

He might even realize he's going to die.

The "him" that pressed the button activated the time bubble he's currently in, but was immediately uploaded to the Omnitrix to over-write the "him" that's being tortured right now.

But this is a fleeting moment, soon lost in the alien feelings of transformation but never moving, and he descends into madness again.

He doesn't realize it when the end comes, and his mind is over-written by the memories of the original him saved by the Omnitrix.

No, he does not feel pain.


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

[User] ELI5: How is the Universe expanding if gravity pulls things together?

[Assistant]
Wouldn't physicists like to know.

But seriously, they dont know. At this point, all we have are some theories. Mainly, dark energy. Basically an unknown, undetectable force that pushes on everything in the universe. Locally, its not strong enough to overcome gravity, which is why stars, planets, orbits, galaxies, etc. still exist; but on a cosmic scale, it is strong enough to push all the clumps of mater (which are basically clumps of gravity), away from each other.

It's also worth mentioning that, since dark energy expands space itself, and isn't technically *moving* anything, the expansion of the universe is actually faster than the speed of light. Some galaxies are moving away from each other so quickly, that light from one galaxy would never be able to reach the other, because it cant travel fast enough.


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

[User]
If you take a break from academia and work on your own business or research startup, does that experience count when you return to academia? Does your previous experience count or do you need to start from scratch?

Non-native English speaker here. This is probably a stupid question but I am curious.

Case 1: Suppose I am at an assistant professor and I am an academic for 5 years. Now I leave academia and work on my business which fails after 5 years. Now I apply to become an academic again and the position asks for 5 years of experience. Will I be able to join it showing my 5 years of assistant professor position.

Case 2: Same case but now, I want to apply to a position that is above assistant professor (say associate professor). It requires 8 years of experience. But I have 5 years of experience in academia and another 5 in a business. Will the business experience count?

Case 3: Same case as case 1 but instead of working on a business I was working on a research business of mine (say a research biotech firm). Will the 5 years in the research firm count towards associate professorship where 8 years of experience is required?

[Assistant]
It is unlikely that you'd even get a tenure track job much less credit for your time outside academia unless you've kept up your publishing and/or teaching.

Every year hundreds of people in your field likely graduate with a fresh PhD, and you would compete with them for jobs.

The time to do something like this is before graduate school or (on the side) after tenure.


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

[User]
Why is the N-Body problem considered un-solveable in the general case?

Can you not just do a step-wise integration to come to a correct simulation of an n-body system?

[Assistant]
A few considerations, in lieu of a full answer:

Step-wise numerical integration isn't really considered a full solution, generally that's reserved for some sort of closed form expression or series. There is a solution to the N-body problem, but in practice it's even slower than the numerical solution.

The problem with numerical integration is chaos: eventually there are situations where the exponential dependence on initial conditions means that no matter how small your time-step is, eventually the system could evolve in a totally different way depending on your numerical scheme.


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

[User] How was the exact value for the AU chosen if Earth's orbit around the sun isn't a perfect 0 eccentricity?

[Assistant]
It was originally just the average of the biggest and smallest distances. Because the Earth moves faster when it's closest to the Sun, this would mean that it spends a bit more time slightly further than 1 AU than slightly closer.

However, this isn't the best way to set the value, because it comes down to the specifics of our orbit (which can slightly vary every year), and our accuracy of measuring this orbit. Now it's defined as an exact number of metres: 149,597,870,700m. This isn't supposed to be *exactly* the distance of the Earth to the Sun, or even the exact average of the biggest & smallest difference. It's just a convenient value that happens to be quite close to the typical distance of the Earth to the Sun. The Earth moves from 0.983 AU to 1.017 AU over an orbit - this is easier to visualise than saying the Earth goes from 147,095,000 km to 152,100,000 km.


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

[User] ELI5: People in American movies often say "call my lawyer", does that mean that they already have a lawyer ?

[Assistant]
Most people in those movies are in a business, and yes they have a contract with a firm. Now remember this is Hollywood, so it is not a staple to real life. In truth keeping lawyers on retainer is quite costly and most people in America do not have one. And back to the movies it is just a lazy way for writers to end a confrontation with out having to go in depth and continue the story.

In a criminal environment then every one who can not afford a lawyer is assigned one from the court. So yes they all do have lawyers. Alas public defenders are not the best way to go, considering most are over worked and working for way less then what they would normally would be paid. In the real world this causes quite the inequality between the have and have nots, because in American court, its not about being guilty, its about how well you can abuse the system to get away with it. Hope this helps.


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

[User]
[Harry Potter] If the British government decided to go to war with the wizard world what would the outcome be?

Could wizards be defeated with conventional muggle weapons, as they need to be prepared to deflect a spell could they deflect a sniper shot that came unawares or could perhaps some shield spell deflect it?

[Assistant]
I think that the wizarding world as a whole would survive, although it would be utterly devastated by war. Any wizard who tries to actually *fight* the muggles is going to lose. They have numbers on their side, and technology that can match most defensive magics. A lot of the wizarding community's leading figures will be killed while trying to defend those who can't get away fast enough.

But those who know to take a more subtle path, living among muggles and making judicious use of oblivate and other memory charms to manipulate rather than fight muggles will see much more success. A canny wizard can sway public opinion, control leaders, and manipulate events and *memories of events* all while hiding in plain sight. That's something that the muggles can't fight back against as easily.

The probable outcome is a small group of surviving wizards exercising almost total control over muggle society from the shadows, with perhaps a magical/technological resistance group (perhaps even of former wizards) as their only opposition.


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

[User]
ELI5: What is the difference between True North and Magnetic North? and does it matter to me, a layperson?

Edit: Thank you all for these very helpful answers!!

[Assistant]
The magnetic pole is a bit off of the geographic pole

That means when your compass points at "North" its pointing at magnetic north, which is a slightly different location than true geographic north.

The only people that really need to deal with this is when you are doing navigation, such as on a plane, ship or say, a long hike.

You may need to account for that the north your compass says, is a bit off of true north and adjust your route accordingly.


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

[User] ELI5: Why are fire animations, fogs and shadows in video games so demanding for graphic cards?

[Assistant]
Imagine your graphics card is a famed renaissance painter named Giancarlo Pasquali Uberti sitting in a room. In this room is a canvas, paint, and a pneumatic messaging tube like they have at bank drive-thrus. Giancarlo also has a brother named Cirino Pasquali Uberti that he works with. Cirino can't paint, but he's great with customers and runs their shop. Cirino's job is to take orders for paintings, then send messages to Giancarlo that tell him what to paint. He can't fit big messages in the tube, though, it's real small, so each message tells Giancarlo how to paint a single object. A message might be like "Paint an apple 50cm from the left edge of the canvas, 20cm from the top". Giancarlo is very fast, but it takes him longer to finish a painting if he has to paint lots of individual things (it wastes time writing a message, sending the message through the tube, opening it up, reading it), or if he has to paint a really big canvas.

Now, Cirino and Giancarlo are pretty smart, and they've figured out some tricks to make paintings go faster. Cirino takes great notes while talking to customers, and knows how far away each object in the painting is supposed to be. This is known as its depth. While Cirino isn't a good painter, he's very organized, so he sorts the messages by depth, closest object to furthest, and throws away any objects that are hidden behind something else. The only messages he sends to Giancarlo are just those objects that will be seen in the painting. This is way faster! Giancaralo knows that it's in order, so he doesn't have to waste time painting things that overlap. Since it takes time to paint an area of the canvas (the bigger the area, the more time), this is very efficient. Giancarlo doesn't have to paint over the same spots on the canvas at all, he just paints every spot once.

Then comes a job to paint a still life with a frosted glass vase in it. Cirino sorts everything, and realizes there's a problem. The glass vase is translucent, you can see through it, so it changes how stuff behind it looks since it isn't totally clear. No amount of sorting can fix this, and he eventually realizes that Giancarlo is going to have to paint over the same spot twice to get the right look (remember, he can only tell Giancarlo to paint one object at a time in his messages). The clever brothers think about this for a while, and come up with an idea.

Their new plan is to work on the same painting twice. First, they do what they usually do, sort all the solid objects front-to-back, and only paint the ones that can be seen. Second, they sort all the see-through objects back-to-front and Giancarlo paints each one in order, still careful not to paint any that would be hidden behind a solid object. Sorting the see-through objects back-to-front makes sure they look right if two see-through objects overlap, like if you're looking at that frosted vase through a stained glass window. It wouldn't look right if they painted the vase in front of the window! The results look great, but it's a lot more work than just painting solid objects.

Now, for just a single vase it's not so bad, but once you have a scene with lots of smoke, fog, shadows, etc, Giancarlo spends a lot of time going over and over and over spots he's already painted to build up these translucent layers. This slows things down, and it's a big reason why your GPU struggles with these sorts of effects.


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

[User]
ELI5 - Why is music played so loudly at concerts?

Eg at rock concerts and other concerts where the music is so loud, it sounds distorted unless you wear ear plugs. Why?

[Assistant] To get over the ambient noise. People don't shut up, and hundreds to thousands of people all yammering away that's a lot of noise to get over top of. Go to a busy restaurant, and then sit for a few minutes and listen to how loud it actually gets with so many people talking.


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

[User] ELI5: why do superheroes wear capes? A piece of clothing that hasn't been in fashion since the early 1900s.

[Assistant] It has less to do with fashion, and more to do with the medium in which superheroes originated. It's difficult to relay a sense of motion to a reader if all they are seeing is a figure drawn onto a page. The cape assists with the storytelling by adding an extra element that can be used to get that point across. It's particularly useful in superhero comics, where there is a great deal of "motion" happening most of the time. Show the cape taut behind the character, BIF!: they're moving fast in the direction they're facing. Show the cape half-wrapped around them, BAM!: they're turning around quickly. Show the cape hanging from a coat hook, POW!: it's nappy-nap time for Batman.


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

[User]
[Terminator] what exactly did the machines enslaved humans for?

What was it that the machines couldn't do faster and more efficiently than humans can that they didn't exterminate all humans and kept some slaves?

[Assistant]
There are a handful of possibilities:

1. Labor. Not all of the systems Skynet needed to operate were fully autonomous. Skynet had complete control of military systems, but automation hadn't spread to industry before Judgement Day, which means Skynet would need humans to operate some of the factories and labs that keep its operations going.
1. Research. Skynet might have experimented on humans in order to better understand, and then kill, them.
1. Raw material for the cyborgs. We know they were growing human flesh, and all of the synthetic meat scientists are currently producing require some kind of a starting base. Skynet was almost certainly making people slurry and using it to make Arnolds.
1. To protect them. In some continuities, or some versions of some continuities, Skynet's goal wasn't to destroy all of mankind, it was to eliminate all danger to humanity. To do this it destroyed the powers capable of ending the world (the US, Russia, China, and the other nuclear powers) and kept a remnant of humanity safe in a "perfect" environment. Kind of like a petting zoo.


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

[User]
[Futurama] What's with all these useless robots?

Where did robots like Hedonismbot and Donbot, not to mention the rest of the robot mafia, come from?  They don't help society.  Some of them, like Malfunctioning Eddy, even hurt society.  Who programmed these things!?

[Assistant]
1. Robots can sexually reproduce, having offspring that weren't designed or programmed by anybody.
2. Criminals probably design their own crime-focused robots.
3. Creating problems you're not held accountable for is profitable if you're selling solutions.

_____

How does Malfunctioning Eddie hurt society? Seems to me he's only a danger to himself and, furthermore, that's only because he's malfunctioning.


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

[User]
[Star Wars] As a sith lord, does Vader enjoy killing?

Basically, every other sith we've seen seems to take immense pleasure in killing, and, it fits with their characters.

 Sidious is a power hungry sociopath with a need to dominate other lifeforms, and, what is more dominating than deciding who lives and who dies? It makes sense that he enjoys it.

Maul is the biggest rage ball out of all the sith, with his greatest motivator being revenge, whether it be against the jedi or his former master, killing is probably cathartic to him, and, as we see in the Maul comic he believes his vengeance killing is just.

Dooku/Tyrannus was power hungry like Sidious, but, in a way seemed to think he was right. Considering his dueling skills and the fact that he is **the** master of a lightsaber form that is basically advanced fencing, he likely enjoys it because he finds thrill in battle.

But, Vader? Once his wife died, he's only a sith aligned with the Empire because he has nothing else left and, unlike Sidious, truly believes the Empire is the best option the Galaxy has. He's not particularly power hungry, his political maneuvering comes off more as simply trying to survive in the Imperial hierarchy. Personally, I believe he only wishes to usurp Sidious because he believes he'd make a better Emperor. Finally, unlike the other sith, he never shows signs of enjoying it, he doesn't cackle while murdering, and we never see his expressions.

Does he like it, or detest it and views it as necessary?

[Assistant] Vader doesn't enjoy anything, though he also doesn't have any particular distaste for violence. By the time of R1 and ANH, his grief, self-loathing, and depression had crystallized into a nigh-impenetrable shell of cold ruthlessness that was only weakened by the discovery that he had a son who still lived.


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

[User]
[Star Wars] Why would a Sith Lord even take on an apprentice in the first place?

You're taking on someone who's eventually just going to try to kill you, you're literally teaching him how to do it, and you know this because you killed your own master. His eventual attempt to murder and supplant you is baked into your religion. So what's the point? It seems like there's no upside if you're the Sith master.

[Assistant] The Sith must live on so they can enact revenge on the Jedi. If your apprentice grows stronger than you, that means they are more worthy to rule the Sith. And if you never take an apprentice than the Sith die with you.


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

[User] If we've created a drug "Gleevec" to stop a couple forms of cancer. Why can't we create more drugs like this? (My understanding is it has to do with this cancer's dependence on a particular kinase. Are there other cancers that have similar dependencies we could inhibit?)

[Assistant]
You've basically touched on the problem in your question-every cancer is different, and they vary wildly in their dependence on different molecules. The other thing to consider is that Gleevec is used to treat a fusion protein. In CML, there is a translocation of two genes, and the chimeric protein BCR-Abl is formed that is totally dysregulated. What's convenient about treating it is that noncancerous cells don't express this fusion protein, so it can be targeted without affecting the normal healthy tissue.

Many cancers aren't caused by these unique fusion proteins though, making their treatment very difficult.


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

[User] ELI5: Why does Germany have a chancellor and a president?

[Assistant]
Most countries have a head of state and a head of government.  The head of government is usually called a Prime Minister, because a minister serves the head of state (president or monarch).

So, in Canada, there is a Prime Minister who serves the Queen.  In France, there is a Prime Minister and a President, because there is no monarch.  And in Germany, where there is no monarch, there is a Chancellor and a President.

Usually, when both of these roles exist, one of them is a figurehead - a symbolic role that has little real power, but may be of vital importance in line of succession, like the U.S. Vice Presidency.  That's true in the case of Germany, where the President has little real power while the Chancellor handles the day-to-day business of making laws and signing treaties.


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

[User] [W40K/Star Wars] The Emperor of Mankind is replaced with Emperor Palpatine. What happens?

[Assistant]
The Emperor is not simply a corps sitting in a glorified throne in the middle of Europe at the Imperial Palace.

The Emperor is, in all simple terms, a God in human form. Even in his near-death state he still guides the Imperium by the Emperors Tarot, he keeps the Astronomicon focused, he keeps the entrance of the broken human webway locked away with it's army of demons.

Putting that Tzeentch Wana-be on the throne would make the demons eat his soul in the first micro-second, his body in the second and start the invasion in the third. By then the Astronomicon becomes useless and all Warp travel is lost.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why "Community" a show that is evidently beloved by so many ends up getting such low ratings, eventually sent to Yahoo's streaming service and then completely cancelled

I know hardly anything about the show, except a lot of friends love it to death.

[Assistant] Cable companies still use outdated metrics to measure a shows popularity and its tied to how easy it is for them to monetize it, they havent figure out how to squeeze as much money out of streaming services and on demand as they have from live television so people who view shows live at broadcast are disproportionately important to networks when they consider whether to continue funding a show.


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

[User]
[DBS] So now that we know that Ultra Instinct isn't limited to Saiyans, who would be the most monstrous with it?

Yamcha? Tien? Roshi? Krillin? Maybe guys like Pikkon, Piccolo and like Janemba or something?

Maybe some GT guys?

Lets assume its possible to merge forms with ultra instinct, now whos the best? Would UI Goku be SSJ3, SSJ4, or SSJGSS?

[Assistant]
The series already gives us the answer to that question: Whis.

He's a martial arts genius that even Beerus has trouble keeping up with.  He has the power to rewind and putz with time.  He likely has access to Hakai (since he serves a God of Destruction, it'd be handy for him to perform the same.)  And, worse yet, he's already got Ultra Instinct working for him.  In fact, he's mastered it to the point that he can keep it active 24/7 with no impact on his stamina (like how Goku and Vegeta can go SSJ1 all day without tiring.)  About the only thing keeping him from being "monstrous" with it is the fact that he's a pretty easy-going guy and doesn't much care for going on a rampage (he'd rather have some tasty parfait instead.)

If we're talking about figures who aren't already among the gods, then we also have the best answer coming from the series:  Frieza.  The thing about Frieza's character is that he's evil.  He wakes up evil, brushes his teeth evil, kills a minion for incompetence or just for giggles evil, eats dinner evil, and goes to sleep evil.  He does everything in just about as evil a way as he can.  And, it'd be one thing if he was someone like Buu or the Androids before Cell, where he was designed for evil and nothing else.  But, even those characters whose original defining purpose was solely for evil eventually turned to good at some point.  Not Frieza, though.  He's gone to Hell and back multiple times, and yet, knowing full well what kind of afterlife awaits him if he keeps making those types of choices, *he still chooses to be an evil bastard.*  Now imagine that kind of person being basically invincible.


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

[User]
How were vaccines used in the 1980s and 1990s made? (mRNA, viral vector, etc.)

(I know mRNA is new so it won't be that but I just listed it as an example) I wondered if anyone knows how the usual vaccines administered in childhood (in the UK) were made/formulated? I'm referring to tetanus, diphtheria, MMR, rabies, measles, polio etc.

[Assistant]
The tetanus vaccine is a toxoid vaccine: such vaccines don't grant immunity to the infection, but to the toxin the infection creates. The toxin is made ineffective through heat treatment.

The first successful polio vaccine contained polio virus parts that had been inactivated with formaldehyde.

Rabies, but also measles and rubella are attenuated viruses. That are viruses that are made so that they don't really make you sick, essentially through selective breeding.


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

[User]
Why is it possible to install a wide variety of generic operating systems on just about any computer, but a custom ROM has to be developed for every smartphone?

With the computers you can pick nearly any machine and just install your favorite OS on it, as long as it has enough resources for it. You may have some driver problems, but still it is possible to switch between different flavors of Windows and Linux.

With the  phones it takes entire communities of developers adopting the ROM for every specific device. And you are usually stuck with the operating system you originally had on the device.

Why can't phones be more like computers?

[Assistant]
You actually answered your own question. It is primarily drivers. On PC manufacturers have agreed upon standards and protocols that allow most hardware to operate similarly without the need for complex drivers. The best example of this is monitors and flash drives and the worst example is graphics cards, although even those work at a basic level with generic drivers most of the time.

This is especially a problem with radios. Each carrier uses different frequencies and each phone can use a different chip. There is no incentive for manufacturers to supply drivers to consumers, so they have to be reverse engineered or coded from scratch, frequently on a per phone basis.

Couple that with the relatively young age of the growing smartphone market and you have your explanation.

EDIT:

I forgot to mention that many phones also come with locked bootloaders, which can prevent running custom software on a device. A bootloader's primary purpose is to load and then hand off control of the hardware to the Operating System. This has become less of a problem recently, as many manufacturers are starting to offer methods to unlock bootloaders themselves in an effort to encourage developers to buy their phones.


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

[User]
[Star Wars] Did Anakin enjoy the Clone War?

I would think that constantly facing threats of death, seeing hundreds if not thousands of your comrades die every day, barely ever getting alone time with your wife, constantly seeing your mentor and student nearly die, personally witnessing slavery and other war crimes, and constantly fighting powerful sith lords would be incredibly stressful, terrifying, and traumatizing, but Anakin seems to always be having the time of his life during the Clone War. Why? He's always making quips, usually upbeat, usually nonchalant about everything going on. Did he actually enjoy the war that killed billions? Same with Obi-Wan and Ahsoka, honestly. Now Yoda, the Jedi Council, and most of the other jedi seem to fully comprehend the gravity of the situation, the horrors of the war, the endless sacrifices, but not our main trio.

What's up with that? Would Qui-Gon be chill about it all too?

[Assistant]
It's not that Anakin didn't suffer grief, anguish, rage or anxiety in the Clone Wars, he clearly did, frequently. But Anakin went from being a weak, powerless little slave boy, to being able to be a galactic hero, saving the galaxy. It was adventure, it was excitement. He got to spend a lot of time with his soldiers, who he respected and cared for a lot, Ahsoka and Obi-Wan, who are like his little sister and big brother respectively, and he would occasioanlly sneak off to see the love of his life Padme.

The war was bad, lots of people got hurt, people he knew and respected. But still, really - it was kind of the best time of his life. He was getting to be part of history.


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

[User] ELI5: Why does tilting your cup to the side reduce the amount of head when pouring a beer?

[Assistant] Think of it like a playground slide.  If you just jumped off the top of it onto the ground, it would hurt (large impact, large amount of force).  If you jumped down the slide portion and slid down, it would be more comfortable (less impact, less force).  Just like with soda, there is CO2 in your beer.  When you shake (cause impact to) the beer/soda, the CO2 is released.  So by "sliding" the beer down, you put less impact/force on the beer, giving you less bubbles.


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

[User]
CMV: sex should be treated as just an activity that people do, like fishing or watching a movie.

Listed for easier rebuttal and addressing:

1. Putting a big amount of value on sex by seeing it as something to only do with one person can create tension later on in a relationship due to sexual incompatibility.

2. It is an integral part of a relationship, so by lessening the value on sex can allow people to explore this part of a relationship.
3. By treating it as just another activity to enjoy, it allows relationships to be built on other things such as trust, communication, emotional intimacy, etc.

I personally believe that putting sex on a pedestal is potentially harmful to society and people in relationships. Thus, we should reduce the value of sex in society. CMV!

[Assistant] The trouble is, sex is quite possibly the most important aspect of our lives. Human existence, nay, the existence of animal life period is defined by sex. Our self-worth is largely influenced by how we are perceived sexually. There is a gigantic component of courtship and sexual desire inherent in human relationships. Sex permeates our culture, art, poetry, literature and films. Maybe what you are proposing is that we reduce this importance, but that would be tantamount to completely altering human nature.


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

[User]
ELI5: How does my cracker contain more wheat flour than it weighs? "Made with 107g Wheat flour per 100g of product. Ingredients: Wheat Flour, Rapeseed Oil, Salt, Sugar, Sugar Beet Fibre."

I understand how this works with, say, tomatoes in ketchup where there is water loss when reducing but I didn't think flour (or oil) contained much water.

[Assistant] Wheat is a bit hygroscopic. That means that it draws moisture from the air, and therefore will stop drying at around 14% water content. Now if you bake a cracker, the moisture is driven out by the heat - reducing its weight accordingly. When you open the package of the cracker, it'll slowly start absorbing moisture again, becoming soft in the process.


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

[User]
ELI5: Does drinking water actually have a flavor?

So many of my friends complain about tap water 'tasting' different to bottled water and that VOSS water is the best bottled water to drink because it tastes great.. What the hell it all tastes the same right? Can someone clear this up for me please ELI5!

[Assistant] If they were all pure H2O, they would taste the same. However, water from different sources have different chemicals and minerals in them - it's not "just" water by a long shot. Different bottlers, different municipalities and other water sources all have different kinds and amounts of impurities that affect the taste of water.


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

[User]
What would theoretically happen if a cap was placed on the amount of money a person was allowed to earn?

Say for example the cap is a billion dollars (haven't decided if that should be per year or for a lifetime, perhaps it should be a yearly amount) including liquid assets. Anything above that gets put towards bettering the community as a whole towards schools, healthcare, road maintenance, etc. or towards better pay and benefits for workers if that person  owns a business. A billion dollars is still a ton of money so people still have incentive to strive to get rich but only up until a certain point so one person cannot hoard the world's wealth.  So say that we had a govt. that wasn't corrupt and actually followed those guidelines what would be some downfalls of this idea?

[Assistant]
The clearest one is that many people would simply stop working once they hit the cap. This means that Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, sports stars, music stars, actors would simply stop working. You might argue that they weren't producing value, but that's clearly wrong or else they wouldn't be working.

Alternatively, they might leave the country. If you tell Elon Musk that he is not legally allowed to make any more money in the US, he would likely start a new company (or move Tesla) to a different country. This would cause substantial loss of jobs and innovation with regards to the US.


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

[User]
[Finding Nemo] What exactly are the "fish are friends" Sharks eating other than fish that allows them to survive?

Even if one or two are "cheating" they're still trying to not eat fish. What are they substituting or plan to substitute that will be able to sustain them?

[Assistant]
Krill and plankton. Bruce the shark went on a journey of self discovery and met up with a bunch of hippie whale sharks off the coast of the Philippines who extolled the virtues and benefits of living off plankton, and how it provides them with the most nutrition with the least violence, as long as one is patient. Bruce learned to not succumb to his violent predatory streak, and survive by just being one with the shoals of krill all around him.

He eventually came back home, and was eager to impart the wisdom of non-violence to his fellow predatory mates, encouraging them to rise above their base natures, and give them a higher purpose, which is harmony in the oceans.

Despite his experience and his knowledge, Bruce is still a shark, and a slave to what he is and how he was raised. He seeks to become more than a shark, but as is usually the case, the path to enlightenment is fraught with temptation and pitfalls.


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

[User]
[World War Z book] What's the point of trying to reconquer the whole USA?

In the book it's explained that California is home to the new US government and its focused on rebuilding. That said, they still suffer from acute resource shortages and fuel is so scarce that plenty of people have to walk for hours every day and burn wood for heat. Hunger and crime are still big problems. This isn't a country in any shape whatsoever to start a massive conquest campaign.

Is California still a democracy? Or ruled by a military junta? Because i can't see why the people would support a massive war that will gobble up most of their resources while they have so many problems at home.

And sure, nationalism and the american dream could help start the war. But the thousands of body bags coming back home would certainly end support for the war long before they reach the east coast.

What's the big hurry? At least wait until California regains its pre zombie economy before starting this campaign. And by the way, there is still a chinese sub carrying nukes sailing around the world. So maybe defense budgets should focus on defending California.

[Assistant]
They want america back. It might not be the sensible play, but it's their country.

And to be fair, once you understand what's happening, zombies aren't that hard to fight. The initial losses were down to confusion, denial and trying to fight zombies like you'd fight a human army. Once you know what you're doing, taking down zombies isn't necessarily a huge undertaking.


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

[User] [DC] If evil superman suddenly throws the Moon to the Earth or the Earth to the Sun, how would the others stop it?

[Assistant]
Dr. Fate, the Specter, and probably a Flash or two would probably intervene if Supes isn't stopped early enough in advance.  Martian Manhunter could stop him telepathically, or at least slow him down long enough for other heavy hitters to intervene.  Green Lantern might flare up, too.

Either way, Lex will *never* shut up about it.


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

[User]
ELI5: what is the difference between "tactical" and "strategic" in war?

I've read texts about battles that went like: "this was a tactical victory but a strategic defeat" or the other way around.
What are tactical vs. stategic nukes?
What is a tactical weapon battle / victory / defeat ? Same for strategic.

[Assistant]
Tactics = The actions taken to accomplish a goal or task.

Strategy = Figuring out what your goal is and the general path to get there.

For war, using World War II.

Strategy was the U.S. military generals deciding to fight and win the war in the European theatre first while just performing holding actions in the Pacific against the Japanese.

Tactics were the Army platoons sending firing squads on flanking movements around German positions.

Operational is the level in between. Operations are executed using tactics to accomplish the strategy. So Operation Overlord (the D-Day landing) used tactical movements to accomplish an operation in support of a strategic goal.

Edit - Just read the fine text. A tactical nuke is low-yield meant to accomplish a tactical action such as taking out a single unit or stronghold. Its use would be the equivalent to fighting a skirmish or battle. A strategic nuke is high-yield meant to accomplish a strategic goal, such as breaking an enemy nation's will to fight.

A tactical victory but strategic defeat would be fighting rabidly over a position, losing most of your forces, but claiming victory in the battle. Except now you've lost 80% of your military forces and the enemy has another army marching 300 miles north of you towards your nation's capitol. You won the battle (tactical), but screwed yourself over for the overall war effort (strategic).


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

[User]
ELI5, why are wooden houses so prevalent in the US vs UK?

My wife is from upstate New York and every home is made from wood, I don't think I've seen a wooden house in the UK. Maybe one or two grade 1 listed pubs.

I get the proximity to cheaper materials, the availability of brick, local resources etc.. But I also see it reflected in the price 400k, for a 4 bed in East Greenbush (outside Albany), vs 700k for a 4-bedroom brick house outside Chester (I thought roughly equivalent, if not weighted in favor of NY).

Surely there's a market for cheaper wooden houses in the UK? What's the deal?

[Assistant]
Fly over the US and Canada.  Youll see lots of trees.  Lots of trees means cheap lumber.so lots of wood framed houses.

Fly over England or Scotland, youll see lots of grass.  No trees means expensive lumber.so lots of masonry houses.


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

[User]
How do we know chemical reactions doesn't react with air?

for example

A+B-> C

How do we know there isn't air involved in A+B?

Don't you need to have a vacum to be 100% sure there is no air involved?

[Assistant]
We can pretty easily see that oxygen isn't in the products if we can see what atoms make up both the reactants and products, and so for that we can rule out air involvement.  If we are a little unsure we can do isotopic studies to actively watch the movement of atoms to confirm.

However, your question gets to the point that all chemical reactions happen in some kind of medium, and in chemistry we call that the solvent.  It can be air, water, acetone, oil, inside a metal, etc, but by definition there is some area within which the reaction is taking place.  It turns out this can play a huge role in how chemical reactions progress.

In the simplest case the solvent can interfere with the reaction and become a reactant.  If you try to do reduce something in a liquid there can be significant effects of oxygen dissolved in that liquid reoxidizing your stuff.  However, as discussed above we can generally track these side reactions and predict them well.

The other effect is that solvents will change the way that your reactants come together.  For example, when A and B come together you must go through some A---B transition state before you get your final C.  If whatever medium your reaction is in is good at stabilizing that A---B transition state then you might be able to make the reaction more efficient, faster, or require less activation energy.  A lot of organic chemists spend a long time trying out their reactions in different solvents just to find the one that allows their reaction to work.


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

[User] Israel has now given approximately 42% of its population one or more doses of Covid-19 vaccine. Has the vaccination program had a noticeable impact on covid-19 cases, hospitalizations and deaths so far in Israel?

[Assistant]
According to one of the Israeli health providers, in the week after their second shot, just 20 out of 128,000 Israelis tested positive. This is 0.015%, compared to the 0.65% of the general population who are currently getting infected each week. This would suggest an efficacy of around 95% as claimed by Pfizer. None of the 20 were hospitalised.

The effect after a single dose is significantly smaller (and apparently less than Pfizer was claiming), though it still reduces infections by around a third.

Overall infections among over 60s have dropped very significantly compared to the rest of the (still mostly unvaccinated) population. This has coincided with the British virus variant becoming more widespread in Israel, leading to an increase in infections among younger people.


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

[User]
Do males retain similar hormonal cycles as females during the menstrual cycle?

Luteinizing hormone as well as follicle stimulating hormone are secreted in greater amounts at different points during the ovarian cycle.  Do males also encounter these hormonal changes or other similar hormonal cycles?

[Assistant] Women go through a monthly cycle where estrogen peaks and then comes down. Men have the same type of cycle with testosterone, but it is daily instead of monthly, with peak testosterone levels occurring in the morning not too long after waking up.


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

[User]
Can fake kryptonite have a placebo effect on superman?

If someone made fake kryptonite without any similar properties aside from appearance, could the placebo effect come into play and make superman think its affecting him?

[Assistant]
I think he'd flinch and/or hesitate for a microsecond, possibly faster than one could even detect, then it would be apparent that he has nothing to fear and he would take action based on that knowledge.

Superman doesn't seem very suggestible to me.


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

[User]
ELI5: How is the printing of currency regulated? When do they print more/less than previously ?

title :)

[Assistant]
Central Banks (like the Federal Reserve in the US, or the ECB in Europe) have the responsibility to manage the amount of currency in their respective countries.

The 'how' is quite interesting: by now, most money is digital. It's one's and zero's in a computer, and doesn't exist as coins or pieces of paper anymore. So when a central bank wants to create money, they can just create it on a computer without ever needing to print anything. When they want that money in circulation, they just spend the money. Usually they buy government bonds, sometimes other bonds or stocks. These things keep their value pretty well, so if the central bank wants to decrease the amount of money in circulation, they can simply sell the bonds and/or stock, and destroy the money they get for this (again, they do this just on the computer).

The "when" is a little trickier. The Federal Reserve has what is known as a dual mandate. This means they're supposed to take care of two things: full employment (in practice this means just very low unemployment, you're never going to have no unemployment), and stable prices (in practice this means 2% inflation per year). But the thing to keep an eye on, is that central banks are not so much reacting to what's already happened, but they're trying to predict what's going to happen and act based on that. So for example, the inflation is pretty low right now (below 2% still), but the Federal Reserve is thinking about taking action because they're afraid that it might go over that target soon.


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

[User] ELI5: How can flies get in through windows, but it takes them a lot longer to get out through the same gap, or not at all?

[Assistant] There are many many flies on the outside, so it's likely that a small number of them will find your tiny window. The chance for each fly to find your window is very small. On the same note, the chance the fly will find the same small window out is still small. However, if you have things the fly is after such as food, it might also be choosing to stay because it "smells better" inside than outside.


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

[User] [King Kong 2005] Are the Brontosaurus the same species that existed in the Jurassic Period?

[Assistant]
Not exactly. All of the dinosaurs on skull island are direct descendants of the ancient species, but are new variants based on adapting to life on the island. For example, the brontosaurus that live with Kong are of the type *Brontosaurus Baxteri*, unlike their ancient cousins the *B. excelsus, B. yahnahpin, and B. parvus.*

Likewise the big theropod dinosaurs that kong often fights are not T-Rex, but V-rex. Or Vastatosaurus rex.

Granted, they ARE very similar to their ancient ancestors. Mostly due to the fact that they had little reason to change over 65 million years. The environment on skull island remained largely the same, so then did food remain abundant and patterns of life to go unchanged except in very minor ways.


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

[User]
ELI5:Why can evergreen plants survive winter unlike other plants

What makes evergreen plants able to survive the winter?

[Assistant] Evergreen trees most often have needles instead of leaves. With the needles having a smaller surface area,  evergreens can better withstand colder temperatures. Also, the trees will go dormant when water is unavailable for photosynthesis. These adaptations allow the tree to stay green year round.


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

[User]
ELI5 why the US needs a Marine Corps when the other three services could potentially fulfill its role.

Other than the National Security Act of 1947, what is the legitimate reasoning behind maintaining what some would deem to be a second standing army?

[Assistant]
flexibility. no one is pretending that in terms of land combat the Marine Corps is anywhere as close as capable as the Army is, to illustrate this, it's composed of three active infantry divisions with supporting arms (and of course the air wing), the Army has (multiple?) divisions *completely composed of armor*. the Marine Corps has several (like, 3) *battalions* of tanks. suffice to say, Marines weren't guarding the fulda gap in the cold war, nor were they ever intended to.

that being said, the Marine Corps possesses every warfighting capability of the United States armed forces, at some level, organically. A Marine commander, possibly as junior as a LtCol (and they are certainly trained as such) could have under his direct command everything from an infantry regiment with supporting arms, including arty and tanks, with requisite logistic support, to limited heavy airlift capability (C130s), air superiority (F/A-18s), and even electronic warfare (prowlers).

so this brings us to its point in national defense strategy. if something happens "flash in the pan" a Marine commander can have enough assets at his fingertips, instantly, to bring a lot of pain for about two weeks to maybe a month with almost zero outside assistance. obviously this isn't being applied in protracted occupations/COIN like Afghanistan (or to be honest even OIF-1), so this capability, *literally* the primary purpose of the Marine Corps, isn't really seen.

but this cohesiveness and integration at such a comparatively low level is exactly the purpose of the Marine Corps. every asset in the Corps (except of course the grunts themselves) is reminded that they exist solely and utterly to support the rifleman on the ground. training, for every MOS, is centered around an expeditionary capability to allow this. MEUs are a regular deployment that are a specific embodiment of this philosophy: a purpose-built small deck carrier with an infantry battalion, some supporting arms, a logistics arm, and a composite aviation element of helos, ospreys, and harriers, with 130s on call. the CO (a colonel) has all this at his command as it sails around its assigned hemisphere, waiting for something bad to happen.

tl;dr while much smaller, the Marine Corps is structured to allow to be *entirely self sufficient* (barring Naval assets like LHDs, who themselves exist solely to support the Marine Corps) for a **short period of time**

edit: OP you're clearly a Marine, don't you know all this shit?

gold for this? sweet, thanks!


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

[User] ELI5: Why is there a gap between when a film comes out in the cinema and when it comes out on DVD?

[Assistant]
Major studios make deals with theaters that they won't release a film onto home distribution for X weeks so that the theaters can make money off of it.

Then they make sure that cable doesn't get access to them for X more weeks so that the home video/redbox gets to make more money off of it.

Independent movies that don't have this big distribution channel will frequently release their movies into a small number of theaters and also to VoD on the same day.


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

[User]
[Batman TAS] Why is the batsuit as such?

Namely, the lack of a covering for the mouth on the cowl. Over the series Batman faces numerous foes who use gases and such, and surely after the first occurrence, the Batsuit would be redesigned to accommodate a rebreather? Or is the BatChin that important?

[Assistant]
Batman has to walk a very fine line. On the one hand, it's absolutely paramount that he's a force which criminals respond to with absolute terror, so that he can intimidate. On the other hand, however, he's a vigilante very much devoted to protecting the innocent. Terrifying innocent people works against him, so he shows just enough that people can see he's a person.

Think of how different a person looks smiling and scowling.


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

[User]
ELI5: How do stun grenades not cause permanent hearing loss?

I read somewhere that stun grenades are around 170 dB when they go off and they're designed to not cause permanent hearing loss. Isn't that EXTREMELY loud? I thought we experience hearing loss after 120 dBs or something like that?

[Assistant] You can experience hearing loss at significantly lower dBs than that, if you are exposed long enough. It's a combination of factors - the length of exposure, which is extremely short for a stun grenade, and the distance from the explosion. As long as it doesn't go off right next to your head, and you are only exposed once, you shouldn't have an issue. However, repeated exposure (for example, for people training with them) require people to use significant hearing protection or reduced explosion training grenades.


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

[User]
[Walking Dead] How come the group doesn't use Michonne's technique?

Why don't the group use Michonne's walker trick more often? For example, at the prison they could keep a bunch of them surrounding the fences. I remember someone saying that they ward off other walkers and it could have kept them away from the fences.

[Assistant] They don't ward off others. They just let you pass through because other zombies assume you are one of them. If you had loads tof them outside the prison, more would come and eventually you'd have a herd.


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

[User]
CMV: We should be focusing on impoverished people who show innate talent and potential, just lack the resources

I think a lot of people in poverty are brilliant, just lack opportunity, and while Im not saying abandon the poor who arent talented, I think we should be focusing resources on kids with potential. For instance, in Germany, by age 12 it is determined whether or not you are able to attend university. While this is a result of rationing in the more socialistic way, as most German Universities are public (to my knowledge), however In the US such a system would never be allowed (nor should it).

However, kids who perform very well from the inner city or rural communities should be given access to good schools, funding, etc. These are the people that will make a difference in the world. I know everyone would love equality, but that doesnt exist because humans arent equal. I have family members that didnt go to college because they simply (despite being able to afford it) werent academically talented enough, and went into trades. I believe that when we talk about improving the lives of the poor, this should be considered. My cousin may not be smart enough for university, but hes a damn good plumber and makes a great living.

On top of this, so many kids have student loans up to their neck because they study things that dont provide solid career paths (shout out to all the gender studies majors, im sure what you learn is interesting and important, but nobody will hire you)

Is it wrong to support people differently based on talent? Because I feel like thats the best way to approach it with the smallest amount of waste. Focus kids where they should focus, dont tell them theyre screwed if they dont go to college, or that college is the only way out of poverty because it definitely isnt

People are different, some are more talented, some are better looking, some are more creative, some are smarter, why shouldnt we focus public spending on these attributes instead of blanket funding public schools that never seem to actually get better, or use the funding properly? (Im looking at you, Baltimore schools who had no heat all winter, and somehow afforded to bus kids to DC with a free lunch to march in the gun rally, give me a break)

[Assistant]
Some of the largest social effects from education come from the most basic things. For example, illiteracy alone is massively associated with all kinds of bad outcomes. Same with basic math skills. You may think we aren't doing anything for the guy with a 90  IQ who never goes to college or fails out the first year, but most likely that person still has received enough education to fill out a job application, read his mail, pay his taxes, and probably operate a personal computer. When people fall behind in those basic things into adulthood, it costs our society a lot.

This is in addition to the fact that we already have a lot of programs and tracks dedicated to people with gifted abilities.


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

[User]
ELI5: why did gas prices triple in a decades time?

And with inflation considered, is that even much of an increase to begin with?

[Assistant] A lot of it has to do with rising third world demand.  As the less developed nations built their industrial bases and their populations grew (relatively) more wealthy, they started using more oil, for e.g. manufacturing, personal transportation (cars), and electrification.  That increased demand, combined with these country's newfound ability to pay more (after all, they are getting richer), pushed up the price.  If one wants to be glib though, it's China's fault (they are, after all, the biggest example of rising third world demand).


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

[User]
In The Hobbit why is it that when Bilbo picks up something like keys or an object like a rock it stays visible yet when he draws his sword it remains invisible?

Same with his clothes, why does he not have to strip?

[Assistant] The ring of power, enhances those qualities that exist within the user. As a consequence, anything that is considered part of the user will be enhanced by the ring. Bilbo considers the sword and his clothes as part of himself (not physically but part of his character), but not simple objects like keys or a rock are unimportant to him and thus rendered visible.