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

[User]
Question about the continuum fallacy. When should we be allowed to use this kind of argument?

"The continuum fallacy" is an informal fallacy made when someone argues that two states or conditions cannot be considered distinct simply because, in between them, there exists a continuum (spectrum or gradient).

I ripped that explanation from wikipedia. Seemed like a good one.

A huge part of philosophy is properly making distinctions and this kind of continuum argument is made a lot. Whenever someone demands any kind of "line" to be drawn. For example, this is often seen as central to the abortion debate in which interlocutors demand that the 'other side' draw a non-arbitrary line in the development of the foetus where it is acceptable to abort on one side and unacceptable on the other. Or, in debates about free speech where one party demands that the other draw a line to define 'how hateful' speech can be before it must be disallowed. And often, it is argued that a failure to draw these lines means that no distinction exists at all.

Obviously informal fallacies aren't the be-all and end-all since arguments can still be deductively valid or even seem reasonable when one commits an informal fallacy, depending on what it is.

However, the case for disallowing the "continuum fallacy" in any argument seems fairly strong. The idea that we shouldn't accept some given distinction purely on the basis that there is a continuum between the items within the distinction seems like bad reasoning since, for example, we wouldn't argue that there are is no proper distinction between red or blue just because there is a continuum of colours in between them. Or, similarly, we wouldn't argue that there is no proper distinction between a G note and C note simply because there is a continuum of pitches/sound frequencies between them.

Should I be allowed to disregard all uses of this kind of "continuum argument" on this basis alone? If not, when *is* it reasonable to reject a distinction based on the existence of some continuum and when is it not?

Sorry if the question is vague. If so, tell me and I'll edit it to suit. Thanks.

[Assistant]
The problem is that not all instances of a supposed "continuum fallacy" are actually such a fallacy.

Take the abortion example. If you understand that the pro-life side is (usually) coming from a side with the premises:

1. All humans are people

2. All people have certain rights, one of which is a right to life

it becomes less about the continuum fallacy and more about the pro-life stance that there is no good reason to suppose the unborn *are not people*.

Further, there is a problem in any pro-choice formulation offering a distinction between persons and non-persons in that the distinguishing factor can always be applied to at least some post-birth human beings. So the pro-lifers aren't asking for a non-arbitrary line in a continuum, but for a distinguishing factor that can be applied consistently and not result in it being permissible to, say, kill infants or people with mental or physical disabilities. The disagreement lies in what makes a person, not whether persons on one end of a spectrum are somehow different from persons on the other end.

In the case of the speech question, it *is* a continuum, since all speech is speech. We don't disagree on this point, like we do about what counts as a person. Thus, with respect to your free speech example, we *do* have a continuum fallacy being used in some cases.

I think the question is less "when is it a fallacy" and more "are we sure we're actually discussing a spectrum and not something else."


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

[User]
If you removed all the loose regolith and dust from a body like the moon or Ceres, what would they look like?

An image of Ceres just popped on on my desktop's background image rotation and I started wondering what the surface underneath would look like. Would it be pretty much the same or would there be any large-scale feature changes?

[Assistant] Most of these bodies are silicate bodies just like the Earth. Even though they aren't resurfaced extensively like Earth, they almost certainly underwent volcanic differentiation early in their histories. If you stripped away the dust and accumulated sediments, you'd have igneous rocks like basalts, gabbros, and granitic rocks much like the crystalline basement rocks of Earth.


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

[User]
[MCU/Earth-199999] Why would Steve Rogers NOT be worthy enough to wield Mjlnir?

In the party scene at Avengers tower we have a bit of fun seeing the other Avengers trying to pick up the legendary hammer of Thor. Stark and Rhodey fail, but Steve Rodgers is able to nudge the hammer a tiny bit, much to Thor's surprise and concern. It's a hint that Cap might have a bit of what it takes to be worthy. But why wouldn't he be?

The hammer carries the inscription/enchantment "Whosoever holds this hammer, if he be worthy, shall possess the power of Thor."

Now, what is takes to be "worthy" is pretty vague. In Thor (2011), the God of Thunder loses his powers as he is deemed unworthy due to his arrogance and vanity. He is able to reclaim the power when he faces The Destroyer (as a mortal) and pleads with it to take his life instead of the humans he's decided to protect. The Destroyer strikes Thor and he seemingly dies. In that moment, Mjlnir decided Thor has proven himself and returns to him.

I understand Tony and Rhodey being unworthy. I'm sure they've done some unsavory things in the past (we know Tony has). But I would argue that Steve has proven time and time again that he's at least as virtuous as Thor. He has shown he is willing to sacrifice himself for others, and has never shown any signs of arrogance. Even before he was given the super soldier serum, he was willing to jump on a grenade to save his fellow soldiers. And since then, he's fought evil every chance he's gotten. So if the only requirement of being deemed worthy according to Mjlnir is to be willing to put others before yourself and to not be vain, why wouldn't Steve be able to fully wield the power of Thor?

[Assistant]
Another idea that could make sense is that Mjolnir is a weapon of *destruction*. Thor and Beta Ray Bill, and others who have wielded it are *warriors*, they relish the violence of battle. They're good guys, sure. But they're kind of rageaholics, to be honest.

Captain America, on the other hand, has a pure, compassionate, selfless disposition and this translates to his style of leadership, fighting, tactics, etc.

Basically, Mjolnir *may not* consider Cap worthy in terms of granting him the power to destroy, for which Mjolnir was forged. Captain America at his core is not about POWER and OBLITERATION. He's about LIBERTY and TRUTH and ultimately, PEACE.


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

[User]
eli5: Can someone please explain the current Western Sahara disputes? It seems like its not contained to only North African countries.

I dont understand much of what happens in Northern Africa and the Middle East, but Id like to!

[Assistant] Spain controlled it, then ceded all the territory in North Africa they owned to Morocco. Morocco insists that it included Western Sahara. Algerian-backed rebels insist it does not and that it's "independent".


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

[User] [DOOM] So is humanity screwed now that their last viable energy source has been closed off?

[Assistant]
Was hell energy their last hope, or was it just a a cheap and efficient power source?

Presumably whatever less convenient power they switch to is better than having demons and imps murdering everyone.


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

[User]
ELI5: how does a company's profitability really affects its share prices?

As far as I understand, the only thing that investor really get from the company's profit is mainly from dividends. So, all other P/E ratios, fundamental analysis, chart analysis, etc for stock price growth are no better than just looking into a fortune-teller's crystal ball? Stock prices seems to be almost entirely driven by "market forces" aka what people feel about the company. Whatever those "expert" analysts say seems to be just trying to put meaning into something that really doesn't actually impact the stock price, not much difference from horoscope? There are many big profitable companies with almost flat stock prices and there are also companies without any real profits but the stock prices skyrockets.

[Assistant] The price of a stock (or anything) is simply what people are willing to pay for it.  No one sets the price, apart from the IPO where an investment bank will, and it's hard to do.  You can try and figure out the rationale for why something is priced a certain way but it's a fools errand imo, it just comes down to whether people are buying it.  Why are they buying it at $X?  Who knows, but they are, and the price will stay there until they stop, in which case the price will go down until people start buying again.


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

[User] [The Road] Are all animals extinct?

[Assistant]
Most of them, yes.  At least the megafauna.  The clouded sky means the collapse of all food chains based on photosynthesis. The plants and algae die, then so does everything that eats them.

It's likely there are still food webs of detritivores, like fungi and nematodes, consuming and reconsuming the last of the organic material in the world.  And then there's always the ecosystems around deep-sea geothermal vents that don't rely on the sun.

Some animals with extended immature life cycles, like the 17-year cicadas, may yet be waiting to emerge.  Some animals, like tardigrades, are also able to go into stasis when environmental conditions become unfavorable.


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

[User]
[Star Wars] If Anakin Skywalker was never injured, would Emperor Palpatine have had a contingency plan in case he got too powerful and wanted to challenge him eventually?

It's one thing to keep an injured, suited Darth Vader. But if Anakin stayed healthy and was able to grow more powerful, would Palpatine have had an answer to this?

[Assistant]
His contingency was to simply be stronger in the force, smarter, and better than Anakin. After all, he was the master. He had the power, and Anakin craved it. If his apprentice wanted to learn, he had to earn it. And to earn it, he often had to prove himself through life-threatening trials and deadly traps. An uninjured Anakin would have still been pitted against a rogue Jedi to learn the secret of bleeding a kyber crystal, for example.

This was how the Sith had worked since the beginning of the rule of two. The masters had no perogative to sit their apprentices down and give them lectures on Sith philosophy and force powers. More often than not, the apprentice had to prove they wanted power not just for superficial reasons, but because deep down in their hearts, it was ALL they wanted. So they were willing to do literally anything, up to and including being a lapdog for the master, in the hope of getting stronger. And when the day came that the student proved superior and killed the master, it was because they truly deserved it. Palpatine would not have made it easy for Anakin.


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

[User] ELI5: why are time zones a thing? Why not just have a global time and some places the sun is up at 12am and down at 12pm? Why must (generally) the sun be up 6am to 6pm?

[Assistant]
Across most of human history, time was always determined by the apparent local time.  Noon was when the sun was highest in the sky & there was no complication about it.  Since people had to walk, take horses or get on a boat to get anywhere, this was adequate.

...then we developed telegraphs & trains.  Suddenly we had instant communication across vast distances and giant machines that needed to be synchronized so they didn't ram into each other & cause massive destruction.

Time zones were a compromise between our historical use of time being relative to the sun & the need to have a standardized time so people could coordinate across large distances.

If you want just one time, you're free to use UTC (time-zone 0) for everything.  Many multinational companies, militaries and computer database programmers use it to avoid the confusion of timezones & the headaches of daylight savings times.

China has taken the approach of a single unifying time zone across the whole country.  It would cover 5 standard time zones but they put the whole country on the same time as the capital.


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

[User]
[Star Trek] Why are there bartenders and waiters in Ten forward?

There are replicators pretty much every where you go on the Enterprise and the crew have legs don't they? Why bother asking someone to ask the replicator for food when you can just ask it yourself?

Seems that laziness DOES still exist in the 24th Century.

[Assistant] What about the nonreplicated foods? Not all food and drinks on starfleet instilations are replicated...many star ships/ space stations have airponics bays to produce fresh vegetables and fruits not to mention food acquired from various planets...


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

[User]
When you exercise, does your heart beat harder or just faster?

Your muscles need more oxygen so the heart pumps blood through the body at a greater flow rate. I know your heart **rate** goes up, but does your heart beat with the same.. effort (there's gotta be a better word)? Or is every beat the same?

Edit: Thank you all for your answers and insight!

[Assistant]
Both.  To effectively increase flow throughout the body, both rate & strength need to be increased.  Strength is simply how much your heart muscle is contracting... no different than any other muscle in the body.

However, it is possible to increase one without the other by targeting different cellular receptors.  We have different medications that work by increasing one or the other, or both, administered to heart failure patients.


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

[User] ELI5:Who is Davy Jones and why is the bottom of the sea referred to as his locker?

[Assistant]
To understand, you need to know how language and slang has changed.

Duffy used to be a word meaning ghost.

Jones used to just mean some random person.

And locker was . . .  Well, still a locker.

Originally, the term was probably Duffy Jones's Locker, which meant the grave of all the unknown ghosts of people who had died at sea.

Over time, Duffy became Davey, and so the original meaning of a nameless forgotten ghost was confused.

So what originally meant "The graves of the forgotten" became "The grave of this one guy."


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

[User] ELI5:What is the point of spam e-mails that don't have any links/advertisements, but rather just have nonsensical gibberish? How are scammers making money off these?

[Assistant]
They can be used to check for valid email accounts or accounts that people actually use so that they can be further spammed.

If it's an invalid email account, it will be bounced by the mail server.

They can receive a "read" receipt by the reader. This allows the spammer to see that the someone is using that account. This is less common because you typically have to specify that you want to send a "read" receipt.

Others have an embedded image (as small as a small white dot) to a website that can track how many times it was viewed and from where. This is why many email programs initially block linked web images.

EDIT: I'll add some more points that others have mentioned:

The gibberish can be used to disarm spam detection methods. If enough gibberish goes through, a spam account can be marked as not-spam or the spam filter will not care about a certain order of words.

Combined with the other read detection abilities, spammers can see what type of emails will get past the spam filters. This is a way of reverse engineering the spam detection rules.


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

[User]
ELI5: If WW3 were to break out with Russia, who would be on who's side?

I've read up on it quite a bit, but all I want to know is who'd be on who's side and who wouldn't be involved. I can see the EU and the US, buddying up, but who'd be on Russia's side?

[Assistant]
There would actually be a very good chance that Russia would be alone.  Very few of the ex soviet states have any love for Russia, and quite a few are either in the EU, NATO or both.  People are talking about China and North Korea, there's an even chance that China would use the opportunity to invade Russia to seize their Siberian oil fields but would most likely keep out of it.  India is an ex commonwealth state and is actually closely linked with the UK, we do a lot of trade and a long shared history.
Tl:Dr with the exception of some shitty countries that wouldn't sway the proceedings in any way, Russia would be fucked.


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

[User]
Why is the Strait of Gibraltar so much deeper than the area surrounding it?

I couldnt find a reliable answer online and I am not sure if this counts as science, but Im curious to why the Strait of Gibraltar is so deep in such a specific spot in the world.

[Assistant] The Zanclean flood. The African plate and Eurasian plate are moving towards each other, as they have been for millions of years. They ran into each other and closed the connection between the Atlantic ocean and the  Mediterranean Sea. The latter became the dried out and became the Mediterranean basin. 5.33 million years ago the connection reopened and water came rushing back in to fill the Mediterranean. The tremendous volume of water squeezed through a narrow channel, the water moving quickest at the narrowest point.  The fast flowing water carried material and carved the channel we see today. The channel will close again as the plates continue to collide.


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

[User] ELI5: How does a doctor differentiate walking pneumonia from bronchitis, the flu, or MONO?

[Assistant]
Bacterial pneumonia (both typical and walking) is diagnosed through a sputum culture. The patient coughs up fluid from the airways, and the sample is incubated. If there's bacteria in the sample, they will grow and form cultures. The bacterium can be identified using microscopy or special biochemical tests.

Viral pneumonia (including influenza) is diagnosed through PCR, a type of genetic test. It detects viral DNA.

Bronchitis is diagnosed through a spirometry, a type of breathing test. It tests how much air the patient can exhale in 1 second. This number is reduced in bronchitis, COPD and asthma.


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

[User] Fires burn at different temperatures, what's the 'coolest' fire that we know of? How is it made?

[Assistant]
What you're referring to is called a "cool flame" which is classified as any flame cooler than 400 C (752 F).

The short answer is: It depends entirely on the fuel being used. The lowest possible CFT (cool flame temperature) is only limited by our ability to craft a fuel with the right ratios. Generally speaking the lowest CFT is defined as "the lowest  temperature the human eye can detect light being radiated from a flame in a completely dark environment". It will usually appear as a pale blue.

In conventional flames, the molecules are broken down into small particles which combine with Oxygen to produce CO^2. This process of burning gives off lots of heat and light. In "cool flames" these molecules do not have the chance to break down into smaller particles as much, so they are more likely to recombine and continue the cycle. Since the larger molecules are not able to combine with Oxygen at the same rate as a conventional flame does, there is far less light, heat and carbon dioxide being released.

There are a few terms to consider.

* Flashpoint is the lowest temperature necessary to ignite vapors of a fuel source, given an ignition source.

* Firepoint is the lowest temperature necessary to keep the flame lit, having removed the ignition source.

* Auto-ignition temperature (AIT) is the lowest temperature necessary for the fuel source to create it's own ignition.

The CFT can fall anywhere between the Firepoint and the AIT. Again, it depends purely on the fuel source.

Butyl acetate for example has a very low CFT of 225 C, an AIT of 370 to 425 C, and a Flashpoint of 22 C. These temperatures may vary depending on the experiment conditions.


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

[User]
Do birds reuse existing nests that have been abandoned previously?

If not, do birds avoid areas with old nests?

[Assistant]
Depends on the birds.  Some will reuse old nests, fixing them up each year, while others will push the old nest and start again from scratch, while still others will wait until another bird has made a nest and then come in and eat their eggs and take over the nest.

And then cowbirds and cuckoos will just lay their eggs in another birds nest and fly away.


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

[User] How do sailboats work when the wind is blowing in the opposite direction of travel?

[Assistant] You zigzag, called "tacking". Depending on the type of boat and sails you might well be able to sail around 45 into the wind because the aerodynamics of the sail create lift rather than just being blown along like a piece of debris. So you sail at that angle for a while then turn 90 so you are sailing 45 into the wind on the other side, and so on.


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

[User]
ELI5: The aspects of Windows 8 are causing prominent game devs to balk.

I've seen Notch and Gabe N. offer public sentiments that they have no desire to use Windows 8 at all for gaming, but their rationale is kind of vacant. Is it a design issue, a certification issue, or both?

[Assistant]
It basically comes down to not liking the direction MS is going. For Gabe (and steam) in particular, they have the big problem that windows is moving towards being heavily locked down with programs much more limited in what they can do and how they can be installed. Microsoft would like to put their app store in direct competition with steam, but with them able to use their ownership of the operating system to lock steam out.

To be clear, that isn't something that windows 8 actually does on the desktop yet, but it's the direction that's the problem. On the tablet, for instance (which is ultimately the same interface, the one that windows really wants everyone to use), it's already massively locked down like an apple device.

I don't know if Notch has some particular problem with it, but he's presumably motivated by a general dislike of these same changes. The windows PC is popular and great for gaming because its an open platform in the necessary ways for lots of games to get made relatively easily. The less true this is, the more worrying for the game industries.


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

[User]
Why is Japan 'printing more money'?

I understand that countries raise money by selling bonds (which they then have to buy back at a later date with interest). But then I hear about 'quantitative easing' and 'printing money' in the same breath. Are these two the same thing? Are they not the same as selling bonds? If not, what is the difference? If they are similar to issuing bonds, why is it not simply called 'issuing bonds'?

Or, are they actually printing more money? How would this money get into the economy, short of leaving piles of cash around for people to find? Would this not lead to inflation?

[Assistant]
Quantitative easing is the central bank targeting it's balance sheet. In the case of Japan the BOJ said they will be increasing their balance sheet by about 50-70 trillion yen per year and they will do this by buying government bonds along with some ETFs and REITs. Since they are increasing their balance sheet, this means that they are creating money; if they were decreasing it they would be destroying money and they would do that by selling bonds and other assets.

So the BOJ will buy bonds and other securities from the market with newly created money, which will increase the supply of base money. In aggregate people will be trying to get rid of the excess money but they won't be able to so ultimately prices will rise (i.e. inflation) until, in aggregate, people are satisfied with the level of cash they are holding relative to other assets.  There are various ways in which the newly created money will enter the economy. Some of it will go to banks when they sell their bonds and other securities, some of it will go to non-bank market participants, and some of it will go to individuals through government spending in the case where the central bank buys directly from the Ministry of Finance.


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

[User] ELI5: Why does it get colder in higher altitudes (above the clouds), even though you're closer to the sun?

[Assistant]
Going above the clouds puts you closer to the sun in much the same way that someone in New York taking one step to the west puts them closer to Los Angeles.  That is to say, it's entirely insignificant a distance. The earth moves closer to, and farther away from, the sun on the order of millions of miles throughout the year, and even that has essentially zero effect.

The reason that it's colder at higher altitudes is because the air is thinner, and gases become colder when they expand.


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

[User]
ELI5: What is a 401k and how does it work?

I understand that it's some sort of retirement savings account, but beyond that i don't really know much. Employer matching, how people can "lose" theirs and all that.

[Assistant]
401k refers to the legal code that allows this type of savings account to exist.

It allows you to set aside a certain amount of your income, each pay period, to go into a retirement savings account, tax ~~free~~ deferred (you pay the tax at retirement when you withdraw - the presumption is that you won't have a job at retirement, so you'll have a lower tax bracket).

Your employer, if they don't suck, may match part of your contribution - these matched contributions vary from as low as like 3% of 25% of your contribution to 10% of your entire contribution.

An individual investor doesn't have much power, but with a 401k, everyone in the company usually gets lumped into a big savings plan together, giving them more power.

However, that savings plan is an investment plan. It invests in bonds, stocks, etc.

If the stock market takes a bath, your 401k can lose a lot of money, include the contributions of you and your employer.

If you take money out of a 401k early, you owe extra taxes on it (since it was tax free). But if you can let it sit until you're like 65, then you get the money ~~tax free~~ without a penalty.

Hope that helps.


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

[User]
What about alcohol addiction makes detox so dangerous?

I keep hearing that serious drinkers can run the risk of liver failure if they suddenly stop cold-turkey. Why is that? Heroin addicts don't run the risk of dropping dead like that. Do they?

[Assistant]
With detox it's typically the mental status changes and potential seizures that are problematic. Because alcohol modulates receptors in the brain (GABA receptors) that are inhibitory in nature (alcohol is a depressant), over long-term use the body adapts to this by decreasing the number of these receptors (tolerance!). The problem is that when you take the alcohol away, you now have too little inhibition of the brain (we all have a basal level of inhibition at all times that is substantial). In this scenario, seizures become more likely (and more likely the worse of an alcoholic you are). So the real danger is either death from seizures (status epilepticus) or things like aspiration pneumonia associated with the CNS changes you'll see.

And no, heroin addicts don't have this problem. Mostly alcohol. Benzodiazepine or barbiturate dependence can also cause these same issues via an extremely similar mechanism.


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

[User] An Infant God Emperor of Mankind crashes in Smallvill instead of Kal El. How does the DCU look now?

[Assistant]
The only changes would be for the better. The reason Clark is so connected with humankind, and willing to self sacrifice for our sake, is the nurture he got from Jonathan and Martha. If all you are changing is the person who landed, not the time or place, then you'd get a god being raised in the same fashion as Clark was. Basically, you'd have a more powerful (and possibly omnipresent) version of Superman.

You'd have a Superman who by nature is allowed to interfere with human history and development, and is most likely better equipped to do so.

...Taking a step back, however, how is Superman not considered a god? He doesn't age (his age slows exponentially as time goes by), he can resurrect, and it's nigh impossible to beat him. He even outgrows his kryptonite aversion eventually.


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

[User] ELI5: Why are products like light bulbs being made more efficient and longer lasting causing a company to profit less but medicine is doing almost the exact opposite by ignoring cheaper means of treatment and forcing consumers to pay higher prices for drugs that are less effective?

[Assistant]
It's all about the power balance. Don't like the price of those light bulbs? You can buy a cheaper brand, or a cheaper type. Don't like the price of your medication? Well, tough luck kid, it's patented. Pay or die.

This is what is called "Inelastic demand". For products with inelastic demand, consumers will buy the pretty much the same amount regardless of price as long as they can afford it.

This creates scenarios where the producers are incentivized to raise the prices as high as they can, whereas with the light bulbs, other companies may undercut you, and the producer is incentivized to have the cheapest or best product in order to attract customers.


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

[User]
ELI5: How do doctors perform 20+ hour surgeries? Don't they get mentally and physically exhausted?

I wouldn't want a tired doctor performing surgery on me. Do they get rest cycles with other doctors? Do they have places where they can "pause" the surgery to take a nap?

[Assistant]
Most surgeries (when things go to plan) take around 30 min-2 hours. Some major surgeries e.g. a liver transplant might take ~6-8 hours.

20+ hour surgeries would be exceptional e.g. conjoined twin separations where you actually need multiple different teams e.g. plastic surgeons, neurosurgeons etc.

Usually surgery is a very controlled situation so it would be theoretically possible to take a break. It might be reasonable (e.g. 20-30 min in a 6+ hour surgery) but you don't want to leave the patient open/unconscious too long.

In most specialty surgeries you would have someone else who can take over for some of it.


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

[User] [ASOIAF] If Torrhen Stark had not bent the knee to Aegon I, could the North have preserved its independence through guerilla warfare in the same manner as Dorne did?

[Assistant]
Only until the next long winter.

Survival through the winters in the North relies on stored food, usually stockpiled within the various castles. If Aegon gets serious about defeating the North, he just needs to wait until the snows come and then burn every castle. After a year or so, most of the Northmen will have starved and the survivors should be willing to surrender in exchange for a little food.


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

[User] [Marvel Comics] How can the Silver Surfer hear with out any ears?

[Assistant]
The Silver Surfer soars through the cosmos on a shiny surfboard, naked, and the thing you can't get over is his lack of ears?

Clearly there's some sort of space magic at work here.  Whatever it is, it doesn't adhere to earthling rules.


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

[User]
CMV: Hunting is disturbing and being happy you killed something is disturbing

Hey y'all. I'm really honestly looking for someone to shed some light on this for me. My boyfriend has recently gotten into hunting and it bothers me a lot. I've been an animal lover my entire life (yes I eat meat though) and could never imagine harming something myself. Hunting deer and geese seem to make my boyfriend really happy and I WANT to be supportive of him and happy for him when he gets a kill. But I cannot help feeling internal anger, disgust, and hurt. I understand hunting for food is natural and has been a thing since the beginning of time, but it just freaks me out and makes me feel weird seeing people pose with animals they killed. Please can someone give me some perspective and ways to deal with it so I can be both an animal lover AND be supportive of my bf's new hobby. Thanks so much :)

EDIT: Id like to thank everyone that has commented respectfully and I plan to work on my perspective with a lot of your comments in mind. I really appreciate the constructive criticism and new ways to look at things. To those downvoting my comments (because you dont agree with me or are offended I assume), I posted this with the most genuine interest in having my views changed and having thoughtful conversation. I didnt mean to target anyone. But still, go fuck yourselves. :)

[Assistant]
Hunting can help the environment.  Too many deer in one area can overgraze it and cause habitat loss.  In Yellowstone wolves have been introduced and the environment for many species has improved.  It worked in Yellowstone, but introducing wolves won't work everywhere.
Too many geese can destroy a field of winter wheat.  If they are not hunted for food, they will be shot as vermin and left to rot where they lie.
Hunting is more than just getting an animal in your sights and squeezing the trigger.  It's about understanding the animal and it's habits. There have been many cases where hunters have raised the alarm over a ecological issue.  For them keeping the environment balanced is very important.  The disappearance of a species which isn't their target tells them something is changing.  The ecosystem is a complex web and hunters are our free eyes and ears of the system.


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

[User]
[Star Wars] Did Finn have any remorse over killing his (former) comrades?

Presumably he must have had some friends in the sanitation department, but he seemed pretty happy that everyone he ever knew was dead.  No childhood companions to mourn or anything.

Was he just a dangerous, brooding loner waiting to go postal on his co-workers?

[Assistant]
One best friend was killed in front of his eyes on his first real mission.

Another tried to kill him, and almost succeeded.

He has no one left, and if he does, he has no illusions about what will happen if they meet.


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

[User] In the absence of artificial light, do moths attempt to fly towards to the moon?

[Assistant] Insects, including moths, do not fly directly to a light source, but rather use it as a beacon, and try and maintain a constant angle to it.  With the moon at effectively infinity, this gives a straight path, but with a closer light they end up describing a spiral around and then into the light, which then appears to an observer who only sees the end as if they have flown towards it.


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

[User]
[Jurassic Park]could the park designers have made the enclosures strong enough to keep the animals in without using electric fences?

like don't IRL zoos do fine with walls and trenches?

[Assistant]
The designers could have done whatever they damn well pleased, but it would not have made a difference.

Jurassic Park was inadequate in every way that mattered. Security was crippled because the whole team was one guy who was an insufferable prick that should never have passed muster in an interview, much less been in charge of anything.

 The only way on or off the island was a ferry that was utterly stopped by weather that hits the region seasonally.

Safety regulations are totally fucked in like 6 different ways in relation to the Jeeps they ride in at the start. Expensive gear is left within reach of bored children. The cars stop when power goes out.

The names of the dinosaurs are spelled wrong on the embryonic storage device, which makes it clear that the scientists cloning the dinosaurs didn't know fuckall about the actual animals they were toying with, they were just giving them life because they could. They don't respect the science or the value of what has been accomplished at all! In fact, Dennis fuckin' Nedry is the buffest security guard on the island, because he's the only one there! They've created 238 dinosaurs from scratch at an incalculable price per head and they have not even gone to the trouble of hiring a couple of goons to watch them.

The whole story opens with a guy getting killed because of a complete lack of safety precautions in transporting a vicious predator to a new location. And how does InGen respond? By arranging for a lawyer and some paleontologists to give their opinions to investors, which should have been THE FIRST FUCKING STEP of the whole process.

TL,DR: Jurassic Park wasn't a theme park, it was a fucking circus.


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

[User] ELI5: does Rogaine work, and if so, how?

[Assistant]
Interesting story. Science isn't perfectly clear on the why/how.

Minoxidil (Rogain) is a [edit: *anti*hypertensive] ~~hypetensive~~ (high blood pressure) drug, and they discovered the hair growth as a side effect of prescribing it for high blood pressure. They think that maybe the drug widens blood vessels and opening potassium channels which allows more oxygen, blood, and nutrients to the hair follicles.  And, yes it often does work, for Male Pattern Baldness, especially in younger men who have only begun to show the balding pattern.  If you've been bald for a long time it doesn't work as well (or maybe not at all).

also, as an interesting side fact, in even small quantities, it's FATAL to cats.


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

[User]
ELI5: How do viruses know what to do despite not being alive?

How do they know to attack cells and stuff if they aren't alive? Is it by chance? Are they mechanical?

[Assistant]
"Are they mechanical?"

Basically. They run on pure chemistry and physics. It's not that they know what to do, but rather that that specific amalgamation of chemicals will react that way in the presence of certain things.


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

[User]
Why don't I crush cells when I sit down?

When I put all 160 pounds of me on my rear cells or even foot cells why don't they burst? It just seems like they are so fragile, how do they withstand so much pressure?

[Assistant] If you were to put all 160lbs on one cell, it would make sense that the cell would burst. However, that's not what's happening when you sit down. There are thousands, if not millions of cells supporting your weight. The force experienced by each cell is negligible because your weight is distributed between all those cells.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why can one judge's ruling set a precedent? Isn't that too much power in the hands of one man?

I know it's not as simple as I made it out to be I just wanted to guide the answer in that direction. I hear about precedents being set in certain cases that affect future court room decisions. How does this work so that one judge can't just fuck the system up?

Sorry if this sounds really dumb. I'm high right now.

[Assistant] If one judge is making the decision, it's likely to be a trial court decision. Trial court rulings can be appealed, and appeals courts have more judges. At least in the US, trial court rulings also don't set binding precedents; other judges may be *persuaded* by the ruling, but they can ignore it if they are unconvinced (whereas an appeals court binds courts down the appeal chain, and they can't just ignore it).


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

[User] ELI5: Why do people who speak in sign language also move their mouth when speaking?

[Assistant]
For the same reason people who speak with words move their hands. It adds context and adds clarity to the communication.

Many deaf people also learn to read lips (because only a minority of people know sign language). Many deaf people don't know sign language as well as you'd think! Especially those who lost their hearing later in life.

The combination of gestures and lip movement helps them understand what is being transmitted.


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

[User]
[The Hobbit/Lord Of The Rings] Do orcs have a culture?

What do orcs do when they aren't waging war on the good guys? Do they have cities? Is there orcish art? music? poetry? Where do orcs take each other on the first date?

[Assistant]
In all of Tolkien's research on Middle-Earth, not even he knows much about their culture.  He's quoted as saying:

>"There must have been orc-women. But in stories that seldom if ever see the Orcs except as soldiers of armies in the service of the evil lords we naturally would not learn much about their lives. Not much was known."

(breaking the 4th wall a bit here, but there's important stuff about Orcs that not many people know)

Tolkien struggled with the true nature of Orcs until his death, leaving them still unresolved.  If Orcs have a 'culture' consisting of things like art, music, poetry, etc, then they'd obviously be sentient and have a 'soul' of sorts.  But where does this soul come from?  Ilvatar himself is the only entity that can grant true sentience or 'souls' to things; ex: Valar, Maiar, Elves, Men, Dwarves, Hobbits, Ents, etc.

But where do Orcs come from?  Originally they were to be created by Melkor from mud and stone, but Tolkien believed that only God (Ilvatar) can truly create life, and that evil can only mock or corrupt.  So then perhaps Orcs came from Elves (this is what's written in the Silmarillion).  But then does Melkor have the power to corrupt Elvish souls?  Tolkien didn't think so.  So where *do* they come from?  He began thinking maybe Orcs were a corruption of Men, or other various ideas.  But that leads to all sorts of chronology problems and nothing official came of it so we're left to wonder.

We do know that Orcs seem to be completely evil with no redeeming qualities (at least to us).  They're fit for nothing other than to be slaughtered on sight.  Taking Orcs prisoner and treating them humanely isn't ever even considered, by anyone.  Orcs are evil.  But they also seem to have a free will of sorts.  They only serve Morgoth/Sauron out of fear and from Morgoth/Sauron's innate power of domination and command.  It seems they'd betray anyone and everyone if they could to benefit themselves.

So they make decisions for themselves, and have personal goals.  That sounds like free will to me.  But why are they all completely evil without exception?  And what does that say about any 'soul' they may have?  Tolkien himself couldn't figure it out.  If you can answer that you can probably figure out what their culture is like.


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

[User] ELI5 differences between video file types (mp4, avi, mkv, etc)

[Assistant]
They're basically all the same thing, just written differently.

Think of it like books (sort of) in a different language.

It's the same story about a bunny being buddies with a bear and all the crazy adventures they go on, but one version of the story is told in English, while another is told in French, and so on.

There's also a difference in the way the story is told. Some filetypes have no compression of quality, so you get a really detailed file as if Tolkein wrote the bunny and the bear, whereas some filetypes try to tell the most story in as small a filesize as possible, so Dr. Suess writes it instead.

That's why certain devices can't play certain filetypes, because they're receiving too much or too little of the wrong information in the wrong place.


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

[User] ELI5: Why isn't lead poisoning a more urgent priority? If there's no safe level of exposure, and the effects of lead poisoning are permanent, why isn't it eradicated?

[Assistant]
The effort to remove trace lead from the environment is hampered by two problems:

A: you'd have to replace all the plant matter and soil along every mile of highway with virgin plants and soil (same with every piece of land that had a house with lead paint, or is near a factory that spewed lead), and

B: the methods of removing lead are either cheap, *or* easy, *or* less toxic than the lead. But not all three. Often not even two of three.

There's also C: Idiots who bought the propaganda line promulgated for decades by industry-bought "Science-ishts" that lead can be safe.


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

[User]
What is the most fuel-efficient way to drive a car?

This must have been studied at some point.

Let's consider a highway with 70 mph limit and 40 minimum. I often see highways with three lanes of asphalt and one of concrete, the fast lane. Will that affect work done by the car? Also, consider using the AC or heater versus having the window down. Then, automatic versus manual transmission. We could also consider stop and go traffic in the city.

[Assistant]
Maintain a constant speed as much as possible. Accelerate slowly. Minimize braking, because braking means you'll have to accelerate again later. In other words, don't tailgate.

Peak fuel economy for most cars is roughly 55 mph (90 kph) but varies depending on the vehicle. This is why the speed limit in the U.S. was set to 55 during the gas crisis in the 70's.

This is not practical, safe or recommended for highways with a 70 mph speed limit.


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

[User]
ELI5: In the US, could State governments implement universal healthcare for state residents?

I'm wondering if state systems could be an alternate way to achieve universal healthcare in the US.   Are there restrictions that would make this impossible?  And how might it differ if it did happen.

[Assistant] They could. Obamacare was actually modeled after a system Massachusetts implemented for itself, under Republican governor Mitt Romney. The Democrats picked that system partly because they believed it would be more palatable to Republicans on the federal level, which... didn't go so well.


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

[User]
How do you know if you're cut out for research/academia?

Hello all,

I just finished my first undergraduate research experience as a rising junior. I'm a bit overwhelmed by trying to answer the question if I'm really made to go into research and if I want to do a PhD. I liked my experience overall this summer, however I found out that what I thought I would like (demography) was actually not as appealing to me by the end of the program. Although I'm not sure if this feeling also came from the fact that I had basically no knowledge of quantitative methods before I started my research internship.

I'm not planning on going straight to a PhD anyway after undergrad, if anything doing a masters abroad or working abroad for some time is my most immediate goal. But I was wondering if this is a common feeling among those who have pursued research and academia. Because of how competitive things are, I feel inclined to say that if I didn't absolutely love my research internship then I'm not cut out for this, but I was wondering what others on this sub would think or if they felt differently.

[Assistant]
I think research is a calling. A research career means putting up with a lot of BS, and at some point, it can get it you if research isn't what you *have to do*. If you can be happy doing something else, do something else.

If you can't see yourself being happy without doing research, do research.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why do asphalt roads get lighter in colour as it ages?

A newly paved road is black, while an old one is light grey. Why does that happen?

[Assistant]
Asphalt (bitumen) is actually the black gooey substance within asphalt concrete roads. The other component in asphalt concrete is aggregate which consists of small smashed up rocks.

When first paved, the asphalt concrete retains its black color from the asphalt. However, asphalt is softer than rock so it wears off the surface faster, exposing the harder gray aggregate. This turns the road from black to gray over time. Furthermore, weathering and exposure to the sun will also lighten the asphalt with time.


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

[User]
Eli5 why do we lose all memories when we get blackout drunk?

As stated above I'd like to understand how one does not have any recollection what has happened from one moment in a night of alcohol consumption. How does alcohol triggers this and why ?

[Assistant]
Our brain builds memories, think of memory like a house.The material to build the house, is the information that you see, taste, touch, hear, smell. These materials are transported by nerves, which are the roads, to the building site in your brain (known as the hippocampus) so you can start building your houses.

When you drink around 3x the driving limit, alcohol acts like a roadblock, stopping the delivery of your materials. If they can't reach the building site, in the end, you can't build your houses.

It's this blockage that causes the gaps in your memory, aka blackouts.


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

[User]
[Robot Chicken Justice League] Why do Aquaman and Green Lantern get so much crap over "having no useful powers" when Batman literally has nothing but cash?

Title says it all.

[Assistant]
It's perception. To the public, Aquaman is "that guy who can talk to fish," and Green Lantern is "the boxing glove dude, right?"

Never mind the fact that Aquaman is powerful enough to throw an aircraft carrier, and Green Lantern is able to travel through time and punch your mother in the babymaker with that giant green boxing glove. The public still *sees* them as goofballs, partially due to ignorance, and in Hal Jordan's case, partially due to personality.

But Batman? He's the most terrifying man in the world, an entity of dark justice forged from human flesh by sheer willpower. He's a shadow, a legend, a monster.

And he's got the feats to back it up. Every goon in Gotham that's had his legs broken by the Bat is now telling his buddies that the Dark Knight is not to be fucked with. When a giant crocodile man is running around eating people, do the cops send in a SWAT Team? No, they fucking run away and turn on the Bat Signal. When an alien god descends from the sky bent on enslaving all of humanity to his will, is Superman the guy that takes him down? No, it's the Batman.

Are Aquaman and Green Lantern useless? No, but their PR teams are.


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

[User]
[Inside Out] why are Rileys emotions all unique

With every other character whos emotions are shown In the film, they all are the same gender as their person. They also have some of their defining features and sometimes even their clothes. But how come Rileys all have none of her features and she even has 2 that are male?

[Assistant]
The other characters shown on the inside are usually adults who have gone through the stages in their lives where they learn how to process their emotions (whether healthily or unhealthily) The emotions work together as a more cohesive team with one of them usually taking a leading role over the others and so they all stop being as much of individuals and start acting as a unit that is representative of who the adult has become.

Riley is still a kid, she hasnt yet learned fully what her different emotions are for and so they all act and are portrayed very individually different from each other. Assumedly as she grows older they will start to take on the traits of each other a bit and start to blend with her own traits as well as she becomes more in tune and in touch with them.


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

[User] [MCU] Is Hela immortal as long as Asgard exists, or does she have to be on Asgard for that?

[Assistant]
Hela draws her power from Asgard directly.  Having been imprisoned in Helheim for God knows how long, when she was freed she was already more than a match for Thor.  When she reached Asgard proper she seemed to supercharge, yes, but she was already immensely powerful before then.

As long as Asgard exists, Helas power will grow.  Proximity MIGHT hasten the effects, but its doubtful theyll ever simply diminish.


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

[User]
[Star Wars] Are force ghosts more powerful than force users?

When Ben died, he said hed become more powerful than you can even imagine. What did he mean by that? Could ghost Ben defeat Darth Vader if he wanted to? Can force ghosts even physically affect anything in the real world?

[Assistant]
Yes, from a certain point of view.
It's in what he said.  More powerful than you can imagine.  Vader can imagine a lot of power of a certain kind.  He can imagine bending the whole universe to his will via the Force.
What becoming a Force Ghost grants you is something different from that.  It's a different kind of 'power' that Vader wouldn't recognize or understand.  Neither would most of the rest of us.


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

[User]
[PUBG] What's the story behind why we're all fighting? And what is this painful blue wall that keeps contracting around us?

My teammates and opponents never ask about why we're fighting, only that we are. I question why all this bloodshed is necessary and what is this painful electric field around us?

[Assistant]
Erangel used to house an old soviet weapons research facility. They experimented with, and on the civilians living in the villages and towns around the island. The "blue" was an electromagnetic weapon used to pacify and contain the population and prevent rebellions. After the regime collapsed, the island was abandoned.

Enter the future: an anonymous, wealthy group has taken over control of the island and uses it to host involuntary battle royale fight-to-the-death tournaments. The original tournaments were so successful that the group has purchased other land in different locales to keep their clients entertained, importing the 'blue' crowd control technology to each site.


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

[User]
[LOTR] Why doesn't Gollum age after loosing the ring?

Gollum hardly ages when he has the ring. Ok, same with Bilbo. But when Bilbo leaves the ring he quite quickly turns into a hobbit-raisin hybrid. Why then, when Gollum was once a similar creature to a hobbit, doesn't he age after Bilbo takes the ring from him?

[Assistant]
We don't know for certain that he doesn't age after losing the ring.

Smeagol was a proto-hobbit and hobbits tend to have relatively long life spans.

Additionally, he got the ring when he was fairly young, being about 33 at the time (born circa 2430 third age, got ring circa 2463 third age.)

The time between he lost the ring and he died was 78 years, which means he was biologically around 111 at the time of his death, which is fairly old but not outside the realm of possibility for a hobbit.  This is assuming that he stopped biological aging once gaining the ring.

What's interesting about that age is that Bilbo gave up the ring at 111 years of age and Smeagol permanently 'gave' up the ring at that biological age as well, when he fell into Mount Doom with the ring on his person.


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

[User]
[Warhammer 40k] Pleasure Worlds

If the Pleasure Worlds are designed to cater to the every wish and desire of the Imperium's Nobility. Then what is stopping it from sliding into the ruinous power of the Prince? And if I am a low born peasant born to those kinds of worlds then what can I do?

[Assistant]
The inquisition is always alert for signs of heresy and the chaos taint. But yes, pleasure worlds do empower Slanesh. Just like wars in general power Khorne, Hive worlds could empower Nurgle and the Mechanicus could empower Tzench. Living generally empowers chaos. But it takes special circumstances to actually go the extra mile and start summoning demons.

Low born will be the people on the world making things nice for the rich. A lot of behind the scenes work goes into making places like these work.


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

[User] ELI5: Why do manual cars make that whining sound when reversing?

[Assistant] The forward gears mesh at an angle and that reduces noise. Reverse uses straight cut gears which whine. Muncie made transmissions which used straight cut gears for forward and they had a distinctive sound.


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

[User]
[Star Wars] Why does Han Solo always cheat his business partners?

His partners in crime, granted, but they say there's honor among thieves, too.

He refused to pay Jabba the Hutt for his lost cargo, and in episode VII we learn that he also screwed the two rival gangs over, a few times. That's 3 out of 3 dissatisfied customers; if Han Solo was a seller on eBay, I would not buy from him. He also implied that it's a pretty usual thing, it's just that he always lucks out and manages to talk his way out of it.

I mean, in 30 years he has *got* to realize that pissing off galactic crime lords and gangs is bad for your health, right?

[Assistant]
He didn't get to be one of Jabba's most trusted smugglers by being bad at his job. The fact that Jabba was willing to lug himself off the dais in his palace to speak with Han in Mos Eisley speaks to how much he respected the smuggler.

Also, Han didn't really refuse to pay back Jabba. He was actually thrilled at the chance to take Luke and Ben to Alderaan because he'd finally be able to pay his debt. Joining the Rebellion just put those plans on hold for a while and lent Han some perspective on his former ways.

>I mean, in 30 years he has got to realize that pissing off the galactic warlords and gangs is bad for your health, right?

Never tell him the odds.


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

[User] [Lord of the Rings] Suppose the ring was completely indestructible, not even in the volcano. What, then, would be the best way to deal with it?

[Assistant]
Nothing. Destroying the Ring wasn't a, "Hey, lets try this and hopefully win." They were losing; Sauron was going to win the war without the Ring, it would just take him longer to do it. Destroying the Ring was the half court shot when you are down by two points and the clocks has 1 second left. You succeed, or you lose.

If the Ring can't be destroyed, then short of the other Valar stepping in to deal with Sauron directly, there is nothing that can be done. It is game over for Middle Earth.


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

[User]
How can we hope to detect faint intelligent signals from exoplanets when we aren't even able to detect the light from those planets?

Wouldn't any signals sent from some other intelligent life 20 light years away (f.ex.), be extremely weak? Even a signal from that distance at 1GW (which is very strong) would, if I did the math correctly, be of the order of 10^-27 watt/m^2 :O Can we detect this?

[Assistant]
Well... the problem with seeing an exoplanet is that the star is so bright you can't get a long enough exposure to see the planet's light. (like trying to see a speck of dust near a spotlight) There are some neat strategies to work around this, like a giant shadow-casting shield that you'd space in front of your telescope to block the star's light, but allow the planet to be visible.

But yes too.. it's seemingly unlikely that *random* broadcasts would be visible outside of their neighborhood (maybe a light year or two), with signal being lost to noise. But maybe if you were to focus a beam, you'd have less energy loss over distance, and extend your range. But now you have to point at a target in addition to having a high power source.

So if we detect external signals it will almost certainly be a deliberate attempt to send an interstellar message in our direction.


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

[User]
[General]What could someone with the ability of salt manipulation, or sodium, be able to do?

I am currently brainstorming on abilities based on the periodic table, and salt or sodium was an interesting one as its something that's common in everyday life, so I'm wondering what the scope and capabilities of this power would be, thanks for reading and answering if you do!

[Assistant] If you put a large force on a single grain of salt, you could easily move it fast enough to kill someone. If you can create sodium, it will react explosively with water. If you can remove the sodium from salt, that will leave very poisonous chlorine gas. If you can make all the sodium ions vanish, you can easily make a Coulomb explosion that can rival nuclear weapons.


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

[User]
ELI5:How do rollercoaster designers account for the varying weight of passengers?

It occurred to me that a rollercoaster in freefall would behave very differently if it was full of really skinny people as opposed to if it was full of much larger people. How do the designers account for the potentially massive difference in passenger weight?

[Assistant] They test the ride under two conditions: Unloaded and massively overloaded. The train has to be able to complete the ride fully with both completely empty seats and then with the scenario where each seat is loaded with 400lb crash test dummies.


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

[User]
How to know if someone produces good research?

Ideally I'd have the skills to identify good research but I'm still in my undergrad so that's a skill I'm still developing.

Is there a fast way of knowing someone produces good research in a certain field? Especially identifying a "rising star".

I tried looking at number of citations on Google scholar but I don't think it's very accurate since older researcher are likely to get more citations. And some PIs produces 40+ publication a year so they're likely to get more citations.

I could ask my mentors but they're likely going to suggest people that they know personally and/or only in their subfield of subfield.

And using their schools seems very snobbish.

[Assistant]
This is a question that is hard to answer, because everyone has different metrics for "good" research, and you never know what direction research will take you.

That being said: there are usually conferences in which you will see topics that generate great interest to the community. It is often hard to go for an undergraduate but they are certainly worth your time to get a "feel" for the community.

Also, you can look at agencies that fund early career awards, like NSF CAREER (or even better, PECASE) or the NIH DP2 awards. These awards are considered for "rising stars" at least by their funding agencies.

More important that any particular qualification of good research, perhaps it be best to take a deep look at the fields YOU'RE most interested in. A passion is a passion and you can usually find good problems if you're inquisitive and creative enough.


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

[User] Why don't things orbiting other things orbit closer and closer in a spiral of death? Basically, why do stable orbits exist and how do they stay that way?

[Assistant] Because gravity isn't a vacuum cleaner.  The force between two objects only lies in the direction directly between the two, so any perpendicular speed will remain the same.  In order to spiral into a close orbit, you need to lose speed in another way.  For instance, the space shuttle uses thrusters to slow itself down so it can fall back to earth.


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

[User] ELI5: Ocean phytoplankton and algae produce 70-80% of the earths atmospheric oxygen. Why is tree conservation for oxygen so popular over ocean conservation then?

[Assistant]
Trees are more familiar, and humanitys effects on them are more easily understood. You can imagine 100 acres of rainforest being cleared for ranch land or banana plantations a lot more easily than a cloud of phytoplankton dying off. Just the simple fact that trees and humans are on land, while plankton and algae are in water, makes us care about them more.

Also, the focus on tree conservation does far more than just produce oxygen. In fact, Id say thats pretty far down the list. Carbon sequestration, soil health, and biological diversity are all greatly affected by deforestation.


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

[User] ELI5: What is the difference between a good lawyer and the "best lawyers money can get you" while defending you in a case?

[Assistant]
To put it simply as thus:

A good lawyer works within the law to get you the best result possible. They work with the system, and don't break the rules, and so are good all round.

The best lawyer money can buy, however, is one who knows when, where, and how the rules can be bent. They know how far the rules can be bent, and which rules can be bent in which situation. And thus, they are able to get a much more favourable outcome that the good lawyer can provide, albeit at a high cost.

In addition to this, the best laywers are very specialised in what they do. A top end laywer who defends you in a murder case, for example, may have spent their entire career studying the criminal laws for murder, and cases where the rules have been bent, both successfully and unsuccessfully, and what results came out of it. If you hired this lawyer then, to defend a libel case, or a common dispute, they wouldn't be as good as a different top end laywer who has studied these cases.

Think of it like surgeons. Most surgeons are good all round, and they can deal with most types of surgery, with no issues. But for specific and technical surgeries, like organ transplantation, brain surgery, or reconstructive surgery, a regular surgeon is not going to cut it, and you need to hire a specialist to get the job done the best.

EDIT: Further clarification.


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

[User]
Why do our bones stop growing, do we run out of chondrocytes?

I would assume we run out of chondrocytes the older we get and that would be the reason bone growth slows down significantly until the growth plate closes. Or is it that a signal tells our body to stop proliferating bone cells.

Another question would then be why cant we inject out bones with more chondrocytes if that's the issue?

[Assistant]
The lengthening of bones is mostly done during adolescents through the growth plates.  With hormonal changes, these will close down appropriately.

Bones don't stop growing.  They are a living matrix that is constantly going through remodeling based on environmental stresses and workload. This is Wolfs Law.

The density of bones changes based on; time, diet, and stress.  Typically, we beat up our bones and cause micro-fractures that store additional calcium that we can pull from as we age.  In our late 30s, this process ends and you are basically stuck with what you got unless you are put on prescription medications.

These factors should help people understand the importance of exercise, posture, and proper nutrition throughout life.


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

[User]
Is there any way, because of time dilation, to get the result of a computer faster than it would take normally?

For example imagine you have some sort of super computer calculating something very time consuming, that it would on the order of say hundreds of years to complete.

If you don't have time to wait around, is there any theoretical way you could for example send it off round the solar system on a spaceship at a high fraction of the speed of light and rendezvous with it in a few years time, while meanwhile it did hundreds of years of work? So from your perspective you get the result much earlier than it would have taken normally.

Intuitively it seems to me that there must be a reason this can't be done but time dilation seems like it might allow this without knowing too much about it.

[Assistant]
This is essentially just the classical twin problem of relativity. The computer needs some (proper) time T to perform the computation. You send the computer on some journey and wait on Earth for it to return. Since you are in a frame that is more or less in free fall (i.e., inertial), the time as measured by you between the departure and return of the computer is strictly larger than the time as measured by the computer. In other words, you have to wait strictly *more* than T. So sending the computer on a magical journey is not going to work at all.

(I suppose that you could also arrange it so that the computer does not have to return to Earth, and it will just send a signal to Earth when it's done. Well, you will stay have to wait longer than T, because the coordinate time as measured by you is larger and because you have to wait for the signal to reach you from wherever the computer emitted it.)

If you wanted to wait less than T, then *you* would have to go on the journey into space and return to Earth. But the whole point of this exercise is for everyone on Earth to wait less than T, so that everyone can benefit from the reduced waiting time. (Also, if T is on the order of hundreds of years, everyone else will be long dead when you return.) There is also the non-trivial engineering question of how you would travel that journey in the first place.


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

[User] [Star Wars] The thermal exhaust port of the first Death Star faces out into space, so why did the X-Wings approach it down the (laser lined) trench perpendicular to the port?

[Assistant]
To hit such a small target under the heavy jamming that usually are faced in combat, you  need a steady approach, without much dodging or fidgeting around.
This makes you an easy target for bigger guns, like Turbolasers.
It is worth mentioning that the Death Star had a lot of those. around 15.000 bigger guns of varying types and models.

The trench, however, was below almost all of them, making for a much safer approach.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why do we need different shaped screwdrivers?

Like obviously I understand having different sizes but why did someone randomly decide one day hmm make it exactly the same but make the tip into a little cross instead

[Assistant] There are advantages and disadvantages with any type of screwdriver. Slotted screws are very cheap to make. Slots are extremely simple to make. However they do not handle much torque as all the forces are directed at two tiny points on the screws. The phillips head is more expensive but have more points of contact and bigger points of contact so they can handle more torque, but they are actually designed to limit the torque as a safety feature as the screwdriver will push out if you apply too much torque to it. Therefore you can not strip the screw. The hex screw was again designed to be cheap to make. And with six points of contact, although at an angle, they can handle a decent amount of torque as well. The torx screws are a bit more expensive to make but still less then the phillips head. The shape means the points of contact is not angled at all so they can handle more torque then the hex screws and do not round over. If anything the screwdriver gets damaged before the screw but screwdrivers can be made more expensive using better steel then the cheap screws.


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

[User]
Why does it take humans such a long time to become self sufficient after we're born?

It takes humans about 1 year before we are even able to stand up without holding on to something.  Why is it that compared to other animals, we take such a long time to develop into a being that can actually survive on our own without constant protection and assistance?

[Assistant]
It's a balance between walking upright and having big brains.

Before we got big brains, our ancestors starting walking upright. This helped as it allows us see farther, it gave us the ability to engage in cursorial (endurance) hunting, and later gave us the ability to use tools while walking.

Our big brains give us intelligence and communication.

But there's a problem here; because of the way the femur fits into the pelvic bone, pelvic width has a limit in two-legged gaits. Once you go past that, you can't move as fast or be as stable; you lose agility. But to be born with a big brain, you have to have a big head which, in humans, would require a wide pelvis....catch-22.

We have developed a number of adaptations to deal with this. One is the fact that infant skulls don't fuse until later on, letting the head deform during birth. Another is the changing of the female pelvis during mid/late pregnancy; it changes shape temporarily and some of the connections alter, widening the opening for the baby. This is part of the reason really pregnant women "waddle" when they walk.

But the last gets at what you're talking about...we're born before we finish developing. Since being born with a fully developed brain would be too much of a fitness expense for the mother, a portion of development takes place outside of the womb. An infant can't walk or take care of itself for a long time because it isn't finished yet.

(edited for some typos & formatting errors)


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

[User] ELI5: Can semen clog pipes?

[Assistant]
This has actually been a pretty common "official" notice at lots of colleges and it's never actually official. I've seen variants for Penn, U.Mich, U.Mass, and even St. Andrews, which also had an "official" stamp but somebody who contacted the college found it was fake.

There is very little consensus on if semen **can** clog a shower but a general consensus that, unless you have a bukkake party in one, it's not going to, because there just isn't enough.


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

[User]
[Discworld] How large would Great A'tuin have to be to have a gravitational pull equal to that of earth's , and how would the field differ around him?

Assuming he wouldn't implode on himself into a spherical Turtle planet, where would the gravitational pull be strongest and weakest respectively?

[Assistant] Sounds like you're trying to apply Roundworld reasoning to the Disc universe, where narrativium is possibly the most powerful fundamental force in existence. Gravity is a tissue-thin against narrativium.


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

[User] ELI5 Why are LED lights so much brighter yet more energy efficient?

[Assistant]
Incandescent light is electricity going through a solid causing lots of heat in the process thus loss of power.

CFL/ Halogen lights is electricity through gas. Much easier to go through with higher voltage  so less heat.

LED is basically a mini lightning bolt with a mirror in the back. Very easy to jump through thus little power needed.


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

[User] ELI5: How are things becoming so expensive if our wages are stagnant and we are making less today relative to inflation?

[Assistant]
Some things are getting cheaper. They are things that can be made more efficiently using better technology, or can be made more cheaply using poor labor in markets that have been opening up around the world. This usually applies to movable goods like cell phones or microwaves.

On the other hand there are goods like housing, education, and healthcare. These are (A) essential for most people and (B) generally don't benefit from the above pressures. So yes, you can buy a $20 second hand phone that seemed like space age technology 10 years ago, but its the big ticket items that you absolutely need are getting increasingly expensive. Thus on the one hand people can appear richer but actually be poorer.


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

[User]
High school Philosophy Club

I am a high school teacher and I started a philosophy club this past school year. We spent the year basically bouncing around every philosophical topic I could think of and touching them briefly. But I want to do something different for this next year. Maybe some sort of curriculum as a more organized way to go at philosophy. I could also take them through a book but I have no idea where to start.

I would love to hear thoughts/suggestions. Thank you in advance!

[Assistant] Hi there, you may want to consider Sophie's World by Jostein Gaarder. Additionally popular books such as Alice in Wonderland contain a huge amount of philosophy (There are university semesters dedicated to AiW). Another engaging option is philosophical movies, of which there are plenty of options :)


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

[User]
[Marvel] Has Peter Parker ever been reunited/re-branded with the Venom symbiote?

I remember hearing that in a recent Guardians of the Galaxy arc, the symbiote was "cured" of its anger. Is there any reason Peter couldn't use the symbiote now? Especially if it doesn't seem harmful anymore and there's more information available about its origins? I get why he originally rejected it but it seems like it could be useful to him nowadays.

Edit: Autocorrect changed it from re-bonded to re-branded.

[Assistant]
In fact "He" has in the Superior Spiderman run he uses it in this manner, esp now it chilled out after the Planet of the symbiotes arc in Guardians of the Galaxy unfortinly both of these event have got a bit messy in timeline and effect of even if they happened due to the universe reboot last year.

In effect currently who knows?


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

[User]
[Star Wars] Why was Anakin such a hypocrite?

Why does Anakin preach the Jedi Code to Mace Windu before killing Palpatine or even to Obi Wan about spying on the Chancellor and yet he's outright broken almost every rule there is in the Code itself? He killed the sand people, every last women and children and even told Obi Wan that what he was doing was against the Jedi Code when he's broken so many rules himself.

It's like he's convinced himself that just because he's the Chosen One that means he doesn't have to abide by the rules.

[Assistant]
So this was in Everything Great About Episode III and is a key part of Vader's birth.

Anakin knows in EpIII that execution is not the Jedi way. He was goaded by Palpatine to do it, that he /has/ to. Arguably he might've been force persuaded, even.

When Anakin sees Mace trying to make the same arguments to break the Jedi Code the same way Palpatine did, he loses it. From his point of view the Jedi are no better than the Sith at that point with even the elite Windu breaking the code.


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

[User] Why does the product of the gas constant and temperature (RT) show up everywhere in kinetics and thermodynamics calculations?

[Assistant]
The gas constant is essentially the Boltzman constant (*k*) but expressed in a more convenient way (in terms of energy per temp per mole). Moles are much easier to work with in a lot of cases.

The product *K*T shows use everywhere in thermodynamics because it represents a scale factor by which the energy of molecular systems pertain to. A direct example of this is the fact that the energy values in the Boltzman factor are scaled by *K*T: exp(-E/*k*T). A clearer example is the fact that an atom in an ideal monotomic gas has kinetic energy: E = (3/2)*k*T. Each translational degree of freedom is equal to (1/2)*k*T.


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

[User] [Halo] How many Spartan-IIIs are left?

[Assistant] IIRC there's at least 15 to 20 spartan 3s left in service by 2554. By the events of halo 4 all spartan 3s are officially retired or reassigned to the spartan 4 program. We never get hard numbers but at least a handful were still active as head hunter teams with unknown statuses and 2 teams of gamma company were still alive after the battle of onyx.


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

[User] [Star Wars] Why didn't Luke use Force levitate to get Vader to the shuttle? It would have been faster and Vader might have gotten to the medpack in the shuttle fast enough to be saved.

[Assistant]
1. He just dueled Darth Vader and almost got tortured to death. He's not going to be up to much Force mojo for a while.

2. Vader is an absolute wreck, medically speaking. His upper spine is bionic, so that's fried - he's already dying of respiratory failure. Even if that weren't the case, his lungs are mostly scar tissue: not only is normal air insufficient, he's also extremely sensitive to contaminants. On top of that, he's just sustained electricity intense enough to make his skeleton glow through his flesh. It's only the power of the Force keeping him alive. No medpack in the world could save him.


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

[User]
[TheExpanse/GeneralSciFi] does anything like the "Juice" (The Expanse drug cocktail that allows people to physiologically tolerate higher g-forces) exist in any other sci-fi setting?

Specifically looking for an injected/ingested drug or substance that helps people tolerate higher acceleration forces without passing out or possibly outright dying due to the stress put on the body.

[Assistant]
In the Culture Series by Ian M Banks, citizens of the Culture have genetically engineered glands which can excrete substances and drugs which help with anything from intoxication, to concentration, and even to dealing with High G situations.

The Crucifixes in the latter half of the Hyperion Cantos aren't strictly "drugs" but they're weird symbiotic parasites that serve a similar purpose. Although a lot grosser. They don't so much allow people to tolerate intense g-forces, but instead just reconstruct the person completely from the goo the high g-forces turn them into. Yuck.


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

[User] ELI5: Are cats born in the same litter technically twins and if so why do they vary in appearance?

[Assistant] They are (usually) fraternal twins. That means different eggs that have been fertilized by different sperm. Just like with human fraternal twins they are essentially just siblings born at the same time.


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

[User]
What are the main theoretical issues with Structural Marxism?

I've been reading a few of Althusser's essays over the past few months and was surprised to learn his theoretical method was heavily criticized and largely abandoned by the turn of the century. Why is that? Besides the potential (albeit understandable) factor of him killing his wife.

[Assistant]
One of Althusser's brightest students, Jaques Ranciere, turned out to be one of his strongest critics, a position he adopted during the May 68 protests in France. Very briefly put, in his book "Althusser's Lesson", Ranciere denounces Althusser's claim that a Marxist revolution requires the guiding hand of the intellectual. In particular, he calls Althusser's theory

"A discourse that allows one to speak for others, that cancels out the place and subject of its own speech: such is the mechanism that has found its paradigmatic form in Althusserian discourse, founded as it is on the denial of the place from which it speaks, of what is speaks about, and of who it speaks to. (p. 122)

This was Ranciere's first book, and he goes much further later in his career to develop a radical egalitarianism / theory of equality that centers the process of subjectivization within the subject itself, (not unlike Foucault's work on the subject) as opposed to a deference to the worker as some indelible subject discovered by Marx and protected by the living intellectual. So to answer your question through the work of Ranciere is to say that Althusser had no business and no ability to claim authority over a movement from his position in the ivory tower. Different critics include Badiou and Balibar, also former students of Althusser's.

Also had no idea he killed his wife. Wtf.


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

[User] [The Silmarillion] Did the Nmenreans starting with the reign of Tar-Ciryatan have a legitimate grievance about the Ban of the Valar?

[Assistant]
No. Why would they?

The Numenorean grievance was that they wanted immortality.

- the Valar didn't make humanity mortal and couldn't change it if they wanted to.

- Living in the Undying Lands doesn't make one undying.

- It would wither the Numenoreans all the faster to live in the Undying Lands alongside the immortals.


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

[User] ELI5 how does sharpness work at an atomical level.

[Assistant]
Have you ever pushed your finger in a piece of cardboard? It's likely you won't pierce it easily. Try again with a toothpick, and you barely meet any resistance. Assuming you used the same hand both time, the strength applied should be similar. So why the difference?

The reason is the surface where the force is applied to. The bigger the surface, the less force is applied for each mm (or any other unit of surface). Applying a similar force to a smaller surface mean more force per unit of the surface.

Well that's the basic for sharpness too. The "sharper" it is, the smaller the surface that is directly in contact with whatever you try to cut. As such, you can more easily break the material.

Another thing to consider is that "cutting" unlike puncturing is also in part about "ripping". When you're pushing down on your blade, it's purely a matter of force over surface. But when you're sliding the blade as well, you also "Tear" the matter. Due to friction, the blade grip whatever you try to slice and pull on it. While the matter is similar, as it's also a matter of how large the surface being pulled is compared to the force applied, some material are stronger against pressure than they are against tearing and vice versa.

TL:DR: "Sharpness" mean lower surface of contact, which help in both tearing and cutting.


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

[User] ELI5: Why do our ears suddenly get warm with no apparent reason?

[Assistant] Pumping blood through the ears is one way to regulate heat. For humans its not super important because we can sweat, but your body can still let more or less blood flow through ears making them warmer.


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

[User]
ELI5: Will someone explain in very basic terms the gold foil experiment?

The one that Rutherford did. I have read about it on wikipedia, but I just can't really picture what happened in my mind. An analogy would probably be very helpful. Thanks!

[Assistant]
In early times, smart men knew the existence of atoms. They knew that atoms contained funny things called electrons and protons, and they had a pretty good idea that these 'atoms' were tiny little spheres. The scientists all thought that the electrons and protons were floating randomly around inside the sphere.

You have probably seen mommy make pancakes right? What about chocolate chip pancakes? If you look at the pancake batter with chocolate chips in it, that's what scientists imagined the atom to be like, which the hard chocolate chips representing the protons inside the atom.

Now, scientists can have theories all they want, but a great scientist will test this theory. The very smart scientists thought that if they had a very very thin sheet of metal, and then shot something at it, whatever they shot at it should go right through it. There are some 'hard' parts in the chocolate chip pancake batter, but not enough to stop something flying super fast through it right?

So imagine the scientists set up a big cannon and aimed it at a piece of tissue paper. When the scientists shot the cannon thousands of times they noticed that most of the cannonballs went right through as they thought would happen, but some of the cannon balls hit the tissue paper and bounced back!

How could this be if the atom is just a randomly assorted batter of goo?

The results of this experiments led smart smart men to think that the pancake batter with chocolate chips was wrong! Maybe, for some reason, in the batter all the chocolate chips clump together in the middle forming a very very small, but very dense sphere called the nucleus. The nucleus is so small that most of the cannonballs would miss it, so that most would go through uneffected, but a few would hit that hard center and bounce right back!

This discovery led the scientists to learn a lot about an atom! It must have a hard center, without those protons floating freely through the sphere!

So from doing something as simple as shooting a cannonball at a piece of paper the scientists learned many things about the atom!


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

[User] Why is it not E=1/2m c^2, like KE=1/2m v^2 ? Did Einstein leave off the 1/2?

[Assistant]
Nah, Einstein didn't leave off the 1/2 and his equation actually includes it but in a subtle manner. Including object momentum, the full energy equation is,

* E^(2) = m^(2)c^(4)+p^(2)c^(2)

This is a fundamental result that arises from how the momentum vector is defined in special relativity. If the momentum is zero, you get back out good-old E=mc^(2). The energy is then the square root of this,

* E = (m^(2)c^(4)+p^(2)c^(2))

If we divide out the mass, we're left with a function that looks like,

* f(x) = (1+x^(2))

where x = p/mc. If you've done a bit of calculus you know you can Taylor series expand the function f(x) easily around the situation where x is small. Physically this means the momentum of the object is small compared to its mass. Perfect! This is the non-relativistic situation where we expect Newtonian mechanics and special relativity to match together. Then,

* f(x) = 1 + x^(2)/2 - x^(4)/8 + . . .

It's easy to see that for small x, the higher order terms are tiny and only get smaller. So let's throw them away and just keep the first two.

* f(x) ~ 1 + x^(2)/2

If we undo the substitution x=p/mc we get ultimately,

* E ~ mc^(2) + p^(2)/2m

The first term is just the energy you have because you have mass. The second term is the energy you have due to momentum. Or if we substitute the non-relativistic definition of momentum p=mv, we get the familiar,

* KE = mv^(2)/2

Therefore we've shown that the factor of 1/2 in the kinetic energy is well understood as a limit of kinetic energy in special relativity when the momentum is small and the object is not moving at a significant fraction of the speed of light.


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

[User]
What does Sartre mean when he states that 'In fashioning myself I fashion man'?

Sartre's theory that existentialism is a humanism includes the idea that our actions account for actions of all mankind. He says 'I am thus responsible for myself and for all men'
I understood this to be an extension of Kant's categorical imperative whereby one's actions are only morally acceptable if they can be acted by everyone and not cause a problem. 'act in accordance with the maxims of a member giving universal laws for a merely possible kingdom of ends'.

Am I miss-understanding what Sartre meant?

[Assistant] Not really mis-understanding, though he's exploring something a little bit different from Kant. Sartre is saying that the actions you choose are ultimately the actions you believe anyone ought to choose, and that in this way all of your choices reflect your ideal of a person. You are creating your own ideal of a person in yourself, through your actions.


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

[User] ELI5 how is your skin attached to your face? Actually got my 5 year old daughter.

[Assistant] I like how inquisitive your daughter is. Well, the skin is made of a bunch of cells in a bunch of different layers. At the bottom layer, there is a cleverly named basement membrane that is like a sticky protein jello. It literally sticks to your skin cells with a bunch of different proteins that form junctions with proteins expressed on your skin cells. There are a bunch of different types of attachments. Some are like velcro, others are like stitching. On the other end of the basement membrane, it is connected to the rest of your face. Basically, the basement membrane (and a bunch of other connective tissues) does the tom holland spiderman holding the two halves of the boat together with your face.


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

[User]
If Samarium-147 has a 106 billion year half life (roughly 7.5 times the age of the universe), how do we even know?

The same goes for any other extremely long lived isotope - rubidium-87, rhenium-187, thorium-232, etc. It's not like we can watch it happening, so how do we even know it is?

[Assistant]
We can actually watch it.

The halflife of an isotope is a measure for the time after which half the number of atoms has decayed. But the decay of an individual atom does not happen after a fixed time, it is a matter of chance. That means that if you have enough of a certain long lived isotope, it will be decaying constantly. The amount of decay-events is directly proportional to the amount of the isotope present. The constant of proportionality is related to the halflife of the isotope.

So by measuring how strong the radiation generated by the decay is, we can determine how many decay events are taking place. And if we know how much material we have, we can compute the halflife. By taking more measurements, you can improve the accuracy of the result.

What it essentially boils down to is that you don't need to wait the entire halflife. You can compute the halflife by just observing a small amount of the material decay.