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

[User]
[Gundam] What makes mobile suits such an effective all-purpose platform?

They're more effective on land than tanks and more effective in space and atmosphere than fighters. Why are giant bipedal robots more effective for all forms of combat than purpose built platforms?

[Assistant]
The Minovsky Particles generated by their power generators which mess with electromagnetic waves. This in turn messes with things like radar and other tracking technologies, which is why there isn't a wide spread use of long range missiles and other technologies.

Purpose built platforms like tanks and planes are still effective though. During operation Odessa the Earth Federation Forces were almost completely comprised of conventional forces, and they were able to win a resounding victory against the Zeon forces that were using many mobile suits.


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

[User]
Why do we need Red Blood Cells containing hemoglobin, instead of just free-floating hemoglobin in the bloodstream?

From what I understand, RBCs lack mitochondria, nuclei and many other organelles. They are essentially just sacs of hemoglobin. So why do we even need the extra membrane layer? Why waste energy making an entire cell? Wouldn't it be more efficient for the body to just release hemoglobin protein directly into the blood?

[Assistant]
The shape of the RBC is what makes it effective as a oxygen carrier. It has a biconcave, discoid shape which allows it to flow through small blood vessels easily, like capillaries, and be able to reach all tissues of the body.

The problem with free hemoglobin in the blood is that it sticks everywhere. It gets lodged into tissues and enzymes will break it down. For example, free hemoglobin molecules get lodged into kidney cells and can clog up the microscopic tubules which can lead to kidney failure.

The other issue is that the ability of hemoglobin to do its job is actually regulated by enzymes within the RBC. So the RBC is not just a "sac of hemoglobin," it also contains machinery to optimize hemoglobin to do its job.

Hemoglobin's purpose is not just to carry oxygen. In the lungs, hemoglobin needs to be able to pick up oxygen, and in the rest of the tissues, it needs to know that to release the oxygen. One of the major mechanisms by which this occurs is due to the heat and pH of its environment.

For example, using your muscles requires oxygen. When your muscles are in use, they generate heat and carbon dioxide. Carbon dioxide diffuses into the RBC where there is an enzyme called carbonic anhydrase that combines carbon dioxide and a water molecule, and converts them into it into a molecule called bicarbonate and a proton. The proton binds to hemoglobin, which reduces its affinity for oxygen and allows hemoglobin to release the oxygen to where oxygen is needed.

Furthermore, RBCs will then carry that bicarbonate molecule until it reaches the lungs. At that point, the carbonic anhydrase enzyme does the same reaction but in reverse: converting bicarbonate and hydrogen into water and carbon dioxide. This is how carbon dioxide gets to the lungs where we can exhale it.

So you see that RBCs have several functions: 1) to carry hemoglobin molecules safely through the body so that the hemoglobin does not get lodged and get deposited into tissues where it can cause damage. 2) to contain enzymes which are essential for hemoglobin to bind and release oxygen in the appropriate locations. And 3) to use those same enzymes to deliver carbon dioxide to the lungs where it can be exhaled.

There is much more to this discussion, but these are the main functions of RBCs.


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

[User]
ELI5: How is helium used by an MRI Machine?

Based on a post below saying that MRIs use helium, Im now wondering how. Can anyone explain?

[Assistant]
It is a coolant.  The magnets in and MRI are incredibly powerful, they use superconductors to make such a powerful magnetic field.  With regular copper wire, if you coil the wore and run electricity through it, it forms a magnetic field, and around 1% of the energy is lost to heat.  MRIs are so powerful that the small loss to heat would melt the wires. So, they cool the wires with liquid helium, the coils become superconductors, which lose no energy to resistance at all.  Liquid helium is very cold, it is -269C or -452F.  It takes a lot of helium, compared to a balloon, because a liquid is much more condensed than a gas.

Liquid helium is strange stuff.  If you pack a hose with sand, a regular fluid like water will flow very slowly through it.  Liquid helium has no friction, the sand won't slow it down a bit.  If you started it flowing through a tube full of sand, bent the tube into a ring shape, and left it alone, it would keep spinning forever.


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

[User]
[Fullmetal Alchemist] What's stopping a State Alchemist from tattooing themselves with dozens of different transmutation circles?

Surely that would open up their battle options a lot more than just having one circle on a glove?

[Assistant]
Merely the amount of time to study all those different types of transmutation.

It also limits the changes you can make to your transmutation circles as your knowledge grows.

And it also makes wounds more serious. If you lose part of that tattoo you've lost your primary weapon.

I think the best solution is Armstrong's and Mustang's . Objects that can be more easily changed or replaced, and that you can keep on yourself relatively unnoticeably.


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

[User]
[DC] What is Harvey Dent/Two Face goal as a villain?

i have no clue what his end game though. is he killing people for money? show others that the system is broken? or cause chaos in his wake?

[Assistant]
He commits crimes or acts of kindness depending on how his coin comes down, due to the dueling nature of his personalities.

Basically he's a Jekyll and Hyde character, one side of him uninhibited and destructive and one more restrained and reasonable.


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

[User]
What exactly are big daddies? (Bioshock)

Are big daddies in the bioshock series just normal dudes in suits or are they genetically engineered? They have remained sort of a mystery to me throughout the series.

[Assistant] They are genetically engineered. they were normal guys at one stage who carried out matinance on Rapture and the suits were just that suits, take it off at the ned of the day and go home. Eventualy though heavy Adam usage them became bonded with their suits, their skin becoming fused to it. Dr Yi Suchong then started to try to recreate this efect with Andrew Ryan's permission and started expermenting on prisoners and other social degenerates using a series of genetic enhancements including voice box modification, pheromone application and the grafting the bones and organs into the suit so they could survive outside of rapture.


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

[User]
Are there metrics with triangle inequality defined stricter than necessary?

A metric must meet the following criteria, copied from Wikipedia:

* *d*(*x*, *y*)  0     (non-negativity, or separation axiom)
* *d*(*x*, *y*) = 0   if and only if   x = y     (identity of indiscernibles, or coincidence axiom)
* *d*(*x*, *y*) = *d*(*y*, *x*)     (symmetry)
* *d*(*x*, *z*)  *d*(*x*, *y*) + *d*(*y*, *z*)    (subadditivity / triangle inequality).

Are there metrics in which last criterion is stricter:

*d*(*x*, *z*) < *d*(*x*, *y*) + *d*(*y*, *z*)

Does such change give any significant/interesting implications?

[Assistant]
There can't be. Let *x* = *y* = *z* in the triangle inequality. Because of property two, you are then left with 0 < 0. You will need also the criterion that strict inequality only applies when *x*, *y* and *z* are all different.

You can create metric spaces with this property by restricting the Euclidean metric to a suitable subset. For example, let us define the following metric on the real numbers.

*d*(*x*, *y*) = | (*x*, *x*^(2))  (*y*, *y*^(2)) |

Where |  | is the two-dimensional Euclidean norm. Essentially, this measures the distance between the two points on the parabola *f*(*x*) = *x*^(2) which correspond to two real numbers. The triangle inequality in a Euclidean space is only non-strict when the three points are collinear, but there are no three collinear points on a parabola.

As for your last question, allow me to answer in terms of embedded metric spaces in Euclidean spaces. (Maybe someone else knows more about more exotic things.)

Due to the collinearity requirement, such spaces cannot be linear, not even in a subset. They have to be everywhere curved, although that doesn't mean they can't be *locally* Euclidean (like a manifoldmy example is one). They also have to be curved everywhere in the same direction, so if all the principal curvatures are never zero and of the same sign everywhere, that should work.

But don't quote me on that.


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

[User] [40K] Why is Abaddon the main general of Chaos and not one of the traitor Primarchs?

[Assistant]
Two reasons.

First, The traitor Primarchs have all become demons. This means that it is difficult for them to take form outside the Eye of Terror.

Second, the traitor Primarchs have all chosen different a Chaos gods to worship. This means they innately don't get along with certain other Chaos forces. As such, they prefer to just faff about on their own planets.

Abaddon has the gifts of all the Chaos gods, and has not become a demon. He can strong arm most chaos forces into following him as a result, and can also physically lead those forces outside the Eye.


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

[User]
How do we know that the atmosphere bubbles trapped in glaciers accurately represent past climates?

Do we have anything to compare these levels against, or can we be sure that we can account for any distortions?

[Assistant]
Yes - we have several complementery proxies for paleo-atmospheric conditions; among the main ones and in no particular order:

Sulphur isotopes rations in evaporites (Temperature);

Stable isotope ratios in fossil material (Temperature);

Paleo depth variation data from brachiopod assemblages; re: Boucot-assemblages (Temperature/sea-level changes);

Poleward or equatorialward Migration of foraminifer assemblages (temperature);

Dendrochronology (Tree-rings records) for Temperature and rainfall patterns;

Stomatal count records (atmospheric CO2 concentration);

Sulphur isotopes in Sedimentary sulphides (Global temperature, oceanic conditions);

Stable isotope and micro gaseous inclusion records in speleothems such as stalagtites (Temperature, athmospheric composition);

Palynological records (Temperature, climatic and rainfall patterns through detailed floral characterisation of fossil pollen assemblages).

The awesome thing is that these various disparate methods give mutually reinforcing and correlateable data. Each has it's strengths and weaknesses: if you are interested in year to year variation in the recent past, you'd best look at dendrochronology, speleothems and ice-core data; if you want big-picture trends over several tens of millions of years you should focus on stable isotopes in evaporites, sulphides and carbonates.


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

[User] ELI5: How did the stock market operate before computers and the internet?

[Assistant]
Pretty much the same way as it does today, just slower.

Back then the you would get a special newspaper that would have a massive list of stock prices from the previous day.

If you had a question you would call your broker and say, "I wan't to buy 10 shares of X." The Broker would ask about the max you were willing to spend.

The broker would call his guy on the floor of the stock exchange. He would say, add 10 shares of X to your shopping list, don't go over whatever price.

The company X would either have a representative on the floor or be represented by a firm who would have a representative on the floor.

That representative would occasionally call people to a little booth sort of thing on the floor of the exchange. Periodically, he would call guys on the floor to his booth to exchange company x stock. He would say,
"Alright guys, price from yesterday is $10, who wants to sell?" One guy would pipe up, "I'll sell 50!" The representative would shout, "Who want's to buy 50 at $10?" Then your broker's guy on the floor could say, I'll do 10 at that price!" Or wait and see. Somebody else could say "I'll do 50 at $10!" To be challenged by another guy going "I'll pay $11!!" If no one was interested the representative would say, "Alright not $10, $9, who's in at $9?".

After your broker purchased the shares they would file a little thing saying they bought them, and eventually the paper certificates of the shares would go to your broker.

There was usually a little bit of leeway with timing. When you decided to sell your actual stock certificate wouldn't be there for your broker's guy on the floor to sell, he would just give an iou for X shares until they actually arrived at the exchange.


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

[User]
eli5: How do parkourists not break their ankles?

I just saw a video of some guys jumping off extremely tall buildings onto concrete, no rolling afterwards.  How do their ankles not just snap?

[Assistant]
They are young, flexible, and lucky.

There are some ways to fall more gracefully than others, but at the end of day, you have to remember you're watching an edited video that was chosen to be posted.

Those people may have broken bones many, many times and not bother to post those videos.


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

[User]
Is Multiple Linear Regression appropriate for this?

Im investigating the relationship between an NFL teams success in a given season and a coachs attributes leading into that season.

My sample is 815 coach seasons from 1994 to 2019 (signifying the introduction of the salary cap).

Variables
Dependent
1. Win %  in the season (0-100)
2. Playoffs achieved (0 - didnt make, 1 - Wildcard, 2 - Divisional, 3 - Conference, 4 - SB Loss, 5 - SB Win).

Independent
1. Previous Record
2. Seasons at Team in HC Role
3. Seasons at Team Prior to HC Role
4. State of HS
5. College
6. College Conference
7. College Ranking
8. Pro Player (0/1)
9. All Pros/Pro Bowls Reached
10. Games Played
11. Games Started
12. Position
13. Age
14. Previous Coach of the Year
15. Games Coached Total
16. Career Win %
17. Years of Coaching Total
18. NFL HC Experience
19. College HC Experience
20. College Win %
21. College OC/DC/Assistant Experience
22. Other League Experience
23. Superbowl HC % (Wins/Visits
24. Superbowls as HC
25. Superbowls won as HC
26. Superbowl OC/DC % (Wins/Visits)
27. Superbowls as OC/DC
28. Superbowls won as OC/DC
29. Superbowl Assistant % (Wins/Visits)
30. Superbowls as Assistant
31. Superbowls won as Assistant
32. HC Playoffs % Reached (Plyoff Reached/Years of HC
33. OC/DC Playoffs % Reached (Plyoff Reached/Years of OC/DC
34. Assistant Playoffs % Reached (Plyoff Reached/Years of Assistant
35. Individuals experience as OC
36. OC Average Points Ranking
37. OC Average Yards Ranking
38. OC Average Yards - DC Average Points
39. Individuals Experience as DC
40. DC Average Points Ranking
41. DC Average Yards Ranking
42. DC Average Yards - DC Average Points

Hypotheses (unrefined currently):
H0 = Teams success in a season does not significantly relate to a coachs past experience
H1 = Teams success in a season does significantly relate to a coachs past experience
H2 = Teams success does significantly relate to a coachs past success

Is multiple linear regression at all appropriate for this?

Please feel free to correct me on anything that doesnt seem right, Im relatively new to the area so always looking to learn.

(Note: I have Excel or SPSS available so my data has been collected on Excel and I have been on SPSS trying to learn how to use it)

[Assistant]
I will be glad to help, but first please rewrite your post and include only:

1- your objective
2- variables (dependent and independent)
3- hypothesis

Also, what kind of data are you working with?


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

[User]
[General Horror, monster movies] How do I call for help that will get the help here, and not get them killed? Also, should I?

Something is stalking my property. It's big, strong, and it's killed both my friend and my dog. It's injured my girlfriend and my brother, and they need medical attention. We lost our only weapon when they fought it off (it's how they got injured), so we are in no shape to resist it's next attack. We need help!

But, I'm hesitant: what the hell do I tell the 911 dispatcher to get cops and paramedics here? I want real cops, not animal control. Hell I want a SWAT team. How much do I tell to not sound like a prank, but the guys who come here need to be prepared to fight some THING. As I look at what it's done to us, I worry I'm just calling good men to their death. Maybe we should just hold up in the attic and wait until morning? But then what do I tell the cops, doctors, and poor Tom's family?

[Assistant]
You could tell them it's a man wearing paramiltiary gear and armed with an automatic weapon or something, and he's already killed someone. Everybody should be able to easily understand the inherent threat, it would be within the bounds of credibility, and there would definitely come a heavily armed response.

Assuming that response is in any way useful then you can explain matters to the authorities afterwards, when they'll be more receptive to the truth.


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

[User]
ELI5: How can I have dreams full of information I don't actually know?

I just awoke from a dream full of medical jargon and diagnoses and procedures and medication that I know nothing about (as far as I'm aware...) Is this stuff stored somewhere else in my head, or did I make it up?

[Assistant]
EITHER:

1. You made it up. Your brain came up with medical jargon that sounds plausible to you.

2. You knew it but weren't aware. Pay more attention when you're watching House. Your subconscious was.

3. You didn't, your brain just filled in the gap with the idea that there was some comprehensive information there.


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

[User] ELI5: If my eye pops out of the socket, will I still be able to see? How would it affect my vision and vision field?

[Assistant] Just the eye being out of the socket won't stop you seeing, assuming the optic nerve is attached and the eye is relatively undamaged from whatever removed it. The field of view won't really be that much expanded by being outside the socket, but the lack of muscles and support may allow the eye to deform enough that focus could be thrown off. Stretching the optic nerve is also likely to result in visual disturbance (and emotional).


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

[User]
ELI5: how do those cassette tapes that plug into an aux cord work?

I cannot even think of a way that digital media can be transferred into cassette form to play in your car.

[Assistant]
Magnetic tape records audio as a change in in magnetic field strength of the tape. As the tape slides over the read head the changing magnetic field gets converted back to electrical signals.

The aux cord adapters are remarkably simple. First thing is that the audio signal from the headphone jack is analog. The digital to analog conversion happens in the device playing audio. The cassette adapters just send the analog audio signal from the aux cord into an electromagnet that sits next to the cassette player read head instead of headphones. Changing electric field into an electromagnet makes a changing magnetic field.


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

[User] How come our eyes can see both dark/light areas simultaneously while cameras can only be set to a specific exposure?

[Assistant] It's actually the same principle, just a difference in magnitude. Your eyes are able to perceive a contrast difference of 10-14 stops in a single "image". A digital camera usually falls somewhere around 11 stops, give or take. The difference is that your eye has an iris which can open or close to allow you to quickly switch "exposure" when you look from a brighter area to a darker area. This substantially increases the dynamic range you can perceive, up to as wide as 24 stops. Once a camera captures an image, its exposure is set and you can only look at the image as it was captured, so it appears to have a narrower range.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why is the International Space Station considered to be nearing the end of its lifetime? Why can't it be fixed?

I saw the recent news that there were reports of a burning smell on the ISS (which has apparently been resolved), and in the article it described how the ISS was nearing the end of its life. Why can't it be repaired piece by piece akin to the Ship of Theseus?

[Assistant]
1. Degradation is cumulative. So it's not the case that only X pieces fail in a given time period, but rather the number of failures is only going to increase, and it is already prohibitively expensive to send things into space.
2. Not everything can be fixed in space. It is a complex machine and they may simply not have the access or expertise to replace every single part there is.
3. Ultimately, if the end result is you've replaced the entire station, then why not exploit the advance of technology to replace the entire station with something better? Doing this would require diverting resources away from the current station and into a new one.


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

[User] ELI5: If THC makes you hungry every time you smoke, why does Phentermine, which does the opposite of THC, lessen its effects over time?

[Assistant]
Actually THC doesnt make you hungry.

The munchies feeling you get after smoking weed is your brain not knowing how to tell you it wants more THC.

If you have a tiny bit more weed your hunger pains go away.

I know several people that have used weed to manage their weight. It takes discipline to fight the munchies and just have a tiny bit more weed.

Im not sure what phentermine is.


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

[User]
[DC/Superman] How much force can a full-power Superman punch put out?

Asking because I see people comparing him to Super Saiyan 3 Goku from DBZ, and I feel like we need to know if Superman is Planet-Buster levels of power, and how much force a single full power punch can put out if it hit the planet.

Do we have any math & comic nerds who can help calculate?

[Assistant]
Superman once said that his punch could break the moon.

His his fight against a monster named "Konvikt" he  said to have punched the monster hard enough to shatter small planets.

He also punched bainiac so hard that every single version of bainiac in the multiverse felt it.

He can use the "infinite mass punch" a punch that is strong enough to destroy a dwarf star.

He also shook the Phantom Zone when he punched Rogol-Zarr. And the phantom zone is infinite in size.

So to answer your question, superman depending on the version can hit hard enough to affect something infinite in size like the phantom zone or on a multiversal level with brainiac.


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

[User] [ELI5] I read that apple seeds can contain cyanide, and bananas can contain trace radioactive isotopes. Where does these chemicals/compounds come from? The soil?

[Assistant]
Apples produce cyanide compounds in order to discourage animals from eating their seeds. The animals are only supposed to eat the flesh thereby spreading the seeds to new areas. These cyanide compounds taste very bitter and foul.

Banana do get potassium from the ground. The problem is that 0.012% of potassium found in nature are a radioactive isotope. This isotope is chemically identical to the non-radioactive potassium so it will be used in plants just like regular potassium. The banana does noting to concentrate the radioactive isotope, it just happens to contain a lot of potassium and some of this is radioactive.


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

[User]
ELI5:Where did racial slurs derive from, and how did they become offensive?

As the title states, I'm curious as to where these terms came from. Sometimes, they just don't make sense.

For example, where did the term "cracker" or "spic" come from?
I'm just really curious, and I'm itching to know

I hope this post doesn't offend anyone!

Edit: Answered in a few minutes! Thanks a lot, guys!!

[Assistant]
Nobody really knows where cracker comes from, but there's a couple possible explanations. One is from slave foremen cracking a whip. One is that they were poor whites who subsisted on a diet largely of cracked corn. One is from an old term for a braggart (based on "crack" at the time meaning an entertaining conversation, e.g. "wisecrack").

Honky seems to be a corruption of hunky, itself a corruption of Hungarian used to describe poor unskilled factory workers (and Hungarians are white of course).

Gringo is a corruption of the Spanish "griego" meaning Greek, probably the same way we say "it's Greek to me," referring to something unintelligible. or not understandable.

Dago and wop for mediterraneans generally and particularly Italians come from Diego (a Spanish name) and Guappo (an Italian word used like we say "dude" these days, from Spanish guapo "handsome").

Limey for English people is from their sailors using lime juice to prevent scurvy before vitamin C supplements were available. Mick for Irish comes from the common name prefix Mc- meaning "son of," and Paddy comes from the given name Padraig/Patrick.

Spic is thought to be a takeoff on a stereotypical Spanish pronunciation of the English word "speak," as in "no spic inglish."

Nigger is a corruption of negro, the Spanish/Portuguese word for black. Negro is obviously a direct use of that. Spade comes from the suite of cards' symbol being black. Can't find etymologies for coon and spook.

Kike probably comes from kikel, Yiddish for circle, because Jews migrating to America would allegedly sign immigration papers with an O instead of an X because they associated the latter with Christianity. Hebe comes from the word Hebrew, and Yid comes from the word Yiddish.

For Asians, chink and jap or nip are shortenings of China and Japan/Nippon. Gook comes from Korean "guk" meaning "country." Slope, slant, and squint all refer to the shape of their eyes. Can't find an etymology for zipperhead or zip.


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

[User]
[Charlie and the Chocolate Factory] What if some of Wonka's tickets hadn't been found by the factory opening date?

Even considering the fan theory that Charlie was intended to end up with a ricket, how could Wonka know all the tickets would be found by the date printed on the ticket's instuctions?

ALSO
What if one of the other tickets happened to be found by someone as wonderful and decent as Charlie?

[Assistant]
Probably like all contests, there would be a clause in the legal fine print that would say something like: in the case that not all tickets are found by the date, Wonka LTD has the right to extend the deadline...

Or choose winners by lottery or something.


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

[User]
ELI5:How come when we get hit in the balls the pain feels like it originates from up below the stomach?

Question pretty much explains it.

[Assistant]
Before we're born, the testes are located in the abdomen. Slowly but steadily they descend lower and lower, until they are situated just above the scrotum. It takes puberty for the testes to fully descend into the scrotum.

Painful sensations are sent over a specific pathway, different from the nerves that transmit other sensations. The funny thing is, the brain's pain center never gets the message that your nuts are now situated a couple of inches lower than where they used to be. So, your brain places the source of the pain in your lower abdomen.


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

[User]
[Star Wars] What do they teach Jedi younglings/padawans besides how to use the Force?

Math? Languages? Reading and writing? What mundane subjects would they be taught and to what level?

[Assistant] It's a general education program. As they grow older, they're taught languages and other skills depending on which path they choose to take. Some Jedi are librarians, others are knights, some are diplomats.


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

[User] [Back to the Future] What would have happened if Doc sent Einstein back in time for one minute instead of forward in time?

[Assistant] The arrival of Einstein could affect the experiment, such as by making Doc send the Delorian at a different time, risking the space-time continuum, or at least making things much more complicated than necessary.


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

[User] Eli5: Whats the difference between building strength and building muscle?

[Assistant]
When people say building muscle this means literally, physically becoming bigger. That a year from now you will have more muscle on your body than a year ago.

But when you build strength this doesn't necessarily mean becoming physically bigger. There is a way to train that removes fat, trains your body to use a higher percentage of the muscles you already have, and for endure force and effort for longer periods of time. Also how compact your muscles are have an effect.


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

[User] [Rick and Morty] Could Rick have figured out a fix for living on the planet with the screaming sun?

[Assistant]
Rick Sanchez can figure out *anything* buddy, so long as he *wants* to. He could have punctured everyone's eardrums and set them up with telepathy, or taught them sign language in seconds, or implanted devices so that the whole family communicated using radio waves.

The point wasn't the noise. Nobody wants to live in a solar system where the primary star is a goddamn heliocentric attention hog.


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

[User]
[Pokmon] So I just defeated the Champion of Sinnoh. Am I in charge now? Of what? What do I do?

I'm just after defeating Cynthia. After the whole hullabaloo in the Hall of Fame, she put on her shades and rolled outa here, saying she was heading for the competitive battling circuit. I have no idea what to do. Who even runs Sinnoh - is it me? I'm not sure I'm qualified.

[Assistant]
Sinnoh is run by the local municipalities that form the region. The Pokemon league is simply a sporting league, for pokemon trainers to duke it out in a structured competition. Congratulations on being the Champion. Now your position as champion means that you have to defend your title.

Just keeping making appearances at the Elite Four headquarters to battle anyone who also has eight badges and beat the elite four. Generally you'll land some sponsorship deals and rack up some cash with appearance fees.


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

[User]
Eli5 what was used to describe time before the clock?

Currently we used the term o'clock to define a specific time. What was used before we had clocks? Was it always sunrise, noon, sunset?

[Assistant]
Pretty much.

Back in the day the exact time wasnt as important, because they couldnt really track it. So things were just the morning, the evening, midday, midnight etc etc.

Some places may have used sundials, which were invented in Egypt back like 3,000 years ago, and did kinda spread around the Mediterranean.

But those only worked when the sun was out, and really just tracked how far along the sky the sun was.

So for your average person, nothing was really that specific.


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

[User]
ELI5: For optimum health, doesn't it make more sense for people to eat foods their ancestors ate rather than other types of food that are not based on their origins?

For instance, I'm Swedish and generations of a Swedish diet have formed my physiology. I'm speaking in terms of optimum health, not just sustenance. Would I see an improvement in my health if I returned to the  same nourishment that sustained my ancestors?

[Assistant] Consider that in evolutionary terms your ancestors haven't lived in Sweden long enough, nor had what you think of as that traditional diet, for long enough to have had any significant impact on your genome.  So not really, no.


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

[User]
[Fallout 4] Did Project Purity have any impact on places outside of the Capitol Wasteland?

Also, does the Sole Survivor have access to a G.E.C.K?

[Assistant]
Well, the Brotherhood has apparently managed to recruit sufficient numbers of healthy people and become a significant power (even if they're back to being douchey techno-hoarders...).

But if you mean did the water help anyone... probably not, beyond exporting to areas like the Pit. Project Purifier had the ability to purify the bay, but not much beyond it. It is unclear exactly how it works, whether it's instantaneous 'magic' or an actual purification system, but considering the present radiation of the water in Boston, it's clear that in either case it hasn't had a significant impact outside the Capital Wasteland. Yet.

>Also, does the Sole Survivor have access to a G.E.C.K?

Probably not. At least, not a real G.E.C.K. Those things were absurdly rare. As for the more common variant, again, i would probably say no... most of their agriculture is very clearly NOT of the pure-strain seed-crops that were kept in the standard G.E.C.K. package, but mutant variants of crops common in the New England states.


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

[User] [The Matrix] As shown in The Animatrix (A Detective Story), Agents can't transfer into dying people as hosts. Are there other limits to who they can transfer into, eg. people with terminal illnesses?

[Assistant] Someone with a terminal illness is sick, not dying. Dying people are locked into a separate subroutine... their minds and bodies are being ejected from the Matrix... and to prevent an Agent from being damaged by the subroutine they are locked out of them.


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

[User] ELI5: How does the immune system store information about infections that it has defeated? How is it able to "remember" diseases to produce antibodies?

[Assistant]
Imagine your immune cells all start with a set of different patterns. 50 cartoon heads, 10 bodies, and 6 legs. These are written in your DNA.

When the immune cell matures, it randomly cuts out and chooses a head, body and leg from it's DNA, and throws away the rest of the DNA. That immune cell then goes around looking for the head/body/leg combo it's created. If it finds it while it's still at immune cell university, then it gets told that's "self" and it shouldn't respond. That immune cell then shuts down. If it doesn't get told it's "self", then the immune cell graduates university and goes to a lymph node, looking for the head/body/leg combo.

One day, a dendritic cell comes running into the lymph node and shouts he's seen a scary looking chap around! He's got a photo of him, and it looks a bit like the head/body/leg the immune cell has. This is the trigger the immune cell has been waiting for, and it starts churning out it's antibody from it's own DNA combination.

The cell also reproduces, to create more specific cells for that target. Each generation will modify their antibody DNA slightly (draw with marker pen on their head/body/legs combo), and the ones which are better at binding the target will reproduce more, evolving rapidly into a highly powerful antibody. This is written in these immune cells' (BCells) DNA. After the disease has gone, some of these cells go dormant and live in the bone marrow/lymph nodes as memory BCells, waiting to be activated by that disease again.


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

[User]
Why does HIV spread only via some body fluids? i.e. why does it spread via blood and breast milk but not via saliva and tears?

I'm especially intrigued by why breast milk but not saliva since both of them go through the digestive system of an uninfected person....

[Assistant]
HIV is an enveloped virus. This means that it has a membrane that surrounds the capsid, which maintains the virus RNA. Viral envelopes facilitate the ability of the virus to infect cells; they also make the virus extremely sensitive to the environment, as slight changes in things like pH and tonicity (concentration of salts) can cause the envelope to rupture. Blood, breast milk, and semen contain components that 1)make them a buffer and therefore have a specific pH and 2) contain lots of dissolved salts, which maintains a specific tonicity. If you have ever seen someone receieve medicine through an IV, they use physiological saline because it has the proper concentration of salts and the proper pH. Tears and saliva do not have these properties; they are secretions, and do not contain components that regulate their pH/salt. Therefore, blood, semen and breast milk will facilitate the virus survival in the body, and also its transmission between organisms.
Interestingly, viruses that do not have an envelope, such as the polio virus, can survive for long times outside of the body. This is why water contaminated with polio is a serious health concern, but water contaminated with HIV, HSV, WNV, etc. is not.


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

[User] [WH40K] So, I am an imperial guardsman and I have recently procured some... brochures; one of them says that some other humans have joined the Tau. There have been reports of Tau ships coming to this planet, I am thinking of joining them. How good will my life be as a "Gue'vesa"?

[Assistant]
You'll possibly be brainwashed and sterilised, but on the other hand you'll be treated as an equal, and if you commit a crime or panic on the battlefield, court martialed fairly (instead of being blammed). You'll be a soldier in the fight for the Greater Good, a weapon of change and of order.

Most importantly though, you'll get armour which isn't made of plastic and an actual fucking gun instead of a flashlight!


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

[User] Eli5 Why is math considered as a universal language ?

[Assistant] Because math works no matter how you are doing it.  You can change the words but the concept of a+b=c is going to be the same, pi will always be the same.  Languages have different words, different meanings but you could get across math terms just by showing the work, so to speak.


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

[User] [MCU] Captain America was raised in the 1930's. He woke up 70 years later and immediately began taking orders from a Black man. How has none of the racism of his time influenced him, as far as we see?

[Assistant]
Steve wasnt racist back then.  Steve doesnt like bullies.  To him, racism is the apotheosis of bullying.  He was raised in an environment that stresses a common brotherhood of mankind, and those lessons sink in to a second generation Irish immigrant art student who was partially crippled from polio.

Bucky read The Hobbit when it first came out in 1937.  Steve had a copy of Their Eyes Were Watching God from the same year.


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

[User]
ELI5: What are the physics of a fishing pole that allows a 200 pound man to win a fight with 500+ pound fish?

Is there a theoretical limit before the the pole breaks or the man is overpowered?

[Assistant]
The fish might weigh a lot, but if its not fighting then its no more difficult than pulling in a 500+pound log.

Generally the fishing reel is set to allow the line to be pulled out if the fish pulls hard enough. That level is adjustable and the idea is to make it as difficult as possible to pull without breaking the line.

In this way the fisherman is essentially trying to tire the fish out, until it doesnt have the strength to pull away anymore.

Once the fish is too exhausted to pull away, rather than trying to simply reel it in with a tiny handle the fisherman pulls the rod up to pull the fish closer then drops the point and wheels in the slack theyve created before pulling the rod up again.

This continues until the fish is close enough for a net or hook on a pole can be used to scoop the fish out.


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

[User]
How can you know if your code is "professional" enough for production?

I have started making alot of scripts in python which automates manual work, and saves my company alot of time. All in all, my code works fantastic for the purpose it was made for.. But still, i am sure that many of you bright minds would laugh when you see my rinkydink code solutions..
So it makes me wonder if their are any frameworks or standards which your code need to meet or comply with in order to be taken serious in a professional matter?

Mind you i have been programming python for about 9 months, and I am learning everyday, but you always here that some new smart it-company has made this insane-whatever-algorithme which is why Google will buy them for a gizillion dollors..

How the hell are thous guys writing their python compared to what i am doing?

Is the mind-set: "if it works, it works" not good enough?

[Assistant]
It's really not the code quality that gets them bought out over something you've made. That's really not where the difference is.

I've worked with garbage code that made a company millions of dollars, I've worked with really good code that had to be shelved because the project just didn't work out.

Code solves a problem, the algorithm solved a problem, maybe it was incredible code, maybe it was garbage.


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

[User]
[Marvel] For legal purposes, what is Captain America's age?

Let's say Steve Rogers needs to submit an official form (taxes and such). Is he legally considered 30-something years old or 80-something years old by the government?

[Assistant]
Well...

He had to submit a number of official forms when he joined up... so his birthdate and other such records are part of the official forms/paperwork of the Government...

So yes, as far as the US government is concerned he's in his 80s.


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

[User] [Wheel of Time] Why do healers need to touch you when they heal you? And why can't they regrow limbs?

[Assistant]
Nynaeve speculates if she can heal Rand's lost hand, but Rand shrugs her off since he "doesn't have the time".

As to why, in WOT magic is extremely specific.  Weaves accomplish only the effect they accomplish.  There's numerous times that effects that seem similar require drastically different weaves.

In the case of Healing, this uses Air, Water, and Spirit.  It restores the person's body, at the cost of their energy reserves.  It basically is accelerated natural healing, healing at hundreds or thousands of times the rate you'd naturally heal.  This drains the body, and leaves you hungry and weakened - and doing too much too fast will kill you.

The Asha'men "discovered" a method using Fire, Earth, and Spirit - basically burning and restoring the body.  This heals using pure magic, at a much higher cost to the caster, and is physically painful for the healed person, but it doesn't drain the body's energy reserves.  On the other hand, it's very crude - a bricks and mortar healing.

Nynaeve and Flinn conjoined the two methods, creating a method that essentially drew from magical energy to cause rapid regeneration, allowing complex and intricate wounds to be healed flawlessly (the advantage of the Air/Water method) rapidly and using magic instead of the body's energy reserve (the advantage of the earth/fire method).  These weaves are astonishingly complex, but you'll note all that's happening here is assisted regeneration.

The weaves for creating a new body part that can replace one that is lost is probably closer to the weaves to create new life.  Aginor is probably the only person who understood enough of the art of Healing to accomplish this (and had enough raw power - he was second only to Ishmael), but Aginor is first a Forsaken, and second fucking nuts even by the standards of sanity among the Forsaken.


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

[User]
[The Road] "There was a lone sheer of bright light, and a series of low concussions". I'm too young to remember this event... What exactly happened, that caused the end of our World?

I don't know how long ago it, was.. 10+ years easily? What happened?

[Assistant]
The only thing that makes sense is some sort of meteor impact.

The sky is always overcast and all plant and animal life is dead. And there's no indication of radiation to suggest a nuclear war (assuming that can cause that level of destruction).


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

[User]
How do nuclear reactors/atomic bombs prevent a fission reaction before it is wanted?

I know how fission reactions work (to a certain extent atleast), but how are the neutrons contained and prevented from starting a reaction at any random point in time? Shouldnt a reaction start the second any neutron at high enough energy hits the nucleus of another atom, and therefore be completely unpredictable?

[Assistant]
A few nuclear reactions does not a bomb or reactor make. You need a _lot_ of them arranged in a chain reaction (critical means that each reaction creates another on the average; supercritical means that each reaction creates more than one other reactions on the average) for it to be interesting on a human scale  billions of them. If only tens of thousands of reactions happen, nothing will even get warm, much less explode. (To put it into perspective, you would need about 150 _million_ uranium-235 atoms to fission to release the equivalent energy of a microgram of TNT.)

You can stop the chain pretty easily in a lot of ways. In a reactor, for example, you can put control rods (neutron absorbers) inside of the assembly, which keep it subcritical (you'll never get a long chain of reactions if a substantial portion of those neutrons are getting eaten by the rods, in essence). You can then raise the rods, start the reaction (making it briefly supercritical) and then level it off at the power level you want (critical). There are other physics and engineering tricks that can modify the critical conditions of a reactor as well (e.g., some reactors, like the TRIGA reactors used for research, are designed with materials that absorb neutrons as they get hotter  so in such a reactor, the reaction will automatically level off or decrease without any additional interference from an operator, once you start it up).

For a bomb, you start with a system that is subcritical (not configured to sustain a chain reaction), and you make it supercritical in an instant. The "instant" aspect is important: the bomb is going to destroy itself, so you want it to get as many reactions as possible before it does so. The two main ways to do this with fission weapons are the gun-type approach (take two subcritical masses and shoot them together, making a briefly supercritical mass), and the implosion approach (take a subcritical mass and use carefully-engineering high-explosives to symmetrically decrease its overall volume by a factor of 2 or so, making it twice as dense and supercritical). As with the reactor example, there are many physical and engineering tricks to both keep it from going off when not desired (for example, some designs from the 1950s and 1960s had neutron-absorbing strips in the cores that would be removed shortly before use; they were there to make sure there was no possibility of an accidental detonation), and to make sure that when it is desired to explode, it does so very well (such as having a bunch of neutrons injected into the core at just the right moment, kick-starting the chain reaction off).


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

[User] What exactly is "horsepower"? Is it literally the power of one horse? How is it measured?

[Assistant]
One horsepower was originally defined as the rate at which a horse could comfortably perform work all day long. One horsepower is equivalent 550 foot-pounds of work per second. This is the power required to lift a 550-pound weight over a distance of one foot in one second (or 1,100 pounds 1 foot in 2 seconds, or 275 pounds 2 feet in 1 second, etc.).
But remember that is just the unit of measure. A horse can output a lot more than one horsepower for a brief time when it really exerts itself.


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

[User]
ELI5: What is League Of Legends & Dota, why is it so competitive to the point there are famous members, and why is it so popular?

I see the LOL sub reddit on the Reddit front page so often. My friend plays it but hasn't really explained properly why it's so popular. I always see how it has a huge audience, and huge competitions, and that some players are viewed as celebrities!

[Assistant]
They're a type of game called a MOBA (Multiplayer online battle arena). You can google that if you want more info on the specifics of how the game works.

They're so popular because they're team based games that require a lot of teamwork and strategy to succeed at. E-sports started a while ago with general tournaments for fighting games and shooters and whatnot, but the heavy team based aspect of MOBAS really pushed them to the forefront of the E-sports world.  The games were even designed with this is mind, they have specific spectator modes where you can simply jump in and watch a game being played. The games also have an interesting learning curve, in that it's not very hard to learn how to play, but it is very hard to get significantly good at the game.

If you want to learn more check out twitch.tv League of Legends is usually the top game being streamed on there and a lot of the professional players stream their practice sessions. Watch them and you can get a feel for what the game is like at higher levels of play.


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

[User] ELI5: Why only humans need to cook food to eat it?

[Assistant]
Cooking food can be thought of as the first stage of our digestive system. Cooking breaks down the food, and allows our digestive tract to more effectively use the energy and nutrients...

In fact it's thought that the discovery of cooking (and resulting huge leap in energy intake for relatively little output) was the main driver for the development of our brain..

We can survive on a mainly raw diet, but cooking food allowed us to take the next evolutionary step!


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

[User] ELI5: Why is charcoal so effective in fire places/pits/barbeque stands if the most of the wood/fuel has been used up?

[Assistant]
Wood burns in two stages: the hydrogen stage and the carbon stage. In the hydrogen stage, hydrocarbon molecules are broken and oxidise. In the carbon stage, the carbon oxidises.

The carbon stage burning is a hotter and cleaner chemical reaction than hydrogen stage burning.

Charcoal is made by burning wood in the hydrogen stage (hence removing the hydrocarbons) but not allowing the carbon stage (by limiting the amount of oxygen).


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

[User]
[XCom:Enemy Unknown] Why do the soldiers always seem to miss so much?

I understand that there will be those cases from time to time where they somehow miss but it seems to happen a lot more frequently then it should for a group of soldiers hand picked to combat an alien force. Even when they're basically point blank at times they seem to miss which seems harder to do then actually hitting them at that range, what gives?

[Assistant]
Miss so much? The whole mission is a quick succession of sprints and firefights against monsters from humanity's worst nightmares, capable of spitting acid, soaking up an ungodly amount of bullets and invading your mind.

Take into account the fact that they spend most of their time using weapons that they are not used to, the enormous pressure they are under, the battle fatigue from months of missions against a seemingly invincible enemy and the fact that the commander will often order them to take shots from hundreds of meters away through two different buildings because that's the only way to keep one of their friend alive, and you'll start wondering how they manage to shoot anything.


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

[User]
[MCU/Netflix] Who's the better technical fighter? Daredevil or Captain America?

Forgot serums, durability, etc.  I'm talking pure fighting abilities.  I've often heard Cap is the greatest hand-to-hand fighter in the Marvel universe from a technical standpoint.  I have to wonder if the Devil of Hell's Kitchen might be better or at least on par.

[Assistant]
Probably - *probably* - Daredevil. Steve Rogers is a very technical fighter, and punches above his weight class, but he still depends a lot on his enhanced physiology.

Matt Murdock, on the other hand, is able to go hand-to-hand with supernatural entities and make a very good showing for himself. He's also defeated the Iron Fist in hand-to-hand combat, and Stick, one of the generals of the Chaste, called Matt the greatest pure fighter he'd ever seen.

Let's put it this way: if you gave Matt the same Serum as Steve, Matt would almost certainly beat the unholy hell out of him.


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

[User]
ELI5 : How did accents develop for peoples who speak the same language in different regions?

From England to the southern USA to New Yorkers to Canadians and more, all of which have a populace that speak English with a different "twang". How did this happen? They all have different slang which I can understand, but the actual delivery is so distinct.

[Assistant]
You talk like the people around you talk.

North American English diverged from British English over a century before Australian English diverged from British English.

Therefore Americans and Canadians sound less British than Australians.

In the centuries since those splits, though, regional accents have taken on lives of their own and moved even further from whatever baseline there ever was.

Which is purely abstract since there is no baseline and never was. In Britain, the accents are extremely pronounced from one region to the next. Manchester, Liverpool, Cockney, Cornish they all sound very different because people from Cornwall arent talking to people from Newcastle on a daily basis.

Again, we talk the same way the people around us talk.

The smaller the bubble, the more unique the accent.

Big metropolitan cities have people with all sorts of accents converging on them, so they tend to blend together and neutralize one another. Those are big, diverse bubbles so theres not really a pronounced accent.

On the flip side, a rural town deep in the American south isnt likely going to have many outsiders visiting, so the bubble is much smaller, and the accent more up distinct.

Theres even an island somewhere on the Eastern seaboard that has remained so isolated throughout Americas history that they pretty much still talk like they did in Colonial times.


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

[User]
Which organisms have a high ratio of mature mass to sperm+egg/seed/starting mass? Does this tell us anything useful?

For example, if a human egg and sperm are ~4ug, and the average adult mass is 70kg, then the ratio for humans is ~1.75\*10^10. If a giant sequoia seed is 50mg, and the average grown mass is 100,000kg, then the ratio for giant sequoias is ~2\*10^9.

My intuition is that organisms that grow larger (i.e. blue whales) and organisms with smaller "starting" mass would have a higher ratio here. Is there any significance to this, or is it just a meaningless number?

[Assistant]
Comparing across very different taxonomic groups is not very helpful. The 70kg of an adult human and 100,000kg of a mature giant sequoia do not represent the same thing at all. The majority of the sequoia's mass is non-living material in the trunk while both the human and the sequoia also have shed large amounts of their produced biomass, but in different proportions and patterns. So a comparison like this can only really be informative when it's made between functionally similar organisms. Say, perhaps just terrestrial mammals or just annual plants.

Also, for animals, birthweight is probably more interesting than the weight of egg+sperm just as seed mass is more interesting for seed plants than the combined mass of their own egg and sperm cells (which plants do have, of course).

Comparison of seed mass to mature plant dry mass for an annual plant is commonly used as a measure of photosynthetic efficiency.

Comparison of birthweight to adult mass within a group like mammals is a useful measure of developmental processes.


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

[User] ELI5: How does Cuba being a "communist" country affect its economy and its relationship with capitalism?

[Assistant]
One of the major rifts between western capitalists and Cuba was not about capitalism vs communism directly (Cuba is not actually by definition communist).

But more about alliances with the USSR, and the Cuban missile crisis (Cuba Agreeing to accept nuclear ICBM's from Russia to aim at the US).

Then Russia struck a deal with the US and removed the nukes from Cuba (against Castro's wishes) further straining US, Cuba relations.

Have a great day! :-)


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

[User]
If E=mc, does energy have gravity?

I know for most classical measurements like gravities of astronomical objects, energy would be nearly inconsequential to the equation.

But let's say there's a Neptune sized planet in deep space at nearly absolute zero, if it had a near-pass with a star and suddenly rose 200-400 degrees K, would that have any impact on it's near field gravitational measurements? No matter how minute?

[Assistant]
The short answer is yes - the rise in temperature would affect the apparent gravity by a little bit. How little? Well, math!

Let's take your Neptunian planet, and raise the temperature by 300K instantly. Now the mass of Neptune is ~10^26 kg, and if we roughly assume its all hydrogen (in reality its about 80%) then using a bit of simple chemistry corresponds to about 6 x 10^52 particles of hydrogen. The thermal energy is roughly given by E = NkT where T is the temperature, N the number of particles and k is Boltzmann's constant; which leads us to an increase in thermal energy of E = k x (6 x 10^-52) x (300) joules. A conversion to mass using E=mc^2 gives m = 2.76 x 10^15 kg. Which looks huge, and is definitely a change in the effective mass, but really is minuscule in comparison to the total mass of Neptune (11 orders of magnitude smaller). It's pretty close to the mass of Mars' moon Deimos, for example.


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

[User] [DC/Disney] I know this might seem dumb but hear me out: how powerful would Donald Duck be with a red lantern ring?

[Assistant]
Depends on the version of Donald Duck. Some have been angrier than others.

The DuckTales '17 version is a good example. He's mostly a pretty chill guy, who has actually been taking anger management sessions (he's frustrated that people don't understand him). But when he *does* lose his temper (anyone threatening his boys will do it), he can beat the crap out of multiple opponents several times his size.

I'd say this Donald wouldn't make a good Red Lantern because while he has rage, it isn't his defining trait. Honestly, he might be better with a green ring, because he's capable of overcoming great fear when necessary, and keeping his anger under wraps except when he needs it requires a strong will.


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

[User]
[MCU] How does Bucky make money/afford to live?

Does he get army backpay/a pension? How much would he have?

[Assistant]
I haven't seen Falcon and Winter Soldier yet.  But otherwise, Bucky basically has a few different stages of life.

1.  In WW2, Bucky was in the military, and received military pay.
2. As a brainwashed servant of Hydra, Bucky was provided all he needed by that organization.
3. After being freed from Hydra's control, Bucky relied on his secret spy knowledge.  He knew where old Hydra safehouses were, and basically stocked up on bug-out bags and caches of cash.
4. After Civil War, Bucky lived in Wakanda as a guest of the royal family.
5. After Endgame, Bucky was (from what I've heard) pardoned.  As such, he'd be entitled to about 80 years of back pay from the US Army.


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

[User] I know that a certain percentage of adults who were diagnosed with ADHD tend to "grow out of it" as they reach adulthood. Is the reason simply that they were misdiagnosed?

[Assistant] Not really DSM-5 is pretty accurate for ADHD. It's more of a misinterpretation to say they "grow out of it" they still have it for life just typically they learn to better manage the symptoms. Also ADHD is more pronounced in kids because they spend the most of their time in a structured environment and as they grow up they typically pursue and maintain careers where their diagnosis does not hold them back as much.


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

[User]
ELI5: What has changed culturally/politically that people believed it when they were warned about the hole in the ozone, but not about climate change now?

I am too young to have really understood the turn around with the ozone, but it seems like it would be as abstract to the layman as climate science is now. But yet, the whole world seems to have gotten on board with getting rid of CFCs and reversing the trend. Why is this not happening with climate change awareness?

[Assistant]
The ozone layer was a fairly visible problem (look at this giant hole that wasn't there) with short term scary consequences  (skin cancer for everyone!) which required very little personal or public financial sacrifice to fix (oh... we switch hair sprays.... that's not so bad). Amd since most of that could be fixed with relatively cheap legislation, you really didn't even need to mos people to buy in to fix the problem.

Compare that to climate change which has long term consequences broad consequences diffused away from most key countries (displacenent of populations, issues in 50-100 years, etc) stemming from seemingly minor, nonthreatening visuals (would 1 or 2 degrees be that bad) and which addressing means fundamental changes in just about all aspects of our day to day life and commercial system.

Clinate change is therefore easier to scoff at and people/countries have far greater motivation to do it it.


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

[User] Why is single-malt scotch desirable, and what's the difference between that and other whiskeys?

[Assistant]
Well son,....

Scotch that is made from one batch of malt is called a "Single malt scotch"

It's like ice cream that is made from one cow, and the flavor is perfect.

Some people think a good single malt is awesome. Others prefer many delicious malts blended.

Like taking many flavors from many different cows and making a really yummy blended milk shake.

I really like a nice blended whiskey.

**edit 2** "HUxley2112 says "You are close, but not accurate here. A single malt refers to that it is made from a single "malted" grain - in scotch, it is only legal to use malted barley. The word "single" refers to the fact that all of the malted barley come from a single distillery."

**Edit** Depending on what country you are in any whiskey can age in a barrel for less than 4 years to and call itself "aged whiskey" Aging in a cherry barrel for at least 8 years makes a good whiskey. Then 12, 14, 16, 18 20 years starts to get smooth.

Bushmills 14 and Jameson 14 are Irish Whiskey are smooth whiskeys but neither are scotch nor single malt. (I think)


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

[User]
ELI5 What exactly are dimples?

Some people have dimples on their cheeks, especially when they smile. Biologically what are dimples and what purpose do they have?

[Assistant]
> Biologically what are dimples and what purpose do they have?

Dimples are caused by variations in the facial muscle zygomaticus major which for whatever reason is notched or doubled. There is no known biological role this plays.


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

[User] ELI5: if Depression is a chemical imbalance in your brain, how can talking in Therapy do something about that?

[Assistant]
Your brain produces or stops producing chemicals based on your emotional and physical state.

Change your state, change the chemicals. Talking changes your state. So does exercise, touch, food, meditation and environmental changes.


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

[User] [Pokemon Gen I] Why are Bug-types the only type with an advantage over Psychic types?

[Assistant]
Our world answer: Psychic types are based off the mind. Bugs are a very common fear. It's similar to how psychic > fighting because brains >brawn.

Poke-world answer: Because bugs have very simple minds, psychic powers are useless. Comparing the mind control-ability of any other pokemon to a bug pokemon is like trying to compute a maths problem with a computer vs a wet carrot.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why do flights between states in the US typically cost in the hundreds of dollars while you can get flights between countries in Europe for less that $100?

I know the cheap flights in Europe are on crappier planes, I've flown EasyJet, but why is there no US equivalent?

[Assistant]
* Air travel regulations

When you fly in the US, you have a choice of a few airlines.  You can select the major ones (American, United, Delta, Continental, US Air), the mid-range specialized ones with limited destinations (Alaska Air, Hawaiian Airlines), or the budget ones (Southwest, Jet Blue).  What do these have in common?  They are ALL US based airlines.  In Europe, they have an open-air policy in which airlines from other countries can fly you to places outside of their country.  This means more routes, more competition, and lower fares.   Foreign-based airlines can't fly domestic routes in the US.  In Europe, they can.  This means more distance for less money and competition means more options to popular cities.

* Laws

Another factor for US airlines are the laws which put a heavy burden on the airline industry.  Current laws limit foreign based ownership and how current airlines operate in the world.  For many US airlines, this limits their ability to compete in the global airline industry.  This means higher costs for US airlines, lower employment, and higher fares for consumers.  European airlines have more freedom to compete and can keep their costs lower for operations.

* Europe has a wonderful train system. Airline companies have to lower their prices to keep up. US has no such thing (Amtrak kind of sucks)


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

[User] When someone dies of exposure, what exactly kills them? Do other animals die from exposure?

[Assistant]
they probably die from hypothermia, a deficit between the body heat that an organism can generate and the rate that heat is lost by the body. any organism can be affected by exposure, but humans are particularly susceptible to it since many of us live in environments for which we are not particularly well suited. i imagine even a polar bear could die from exposure, despite the fact it is incredibly well adapted to its environment, if it cannot consume enough calories to maintain its body temperature. that being said, for animals that are living in their natural environment, death by predation most likely happens before death by exposure, because the weakness that causes a net deficit in energy makes an animal more vulnerable to predation (an exception, of course, being apex predators such as polar bears, that have no predators).

Edit: in a broad sense death by exposure could also include such things as death from heat stroke, dehydration or any lack of basic human needs (adequate food, water, shelter, clothing). this of course would also be less common for animals than for humans.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why is it so hard to stand/keep your hands perfectly still?

I was trying to take some long exposure camera shots just standing up (yes I know its impractical) and it got me wondering why the human body can't just keep still. And then why do some people have "a surgeon's steady hand" while others can't hold a teacup on a plate without it rattling like a snake?

[Assistant]
Ah, well... "holding still" is hard work, as you must have learned the hard way. Being still is actually an active physical process involving opposing muscle groups relaxing and contracting in opposition. If you stand up and try to hold your arms straight out (like a T) you're going to figure this out in a hurry. You're also having to balance and maintain that stillness, which takes minute adjustments of the muscles and of course, is yet more work.

The "shaky hands" bit is hugely varied though, and can be a matter of practice, being calm, having strong and limber forearms and hands, intake of stimulants and the like... there is no one answer.


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

[User]
How common is NOT getting addicted to smoking, despite trying real hard?

I have this weird trait. I don't get addicted to smoking. And I've tried hard.

A couple of years ago I smoked for slightly over a year. My cancersticks of choice were a variety of Camels that had the highest nicotine content of any cigarettes sold around here. Sometimes I smoked an entire pack each day.

Then I suddenly discovered that I had run out of cigarettes *a week earlier* and hadn't even noticed. It's not that I was doing anything special. Mostly just sitting in my apartment, playing games and doing some work on the computer occasionally.

I went from smoking a pack a day to not smoking and didn't even notice it. And yes, I inhaled deeply.

Recently I fell on some hard times and decided to take up smoking again. This time I rolled my own cigarettes, often without filters. Did so for about two months. Inhaled deeply. Smoked several per day and these were really strong ones. Often the first few lungfuls would make me weak at the knees.

A few days ago I got my shit sorted out and felt like I didn't really want to smoke anymore. So I've been smoke free for about three days now and the only thing I miss is not having something to do while walking.

I've never been addicted to alcohol. There was an intense period during university times when I took caffeine pills and then felt like shit for a week or two when I stopped taking them. Haven't been addicted to computer games either -- usually I just play intensely for a day or two and then I never want to see the game again.

Also, I probably take more risks than the average person. I'm an entrepreneur and have founded a couple of non-profits. I haven't had what you might call "a stable job" in years. Those get boring fast.

**Anyway, my question is:** How common is it for people NOT to get addicted to things like smoking? Is this genetic and is it correlated with anything? Is it a symptom of anything?

**TLDR:** I can't get addicted to smoking. What's up with me?

[Assistant]
Probably some sort of normal distribution thing - after all, one can get SEVERELY addicted to cigarettes after a short time - perhaps you're just on the other end of the addiction spectrum.

Please don't test this theory with heroin next week.


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

[User]
[Lord of the Rings] Hypothetical question, but during the intro of the first film where we see Sauron in armor, what would it look like if he took off his helmet? Would he look like an old man like Gandalf, or a young man?

Basically, what's under the mask? I read he's a being like Gandalf, but that that mean he looks like the wizards Saruman and Radaghast? Or was he like special, fair young human? Does he even have anything under that helmet or is it ethereal energy or something (since his armor just fell when the ring was cut off).

[Assistant] We really don't know. As a Maia like Gandalf and crew he had the ability to change his appearance. He used to appear as a very fair being because it was easy to decieve people that way. What we do know is that after his physical body was destroyed in the Fall of Numenor, he lost the ability to appear "fair." So, we really don't know exactly what that means.


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

[User] if you had a blocked nose and you were kidnapped and the kidnappers put duct tape over your mouth, would you suffocate?

[Assistant] There isn't a concrete answer to this question as it really depends how blocked your nose is.  It is worth noting that if you increased your sympathetic discharge (high stress, fight or flight) which would almost certainly happen in this situation, then your alpha 1 receptors in your nasal mucosa would be activated which would result in arteriolar constriction.  This would decrease nasal secretions.  The effect would be essentially the same as taking phenlyephrine.  If your nose didn't respond enough and still was truly so blocked that you couldn't breathe through it, then yes, you would suffocate.  However, if the degree of blockage was such that you could still partially breathe through your nose enough to adequately oxygenate your blood, then you would survive.  If your nose were severely blocked but you still had some slight ability to breathe through it, you would probably panic, become hypoxic, pass out, and then you would start breathing more naturally and be OK.


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

[User]
ELI5: In movies and video games, why does it only look natural for giants and giant things to move slowly?

I've never seen a giant move at "normal" speed. They have to move their limbs more space, but they're also stronger so that should balance out, right?

[Assistant]
Ok, so lets suppose your arm is 3 feet long. Now lets assume you have a giant doppleganger who has a 1000 foot arm.

You swat with your regular sized arm, moving 180 degrees in 1/4 of a second. That is a distance of about 9.5 feet, so your fingertips moved at almost 30 mph.

Now your double does the same swat with his 1000 foot arm, in the same amount of time. That is 3142 feet in 1/4 of a second, or 8570 mph. That is 11 times the speed of sound, or about half the speed of low Earth orbit. The hand is pulling a massive vacuum in its passing and the front is compressing air to the point of glowing white-hot. Assuming the flesh is relatively flesh-like it would be shredded, burned, and otherwise crushed by g-forces.


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

[User] ELI5: Why do must Irish last names start with Mc?

[Assistant]
It means "Son of"

So someone with the name McDonald would be the son of Donald.

Mac means the same thing (MacDonald vs. McDonald). Mc is a short version.

People would be named things like Sean MacDonald, because their father was named Donald. It was a way of showing which family you belonged to, by identifying yourself with your father (the head of the household). Eventually, it stopped being literally your father as people kept their last names for longer.


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

[User]
If a stereotype is statistically true is it still a stereotype?

I mean in the commonly used sense of the word, I know the exact definition refers more to personal mental stereotypes that people accumulate. I'm referring to the "common knowledge" stereotypes of which there are many.

Im not going to include examples so as to not bias any potential answers.

[Assistant]
This depends on how you define stereotype.  Some social psychologists may define it as "a fixed, over generalized belief about a particular group or class of people."

Stereotypes seek to oversimplify someone's qualities and reduce their humanity to a few correlations in identity and behavior.  Regardless of whether or not the data supports a strong statistic correlation, it still reduces a person to a set of actions based on impression and judgment; thus, retaining its status as a "stereotype."


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

[User]
Do cross-eyed people see the world in double and learn to operate that way? Or does their brain learn to process the image correctly?

I assume it's the latter because I doubt anyone's eyes are 100% straight/aligned, but in that case - when a baby is born cross-eyed, do they already know how to correctly interpret images, or do their neurons have to learn?

[Assistant] The first several years of a childs life is when the neurons are learning how to work properly. If it is severe enough, the child will essentially block out the image from one eye. They will see single, but it will be monocular. If it isn't fixed early enough in development, the eye that is ignored will never be able to see as clearly as the other eye.


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

[User]
If American Republicans ran their own country how would the economy play out?

I guess I should expand further.

What if half of America was divided as evenly and fairly as possible into a pure Democratic controlled country and a pure Republican controlled country? How would each of the economies differ?

[Assistant] I think this question just barely skirts the line between Rule V breaking and not. But in reply, this is a pretty garbage question. There's no elaboration at all. Economics can help you describe the effects of specific policies to at least some extent but this question requires a ton of details including but not limited to governmental style, geographic features, and location of the hypothetical country, actual policy details implemented, demographics, etc. This is why in our guide to asking good questions we recommend straying away from useless hypotheticals like these. The closer you can bring hypotheticals to concrete, the better answers you can expect.


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

[User] How unique is the fact that our moon's rotational speed matches it's traslational speed so that the same side of the moon is permanently facing earth?

[Assistant]
It's not unique at all, because it's caused by a phenomenon called "tidal locking" which affects all orbiting bodies.

The gravity of the Earth exerts a force on the Moon that slightly elongates / stretches the Moon along the line between its center and the Earth. If the moon would rotate more rapidly than it would orbit, this elongation would rotate away from the line between Moon and Earth and the Earth's gravitational pull would try to yank it back. This causes the rotation to gradually slow down until eventually rotation and orbit match and the elongation is always aligned. Something similar would happen if the rotation was slower than the orbit.

Tidal locking is something that will eventually happen to all bodies that are part of an orbit. Not only to the lighter of the pair. The gravitation pull of the Moon (which causes the tides at sea) is gradually slowing down the rotation of the Earth (which increases the length of a day) and after about 50 billion years it would sync up with the orbit of the Moon (which would mean that the Moon would always be in the sky on part of the planet and never on other parts). However, the Sun will have likely engulfed the Earth long before that would happen.

Note that not all bodies will end up in a 1:1 lock between orbit and rotation. If the orbit of an object is very eccentric (meaning it has a strong deviation from being a perfect circle), it may happen that the orbit and rotation settle into a orbit/rotation ratio that is a fractional number. For example, Mercury has a 2:3 ratio, meaning that for every 3 rotations ("days") exactly 2 orbits ("years") are completed.


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

[User]
ELI5: What does the Weak Nuclear Force act on? When does the Weak Nuclear Force occur?

Weak Nuclear is one of 4 fundamental forces, the others being Gravity, Electromagnetism, and Strong Nuclear. Gravity pulls any objects with mass or energy together. Electromagnetism pulls opposite charges together and like charges apart. Strong Nuclear holds nucleons together. What is the Weak Nuclear force and on which objects and conditions does it act on?

[Assistant]
The weak force's equivalent of mass, charge, and color charge (for gravity, electromagnetism, and the strong nuclear force respectively) is called *weak isospin*.

But its behavior isn't as simple as gravity's "masses pull together" or electromagnetism's "like charges repel, unlike charges attract", in part because the weak force (unlike its cousins) is carried by particles with rather large mass, which limits its range. This mass means that unlike electromagnetism's potential energy (which is just 1/distance between the particles, more or less), the weak interaction's potential multiplies this value by an extra term of 1/e^(distance times mass of the force carrying particles). For electromagnetism this mass is zero, so all that e^whatever nonsense is just e^(0) = 1 and this term disappears. But for the weak force, the effect drops off very very quickly the further apart the particles are, which means the particles have to be in such close proximity that you need quantum mechanics to talk about anything that's going on. And once you involve quantum mechanics, you're going to need much heavier-duty tools than ELI5 is going to really allow.

All [known] fermions (a class of particle which includes the protons, neutrons, and electrons that make up the world around you) have non-zero weak isospin, so all of these particles interact with the weak force. The main distinguishing feature of the weak force is that it allows transformations in "flavour" - that is, from one type of a sort of particle to another. For example, the weak force can allow a down quark in a neutron to convert into an up quark, which transforms the neutron into a proton. This is the mechanism behind most radioactive decay, which is the weak force's main practical effect on day to day human scales.


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

[User]
[Marvel] does Colossus' body temperature change when he becomes metal?

Also if you touch him is he cold like metal or warm like a human?

[Assistant]
His body temperature doesn't change, but his thermal conductivity goes way up.  That means he will *feel* colder if the air temperature is lower than your body temp because the heat is transmitted away from your skin more quickly.  Eventually his body will equalize with the surrounding temp and will actually be colder, assuming he's not producing lots of heat through friction.

On a hot day, though, the opposite will happen.  His metal form will conduct the ambient heat more quickly and he'll feel hot.


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

[User]
ELI5: Which cyclist gets down from hill faster, heavier or lighter?

Hello,
What I'm asking is that we have 2 cyclists, with same bikes, going down same hill. They only go as fast as they can without pedaling.
Which gets down fastest and why? How inertia affects velocity comparing both of them? How friction affects them considering heavier cyclist is also bigger in size?
I'm asking for as deep explanation as possible, please. Any equations would be appreciated aswel.

[Assistant]
Inertia is irrelevant, since the force making them move depends on their mass.

Friction between the bike and the ground should also be equal, since it's ideally proportional to the force pulling the cyclists towards the road surface.

Basically, in a vacuum, both cyclists would move at the exact same speed at the same time.

However, friction between the cyclists and air doesn't depend on their mass, it depends on their shape and size. The interesting thing about this is that the size does not scale proportionally with weight. Doubling the weight of the cyclist would roughly increase his size by sqrt(2), about 1.41. So while he is twice as heavy and therefore pushed forward with twice the force and experience twice the rolling friction, he is only slowed down 1.41 times as much as the lighter cyclists due to wind resistance - which means that he will eventually move faster and arrive first.

It is for the same reason that large passenger planes require less fuel and have longer range than smaller planes: They require less thrust per ton of weight to move at the same speed.


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

[User] [MCU] If Hive would inhabit the bodies of only benevolent individuals who strongly believe in free will would he eventually become benevolent and share the same opinions about free will?

[Assistant] Hive can only inhabit human bodies, so none of the dozens of personalities he's absorbed are Inhuman. Yet he still believes in, and fights for, Inhuman superiority. Clearly the original personality is the dominant one.


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

[User]
What exactly happens between the alpha particles and the air to cause clouds to form in a cloud chamber?

I understand the basic premise of a cloud chamber - the air is supersaturated, so even the tiny alpha particles are enough to cause the clouds to form. But how exactly are the alpha particles interacting with the air? If they are travelling in straight lines, it makes it seem like they just passing through without interacting with anything.

Any clarification or deeper understanding of this neat phenomena will be greatly appreciated! :)

[Assistant]
The alpha particles cause ionization in the gas. Ionized particles act as nucleation points for droplets of liquid to condense out of the supersaturated gas phase.

What you're seeing a bunch of small droplets, forming something similar to a cloud in the sky.

This makes the trail of ionization caused by the alpha particle visible to the naked eye.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why can I eat raw fish but not raw chicken or pork?

Also, the same for undercooked beef.

[Assistant]
Chicken and pork are more likely to be contaminated with the sort of bacteria and parasites that are harmful to humans. This is partially due to the conditions they are raised and slaughtered in, partially due to the biological similarity between certain animals and humans, partially due to how long the meat is left to 'hang' and age to let the blood run out/flavour develop.

If you raised a pig in sterile conditions and spent the money to know that it was completely disease and infection free, you could eat the resulting pork raw safely if you wanted. It's just a lot cheaper, easier and tastier to cook it.


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

[User]
Does the existence of psychopaths (and similar disorders) at all affect how our moral frameworks should be designed?

Psychopaths, and people with other mental disorders whose moral intuitions are skewed in comparison to the rest of the population, exist in significant numbers. Although they are clearly not the majority, shouldn't their intuitions be at least considered when determining what is moral?

[Assistant] If psychopaths had different moral intuitions, perhaps. The problem with what you're proposing though is that psychopaths do not appear to have *any moral intuitions at all*, and demonstrate an inability to distinguish situations of moral import from ordinary situations. So it's not that the psychopath simply has a unique take on morality, but rather that they are completely blind to it, so to speak.


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

[User] ELI5: If gravity gets weaker the further we travel from earth, then what's the meaning of the term "Earth surface escape velocity"?

[Assistant] It's the speed an object incapable of self-propulsion needs to be moving at the surface of the Earth directly up in order to be able to keep going without being pulled back down.  Easier to think of it in terms of firing a projectile that carries no fuel or means of propulsion after it's launched (rather than a rocket or missile which continues to burn fuel and accelerate as it climbs).  Imagine a gun pointed straight up.  If a bullet was fired from that gun moving less than 11,186 m/s, it will ultimately turn around and return to Earth.  If it's moving at or greater than 11,186 m/s, it will keep going "forever" (until it encounters another gravitational influence or object).


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

[User]
[Marvel] Does it make any sense for Wolverine to hurt Hulk?

This has been on my mind for a while, ever since I looked back on Wolverine first appearing in a Hulk comic, long before either of their powers were fleshed out or hugely amplified over the years (especially Hulk).

I know that Adamantium is consistently the most durable metal in the Marvel universe, and that Wolverine is fast and agile, and has strength to apparently lift about 800 lbs, but even then, the more I think about how strong and extremely durable Hulk has gotten (even in base form), the less believable I find it that Wolverine can be especially effective against him. Even if his claws are very sharp and especially durable, does he really even have the ability to exert enough force to brutally wound someone as durable as Hulk?

[Assistant]
Wolverine's claws aren't just sharp, they're close to single-atom-thick sharp. When he makes a claw attack, the amount of force isn't really important; his claws are able to sever pretty much anything except adamantium,  vibranium, and magic.

Also, the cutting power of a sharp blade doesn't come from force pushing down, it comes from the blade being drawn *across* the target. You can push the edge of a knife blade down onto your palm without cutting yourself, but if you start to draw it across your palm, it will slash you open.


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

[User]
I find incest and ephebophilia abhorrent, regardless of consent. CMV if you can.

These beliefs, mainly the incest one, are somewhat contrary to my advocacy for sexual freedom. I find most sexuality between consenting adult humans to be fine. I just find it certain deviances disgusting, yet that is what anti-homosexual activists have been saying about homosexuals for years, regardless of consent. If you ask them why gays should not marry, many of their arguments stem from it not being "natural" or it being gross. I just want to keep an open mind and not repeat history's social mistakes.

[Assistant]
Throughout almost all of human society, most people have married their teenage cousins. In many parts of the world, notably the Middle East, this is still a very common practice.

FDR, Bach, HG Wells, Jefferson, Einstein, Darwin, Edgar Allen Poe, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Rudy Giuliani all married closely related (mostly first or second) cousins.

Furthermore, most people didn't live as long as they do today. This placed extra pressure on people to get married as soon as they were able to have children-namely during their teenage years.

So it's definitely pretty natural. Your feelings are similar to how people get disgusted when other people don't wear deodorant or shower everyday. Daily showers, deodorant, and marrying 18 years olds you aren't related to became mainstream in the 20th century. People went millions of years without wearing deodorant or showering. Sure it's strange in our modern society, but it's not that insane in the grand scheme of things.


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

[User]
CMV:Pardons in the United States should be issued by the Supreme Court (SCOTUS) or the Chief Justice (CJ) instead of the president.

1. The judiciary is typically the branch of government farthest removed from politics and, as a result, less likely to pardon or not pardon based on popular opinion.

2. We already allow the courts a certain amount of discretion in issuing sentences and setting aside guilty verdicts; allowing the SCOTUS/CJ to issue pardons is a logical extension of this fact.

3. Having the SCOTUS/CJ make the pardoning decision prevents a criminal president from pardoning themselves or their criminal associates and prevents a Vice-President from pardoning a president after the president resigns in a quid pro quo fashion.

4. In the event the pardoning power is abused, Justices can still be removed from office by impeachment.

[Assistant]
This would create a conflict of interest with the judiciary branch and could in effect allow the judicial branch to craft laws and policy, which they are currently not allowed to do as it is not their job. The CJ could decide that they don't like a specific law and are going to pardon everyone who has been convicted of that crime, which would make them political.

It's the judiciary's job to enforce laws, not to decide which laws they don't like. If there is an unpopular law it is on the legislature to change the law or the executive branch to direct which laws should be given priority.