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

[User]
[Attack on titan] (Spoilers) Why did the Military Police...

All right, why did the internal military police try to stop the technological development?

They executed a couple for trying to escape the walls, and having developed a hot air balloon. They also killed a subject who tried to develop a revolver.

Although, this explains why humanity within the walls could not develop further than EDM3D. I still do not understand why the internal military police tried to stop technological development. It was supposed to keep the peace within the walls, but how is this supposed to keep the peace within the walls?

[Assistant]
More technology gives more power to the people. If guns and manufacturing are allowed to reach a certain point, then it becomes inevitable that the King will be overthrown by either a military coup or a revolution of the people.

Advanced weapons have to remain in the hands of a small, loyal class of elites (in this case the Military Police's black ops unit led by Kenny) in order to maintain a monopoly on power.


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

[User]
When the Universe reaches heat death, at absolute zero, do atoms remain intact, or do they degrade into elementary particles?

I'm sorry if the question is a bit unclear; my boyfriend and I were having an argument last night on whether or not, when the Universe reaches heat death, matter still exists as atoms, or do those atoms degrade into elementary particles?
In short, could I theoretically detect atoms of matter, or, does the strong nuclear force stop working at absolute zero and those atoms degrade into neutrons, protons and electrons?

Edit : corrected strong magnetic force to strong nuclear force.

[Assistant]
Though there is no experimental evidence, there are a lot of theories which suggest that protons can eventually decay. As neutrons decay after about 15 minutes outside of an atomic nucleus, this would mean that all atomic matter would eventually decay.
At the same time, the Standard Model (which is the dominant theory in particle physics, it predicted the Higg's Boson) states that protons are stable, and will not decay.
Also, finding out whether or not a nucleus is stable or not is a game of staring at it and waiting to see if it decays, bismuth 209 was recently found to have a finite lifetime after previously being thought to be stable.

By the way, the force that keeps nuclei together is called the strong nuclear force, it's not related to magnetism.


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

[User]
I believe sweat shops are not a bad thing. CMV

I believe opposition to and calls to boycott companies that use cheap labour in developing countries are misguided and rely on emotional arguments. Of course, it is absolutely horrible that people have to work in pretty much medieval conditions, especially children, who are pretty much missing their chance to have a "real childhood". As a relatively privileged guy from a relatively developed country, I am even disgusted to defend this practice. But the key phrase is that they *have to* do it. Not because they are forced, but because if they wouldn't, then what choice would they have? They would either be unemployed or work even worse jobs (eg prostitution), in which cases they would only be worse off.

Besides, what alternatives would the companies have? Move their operations to a country with stricter work laws? That would leave both the company and the workers worse off. Invest more in HR? Then the product prices would rise too much for the buyers and again, the workers would end up unemployed. Just throw resources at the country until it develops enough so there would be no more third world and the entire world would be a happy place with a large middle class? Not really feasible and not the private companies' job (although I do believe that colonization and decolonization are at fault for making parts of the world a horrible place to live in and they should be compensated for).

[Assistant]
>But the key phrase is that they have to do it. Not because they are forced, but because if they wouldn't, then what choice would they have? They would either be unemployed or work even worse jobs (eg prostitution), in which cases they would only be worse off.

This is called coersion. They are not literally forced to work there, but the other option is to be a prostitute. Seems like compromised concent to me.

>Besides, what alternatives would the companies have? Move their operations to a country with stricter work laws? That would leave both the company and the workers worse off

Pay the same people a livable wage and establish healthy working conditions?


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

[User]
Is it possible to determine the location at which a photo was taken based on the moon's position in the sky?

If I went outside on a cloudless night or day and took a photo in which the moon was visible, would be possible to determine where this photo was taken? Or does the moon's location in the sky not provide enough information to be able to conclude that? What other data could be plugged into the equation so as to allow us to come to such a conclusion? Would the time of day and year help?

[Assistant] No, it won't tell you the location from which the photo was taken. What you'd actually need would be an image of the stars in the night sky, but even that would only narrow it down to a latitude, unless you knew the UTC time the photo was taken.


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

[User]
[Harry Potter] How are new spells discovered?

Is there a job to just say random words and wave your wand till something happens?

[Assistant] They're not. They're invented. The incantation is a mnemonic device, not some kind of Word of Power, which is why it's possible to cast spells without speaking once you've got some training and experience.


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

[User] [40K] Which species treats its citizens best?

[Assistant]
Depends on how you judge it.
If you judge best treatment as what the peoples of the society desire, then I'd hands down call it a tie between Orks and Tyranids. Perhaps leaning towards the Orks because they don't suffer the same unfortunate food shortage and long journeys between galaxies.
The Orks only want a good fight, lots of dakka and plenty of teef and loot.


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

[User]
ELI5: I once heard that when rockets launch they should have no spin. Contrast this to bullets which are more stable when spinning.

Why is it good for bullets to have spin but not a rocket? I would assume that it is a matyer of horizontal movement versus vertical but what are the physics behind this?

[Assistant] Bullets spin for stability. Angular momentum resists changes in the bullet's path. Rockets don't want a straight path. They need to eventually end up going sideways to achieve orbital velocity. Also, you would have to counteract the spin once in orbit and that would be a waste of fuel.


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

[User]
[batman] Why does Batman allow Alfred and cops to shoot to kill but prevent heroes from doing the same?

Cops are obviously obligated to shoot to kill Batman's rogues gallery since they are a threat to the public but Batman seems to have a thing against other heroes from killing. Doesn't the no-killing rule something he set on himself. What gives him power to see how gets to kill and who doesn't. For example, in the justice league episode where Superman kills lex luthor, Batman was fine with it but when it comes to killing the Joker he isn't. Cops obviously don't become blood thirsty  after killing someone so why would heroes be the same?

[Assistant]
Cops have oversight and recognized legal authority, heroes usually do not.

Ideally, superheroes exist to counter threats and bring in people that the cops can't. They "supplement" the law so to speak, even though they do act outside of it. They have to impose certain restrictions on themselves as a result, so that the law can still function alongside them. If superheroes kill, then they're just an alternate source of "law" or justice and thus justice would arbitrarily apply to anyone.

Imagine it this way - say the joker somehow gets busted by police. Ideally he ends up locked up and prosecuted according to the law. But say Batman shows up and stops him, and turns him in - same result in the end, which is good if you actually believe in the law. But if Batman kills him for "the greater good," the outcome is not the same, he's made up his own law. Even if Batman kills him in self defense, it's still fuzzy because Batman just put himself in a situation where he had to kill the Joker, even though he's not a cop. Essentially he's now become a cop in practice without all the extra legal stuff that makes cops legitimate.


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

[User]
[Doctor Who & Marvel] How would things change if Doctor Who took place in the Marvel 616 Universe?

How would the story of Doctor Who affect the Marvel 616 Universe?

How will the Marvel Universe change The Doctor?

[Assistant] There is a reality where the Doctor calls home, and it is part of the Marvel Multiverse, designated by SHIELD as Earth-5556. The Doctor battled the Master and had several adventures in this timeline, battling foes such as Death's Head, who has made himself known as a miscreant throughout the multiverse.


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

[User]
Those who are elected democratically who do not act according to what they promised to the voters they would do if elected, should be tried for treason. CMV.

Lying to the people who elected you to responsibly act upon the promises that won you an election I feel is an act of treason, and the punishment for this disloyalty should be of the highest order. They should be tried by the people who voted for them or an unbiased committee to decide the verdict.

Politics shouldn't be a career where you say whatever the electorate want to hear just so the individual can roam free to do as they please.

I understand that not all promises or believes in party manifestos can be acted upon, but those who have the opportunity to do so should act on what they stand for.

I also realize that most politicians are legitimate and that something like this is quite a strong and extreme view, but corruption and under-the-table handshakes are ruining what should be the sanctity of democracy.

EDIT: This is about all countries with democracies, I understand that some countries have Constitutions that follow a similar rule of thought, but this should be a staple of all democracies.
Just my two cents.

[Assistant]
You can only ensure your promises in a dictatorship. The entire point of a democracy is that people will compromise and hopefully reach some satisfactory middle ground.

Treason is such an over reaction that politicians would choose to do nothing.

Also say a vote came down to 49 yes 51 no. Oh well, time to throw 49 people in jail.

Edit:

Bye bye third parties.

Bye bye opportunity to change your mind after getting new information. "Yes, we said we'd get a new trade deal with china but they just declared war on japan"


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

[User]
How does cannabis NOT cause cancer?

I know that when cannabis is burned it creates hydrocarbons and benzopyrene; known carcinogens. Its also an immunosuppressant, how is it that there are no cases of cannabis inflicted cancer?

[Assistant]
It is near impossible to prove a causal relationship here. Same for cigarettes, it's all correlational data- this was a major defence the tabacco industry utilized to shut down suits filed by individuals looking for liability on the corporations' part for the individual's case of cancer.

There are likely many individuals with lung cancer that would likely not have it had they refrained from marijuana use. But the cancer can't be traced in this manner- only long term increased risk due to smoking can be assessed. In regards to that, there are little data on the longitudinal effects of marijuana use, since it is a controlled substance. For medical purposes, marijuana strains are being manipulated to have few carcinogenic risks- namely, edibles and inhalants. The average smoker can be assumed to be raising their risks for cancer, but the data on the specifics just isn't rock solid yet.


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

[User]
ELI5:why is my beard hair so scraggly when my head hair is pretty straight.

Ive been wondering this for awhile. Is there a way to calm down the pubes on face look without cutting it?

[Assistant]
Wash with shampoo and conditioner every day, comb it, and trim stray hairs with scissors.

Beard hair needs just as much attention as the hair on your head. Take care of it and it'll take car of you beaux.


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

[User] Ive heard people say that even if a billionaire tried to liquidate all of their net assets, their net worth would drop dramatically. Is this true, and if so, why?

[Assistant] Let's say you own $1B worth of stock in a company (that's a lot of stocks). It's not as if you have $1B, your wealth is tied up in those stocks and only available to you as cash if you sell those stocks. The price of those shares is determined by supply and demand. If you you try to offload all of those stocks at once, the supply of the stock will shift substantially, causing the value of the stock to drop. As a result, once the stocks are sold you will be left with less than $1B dollars.


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

[User]
ELI5: If you adopted a puppy straight from birth and raised it, would its barks be absolute nonsense to other dogs?

Sounds like a stupid question, but I have no idea the mechanics of how dogs (or other animals) communicate.

[Assistant] Dogs don't really 'talk' to each other so much as they are sensitive to body language, but a dog raised without contact with other dogs will not be properly socialized and will have to be taught how to properly interact with other dogs.


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

[User]
ELI5: How was Soviet Russia able to catch up to the West in the 21st century (post-Tsarist regime)?

Russia, under the Tsarist regime was highly under modernised. It was a backwards nation, and was highly inferior to the industrial economies of Western Europe.

But despite this, after the end of the Romanov empire in 1917, by the end of WWII, less than thirty years later, Russia (USSR) was already competing with the US, especially in military power.

How were they able to catch up in such a short amount of time?

EDIT: 20th Century, not 21st Century. Stupid me.

[Assistant]
It didn't really.

While it might have looked like the Soviet union was on par with the west from the outside this was in part because they were trying really hard to look that way. They focused on prestige projects, things of military value and major population centers like Moscow. Much of the area remained at a level that fell more and more behind its western counterparts as time went by.


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

[User]
[Star Trek] Why is infantry combat so undeveloped?

**Ship Delivery Methods**

Torpedoes are frequently seen as being able to penetrate shields, and even early ones like those carried by the NX-01 are large enough to carry a person with a decent amount of room to spare. It seems like one species or another *koff ~~Klingons~~ koff* would have added a compact inertial dampener and some variety of high-speed release system to deliver a space-suited trooper into corridors and near vital systems. Alternately, shuttlecraft could "drop" troopers onto the hull of a ship with some type of combat airlock, to penetrate outer plating and perform sapping/sabotage if not outright killing the crew and taking control. Given the lack of point defenses or onboard marine complement on most vessels (The NX-01 circa Xindi Crisis excepted), this seems like a valid strategy just with the basic infantry combat equipment already present.

**Additional Equipment**

*Subsection 1: Weapon Types*

There seems a very distinct lack of weapon diversity. Beyond the variations each species makes, there are only two common weapon types, handheld pistol-types and two-handed carbine-types. Neither seems terribly suited for long-range engagements, or any type of armored unit. Weapons like sniper rifles or SMGs are most notably absent. The former's use would be obvious (although designated marksmen are also rarely seen). The latter may be useful against shielded units; it would appear that shields are very proficient at stopping slow-firing, energetic, high-impact shots (see every ship engagement of frigate class up) but seem poor at protecting against large quantities of low-impact projectiles (see engagements with Suliban Cloak-Swarms). Ergo, weapons with a high rate of fire may be useful for taking down shielded units like the Xindi deployed. Also absent are larger "caliber" automatics, or equivalents to a modern LMG. This may be related to the notable lack of armored units, discussed below.

*Subsection 2: Armor*

Armored units are almost never seen beyond apparently-useless body armor worn by MACO Troopers and most Klingons in anything even approaching a combat role. Seen even less (and possibly of more importance) are armored space suits-or, perhaps more accurately, vacuum combat suits, which would greatly expand the feasible range of vacuum activities (see section 1). For those in planetary combat roles, full-body armor suits with mechanized movement assist could act as both a heavy-weapons, armor, or advanced equipment platform and, if fast enough, act in a search-and-destroy capacity for units that evade the detection equipment portable by standard combat units to help prevent infiltration, sappers, or commando teams from being effective. Planetary forces in particular are woefully lacking in such fire support or even planetary bombardment (even though they are capable of it; Janeway threatens a troublesome industrialist that *Voyager* could vaporize his entire office building) to prevent armored offensives. What's more, the fabrication cost would be exceedingly low for the tech level the Federation possesses.

*Subsection 3: Automated, Remote, and Mechanized Tools*

Where are all the drones? A remote unit, utilizing the same relatively simple mechanical principles as Data uses to move, would be relatively cheap to fabricate (Data built a basic version of one _complete with positronic brain_ no less) and possibly faster, more durable, stronger and more accurate than a human trooper, potentially controlled by a ship's computer, advanced AI, or even completely autonomous with a simple positronic brain designed to take orders and carry them out, optimized for firmware and tactics. Such units are easily made fail-safe, and as the Borg show, are potentially quite formidable if their main weakness, their wetware component, is removed. Other than automated marines or troopers, simpler automatic targeting subroutines could be installed on small turrets mounted on a mobile armor unit or in corridors as an anti-boarding measure.

SO WHY THE HELL IS NONE OF IT USED?!

[Assistant]
Because ship to orbit phasers can pick out individual houses and vaporize them with little to no damage to the surrounding structures.

Also, because infantry combat is a dirty, ugly, messy business that doesn't contribute meaningfully to interstellar affairs. The only cultures that go for it are honor based ones or the ones that want actual domination instead of just cultural hegemony.


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

[User] ELI5: Why do we feel a sense of coolness when something is really hot?

[Assistant]
The nerves they sense cool are different and shallower than the nerves that sense heat.

All nerves can be stimulated by things other than there intended use-- rub your eyes and the changing pressure will make you see colors.

The shallower cool nerves are stimulated by the heat, and you feel a cool feeling before the deeper hot nerves get stimulated.


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

[User]
CMV:Franchises are killing creativity in popular movies

I enjoy many of these franchises...the Marvel universe, Star Wars, so on and so on, but all these sequels are killing the creativity of new movies.

I think back to the 80's when we saw hits like Raiders of the Lost Ark, The Terminator, Back to the Future, Die Hard, The Breakfast Club, Fast Times as Ridgemont High, Goonies, Ferris Bueller's Day Off...Hit after hit after hit that seem to be original, or at least present an original take on classic storylines. These films are iconic.

I can't think of a single "original idea" iconic hit move in a decade, and perhaps only Avatar in the last twenty years.

Can you CMV that the focus on sequels and producing the "proven formula" movies are killing the creativity in popular movies?

[Assistant]
How many movies in the 80s were produced that are no longer remembered or that flopped at the box office?  How many movies in the 80s were produced as sequels?  You mentioned Raiders of the Lost Ark--what are your thoughts on Temple of Doom?  Was that creative?

There have been plenty of hit movies this decade that may stand the test of time.  We just don't quite know yet because there hasn't been much time passed.  How about Christopher Nolan movies?  Inception, The Prestige, Interstellar?  Or even some animated movies?  The Incredibles is over a decade old, but that was a hit movie.  There have also been a lot of "true story" movies recently, which require a different kind of creativity.

Hindsight is always 20/20 and we always want to go back to "the good old days", but we so quickly forget that maybe the good old days weren't actually that good.


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

[User] ELI5: Why is Sweden considered such a paradise?

[Assistant] Because they have a lot of the things that liberal Americans desperately fight to get a tiny bit of. They have a good universal social welfare system, treat prisoners well, and have consumer-friendly intellectual property laws. Of course, any Swedish person can tell you that their country is not a magical fantasy land, but in America getting any one of them *is* a fantasy.


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

[User] [Dragon Ball Z] Paragus said that saiyans that turns into a great ape loses all sense of itself. How come Vegeta can retain his senses when he transforms?

[Assistant] Vegeta is THE Saiyan Prince, the son of the leader of a warrior race the thrives on combat so it's no surprise that his bloodline represents the pinnacle of his people. Not only that, but as a future leader Vegeta would have been privy to the greatest trainers and techniques of his people which would have encompassed both physical and mental strategies from an early age. In short: Vegeta would have been brought up with a "Born to Rule" doctrine however this would have been backed up with both a training and conditioning regimen that gave him both the willpower and techniques he required to retain control while in his Great Ape form. And while not of the same continuity as Z, in GT Vegeta even explicitly states that it is his status as the Saiyan prince that allows him to retain control while in that form.


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

[User]
I believe people who thinks alcohol make things more fun are insecure about themselves. CMV.

There are a lot of people who claims this, that alcohol makes thing more fun.  At social gathering, people have alcohol to have a good time.  Or to "loosen" things up.  They can really be themselves when they drink.  They are a completely different person with a few drinks in them.

I used to drink a lot in when I started college.  All of those things above applied to me back than.  And then I grew up.  The post-alcohol fun person became the same pre-alcohol person.  Suddenly being inebriated made things less fun, because I wasn't fully able to enjoy the experience.  Because I wouldn't be able to make the decision that led to the most fun.  Because connections you made with people without alcohol is stronger than the ones with alcohol.

When anyone says alcohol makes fun more fun.  They are basically saying the alcohol lowers their inhibition, which allows them to have more fun.  Which means there are things they would do after drinking alcohol that they wouldn't do sober that make things more fun.  Why wouldn't they do these things without alcohol?  Because there is a disconnect between the person they want to be, and the person they are.  For whatever reason, they are afraid to do so when they are sober, they need the excuse of alcohol to remove their inhibition to be this "fun" person.  They are insecure about themselves.

There are people who enjoys the taste of alcohol.  Or take advantage of the nutritional value of alcohol.  I am only talking about people who thinks things are more fun with alcohol.

CMV.

[Assistant]
Numerous studies have shown that if you put people in a drinking environment (dark bar, loud music, lots of people, etc.) and give them non-alcoholic drinks, they will think and act like they are drunk. The placebo effect in essence.

This would seem to infer that the enjoyment many people gain from drinking is not that it actually lowers their inhibitions but that it allows them to lower their inhibitions. Being in a society can be tiring. We are expected to say certain things and act a certain way. Alcohol is a free pass to be a little loud, be a little rowdy, say some things that we normally couldn't say out loud or do something that we normally wouldn't be allowed to do. It is a social outlet that allows us to relax a little as we can blame any transgressions on being drunk.

Thus a drinking alcohol doesn't necessarily reveal some hidden inner version of someone so much as it frees us to say/do the things we would normally want to without as much fear of retribution. This of course refers to the casual part drinker. There are people who require alcohol as a crutch to function, but that is a different situation entirely.


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

[User]
ELI5: why do things explode in a hydraulic press?

Recently watched the slow mo guys' video where they filmed a deck of cards under a hydraulic press, and I'm really confused as to why even something like a deck of cards explodes?

[Assistant]
Explosions are just the result of pressure building up until an object can no longer contain them.  Think about putting air into a balloon - at some point, it will pop because there's too much pressure.

Everything has a breaking point at which it can no longer handle the stress placed on it.  Frequently, when this breaking point is reached, all the energy stored up in the object is spontaneously released in all directions, causing an explosion.


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

[User] ELI5: why do oil slicks appear rainbow?

[Assistant]
This is due to a phenomenon called "thin-film interference"

The oil layer is extremely thin, on the order of just a few wavelengths of visible light.  As the thickness varies, it moves between exact even and odd multiples of specific wavelengths (colors) of light, preferentially reflecting one specific color and absorbing or transmitting the rest.

This produces the rainbow effect.

Note that it only occurs in very thin films - spill the entire jug of motor oil and it goes away.


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

[User] ELI5: How do glass companies know how to mold an hourglass to have the sand fall precisely?

[Assistant] They don't need to. They mold the hourglass to have sand fall approximately, add sand, wait the hour, dump the extra out and seal the glass. Its WAY easier to calibrate the sand than to calibrate the neck.


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

[User]
Is space the same as distance?

And wouldn't distortions of space likewise distort everything within it to the same degree?

[Assistant]
They are a little different.

* Space is a set of points

* Distance is a relationship between points

In a 100 cm box, you can measure the distance 1 cm in many different places. Are you measuring near the front of the box? Near the back? Or near the center? Distance alone doesn't tell you this.

A distortion (It doesn't have to be as exotic as gravity, just imagine the separation between two dots as you blow up a balloon.) tells you when the relationship between two points in space changes. Essentially, distortion tells you how distance changes.

In relativity, you can't just use euclidean 3D space anymore, but 4D spacetime and thus distance now include the passage of time on clocks as a form of distance.


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

[User] Why do I need to store my eggs in the refrigerator? How come they go bad when they're stored outside of the cold?

[Assistant]
Eggshells are porous. In their original form, they're covered in a waxy cuticle as the last stage of development before emerging from the hen. Incidentially, this is how salmonella gets into eggs - if the hen is infected, the egg will be as well, and the cuticle will seal the bacteria in.

Commercial processed eggs have the cuticle washed away, and replaced with food-grade wax. However, this still isn't a perfect seal, and over time there can be migration of gases across the shell, leading eventually to spoilage of the egg. Cold temperatures help slow this process even further, while room temperatures can degrade the wax coating, hastening the eventual decline.


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

[User]
ELI5: The significance of the gold in Fort Knox.

What would happen if it was stolen/disappeared? Is it ever used for transactions? Is gold ever added/removed to the current amount held in the vault?

[Assistant]
More interesting is the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, which has almost twice as much gold.  Much of it is owned by other nations.

However, it seems impractical for other nations to actually withdraw their gold.  What goes on in a transaction seems to be moving gold bars from one nation's shelf to another nation's shelf.


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

[User]
ELI5: English is spoken all over the world by so many people, but why do we English-speakers seem to not speak any other language fluently but English? Is it only because other countries are forced to learn English in school?

Why do people all over the world speak English so well, but Americans and Englishpeople seem to not speak any other language but English?

[Assistant]
If you don't know English, the marginal benefit for learning English is enormous.  Most of the world's commerce - even between non-English speakers - is conducted in English.  The bulk of the world's entertainment is released in English.  Most scientific and technical documents are written in English.

In contrast, if you already know English, learning a second language has relatively minor benefits.  Almost all the people in non-English nations who an English speaker is likely to deal with - prominent politicians, businesspeople, etc. - already speak English.  Moreover, learning any one of a number of non-English languages only gives you access to a tiny slice of the remainder.  To get the sort of benefit a non-English speaker receives by learning English, an English speaker would need to learn dozens of other languages.


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

[User]
[Marvel] In terms of physical strength, are Hulk, Thor, and Hercules usually at the same tier?

Or am I crazy and its completely different across the board?

[Assistant]
Thor and Hercules are about equal in terms of physical might, though Hercules is better at hand to hand.

Savage Hulk's power starts low (relatively speaking) and doesn't get to their level of strength until he's pretty mad. Stronger Hulks tend to outclass them physically (eg Maestro, World Breaker, Heart of the Monster). I'd say The Professor is around their range.


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

[User]
[Star Wars] Why were the Jedi part of the Republic?

I have recently been watching Attack of the Clones and there is a big focus on how the Jedi are trying to be a peacekeeping force but still fight a war.

How did the Jedi become so intertwined in the Republic when they are meant to be a force for good and peace?

[Assistant] This goes back to the Founding of the Old Republic, from a time shortly after hyperdrive technology was reverse engineered from the remains of the Infinite Empire. One of the first planets to be 'discovered' by Coruscant was Ossus, which had been home to a Jedi Academy. They liked the ideals of the Galactic Republic and pledged themselves to be its defenders, and were key to protecting the Core worlds from outside aggressors for much of its early existence. The rest, as they say, is history.


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

[User]
ELI5: How do clouds keep together?

How do clouds keep together and why do they not diffuse into a kind of sky-fog? Especially smaller clouds, which in my experience seem to start and stop quite abruptly.

[Assistant] Don't think of a cloud as an object, think of it as a region of air where certain conditions (temperature, humidity) are met. If for example temperature decreases as you get higher up, then at some point in that smooth continuum it will get cold enough for water to condense, and then you cross into the cloud region. It doesn't spread downwards unless something is cooling the air downwards.


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

[User]
[40K] Which Space Marine chapter would go along best with which Guard regiment out of combat?

For example, would the Space Wolves fit together well with the Valhallans? They are both from ~~colder climates~~ icy death worlds.

I guess the question would more or less be, which Space Marines are friendliest to normal humans.

[Assistant] Salamanders. They live with their clans at home when not at war. The Chapter Master got into a fistfight with the Chapter Master of the Marines Malevolent when civilians got unnecessarily killed on Armageddon. The Ultramarines also seem to treat civilians well but they're also somewhat aloof towards them.


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

[User]
[SpongeBob] Why didnt Plankton copy down the secret formula when he switched lives with Mr. Krabs?

He had every chance to do so and he never did. Did he just forget? If he decided he didnt want it, why didnt he remember this in the future when he kept trying to steal the formula?

[Assistant]
Plankton does not think things through. In fact he rarely things about what to do once he gets inside the Krusty Krab.

He really doesn't even want the formula deep down. He just wants attention and to mess with Krabs. He's had numerous attempts to get the formula but always does something to lose it.


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

[User]
Do animals avoid incest when mating in the wild?

Moreover, do animals remember or recognize their siblings and then avoid mating with them in the wild?

[Assistant] Yes! Many animals exhibit inbreeding avoidance, consciously or subconsciously. Visual recognition as well as scent / pheramones often play a role in determining kinship. Some animals have a very low risk of inbreeding because they disperse far from where they are born or they are a member of a very large population; these animals tend to have less developed kin recognition!


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

[User]
Rocketship going 51%c shoots out a second rocket ship going 51%c?

 I sometimes help tutor remedial introductory uni-physics, and someone asked this question and it honestly stumped me I couldnt figure out an intuitive way to answer this basic question.

The student asked something like: If you had a rocket ship that was travelling through space at 51% of the speed of light relative to earth and it had a smaller rocket ship on board and it shot off the second spaceship from its docking bay and the smaller rocket ship also accelerated itself to 51% the speed of light relative to the first ship. Wouldnt the smaller rocket ship be travelling at 102% the speed of light relative to earth?

I started talking about frames of reference but honestly, I cant for the life of me figure out an intuitive way of explaining that. Pleas help.

[Assistant]
This is the core of special relativity. Galilean relativity works exactly like your student expects it to, and it's a fine approximation to the world in everyday use, but fails in extreme circumstances.

An intuitive way to think about this is that distance (and therefore any kind of velocity, which is just a distance per time) is not *really* expressed by just spatial dimensions. There's a 4th component, which is the time coordinate, and it acts very differently from the spatial dimensions. Importantly, distance is not:

    ds^2 = dt^2 + dx^2 + dy^2 + dz^2

But instead the time component is *negative*:

    ds^2 = - dt^2 + dx^2 + dy^2 + dz^2

This means that moving between reference frames happens with a different kind of transformation than the ones you're used to, it happens with a **Lorentz transformation**. (A book to read a bit more about this is Feynman's "6 not-so-easy pieces" which explores the new geometry in a reasonably approachable, but not equation free, way.)

That's it, really. Distance (and therefore speed) includes this weird, negative, time component that changes how the measurement is made. Physical distance is *not* conserved when things speed up or slow down. This other, strange-to-our-brains distance **is**.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why did humans develop in Africa when there's so much more water/food in the Northern Hemisphere?

Similarly, I understand why the Yangtze was the home of the asian cradle of civilization, but why the Tigris and Euphrates? Iraq seems really dusty and not as low in civilization costs as say, Turkey.

[Assistant]
Evolution needs some sort of selective pressure.  Let me try to tone it down to ELI5:  If food is plentiful, a species may not evolve.  For example, bison have roamed the great plains of North America for thousands of years, and they have no reason to evolve any further (ignoring the problem of humans hunting them to near extinction).

Here is the key:  Africa was not always this dry.  It used to be more of a paradise for primates.  However, it gradually became drier and drier, and food gradually became harder to find.  This is a perfect scenario for evolution to do its work.  Our ancestors had to work harder and harder to find food over a long period of time.  If you were smarter, you would survive long enough to have children.  If you couldn't figure out how to communicate with others or how to fashion tools for hunting, your genes would die out.  Thus, Africa was the perfect place for humans to evolve.

Once we were smart enough to live in Africa, we were smart enough to figure out how to leave Africa and find the bountiful paradises that awaited us.


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

[User]
Alcohol (ethanol) is such a simple molecule with no chiral centers. So how does such a simple molecule give such specific effects in the body and brain?

I know it is thought to affect GABA in the brain but with how simple of a molecule it is I would expect it to affect a wide range of neurons and neurotransmitters. What is the deal scientists?

[Assistant]
It's not really that strange that simple molecules can have adverse effects on our body. Another example is Nitric oxide, NO, which is far simpler yet it's still used as a neurotransmitter in many parts of the body.

Now, GABA receptors in the brain have what are called allosteric binding sites, which are binding sites for effector molecules to regulate the protein's activity. Ethanol is just one of the molecules which can bind to these sites. Other examples are anesthetics, steroids and other psychoactive drugs. Exactly how this works is a whole deal more complicated, however.


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

[User] Why does Grapefruit have an adverse reaction with many medicines / drugs?

[Assistant] One of the major metabolizing enzymes of the liver is cytochrome P450. Grapefruit juice contains a compound called Furanocoumarins. This compound inhibits cytochrome p450. When Cyp450 is inhibited the bioavailability of drugs that are typically processed by that enzyme dramatically increase. This can be very dangerous if the level of drug now reaches toxic concentrations.


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

[User] ELI5: why dont chimpanzees and other primates have buttcheeks like humans, but instead protruding buttholes?

[Assistant]
They do not walk upright on two legs, or at least do not do so often enough to develop glutes.

The entire reason that we have butcheeks is that they are our glute muscles that allow us to control balance and power our walking and running on two legs.


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

[User]
Is a recession really coming and how bad is it going to be?

I keep hearing more and more about it daily. There are so many things that are going wrong and I try to tell myself not to be a doomer and look on the bright side, but Im not a professional Economist and barely know a few concepts of Macroeconomics. Is a recession really coming? How scared should I be? What steps should I take to safeguard my family etc.

[Assistant]
Economics is better at explaining what happened than it is at forecasting the certainty, timing or magnitude of recessions.

Economists can identify risk factors, like the fact that rising interest rates will increase borrowing costs, which can cause a recession. But there are PhDs and senior analysts at multi-billion dollar hedge funds that have completely different predictions based on the exact same data.

As far as protecting your family goes, it depends on your financial and job situation. Some jobs are more vulnerable to layoffs than others, different families have different savings levels and expenses. If you and your spouse are both surgeons, a recession probably wont hurt you much. If youre both mortgage brokers it could hurt a lot if that market takes / is taking a dive, so you might want to look for more recession-resistant jobs.

In general, you can do better financially if you live within your means, avoid frivolous debts and wasteful expenses, and look for ways to increase your income such as upgrading your job skills / transition to a better-paying job or career path.


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

[User]
Why is everybody watching resale value of the car and not driving it until it falls apart?

Why is everyone obsessed with resell value of their new car?

Why is everyone buying new cars just to sell them after 3 or 5 years?

Why is everyone buying car using credit/loans when you know it depreciates in value.

When I buy car, I buy it for its lifetime until it rust and it literally falls apart.
Why dont people resell their washing machines or refridgerators?

[Assistant]
1-newer cars get better gas mileage

2-newer cars require less maintenance than old cars (cars don't nickel and dime you, they result many times in thousands of dollars of repairs when things start breaking down)

3-Older cars are not as safe as newer ones

4- Auto loans for 2% or less interest loans can be a decent bargain for many people (if that is what they prefer to do)


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

[User]
What are the practical differences between washing your hands and using hand sanatizer?

Please let me know if I should change the flair. Thanks!

[Assistant] Hand sanitizer does not kill everything that can harm you. for example C-difficile spores just get smeared around in hand sanitizer yet remain capable of causing infection. Hand washing actually removes and rinses bacteria and viruses away from the hands.


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

[User] [Matrix] Why is the matrix called the matrix? It is related to the mathematical object?

[Assistant] Matrix literally means _breeding mother_ (in Latin), and later (in Old English?) came to signify any metaphorical, allegorical or physical gestation environment. Its use in mathematics (and by extension AI) as well makes it a fairly perfect title, given the film's plot.


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

[User]
Toxic working environment in academia. What was your worst experience ?

Mine is working with the PI of my lab (but I am leaving in 2 weeks !). She has NPD (Narcissistic Personality Disorder) : manipulative, no respect for boundaries of collaborators, constantly passive agressive, and grandiosity. She said that she is always 10 years ahead of everybody and that I can not understand. Also she said that she is thinking so fast that she already dismissed every alternatives to what she proposes to do in the different projects.

[Assistant] I TAd for a prof who tried on multiple occasions to get me drunk. A few months later he raped a first year PhD student at a department retreat and the university swept it under the rug and pulled strings to get him a sweet gig so they could get rid of him without hurting his hot shot career.


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

[User]
Difference between exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis

I tried doing research/ readings but I'm still pretty confused. Any explanation would be very helpful.

[Assistant]
Hello!

An EFA is for finding the factor structure of a set of items. A CFA is for confirming that factor structure.

So let's say you developed a new measure of say...depression.

You get like 500 people to take the measure and conduct an EFA on their responses. You learn that there are apparently 3 factors underlying the data, so you then review the text of the items to see what the common theme among each factor is - let's say sadness, lethargy, and ideation for argument sake. This process will also tell you which items are not good and should be culled from the measure.

Then, you would collect ANOTHER sample of about the same size using the items that fit well from your EFA except this time you impose the factor structure you found from the EFA onto the data instead of telling the software to "find" the best factor structure. With CFA you are asking it to tell you how well the factor structure from your EFA fits the data from your new sample. If it fits it well you would say you have "Confirmed" the factor structure, thus CFA.

Hope that helps!


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

[User] ELI5: So what powers does the Queen of England actually have? Does she really have authority to do anything?

[Assistant]
The Queen holds the power to deny assent. This is the equivalent of the POTUS veto power. She has only ever used it at the request of the Prime Minister, but she does technically have the power to use it on her own.

The Queen also technically has the power to force a new election of Parliament if she feels it is corrupted. This power was used in the 1970s in Australia to force a re-election by her proxy in Australia. This power has also been heavily limited in laws passed in 2011 by Parliament.

The Queen is the Commander in Chief of all her armed forces. So the UK military and every military division held by the Commonwealth nations that has "Royal" in the title are under her command. She has never (or at least  rarely) ever issued a direct command and instead relies on Generals that act as her proxy but she has the power to command the troop in the same way that the POTUS has the power to command US troops. And like the US she cannot declare war, that is done by Parliament for the UK like it is with Congress for the US.

She and Royal family also act as the top level ambassadors, and approve the appointment of all ambassadors. This is a function like what the US President does.


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

[User]
[Marvel Comics] Which non-X-Men characters have fought Apocalypse?

I know Hulk has been a Horseman, but what have been other interactions between Apocalypse and other Marvel heroes (or villains) outside the X-Men purview?

[Assistant]
He has fought Inhumans, including Black Bolt.

He has fought The Avengers.

He has been targeted by Sentinals.

He has fought Dracula.

He has fought both a clone of himself and an AI "apocalypse bot"

He has fought Kang.

He has fought the High Evolutionary

He has fought at least one Celestial.


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

[User] ELI5: how do bugs eyes work.specifically flies and dragonflies. Like what do they actually see and how does it work?

[Assistant]
They have "compound eyes." Their eyes are made up of thousands of tiny lenses. The simplest way to explain how they see is each lens is a tiny portion of a larger picture sort of how many pixels make up an image on a screen. This way the insect has a very wide range of vision.

The downside to insect compound eyes is that they can't control how much light enters their eyes, humans have pupils that can control how much light to let in. That means insects are extremely near-sighted. On average, they can only see a few yards away.

The upside to compound eyes is that it's extremely good for differentiating movement. They can react to movement much more quickly.


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

[User]
ELI5: why do movies and shows simulate phone/computer screens with poor quality apps rather than use the real thing?

Is it a copyright issue, or?

[Assistant]
I shoot movies for a living and have shot countless phone and computer screens.

Usually the screen is shot blank and the interface is placed in digitally for several reasons. For one, screens usually don't photograph well. Either they are too bright or too dim or they flicker or the color temperature isn't right. Two, it can be a pain in the ass to get the timing just right for the action. Try texting an actor on set or call a phone and have it ring at exactly the right moment. It rarely works perfectly and ends up wasting a lot of time. Three, the distributor will want to change the language to whatever market they sold it to. So if they sell it to Germany they often want a version with a German language on screen.

So if we are going to digitally add a screen we need a designer to make one. If we are making one we might as well make it clear and easy to read. Why bother with distracting logos? The shots are usually a second or two long. You gotta be able to read it fast. Real interfaces often don't get the message across fast enough.


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

[User] [Superman] In the late 1990s, Superman lost his powers and had them replaced with electrical powers, and no powers as Clark Kent. The later he was split into Superman Red and Superman Blue, then went back to normal. Can someone explain how this happened?

[Assistant]
Superman was deprived of absorbing yellow solar energy, which basically rendered him powerless. But because he had been absorbing energy for so long a time, his body tried to compensate by absorbing other ambient energy. This was unpredictable and very unstable, so he needed to wear a containment suit to keep it from erupting out of him.

During this period, he learned to 'turn these powers off' to become Clark. This was bad for him, because he discovered he could be hurt (by stubbing his toe).

So, while in this incarnation, Cyborg Superman (who is weirder than this whole story by the way) and Toymaker tried to set a trap for Superman. Because of his volatile state, the trap ended up splitting Superman into two separate entities.

Eventually, enough energy was dispersed between the two Supermen that they ended up merging into one, and regaining his normal Kryptonian biology and began to absorb the solar radiation again.


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

[User]
If I am to the point where I am happily intoxicated will drinking one beer an hour keep me there?

I have heard that your body is able to "get rid of" about a beer an hour or something like that. So I was just wondering if I was at a comfortable stage of drunkenness, if i could just drink a beer an hour and create sort of a plateau effect.                                            Edit: may not belong in ask science but i feel that i have the mental capacity to understand the scientific side of this.                                                                                Edit 2: Didn't really edit anything but I did just sort of realize that i could have went to askreddit instead of askscience, so my bad.

[Assistant]
The body eliminates alcohol in what's called pseudo-zero order kinetics - meaning basically the elimination rate is constant, regardless of alcohol level. While elimination rates differ from person to person - and this depends on body mass, fat content, sex, race, and tolerance - a crude approximation is one standard drink per hour. This translates to roughly one bottle of beer, one glass of wine, or one shot.

Therefore, yes you can _sort of_ maintain the level of intoxication by drinking one beer an hour.


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

[User] [LotR] Mirkwood became a forest to be feared because of the Necromancer of Dol Guldur (i.e. Sauron). Did his presence turn the Ents of the forest evil as well?

[Assistant]
The Ents were part of Fanghorn forest, not Mirkwood. There doesn't seem to be any indication that Sauron had an interest in Fanghorn or influence upon it. Fanghorn was not "evil" just "protective" of itself as a result of the Ents.

As an aside, it was rumored that Trolls were corruption of Ents in the same vein as Orcs being a corruption of Elves.


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

[User]
[X-Men Origins: Wolverine] How did Deadpool manage to fit swords the length of his arms within his arms and still bend his arms?

Title says it all.  Stryker put adamantium swords in Deadpool's arms - they come out just before the fight with Logan and go almost all the way to his feet.  There is no way he should be able to do anything at all with his arms (think eat/drink/wipe/etc.) without kicking those swords out, so what's up?

BONUS QUESTION:  Does he keep the swords like this forever or do they come off?  If yes, please tell the story how.  Thanks.

[Assistant]
"Deadpool", who is just asking for a trademark infringement suit if you ask me, has teleportation powers. When he stows his blades, he clearly just shuffles them off into whatever hellish dimension he enters when teleporting.

This abominable creature was more or less destroyed at the end of his battle with Logan, and it's best to never speak of him again. That's why, at the end of the battle, his mouthless head whispered "shhhh!"


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

[User] ELI5: Why do most restaurants sell Pepsi instead of Coke, and yet Coke is seen to be a bigger competitor?

[Assistant]
Coke sells way more soda by volume than Pepsi. As a response, Pepsi offers its products to restaurants at a reduced cost, which is why many restaurants carry it. But only up to midscale places -- no nice restaurant serves Pepsi, because Coke has more cacht, and also you need it for mixed drinks.

Note also that McDonald's, the single biggest restaurant chain in the world, serves Coke.


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

[User]
If cracking our knuckles are air bubbles escaping the joints, then where does that air come from and where does it go?

Are we just constantly popping the same air bubbles in our fingers, or is the air coming from reactions within our body? I have nowhere to start on this question and pondering it is grossing me out so a concrete answer would be nice!

[Assistant]
Synovial fluid is your joint lubricant, it contains some gases, nitrogen, oxygen, carbon dioxide mainly. When you crack a joint you are releasing the gas from the liquid, making the noise. The gas will form bubbles that will eventually be reabsorbed and the you can crack that joint again.

Also cotton eyed Joe.


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

[User]
[venom] what's the difference between symbiote colours?

In the newest venom 2 trailer venom says something along the lines of "shit it's a red one", that got me wondering, is the symbiote hierarchy based on colour? And if so how come a symbiote made from venom is more powerful than him?

[Assistant] Because Carnage (the symbiote) literally bonded/attached itself into Cletus bloodstream. In the comics Carnage did this by going in through a cut on Cletus hand, however the origin may be different in the film.


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

[User]
Let's talk about WALL-E's world

So as a citizen of New Earth, I've been assigned to write a report on the missing history of the planet while our forefathers were in space aboard the Axiom and other ships. I know there isn't much for data on this time period, other than the recordings of a few service bots.

Around the year 2100, the Old Earth is declared uninhabitable by BNL and those with the means exit the planet, leaving the WALL-E class robots to clean up the mess. We know that shortly after that (c.a. 2110 ) BNL CEO Shelby Forthright declares the project failed, and orders indefinite hold for all Axiom-class ships.

This is my first big question point. We know that BNL was not concerned with building robust, non-disposable products. So what I believe happened was that most WALL-E units failed, pretty much as designed. The remaining WALL-E that we have with us now was a combination of manufacturing and coding errors that allowed him (if I may anthropomorphize it) to survive until 2805 when the EVE unit discovers the plant. Furthermore, I believe that the original plan by BNL was to get everyone who could afford it onto an Axiom-class ship, and the "cleanup the Earth" project was a simple a ruse. Otherwise, why would you have simple trash compacting robots, when any number of other technologies would have been more effective (up to and including launching all the trash into the Sun.)

Despite all of that, this one WALL-E unit continued to function well beyond his designed lifetime. But the evidence from his cameras shows many things were still wrong with the Earth when EVE landed. We have evidence of massive duststorms, yet all the tracks of the WALL-E units are still visible. Even the glass doors on the BNL ultra-store are still intact. And he can be seen next to large piles of what were called "tires", which should start decomposing after a few decades, if not centuries. So something seems to have prevented the aging of most of the man-made objects on Earth.

Despite all the evidence against BNL, they continued the charade by sending the EVE probes to check for plantlife. But they do it by sending a small robot to scan items individually? Rather than scan for decreasing CO2 levels, temperature changes, precipitation changes, those sorts of signs, they scan for existence of individual plants. Eventually, a probe *does* pick up a plant and bring it all the way back, only to be intercepted by the autopilot via order A113.

So what was BNL's endgame? Assuming anyone onboard the ship had to sell their all their possessions to get onboard, no one had any reason to go back. However, by waiting as long as they did, in the state they did, no one who returned had any knowledge of basic construction, manufacturing, medicine, or any other crucial life skills. Who would fill that gap? BNL. Except that, again, in their incompetence, the ship's computer had gained enough knowledge to direct the people and retask the helper bots to get civilization back off the ground, without BNL's assistance.

Once we get more technologically advanced, there's already talk of going and looking for BNL's bunker, probably on the moon, to see what happened to BNL. My guess is shoddy manufacturing wiped out the lot of them.

[Assistant]
Regarding why the trash didn't break down:  What causes decay?  With the absence of microorganisms, the primary driver is simple oxidation.  Oxidation rate is driven by the concentration of oxygen in the environment, and energy.  Energy, in this case, is usually provided by ultraviolet radiation from the Sun.

There was little oxidation of the tires because the oxygen concentration of the atmosphere was depleted.  Most of it had been reacted into Carbon Dioxide long ago.  At the same time, the ultraviolet radiation that would facilitate oxidation of metals and organic matter is being being absorbed by the CO2, or deflected by airborne particulate matter before reaching the ground.

Essentially, the earth was going through a kind of prolonged nuclear winter.  The surface of the Earth was cool, due to the shielding effect of the high altitude particulate matter.  The atmosphere itself was quite hot, due to the radiation absorbing effects of greenhouse gasses like H2O, CO2, and CH4.  With the air hot, it picked up lots of water from the oceans, and only precipitates near the poles, building up massive ice caps, and glaciers, while depleting the lower latitudes of liquid water.

With little water, oxygen, or heat, to drive the decomposition, plastics will last effectively forever.  The dust storms are mostly high altitude.  Wind speed near the surface is low compared to higher altitude.

Most of the Waste Allocation Load Lifter units were designed for constant operation.  At the time they were deployed, they were able to collect enough solar energy through the day to fuel 24 hour operation.  When the environment really began to degrade (just after the wealthiest humans had abandoned the planet), the WALL units began to fail from lack of energy.  Later models had gotten a software patch that allowed them to shut down during periods of prolonged low energy.  Those are the ones that lay scattered around the planet.  They didn't fail, they are simply in energy conservation mode.  The problem is that energy conservation mode ranks self-maintenance as low priority, so many eventually failed from neglect.

One point that you should be aware of.  BNL's leadership did not abandon the planet for a moon bunker as you propose.  Like most wealthy industrialists, they went "Galt", and buried themselves in deep subterranean vaults.  Their descendants are still here, living harsh but fair objectivist lives.  From there, they stand eternal vigil, fighting an unending war against the endless communist hordes that threaten to tax them into oblivion.


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

[User]
ELI5: why does petrol in america only contain 87 octane where as in england it contains minimum 95? (where i live)

At my local stations the lowest petrol octane rating is 95. Then ever I see a post about petrol in America, it's always below 90?

[Assistant]
The octane rating of a fuel measures how much compression the fuel can withstand before igniting. Higher octane ratings (and therefore more compressible fuel) are used in high performance engines that need to compress the fuel before igniting it.

There are a couple different ways to measure the octane rating. One method yields the Research Octane Number (RON), which is determined in the lab under pretty ideal conditions. Another rating is the Motor Octane Number (MON) which is determined under less ideal conditions (higher RPM motor, preheated fuel mixture, etc.). The MON is usually about 10 octane less than the RON.

In the US gas stations have to advertise the average of the RON and MON. This is called the (R+M)/2 method. In the UK petrol stations can advertise just the RON. This is why the numbers are higher in the UK.


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

[User]
[DC] What does Lex Luthor think of Bruce Wayne?

Its said in multiple continuities that Wayne Enterprises is a major competitor of Lexcorp, however Bruce's playboy persona would keep most people from giving him any credit.

Does Lex fall for the act like most other people or does he know or suspect Bruce is highly intelligent?

[Assistant]
In one comic, Lex while monologuing to himself says he likes Bruce.

And part of the reason why is because he can tell Bruce doesn't want to be friends and goes out of his way to seem annoying which *makes* Lex want to be friends with him.

Also, he goes almost full page wondering if he could fill whatever hole Bruce has in his life. So yeah...


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

[User] [Invader Zim] How old is Zim? Is he a child, or an adult posing as one?

[Assistant] Tak mentions that she's seeking revenge against Zim for events that happened 50 years ago (during Operation Impending Doom 1, IIRC). Idk if those are earth years or not, but they just say years. And Zim was a full invader rank back then. So I'd say he's an adult by now unless Irkens live for millenia.


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

[User]
[Harry Potter] Why wasn't Dumbledore able to detect Lockhart as a fraud?

Even if he wasn't using legilimency, Lockhart's various faux pas should have alerted Dumbledore that something was up.

[Assistant]
Oh, Dumbledore knew; he was personally aware of the events behind one of Lockart's "Heroics" because the actual person who resolved the crisis was a very dear friend of his and had told him the story before Lockhart made him forget.

Dumbledore also knew - like most people in Wizarding Britain - that the position of Defence Against the Dark Arts Professor was cursed which, due to how narcissistic and bone-headed he was, Lockhart *wasn't* aware of. So by playing to his ego, Dumbledore just sat back and watched as Lockhart's life imploded around him.


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

[User]
CMV: socialised, single-payer healthcare does in fact make the lifestyle/health choices of others "your business"

A common argument raised to people who take issue with the health choices of others is my body, my choice.

However I think the nature of single-payer universal healthcare pretty much renders this argument redundant, and is dysfunctional outside of the US oir any other country with private healthcare. This is because the use of tax money for healthcare while claiming the contributors of that tax money would literally constitute taxation without representation.

As an example, if a room of 10 people gave 10 towards a healthcare pot and one person was overeating (and thus would likely need a 50 bypass surgery) their choices are impacting the resources that everyone paid in. It would therefore be hypocritical to try and use other peoples money for your benefit but deny them any say in how their resources are used.

Public contribution to healthcare means that the use of that healthcare pot is public business. Therefore, when ones lifestyle choices are likely to result in withdrawal from that pot, the lifestyle/health choices of an individual are indeed everyones business.

Sidenote: Im actually totally pro-universal healthcare, I just think the invocation of my body, my choice when your choice is being paid for by others is used in a pretty lazy fashion and is incompatible with the political implications of publicly funding your healthcare system.

[Assistant]
For healthcare this argument simply doesn't make sense. Either you have insurance, which is the exact same principle, or people end up not being able to pay. In that case the hospitals write some of it off, or it gets funded by the government, and prices or taxes increase to cover it.

No matter what, you are paying into someone else's healthcare.


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

[User] ELI5: Why do so many drugs cause suicidal thoughts?

[Assistant]
Most anti-depressants (and similar drugs, like sleep aids) work like this: they make you motivated to do things. Whereas before you didn't feel like getting out of bed, now your brain is stimualted enough to want to get out of bed. Before you didn't want to fix dinner, but now the drugs are telling your brain to be really, really excited about cooking dinner.

Unfortunately, these types of drugs encourage you to be motivated to do *everything*--including, uh, suicide. So the same drugs that are motivating you get get up, go to work, and interacting with people is also motivating you to commit suicide.


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

[User]
ELI5: If you only had one gallon of gas left in your car, what would be the best way to get the furthest distance?

Say you are on the highway and notice you have only one gallon left in your tank and you don't know where the nearest station is. Assuming that time is not an issue and there are no other cars on the road and the road is perfectly flat, how could you get the most distance from that one gallon of gas? Would it be best to coast for a while, then accelerate back up to speed before coasting again and repeating, or would the extra energy of accelerating cancel out the benefit of coasting? Would just maintaining a constant speed be best? Or is there another method that would be better?

[Assistant]
Your car will have an optimal speed for traveling the greatest distance per unit of gas, you would do your best to maintain as close to that speed as possible until you were out of gas.

The manufactures know this speed, through internal testing and math, but its pretty irrelevant to a consumer so there is no need to tell you it. It's likely between 40-60mph, again depending on the car and circumstances

Edit: One cool thing to add on.  Planes actually *know* the speed they need to do this type of activity, its a core part of flying (there are a few different ones with planes since you are dealing with more dimensions) and its used pretty regularly in flight planning.


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

[User] Rockefeller was, when adjusted for inflation, 3x as rich as Bezos. Does that imply that claims of rising inequality are false?

[Assistant]
A single data point does not make a trend.

Rockefeller being rich or not alone doesn't tell us anything about the Gini coefficient, or differences between the top earners and lowest quintile, or any other metric really.


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

[User] ELI5: Why do we send millions of dollars of aid to Saudi Arabia, one of the wealthiest countries in the world?

[Assistant]
The US provides about $1.5 million in the form of International Military Education and Training (IMET), which is joint military training in order to advance our common interests in bilateral security operations. Basically it is training Saudi military officers to work with US military forces in the event that is required.

This is pays off in other ways such as the Saudis purchase things like $30 billion worth of F-15 fighter jets.


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

[User] ELI5: Why do older emulated games still occasionally slow down when rendering too many sprites, even though it's running on hardware thousands of times faster than what it was programmed on originally?

[Assistant]
A lot of old games are hard-coded to expect a certain processor speed.  The old console had so many updates per second and the software is using that timer to control the speed of the game.

When that software is emulated that causes a problem - modern processors are a hundred times faster and will update (and play) the game 100x faster.

So the emulation community has two options:

1) completely redo the game code to accept any random update rate from a lightning-fast modern CPU

Or

2) artificiality limit the core emulation software to the original update speed of the console

Usually they go with option 2, which preserves the original code but also "preserves" any slowdowns or oddities caused by the limited resources of the original hardware.


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

[User] ELI5: Why haven't we made ski boots that don't hurt yet?

[Assistant]
Normal shoes will adapt to your feet after a while. Ski boots shouldn't adapt, they should brace your foot.

You can get the inner shoe shaped to fit your foot. it costs like $300-500.

But a far cheaper thing that people don't know about is that you can take your boot to a (good) ski shop and they can stretch your off-the-shelf boot where it hurts your foot. About half an inch or so.  It's usually like $30-80. It works out great for many people.

Edit: but they ski boots are not as bad as they used to be, right?


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

[User]
How do scientists know an animal can see colors we humans can't? (And vice versa)

Yesterday I read a comment that said that shrimps can see colors humans can't see, don't know if it's true, but I wondered how they can know that, I mean, they can't see the color. And also there's the belief that dogs see in black and white.

Sorry if I'm saying bull crap :)

[Assistant] The number of colours we can see depend on the number of color-specific receptors we have in our retinae (cells called cones in animals). Humans have blue, green, and red detecting cones. The mantis shrimp you are referencing are known to have receptors for several more distinct colours, each with a characterized absorption spectrum (how sensitive each is to different wavelengths of light). So we can know how many different colours they can pull out of light, despite never being able to understand what those colours may look like.


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

[User]
ELI5 what happens when you knead bread dough

I understand that it strengthens the dough, but how does this happen? How much kneading is "too much," and what happens to the dough at this point?

[Assistant]
By kneading together your dough, you're making gliadin and glutelin combine into gluten.  Gluten is elastic and springy.  It's this elastic property that allows the dough to catch the gasses produced by the yeast/baking powder/baking soda/leavening, blowing bubbles.

If you overknead the dough, the gluten gets too strong and the leavening can't raise the bread, so it just gets hard and dense.


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

[User]
Eli5: Why the birds are not singing when it is raining?

The title says it.

[Assistant]
Birds sing for several reasons. 1) To attract a mate. 2) To warn of danger. 3) To communicate food sources. 4) To claim territory.

Birds tend to take shelter during the rain and avoid flying as it becomes dangerous. This means they are not going to actively be seeking food, seeking a mate, or defending territory during a rain storm. They may warn of predators but predators are also taking shelter from the rain so rarely hunting them. As such there is no drive for them to waste energy singing when there is no use for it.


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

[User]
[Lord of the Rings] Why did Gollum move to his cave?

If the ring compelled him to go there,  why would it pick an isolated cave, rather than somewhere like a dark forest where Sauron's forces could be more likely to find it?

[Assistant] Because Sauron himself was not capable of retaking his ring. The ring compelled Golum down into the cave to hide the ring until its master could return. When the ring felt the return of Sauron it took the first escape it could find, Bilbo.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why does the FM radio signal get better by moving one foot forward?

Driving a Camry with a broken antenna (snapped in half). Listening to music, and the audio quality goes in and out. If I'm stopped somewhere, it might be fuzzy, but if I move up a foot, the quality gets perfect. If I move up one more foot, it gets fuzzy again. If I move up one foot again, the quality gets clear again. Is the signal from the radio tower that pointed?

[Assistant] This is called Multipath Fading.  Radio waves are traveling all around you and bounce off things.  The waves are a complex version of a sine wave.  Because the waves bounce off things before they get to you (reflections) as well as getting to you directly, many waves of the same frequency will arrive at your antenna at the same time.  Because they've taken different paths to get to you, they arrive at different places in the wave.  Think of the wave as values between -10 and +10, gently rising and falling in a regular wave between those values.  Because of these reflections, some waves are arriving "sooner" than others, meaning at a point in time you'll have a combination of all different values -- -10, -2.234 -1, 0, +1, 5.34, etc.  If, due to these waves combining at your antenna, they sum up to zero (or close to zero), you'll lose your signal.  Moving a few feet changes the path that all the waves took to get to you, so the sum of all the values will no longer be zero and you'll get your jamz.


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

[User] ELI5: why does the Big Bang mark the beginning of time and space? How can nothing exist before that?

[Assistant]
The big bang is where physics, as we understand it, breaks down. Before that, the laws of physics we know cannot be used to describe anything, don't work and don't even make sense.

So we literally have no way of knowing what, if anything, was before the Big Bang.

All we know is that there was a 'hot, dense state'. It's called that because that is about as descriptive as we can get, seeing as how the current laws of physics don't work for describing anything back then.

We don't know how big it was, how long it was there etc. because for all intents and purposes, time and space did not exist - there was no cause and effect, no way of telling distance or size because everything looked the same. Imagine yourself in a huge space with no light at all. You can't feel anything, you can't see anything.

Can you tell how big it is? No because you can't see any edges.

Could you tell if you were moving through it? No because it all looks the same and there's nothing to gauge travel by.

Could you tell if you suddenly jumped 500 years into the future there? Or 500 years into the past? No because there is absolutely nothing to distinguish your positon or time in that space from any other.

So by any definition that counts - time and space don't exist there.


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

[User] ELI5: Why are mobile phones processors weaker than desktop processors even though on the spec sheet they look the same? (e.g. Snapdragon 801 vs. Intel Core i5-3210M)

[Assistant]
Phone processors have a smaller instruction set, meaning it takes them longer to complete the same task even though they are running at the same clock speed.

Cache sizes are also smaller, when the cache runs out it will be slowed down by the slower access times of memory vs the very fast access time the cache has.


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

[User] ELI5: If Nipon is Japanese for Japan, and Deutschland is German for Germany, where do we get the words "Germany" and "Japan" from?

[Assistant]
Germany comes from Latin. Germania is what the Romans called Germany. As a curiosity, the word "germanus", which means kin, evolved into Spanish's "hermano" (brother).

Japan comes from Mandarin - somewhat. (**EDIT**: There is debate in the comments. Read the comments!)  European traders heard what the Chinese said to refer to that country and kinda wrote it down as they heard it. Again as a curiosity, the old Spanish name for Japan is "Cipango" - here you can see the evolutionary origin of the word.


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

[User]
[Star Wars] I have ADD and naturally horrible reflexes and coordination but I'm strong with the force. What would the Jedi council want with me?

Or the sith?  Or anyone else interested in indoctrinating force users?

[Assistant]
The Jedi training focuses heavily on meditation, mindfulness and self-control. You might have natural disadvantages but those flaws are not unfixable especially with the sort of discipline the Order teaches all it's students.

Reflexes and coordination could be improved with practice and control over the mind and body. Same with ADD, it seems to me that their emphasis on meditation and self-control could do a world of good.


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

[User] ELI5: Why is it natural instinct to grunt or make noise when doing heavy lifting/exerting force, and does it actually do anything?

[Assistant] When you lift something heavy, your instinct is to hold your breath and tense all the muscles in your core.  That stabilizes your body and spine.  By holding your breath, your chest becomes more rigid.  When you hold your breath and some leaks out, that's a grunt.


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

[User]
[Fairly OddParents] Could Timmy Turner wish for illegal stuff if he wanted to?

If Timmy asked for drugs or a weapon that he didnt have a license for, could he get it? Since those things unlikely are in Fairy World, could it not break Da Rules?

[Assistant]
In "Nectar of the Odds", Timmy attempted to wish for tickets to see Crash Nebula (on Ice), but because they were sold out that would have meant taking tickets from someone else.

When he asked if he could wish more tickets into existance, Cosmo replied "That would violate the fire code".


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

[User]
[Harry Potter] What did students from other wizarding schools think of Hogwarts?

I mean they must always be hearing about the bad stuff happening in the news. Or are other schools going through the similar situations?

[Assistant]
The Beauxbatons students think of it as a school of uncultured Englishmen (they retain the pre-revolutionary and Napoleonic contempt of Britain in general as a nation of shopkeepers, while they are aristocrats).  The inability of Britain to deal with its Dark Wizard problem made French wizards more leery of Hogwarts during the Second War--the fact that a full 25% of the school's population supported Voldemort wholeheartedly has contributed to a "British wizards are lower-class skinheads" mentality in France.

Durmstrang, for its part, has a similar contempt--the customary eastern European rolling of eyes at the Decadent West.  The refusal of Dumbledore to teach the Dark Arts contributes to the idea of Hogwarts students as, generally, weaklings (those who were in Britain for the Triwizard Tournament probably moderated their views, wrt. Diggory and Potter anyway, but they aren't the majority of the school).  The refusal of the British ministry to do anything about Voldemort for a year will probably lead to Durmstrang students viewing all British wizards as idiots, at best--Durmstrang students are often closely emotionally tied to the victims of Grindelwald's reign of terror, and so talk of "Dark Lords" is met with a swift crack-down.  While the Dark Arts are taught, public use of Grindelwald's Mark is in eastern Europe punishable by a sentence in a specially-warded Gulag.

OOC: These are based on extrapolation of muggle trends to the Wizarding world.


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

[User]
[DC] I recently got a job at the Daily Planet and I'm really fed up with my coworkers. Advice?

I know the Daily Planet has the long and storied reputation as being a great paper, but now that I'm here I can't help but feel their professional standards are lacking.

I mean, first there's "award winning" Lois Lane and let me tell you, I'd rather cover a warzone than spend 5 minutes with her. She doesn't seem to realize she's only praised for her fluff pieces on Superman. I mean, she just stumbles into situations where Superman is bound to show up.

Then there's this big doofus from Smallville who's the most unprofessional person I've worked with. He's constantly late for deadlines, disappears from the office at random times of the day, and every time there's a crisis that needs to be covered, he's nowhere to be found. I think the only reason he hasn't been fired is because everyone feels sorry for him.

Is there any way to tactfully address this with my boss? I know this job is huge for my career but I'm starting to think this place is overrated.

[Assistant]
That doofes from Smallville has the 2nd best Nose for News in this town, and that is only because Ms. Lane lives here. Not only can Kent dig through piles of documents to find the critical hidden information like no one else, he also has an amazing feel for the every-man and the victims of those big events when he goes in afterwards.

Do you think those awards on his desk are from high school football?


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

[User]
ELI5: How can food be considered 100% but there are other ingredients?

For example, ReaLemon lemon juice says 100% lemon juice on the front, but on the back the first ingredient is water? Followed by lemon juice and preservatives.

[Assistant] There is a big difference between made of and made with. If something says made with 100% lemon juice, that just means 100% lemon juice is one of the ingredients. If its made of 100% lemon juice, it had better be lemon juice.


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

[User] [The Purge] How much Purge tourism is there from other countries during the annual Purge night?

[Assistant]
No idea, and they provide no info on it.

2 things, however:

1) You may have stumbled on a great idea for a third movie,

2) However, the Purge laws presumably apply only to citizens. Just like a tourist can't just drop by and pick up employment benefits or Obamacare, it's likely tourists can't murder people in the U.S. and get away with it (if caught, which is probably impossible).

So anyway, that should be the third movie anyway. Tourists come to America just to experience the feeling of murdering people. Would be fun if a group of Americans was trying to murder another group of Americans, but then they see a group of tourists trying to participate in the Purge, and they end up teaming up to try to eliminate the tourists for taking advantage of an American Purge "privilege." Would be pseudo-social commentary on immigration.


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

[User]
[Star Wars] Why didn't Yoda want to train Luke?

Was he holding out hope that some other younger Force-sensitive child would randomly show up on his slimy mudhole of a world in the last couple years of his life?

[Assistant] Yoda was testing Luke the whole time, the test didn't end when he stopped using the goofy voice.  He knows the danger of just creating another Vader so wants to make sure Luke isn't going to fail.  Its more dangerous to have 2 dark Jedi then one.


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

[User] ELI5: Why do glasses get so sticky when I stack them while they are still wet?

[Assistant] Worked in a bar for years. The reason why they stick is because the glasses are warm and wet. When they cool down, the trapped air in between the glasses cools and condenses. Normally, the space glasses might let in some air, but because of the water that forms a seal, no pressure is relieved. Effectively you've formed a region of much lower pressure which you'll have work against to relieve.


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

[User] ELI5: In a big city like Chicago how are the drainage and sewer systems maintained during winters, when temperatures drop to like -20 and everything just freezes instantly?

[Assistant]
There's this thing known as a "frost line". It's the depth that the ground will freeze to, given a prolonged temperature.

Cities know how cold it can get, and bury their sewage lines well below the frost line. This ensures that they don't freeze, even in extremely cold winters.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why do we wake up before we die in a dream?

Or land when we fall, I guess.

EDIT: Guys, I am loving all the answers. Yes, I understand that its not always the case that we wake up, but I really appreciate all your explanations.

[Assistant] The most likely reason you wake up before dying in a dream is not because the dream will be over, but because you are so afraid, that it triggers an adrenaline rush. Your senses are heightened and you need to be awake to fend off whatever is about to kill you in your dream. Basically your mind tricks your body.


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

[User]
[The Force Awakens] Where was Stormtrooper JB-007's buddy?

Every other scene always shows *two* Stormtroopers together.  Why was JB-007 left to guard a valuable prisoner all on his own?

Snoke himself was interested in her, which probably made her *the* most important prisoner the First Order was holding at the time.

[Assistant]
He was guarding a lone prisoner, in the middle of a First Order Star Destroyer, in a room with only one entrance and exit, and his prisoner was restrained on a table.

Princess Leia was also guarded by one dude, because 99.99% of the time that is totally fine.


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

[User] ELI5: Would it be realistically possible to eliminate the common flu from the Earth, and would there be any kind of adverse consequences?

[Assistant]
If you're talking about common flu, meaning influenza. It would be highly unlikely that it would be eliminated. The virus that causes influenza is an RNA virus. And because RNA is super unstable compared to DNA, it mutates way more. So even if we got rid of one type, another new completely different type wouldn't be far away. Due to the mutations changing it.
Currently, there are a few different influenza types (Influenza A, B, and C) that have a whole heap of different species within those groups. And there's a good chance that even more are hiding around the corner in other animals. All it takes is a mutated strain and bam! Another influenza is out and about among humans.

If you're talking about the common cold. That's even more unlikely. There are hundreds of viruses that can cause what we refer to as the common cold. And they're all different types. Some may have the same tricky mutation skills that the influenza virus has, some may have other sneaky skills to avoid our attempts at eliminating them.

If, by a very very very (I cannot stress this enough) slim to assuredly no chance, they were eliminated. It would be hard to predict the consequences, adverse or otherwise. Mammals developed the placenta as a result of a virus influencing our DNA way back in the past. They've had a big hand in speeding up evolution of many different species all over the world. But they have also been implicated in some cancers and neurological disorders. So in answer to your second question - maybe, maybe not.


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

[User]
Is there a massive piece of mass at the center of galaxies?

In solar systems like our own, planets revolve around the sun. So, is there an object that galaxies gravitate towards and revolve around?

[Assistant] Yes, many galaxies have a supermassive black hole at their center, including ours (it's over two million times the massive the sun and about the radius of Neptune's orbit). However, it only makes up a small fraction of the mass of a galaxy, compared to a star which is by far the dominant source of mass in a solar system.


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

[User] ELI5: Despite it being painfully obvious lie detectors are not accurate, why are they still used?

[Assistant]
They're mostly *not* used.  Polygraph results are not admissible as evidence in most courts.  The situations where they're most used are:

1. Pre-employment interviews with some companies for very sensitive positions, as more of a "security theater" than an actual useful practice.

2. People accused of a crime hiring a company themselves to get a polygraph result indicating innocence, in order to influence public opinion.

3. Entertainment, like on some daytime-TV talk shows (the Maury Povich show comes to mind).


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

[User]
Why are spinal discs so prone to hernias?

I'm a 1st year med student, studying the lumbar region in anatomy, we barely brush on the subject and the professor wasn't able to give me the answer I was looking for.

So, throughout the millions of years of evolution, how come the spinal discs are STILL so prone to hernias and bulges? I mean, it was enough for me to pick up weights in an incorrect way to herniate my L5S1 (CT+MRI approved) as well as billion of others who suffer from a similar condition.

[Assistant]
To add to other comments:

L5/S1 is particularly prone to injury because the disc is situated along a steep slope just above the pelvis, and so it carries the weight of the torso not squarely on its face like all the other discs, but at a fairly steep grade. Additionally (and this is true throughout the spine), the ligament that covers the rear of the disc (the posterior longitudinal ligament) is hourglass-shaped instead of broad and flat like the one in front. This creates a weak spot in the ligamentous "wrapping" of the disc on either side, at roughly 5 o'clock and 7 o'clock, which is a convenient spot for the disc nucleus to herniate should an injury occur. It just so happens that the nerves are at 5 and 7 o'clock, which is why disc herniations so frequently result in arm or leg pain.


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

[User] [Harry Potter] What the hell do they even need Azkaban for? Can't they just Memory Charm criminals to reform them?

[Assistant] The wizarding justice system seems to be another aspect that is a few hundred years behind muggle society.  Their justice system is from a time when "reformation" and "rehabilitation" were not concepts.  Just another thing that wizards don't bother thinking about.


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

[User]
How to make philosophy engaging for teens?

I'm a secondary school teacher and this year I will have a class of 16 year olds once a week for philosophy. I did a year of philosophy as part of my undergrad but have never taught it before. Does anyone have any ideas of topics to cover, activities, resources, ways to make it interesting and relevant, ways to assess the students etc? I'm hoping if this is successful the school may timetable it again next year

Edit to include: Just FYI, this is a non-optional course, students are being given an introduction to a variety of non curricular subjects on a rotational basis. I'll have one group once a week for 11 weeks then they'll move onto Chinese and I'll get a totally new group of students. They aren't students who have chosen to do philosophy or who even know what philosophy is, my main challenge is to engage them, to make it simple and to make it relevant to them.
Thanks for the advice so far!

[Assistant]
cyborgs, clones and beaming.

cyborgs: kind of the ship of theseus - what happens, if you replace part after part from the human body with electronics? at what point is it not human anymore? is it "human", if it's all machine but biological brain? is it human if all biological but perfectly replicated brain (including all memories)?

clones: how can you define the real "you", what makes the clone differ from you?

beaming: this beaming story where it discusses, if you die every. single. time. you are beaming yourself. or are there 2 separates you at one point? are you dead for a brief moment?

(there are serious philosophical resources regarding these topics)

after you got them engaged: hit them with "Kritik der reinen Vernunft"