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

[User]
ELI5 How do sleep tracking apps work

I have a sleep tracking app on my phone. How does it work, and how accurate is its measurement of deep and REM sleep?

I have seen previous eli5 on this but none I saw explained the underlying mechanism, what the difference is between deep and REM sleep and how it's detected etc.

[Assistant] Ever watch someone or a dog dream? They are all twitchy.  The phone picks that up.  Or you shift positions.  You move if you are in light sleep and it tracks how much you move.  That way you can tget a feel for if you are twitchy or tossy turny. It counts the peaks and determines how many sleep cycles you had.  They also record snoring so you can see if breathing trouble is hindering your sleep.


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

[User]
[Avatar(tvshow)] Why can't benders instakill?

What's stopping a water bender from freezing the water in somones body? or a firebender setting fire to an opponents heart? or airbenders pulling the air out of the opponents lungs.

I can't think of a way for earthbenders to 1hit somone though.

[Assistant]
They can.

We've seen Waterbenders trap people in ice and blood bend. We've seen that Earthbenders are capable of crushing men with boulders. Firebenders can easily kill someone (not by setting fire to their heart, mind,  but breathing fire into their lungs? Totally workable.) As for the Airbenders?

Remember that elderly old monk Aang hung out with?

He killed a room full of firebenders hopped up on Sozin's comet before they brought him down.

The reason most people don't use their bending for instant killing is because benders tend to be slightly resistant to the elements. Also, the same reason we don't just up and shoot someone in the head whenever we fight with them. It's got to do with both difficulty AND the morals/ethics of the times.


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

[User] How does the drug Krokodil rot human flesh?

[Assistant] The tissue damage and necrosis are not from the drug-part of Krokidil (desomorphine) but rather because it is usually purified crudely and incompletely from codiene, iodine, and red phosphorous.  Significant amounts of iodine, red phosphourous, and additional corrosive by-products are also part of what is inject, and it is these that cause the damage.


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

[User]
[Marvel Comics] How could Quicksilver kill The Hulk in 616?

During an early mission against Abu Mussan, Special Ops Supreme Commander Phil Coulson claims that "Quicksilver could kill The Hulk if he wanted to." How do you suppose this is possible?

[Assistant]
The Hulk is absurdly strong, but he isn't invincible, and is no faster than a mundane human with equal strength and mass. He also has a healing factor, but this just means he recovers from injuries faster than mundane humans, not that he's invincible or that he heals instantaneously; indeed, his healing factor isn't as powerful as that of Deadpool or even Wolverine.

Quicksilver could reasonably use his super speed to avoid the Hulk's attacks and stab him a bunch of times, probably with an adamantium blade. Enough knife wounds will kill even the Hulks.

So basically death of a thousand cuts.


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

[User] ELI5: Why do both "terrible" and "horrible" mean something bad, but "terrific" and "horrific" have two completely different meanings?

[Assistant] Originally, "terrific" meant something bad--it has the same Latin root as "terrible." Only in the late 19th century did it start to become colloquially used as a good word--the same way that something "awesome" is nowadays not awe-inspiring, but very good, or that being "sick" is a good thing to be.


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

[User]
[Danger 5] Uniforms while undercover?

I have only watched the pilot, but I'm confused how a documentary that places such an emphasis on historical accuracy (Joseph Goebbels' plot to capture all the world's monuments to build a statue of Hitler, the talking robot dogs used by the Allied spy agencies, the rocket engines hidden in the Statue of Liberty, etc.) could make such a basic mistake about the Danger 5 uniforms.  Specifically, I don't understand why the heroes would wear their distinctive blue uniforms and insignia while meeting up with resistance fighters inside Nazi held territory at the height of WWII.  This seems to be a huge risk taken by such a capable top secret spy agency.

Perhaps it is explained in later documentaries, but I was hoping someone might explain this glaring oversight in an otherwise meticulously researched piece of work.

[Assistant]
They do wear disguises for some missions. But, when you see them not, it's probably because

1) It's a means for underground cohorts and resistance fighters to recognize them. Seeing them in uniform is easier to do than a series of secret knocks and passwords, and allows you to get straight to the ass kicking/partying.

2)With how many times they've foiled Hitlers schemes, most of the Nazi high command would be able to pick them out. In uniform or out. Especially Claire, though Ilsa is still hotter.

3) **Kill Hitler**


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

[User] You're in a stopped car with the windows closed, a horsefly is 'hovering'; Upon accelerating the car, does the fly remain in the same position in space, or does it hit the rear window?

[Assistant]
A fly's motion is based on the objects it is in contact with, as well as the gravitational pull of the Earth.  A fly would be hovering because the force exerted upwards by the air on the fly's wings is balanced out by the gravitational pull of the earth.  Now, if the car were to accelerate, it would bring all of the air with it.  Some of the air would be compressed towards the back of the car, which would cause the fly to go backwards a bit, but regardless, the fly should be able to hover there.

You can test this with a helium-filled balloon.  Be aware of the tension force from the string (you cannot tie it down).


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

[User]
CMV: Every lawyer should serve at least 2 years as a public defender

Similarly to how fresh medical school grads don't go straight into being a doctor, they become a resident first. They help treat real people in hospitals and are extra medical personnel instead of the hospital relying on only MDs.

We need a similar system for lawyers. After you graduate law school and pass the bar, you serve at least 2 years as a public defender. Of course, they should be paid a decent salary just as medical residents are.

Ultimately, the goal of this is to have more public defenders and BETTER public defenders. Currently, public defenders are overworked and tend to be people who do this out of passion or couldn't get the top tier law jobs. Under my proposed system, this would result in lower case loads, more attention to the cases, and all lawyers from the top of the class to the bottom would be working. Of course, if a lawyer is incompetent, they would be fire, just as a  an incompetent medical resident would.

Too many people, even innocent ones, end up in major debt fighting for lives when their public defender is shitty. We cannot have a fair and working legal system when one side (the state) has adequate representation but the defendant does not.

I am open to changing this view because I understand it's a big order and no one likes being told where to work, but it's not the only job that has mandatory apprenticeships.

I look forward to hearing your arguments! Thanks!

[Assistant] I think the challenge here is while all doctors who continue practicing medicine have something to learn from working in a hospital, even if they ultimately go into private office practice, many lawyers will not work in criminal law. How does two years as a public defender preparer somebody who will go into civil suits, contract law, estate law, bankruptcy law, and the like?


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

[User] ELI5: why do people have a sort of 'stuttering inhalation' during and after a crying session?

[Assistant] Crying throws off your respiratory system, which throws off your oxygen levels in your body. In order to balance the oxygen and carbon dioxide levels  the diaphragm has to work a little differently than it normally does (steady breaths) and gives you the mild hyperventilation.


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

[User] ELI5: how do lumens work? How much brighter is one 800 lumen bulb than two 400 lumen bulbs?

[Assistant] Lumens are like watts, but weighted to only include the light we can see; infrared and below is out, as is ultraviolet and above. So a bulb with twice as many lumens is twice as powerful, as far as we can see. The trick is that the human eye has roughly logarithmic sensitivity. If you saw a row of bulbs which were 100, 200, 400, 800 lumens, i.e., going up in brightness exponentially, youd say their brightness was stepping up evenly.  If you instead saw bulbs at 200, 400, 600, 800, you would think that there wasnt much difference between the two brightest.


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

[User] ELI5: Why am I wide awake at night after being exhausted all day/evening?

[Assistant]
Because when youre very tired for a long period of time, and all you want to do is sleep all day, youre brain goes caveman mode and creates hormones that keep your body/brain going, because your brain (not your conscience/selfaware part of your brain.) thinks you wont be able to get sleep for a long time so it basically gives you lots of hormones that keep you awake, just like a hunter 4,000 years ago would stay up for days surviving, at first he would be tired, but after a while his body/brain would give him a burst of hormones/energy to keep you up, so you don't fall asleep in the middle of fending of a bear/lion/wolf/buffalo/unicorn.

TL;RD: Youre body gives you lots of hormones/energy when you have been up for a long time, to keep you up and alert.


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

[User]
I believe that meritocracy is a better system of government and solution production than democracy. CMV

One example: People who are scientifically illiterate should not get to decide education policy as we have seen in the creationism in schools debacle. A better education policy would be decided by those who are most qualified, not popular opinion.

People who are logical should be accorded responsibility in our society. Imagine a society in which logic skills were showcased like a badge. Everyone could see how well everyone else scored on tests of logic. People with a specific expertise would be accorded responsibility in a relevant discipline. Imagine a program like OK cupid that matched jobs with those who are most competitive as indicated by rigorous tests. Would this world not be more efficient and prosperous than the one we currently inhabit?

[Assistant]
>People who are logical should be accorded responsibility in our society

Logical <> responsible

Your assumption that logic is the only factor determining someone's success or failure in a particular position is frankly... illogical.

A 'logical' person might conclude that they don't need to do their job when no one is watching them.

A person with a sense of duty, pride or ownership is the person who will make responsible decisions even if it doesn't help them or they don't get 'credit' for it.  These are emotional based motivators.

>Imagine a program like OK cupid that matched jobs with those who are most competitive as indicated by rigorous tests. Would this world not be more efficient and prosperous than the one we currently inhabit?

No because rigorous tests are already used in disciplines where that criteria is appropriate.  Most jobs value soft skills higher than technical skills because, often, it is easier to train people technical skills than train them 'soft' skills.  Geniuses that can't/won't work with people or listen to their boss may add less value than someone of average intelligence who is easy to work with and consistently follows through on projects.


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

[User]
[Marvel / Captain Marvel] How did Captain Marvel get her powers in the movie?

After watching the movie I wasn't quite sure how did she get her powers? They showed that  blast of an engine core gave her the powers but I don't quite understand what was the core made of that transformed her that way.

I don't completely understand:

1. Assuming that core was utilizing the power of tesseract, the actual tesseract was not present in the engine core. Also, tesseract was a space stone that can open portals or be used to travel across space, How can she get powers to shoot photonic blasts from her hand?
2. Assuming that she got her powers from the teserract, that is still just one infinity stone. How can she be powerful enough to fight thanos who has 6 stones?

[Assistant]
1. The Tesseract itself wasn't present in the engine but it did power the engine.  One of the Space Stone's abilities is redistribution of energy, which is pretty much what Carol's power set is.

2. She's not going to solo Thanos.  She's arguably the most powerful hero on the team (Thor and Scarlet Witch are also contenders), but it will take the whole team to defeat him with all six Infinity Stones.


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

[User]
[The Maxtrix] How much, if any, of human history is manufactured?

With the upcoming Matrix Resurrections nearly upon us, I decided to go back and watch the original films for the first time in years. I actually enjoyed it way more than I thought I would, to the point where I actually think that the much derided sequels are actually quite good. I also went and watched The Animatrix and had a look at some of the video games for the first time, and I found those to be interesting too.

The one question that always stuck in my mind though was at what point in history does the Matrix simulation begin? I doubt that the machines would have had the dinosaurs, but would they have started all the way back in the stone age and just let it run to the present? Or is it the same hundred(ish) years playing on a loop? And if it is, did they have to invent the previous hundred thousand of years of history?

And if it did start way back when, how did humans get in and out before phones were invented? I know that there were previous versions of the Matrix, one that was paradise and one that was a nightmare world with vampires, but what about the others?

Maybe I just missed something that explains it, but I find the idea kind of interesting. I'd be interested in seeing a Matrix story set in like the old west or Victorian England or something, kind of like when DC did soviet Superman and steampunk Batman.

[Assistant]
Chronology is fuzzy inside the Matrix. For the most recent version of the Matrix, it was always and will forever be a variation of the late 90s. Its a seamless loop the transition of which is glossed over for most people.

Most humans in the system dont notice the passage of time the same way you wouldnt feel it in a dream, so establishing a timeline for, say, the inception of phones is a non-issue because theyve always existed in their lifespan.


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

[User]
[Star Trek] Why are androids fairly common in the Alpha and Beta Quadrants during the TOS era but almost unheard of during the TNG era?

In Star Trek the Original Series Kirk and crew run into androids several times and while it's not the most common thing they run into it certainly doesn't shock or amaze them at all but then during the era of The Next Generation they say that Data and his fellow Soong-type androids are the only known androids in the Alpha and Beta Quadrants. And one time when Voyager encountered a race of androids in the Delta Quadrant they were shocked and Belona Torres even told one of them that Data was the only other android that they knew of. What was the cause of the disapearance of androids in the Star Trek galaxy between the TOS and TNG era's?

[Assistant]
Data is unique in that he's the only android with a positronic brain, which allows him to move beyond his programming, develop as a person, and claim the title of a true artificial intelligence.

All the other "androids" are terribly, incredibly flawed.

* Automated Personnel Units - these are the droids found by *Voyager*. At first blush, they appear to have some sort of cognitive reasoning. However, it's not too long before it's discovered that they were originally built for war, and never evolved beyond their basic programming.
* Exo III - Appear in "What are little girls made of?" Might be the closest thing to a Soong-type android, but were created by an advanced ancient race that subsequently died out. Before they went extinct, the race attempted to destroy all the droids out of fear that they would do the same.
* Flint-type - Only one known android built by Flint (an immortal being that took names throughout history). It couldn't handle strong emotions, and short-circuited when it felt overwhelmed. Flint regarded it as a failure, and never tried again.
* Ilia probe - created by V'Ger to interface with carbon-based units. Really, all V'Ger did was fill a carbon-based unit with nanoprobes and take over all functions, trapping Ilia in her own body (a la the Borg). Barely a droid, and the biology won over in the end.
* Mudd's androids - created by an advanced race from the Andromeda galaxy, they were so rigid in their logic that extended "random" behavior that was unpredictable and illogical incapacitated them.
* Sargon-type - created by Sargon to host the essence of "highly-evolved" beings of pure energy, they were more avatars than functional, self-aware droids. In the end, Sargon and his ilk were unable to coexist with beings in the material realm.

There are probably more, but those are the main contenders for the title of "android." Only Data and other Soong-type models are actually successful examples of artificial intelligence in a humanoid body.


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

[User] [Marvel] I just sat on Antman when he was little. Is he dead?

[Assistant] No, because his strength is still the same. Sitting on Ant-Man when he's small is the same thing as if you were sitting on him, when he's normal-sized. It's certainly not comfortable for him, but it's not deadly either.


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

[User]
What Ancient Greek should one read before beginning Nietzsche?

The title says it all. I would really like to read and fully understand Nietzsche's works, and it appears the consensus is that a background in the Ancient Greeks is necessary for that; so which ones should I read prior to attempting Nietzsche?

[Assistant]
Plato, first and foremost. Nietzsche engages with Plato's works more than any other Greek philosopher. Then the Pre-Socratics, especially Heraclitus, who Nietzsche held in great esteem. After that, the Sophists.

Outside of philosophy, Thucydides. Nietzsche praises him for his unflinching realism. Also, some knowledge of Greek tragic theater.

And in general, just a knowledge of Greek culture and society would be beneficial.

You don't need to read all of this stuff first, but it's helpful. If you want a shortcut, just read Plato (and Heraclitus).


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

[User]
[Star Wars] How could Palpatine have executed his plans better?

Palpatines plans during the Prequels went pretty well, but once we get to the OT, we have Luke Skywalker becoming a Jedi, the Death Stars blowing up and Vader turning on him. And again, in the Sequels

SPOILERS IF YOU HAVEN'T SEEN ROTJ

Snoke (Who we know is Palpatines puppet) is killed, and his plans for Rey to take over collapse pretty fast because of her training as a Jedi and Ben Solo's betrayal.

What could be have done better to prevent any of that happening?

[Assistant] In Return of the Jedi, dont bother trying to recruit Luke. Also, do not make yourself vulnerable by going to the half built Death Star with a hole large enough for a freighter to fly through! If Vader recruits Luke, fine, if Luke resists again have Vader kill him. If Like turns Vader blow them both up while they are traveling on a Space ship.


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

[User]
Is the nominal value of all the currency in an economy equal to the monetary value of all the commodities in an economy.

Ive been reading some Marx and Adam Smith so Ive been thinking about currency a lot and I think I came up with an answer to this in my head but I wanted to know if its valid or not.

A has book, B has chair, A sells book for $10 to B, A buys chair for $10 from B, the monetary value of the commodities is $20 but you only need $10 in circulation to facilitate the exchange.

So the nominal value of all the currency in an economy is half of the value of the commodities in an economy. Right?

Edit: Had a shower, and then it hit me, everything Ive just said is utter rubbish, Im not sure what I was thinking when I wrote this

[Assistant]
Not quite so. Imagine you add a third commodity to your thought experiment: C with a banana (how much could it cost? $10?). If B then buys this banana after having sold their book, you still have only $10 dollars in cirulation and $30 dollars of commodities. This amount of transactions is what is called the velocity of money.

The quantity theory of money states: MV = PY (or PQ). In other words the money supply times the velocity equals the total price level times the total supply or production of commodities.


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

[User]
[MCU] How powerful/skillful is Shang-Chi?

I dont think I really understand how good this guys power set is. He has no super powers but is really good at fighting.

I imagine hes under Hawkeye and Black Widow in the rankings. Hawkeye casually went around the world in Endgame and eliminated dozens and dozens of organized crime members easily. He fought powerful drones in Sokovia. Black Widow fought aliens in the avengers and her cardio barely took a hit. She was able to survive a fight against the Winter Soldier. How can Shang-chi compete against this? It doesnt even look like he has good tech to use like Hawkeye or even Black Widow.

If you took Shang-Chi and dropped him in Civil War, would he be able to tip the scale in favour of Caps or Ironmans team if he fought for either of them? I really dont see him being able to go toe to toe with anyone in Civil War except for maybe Sharon Carter.

Is there more to this guy than just being really good at Kung fu? Its not a knock on the character, Im just having trouble seeing where he fits in.

[Assistant]
He is considered probably the best martial artist on Marvels earth and has mastered virtually any hand-to-hand combat form you can name. Black Panther believes him to be better than Iron Fist. Pretty sure he also trained Spider Man how to be an effective martial artist- Spider Man, a guy with perfect reflexes and superhuman strength, took pointers from him. His day job is basically helping MI6 beat up criminal syndicates.

You know how Bruce Lee has that memetic God status among his disciples? Shang-Chi is basically that status made flesh.


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

[User] ELI5 Why is it that people who are in shape tend to sweat more easily?

[Assistant] Sweating is a mechanism used to maintain homeostasis by cooling down your blood when youre hot. So a healthier person will have a better adapted and more active "cooling system". Kinda as if your sweat glands were muscles and they had muscle memory. They recognise when you are working hard quicker and know how to produce more sweat. Same goes for vasodilation, the more you work out, the easier and faster you can feel " the pump" from peripheral vasodilation in skeletal muscle.


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

[User]
Eli5 How does wind work?

As in the weather not the gas. Thank you!

[Assistant] In general terms different materials behave differently when the sun heats them up. Some reflects away most of the light, some absorb the light and release it as heat into the air and some slowly heats up and releases the heat to the air even long after the sun have gone down. This means that the air on the surface of the Earth gets heated unevenly. And when the air gets heated up it becomes less dense and floats up. This creates a low pressure region where surounding air that is cooler and therefore less dense will get pushed into to replace the hot air. And this movement of air from cold high pressure regions to hot low pressure regions is what causes the winds. Of course the real world is a lot more chaotic and there are lots of effects both on local and global levels which dominate the weather. But this is the basic principle.


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

[User]
Do Kepler's laws still hold in general relativity?

Newton's inverse square law was shown to be not quite accurate in describing planetary motion. Do some or all of Kepler's three laws of planetary motion hold up against general relativity?

[Assistant]
In General Relativity, Kepler's Laws are demoted to being very accurate approximations. We still use them and use them, but we know that they're not the whole story.

However, even in Newtonian mechanics, Kepler's Laws are still technically an approximation. Kepler's Laws assume that all of the mass of the system is in a single central object. In reality, the orbit of the Earth is perturbed by other planets - Jupiter in particular. Ignoring these other objects still gives you a pretty good answer, but it is an approximation, and gives a small error.


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

[User] ELI5: How come during the 1950's, they were called 'Atomic' bombs, but were then called 'Nuclear' at the start of the Cold War?

[Assistant]
They're all colloquial.

"Atomic bomb" has historically referred to gun-type and implosion-type fission weapons first developed by the allies in the mid 1940s.

In 1952, the United States introduced a new weapon which added a fusion reaction to the fission reaction in order to greatly improve energy output. These new weapons were of a fission-fusion-fission design and are properly called thermonuclear weapons. Colloquially these are called hydrogen bombs or H-bombs. Virtually all weapons deployed by the five major nuclear powers are thermonuclear weapons.

"Nuclear bomb" is an umbrella term used to refer to all weapons that rely on fission reactions, fusion reactions, or some combination thereof in order to release energy. It recognises to some extent the fact that the public was greatly aware of the existence of these weapons but their details were shrouded in secrecy. Whereas a great deal of information about nuclear weapons can be found on the internet today, this was not the case during the cold war. It's also a politically convenient term because it is understood by everyone and has serious connotations. Politicians used (and often continue to use) it with wild abandon to spread FUD; Joe blow doesn't care what the CEP of a Russian MIRV is nor does he care about the yield of a W88. However, Joe very much cares that one does not land on his head and to do that he needs to be a good patriotic American rather than a commie bastard!


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

[User] eli5: How do fish know where to stay in the ocean? Or all species of fish all together in one big ocean? (e.g do hammerhead sharks and great white sharks stay away from each other or are all of them together and know no boundaries to their territory?)

[Assistant]
Just like land animals, ocean animals live where their food lives, where temperature allows, at the right depth, and where their migration/breeding areas are.

Whales and great white sharks are both known to cover absolutely huge territories. Whales migrate thousands of miles up and down the oceans, and great whites often wander without a particular home.

Small animals, like fish in a coral reef, don't travel very far. They have what they need nearby and they encounter lots of other fish who live the same way they do.

Depth is also important. Ocean animals can't go into water that's too deep or too shallow than the habitat they evolved in.


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

[User]
[40k] What were the different primarchs relationships with each other, the emperor, and Malcodor or other humans?

Everyone more or less knows how guys like Horus felt about other people, but what about some of the lesser know primarchs? Did Mortarion or The Night Lord have any friends? Were the Salamanders pals with everyone or did they have grudges and beefs like the Space Wolves/Dark Angles? I heard somewhere that The Kahn and Magnus liked each other and that for some reason Angron and Lorgar hung around each other. Any thing in the fluff for stuff like this? Not even limited to stuff between primarchs, like how Alpharius or Angron felt about the Emperor. Maybe even lesser characters, like how since Rogal Dorne hung around Earth so much, did he develop any kind of relationship with guys like Malcador? Just wondering how the primarchs felt about each other and other characters.

[Assistant]
>Did Mortarion or The Night Lord have any friends?

Mortarion and Konrad Curze were friends with eachother, and Mortarion was friends with Horus too. Mortarion hated everyone except Horus and Curze because no one had an upbringing as bad as him, he figured. Kinda weird Mortarion had a liking for Curze because he was a weak psyker.

>Were the Salamanders pals with everyone or did they have grudges and beefs like the Space Wolves/Dark Angles?

Salamanders have a grudge against all of the Traitor Legions, which isn't unexpected, but they were hit hard by the Dropsite Massacre. They went after Fulgrim and Perturabo's forces, as well as Alpha Legion outposts.

>I heard somewhere that The Kahn and Magnus liked each other and that for some reason Angron and Lorgar hung around each other.

Jaghatai had a friendship with Magnus, as well as Sanguinius, although he was afraid Magnus was delving too deep into warp magic. His friendship with Magnus is boosted by him and Magnus forming the Librarius together.

Angron and Lorgar were... kind of friends. He saved Lorgar from Guilliman, from a Warhound Titan stomping on him by taking *two* shots from the main weapon of it and throwing the foot of the Titan off of Lorgar. Lorgar paid him back by helping him ascend to Daemon Princehood, but even Lorgar, his bestest buddy in the whole wide galaxy (saying a lot, because Angron was a DICK) felt doubtful about it after Angron ascended.


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

[User]
How does cosh(x) = cos(ix)?

We learned about the hyperbolic trig functions in Calc 2 recently, I looked up coshx in Wolfram Alpha and got cos(ix) as an alternate form. I asked my professor and he didn't really explain it other than saying it's higher mathematics.

[Assistant]
One way to define the functions is as

cosh(x) = (e^(x) + e^(-x))/2

and

cos(x) = (e^(ix) + e^(-ix))/2

which makes that identity very clear. You can justify that these definition match with our other understandings of trigonometric functions by considering the Taylor series.


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

[User]
[Spiderman 2 (2004)] At the end of the film when Spidey swings away, MJ looks on with sadness, why?

I mean, it was kind of a weird scene, she finally knows who he is, they don't have to hide anything anymore, and she's even happy when Peter swings off, but later in the scene she's sad. Why? Is it because she realizes she just broke off her wedding for a guy who's not even gonna be there for her?

[Assistant] Yes, pretty much exactly that. She wants Peter, but as he swings away theres that reminder that shell never have all of Peter. She wont have the boyfriend that could have stayed to enjoy that moment with her, and so theres sadness mixed in with her joy.


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

[User] Are we inside of a black hole's event horizon?

[Assistant] Inside of a black hole, everything moves directly toward the center of a black hole. If you're capable of moving up, down, left, right, forward, and backward, you're not in a black hole. If you're capable of seeing light in any direction you look, you're not in a black hole.


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

[User]
eli5:Why is one side of our hands lighter than the other?

This is easier to see in POC.

[Assistant]
Heres the ELI25 version, with an ELI5 at the bottom:

The layers of the skin go (from outer to inner): the stratum corneum, the epidermis, and the dermis. The stratum corneum is the outer most layer of skin and consists of dead skin cells (they've lost their nucleus). The epidermis is where the melanin is produced/stored. The BEST defense against UV damage is a thick stratum corneum, the second best is increased melanocyte concentration.

The skin on the palms of the hands and feet have thicker stratum corneum, compared to other regions of skin, and so does not require a large melanocyte concentration.

ELI5: There are two types of protection against UV radiation. The first is melanin, which makes the skin dark. The second is a thick outer layer of skin. Since palms and the bottom of our feet naturally have a thicker outer layer, that means they dont need as much melanin.


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

[User]
[Metal Gear] How and where did Senator Armstrong acquire his nanomachines?

His massive power up at the end of MGR:R was never explained. It just happened, and suddenly. I've been curious about the origins of his powers for quite some time now and thought that this would be a good place to ask my question.

[Assistant]
He owned a multi-national mercenary group World Marshall as well as a Senator, he had the connections, money and the resources to develop such technology.

It likely was just a further development of the tech already existing, just look at the capabilities of Vamp's nanomachines which were in use ten years ago.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why don't psychologists and psychiatrists work in tandem?

If psychologists made the diagnosis and psychiatrists reviewed it, the entire process would be more comprehensive.

[Assistant] Psychologists and psychiatrists normally work together, more or less.  A counseling psychologist will refer a patient to a psychiatrist if they feel the patient needs help beyond what the counselor can provide.  For instance, if a psychologist has a patient that's schizophrenic they would refer them to a psychiatrist after the initial diagnosis.  If a patient has depression issues the likely course would be therapy with the counseling psychologist and medication and occasional checkups with the psychiatrist to see how the meds are working.  If the patient needed behavioral therapy then a psychiatrist most likely wouldn't be needed.


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

[User]
Proof: p is irrational if p is a prime

This is my proof

>Let p be a prime
>
>For the sake of contradiction suppose   p is rational
>
>Then   p = m/n ; m, n ** |N**
>
>p = (m/n)
>
>Since p is an integer, (m/n)   is an integer
>
>Then (m/n) is an integer
>
>This implies p = r \* r where r = m/n
>
>This implies p is divisible by r
>
>Contradiction
>
>Hence   p is irrational

This is the proof I came up with, however the other proofs I found online are quite different. I would like to know if my way is correct and rigorous enough.

Appreciate your time. Thanks in advance.

[Assistant]
If you think through it in detail, it turns out your proof is a bit circular.

When you say that if (m/n)^(2) is an integer, then m/n is an integer, you are relying on the fact that the square root of an integer is either an integer or an irrational number. But, if you're willing to use that as something established, then why go through all the hoops, instead of simply saying that no prime is a perfect square, and therefore the square root of a prime has to be irrational?

If you're not willing to use the fact that the square of an integer is either an integer or irrational, then you have to restructure your proof.


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

[User] What's the difference between soft and hard rubber on the molecular level?

[Assistant] Hard, vlucanized rubber has molecular bonds that cross-link the long rubber polymers together, forming a rigid lattice; soft rubber doesn't have these cross links, so the rubber polymers can scrunch and stretch and slide past each other, making the substance softer and stretchier.


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

[User] ELI5: What can the cops do to this man in his car?(Image in comments)

[Assistant]
In the photo you've posted, this is from a DUI checkpoint, so he wasn't pulled over for a moving violation.

The supreme court has ruled the checkpoints constitutional, so they can choose to keep him at the DUI checkpoint for as long as he's willing to stay in the car (in this particular instance, when they determined he wasn't drunk, they allowed him to leave).

If you've been pulled over for a moving violation, they can detain you if you are resisting arrest.

depending on the jurisdiction, even if you've "done nothing wrong" you may lose your drivers license.  When you get your DL, you have to sign documents that say you will do X or Y (example, in California, if you are suspected of DUI, you must submit to a test, either field or blood.  Not doing so (even if you're sober) can make you lose your license).


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

[User]
When people are in a coma, do hospital staff maintain their dental hygiene?

I would imagine just like when you sleep, bacteria are still growing on your teeth. Do they wake up with a bunch of cavities?

[Assistant] Absolutely! Full hygiene care. Teeth cleaning, whole sponge bath, moisturizer. Change their body position so bed sores dont happen. Change their linens, brush their hair. Its a nice experience. Ive done hygiene care for semi-conscious/dying patients and its really rewarding.


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

[User]
[Animal Farm] What happened to the Animal Farm after Napoleon died?

I heard that the next leading pig denounced Napoleon once he assumed the position, but the tension between men and animals actually got even further as Animalism spread across farms of England.

Also is it true that it has a human owner again?

[Assistant]
Another pig took over and began a period of denapoleonisation, in which some of Napoleon's more authoritarian laws were repealed.

Animal Farm got into a rivalry with another farm down the road, the two farms competing to produce the most food and win the most ribbons at the county fair. Eventually, after a string of elderly and infirm pig leaders, the farm ran into major financial trouble. The pigs retained control over the farmhouse itself, but were forced to sell off much of the land and equipment to cover their debts.


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

[User] Eli5: what are the benefits of a normal helicopter design vs a quadcopter we see on drones?

[Assistant]
Simplicity, making a normal helicopter a quad copter would be really really really hard and complex.

Thats because helicopters use combustions engines running on aviation fuel, while quadcopter a uses electric motors.

so for a quad computer, the only moving parts are the spinning motor out on each corner. All that runs back to the center is wires, no moving parts.

A helicopter has a spinning shaft attached to the engine like how a car does. So if you wanted to doing 4 sets of blades with 1 engine, youd need to figure out how to run spinning shafts through all for corners of the helicopter.

Or youd had to have 4 different engines, one for each set of blades, and figure out how to easily control the thrust each individual engine is producing.

Is that possible? Yea Im sure a good engineering team with enough money could figure it out.

But when a helicopter with 1 set of blades works just fine 99% of the time, why make one that would be much more expensive to make and require a lot of maintenance to keep running?


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

[User]
ELI5: Why does the hair on my arms, legs, eyebrows etc. stop growing at a certain length but the hair on my head/face will continue to grow until it is cut?

Just a thought I had while mowing the lawn.

[Assistant]
Hair growth is coded for a specific time period, then stops/dies/sheds.

The hair on arms, legs etc. has a shorter growth time period than head/facial hair.  Your head/facial hair will stop at after a certain time period (which will determine its final length).


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

[User]
CMV: I think capitalism favours crony capitalism.

The profit motive under capitalism favours the commodification of politics. Laws, regulations, subsidies, and so on affect the exchange of private property. Politicians therefore are a service that can help private actors in gaining profit. This service can be bought in many forms: bribes, lobbying, donations, vote buying, manipulation of media to convince voters, and others that might've slipped my mind. I'm not saying that every capitalist state is engaged in crony capitalism, but I do think that crony capitalism is favoured in the same way that maximum entropy is favoured in closed systems.

Unfortunately I don't know what would convince me, but because this cmv is theoretical, I will accept theoretical arguments.

Edit:

I want to direct this discussion within the limits of capitalism. I'm not trying to debate which economic system has the least amount of cronyism. It may very well be that capitalism has the least amount of cronyism, but that is a separate view for another thread.

I'd also like to further the chemistry analogy and say that I think that certain political systems can increase the activation energy necessary to get to crony capitalism, but that once the activation energy is achieved, it's crony capitalism that has the most amount of entropy.

[Assistant]
It's not the profit motive under capitalism that motivates and necessitates the people bribing of their government, it's the *government's monopoly of force over economics* that motivates and necessitates the bribes.

When the Government is acting as King that grants economic favours, when it is by the grace of government that you are allowed certain economic activity and not others, then you must curry favour to thrive and you must court and lobby and bribe.

Crony capitalism is thus a problem caused by the nature of *any* type of government which holds a monopoly of force over economic activity.

The solution is separation of Economy and State (for the same reason we were meant to have separation of Church and State in the USA) protected in some fundamental laws of a Republic (such as the *individual property rights* of it's citizens) that are increasingly  *beyond amendment* by government as a country grows and develops, so that, in a sense, the growing natural complexity of the market acts as a *barrier* to changing those fundamental laws, rather than the growing bureaucracy acting as an *eroder*. The solution is a republic whose initial property laws are both true and just, and increasingly *beyond* amendment by Government!

*Not* having a separation of Economy and State means that  the growing complexity of *government* acts as a force that *erodes* the freedoms, ideals and original laws of a republic. Government power over the economy causes its institutions to ensure their indispensability by using laws that regulate economic activity to *create* citizen reliance and dependency on needing these institutions. And thus they maintain the problems they were designed to solve, justifying their permanence and expansion of powers over more and more of the economy. Eventually the Bureaucracy collapses under its own weight as goes the way of the Byzantines.

Consider separation of Church and State. Fundamentally this separates the State's *use of force* over our *thoughts* - and thus protects our individual right to free speech. We should call it "Separation of State and Thoughts/Beliefs". They can't tell us what to think or say, they are *banned* from using force. And the USA hasn't done too badly! Free speech has been *pretty good* as a result.

The separation of Economy and State is the separation of the state's use of force over our *actions* - and thus protects our individual right to private property (which is the defining feature of capitalism). They can't tell us what to *do*. The government should be banned from using force to stop us - or interfere even in the slightest - from our economic activity. The government's purpose should *only* be as a body who has the monopoly right of force to act in response to a domestic or foreign citizen initiating force on it's citizens.

Once the government ceases to *control* the economy, no one needs to bribe it; there are no special favours to be gained.


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

[User] ELI5: If we block robo-caller and spam callers that show spoofed phone numbers, are we blocking people's real phone numbers that we might actually want to talk to?

[Assistant] Yes, which is why the robocallers are using local area and prefix codes for the spoofed numbers they're "calling" from. Sadly, the best course of action is to mute the call and let it go to voicemail and pray that some day the telecoms can get their collective heads out their asses and put an end to this.


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

[User]
[X-Men] How can adamantium be poisoning Wolverine if it's indestructible?

This never made sense to me; the adamantium 'poisoning' Wolverine.  That would mean some part of the metal is breaking down and entering his bloodstream.  But if it really is indestructible then how can it be breaking down?

[Assistant]
It could be damaging his blood cells as they exit his bone marrow, we know it's porous enough to let them through, but perhaps not the right shape, or the opening is just a little small.

It also could be altering the pH of his blood significantly

It could be a catalyst (or an inhibitor).

It could be just the right shape for other bacteria to attach too, and so he could be growing all sorts of sepsis on his skeleton.


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

[User]
How do testicles produce living sperm cells that are pre programmed to seek an egg?

How?

[Assistant] spermatozoa (individual sperm cells) are not homing missiles. they do not seek anything. that's why human males produce 300 million a day. sperm cells are tiny compared to the distance between the opening of the uterus and the end of the fallopian tube (where eggs get released and where fertilization occurs). so, you need millions of the little bastards to ensure that the quest into Mordor will have any chance of getting the golden ring into the fires of Mount Doom...


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

[User]
Like a gravitational field, does a strong electromagnetic field also affect the flow of time?

Does it also dilate time or work in the opposite way and speed it up?

[Assistant] The energy in an electromagnetic field does contribute to the energy tensor which is the source of gravity. But the contribution is generally negligible, decreasing as 1/r^(2) (instead of 1/r like the mass distribution) and celestial bodies being more or less electrically neutral.


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

[User] Iran and american relations and why there's so much intensity?

[Assistant] In the 1950s, American CIA colluded with the British to overthrow a democratically elected Iranian President, and install someone friendlier to the West, as a buffer for USSR.  In 1970s, Iran had a revolution and replaced the installed dictator with a theological anti-American government. The rest, as they say, is history.


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

[User] Why do pulsars/quasars emit energy bursts at their poles? Why not at their equators where the greater rotational energy would require less effort to escape; like our rockets do?

[Assistant]
Think you are confusing magnetic poles with rotational poles.

Pulsars emit radiation from the axis of their magnetic field not from their rotational axis. In fact, the mechanism which generates the em radiation in pulsars requires these two axes to not be aligned.


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

[User]
[Stargate] Would Ra really have stood a chance trying to take over Earth in the 90s?

If only by sheer numbers, we would swamp him, right? Let alone Spec Ops guerrilla warfare.

Edit:Even after the bomb would be increased a hundred fold, that wouldnt take out most of the US because the bunker is underground.

[Assistant]
Going by the Stargate SG-1 continuity, Ra would be more than capable of invading Earth again if he wanted to. The upgraded bomb would destroy the Stargate, cutting Earth off from its only avenue of escape or advanced technology, and then he could bring all the ships and forces needed to send Earth back to the stone age at his leisure.

During the early seasons of the show, two things protected Earth: its location (as the source of the slave population the Goa'uld used throughout the galaxy) was known only to a few of the oldest and most powerful of the System Lords, and those System Lords were spending most of their time fighting each other in the power vacuum left by Ra's death.

When Apophis did finally decide to deal with troublesome Earth, he took only two ships with him - and while the Goa'uld may be horribly outmatched by modern ground battlefield tactics, those two ships could easily destroy every major military installation and city on the planet with impunity, scattering humanity and turning us into easy pickings. Earth was only saved by SG-1 destroying both ships from the inside.

Ra only left Earth originally because the rebellious locals made the planet more trouble than it was worth. He'd already used humans to establish self-sufficient slave populations on hundreds of planets, and built an army that established his dominance over the other System Lords. There was simply no point sticking around on the otherwise out-of-the-way backwater planet.


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

[User]
[Fullmetal Alchemist] How far does Alchemy go? Can I bake a cake just by zapping the ingredients?

Can I zap hop and water and get beer?
EDIT: By the way, guys: IT'S MAGIC!!! I don't care what anyone says.

[Assistant] Theoretically yes, but food is incredibly complex compared to rocks and metals. To use alchemy you have completely understand the molecular structure of the thing you're transmuting, so it would probably take decades to get skilled enough, organic/biological alchemy is the most challenging field of alchemic study by far.


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

[User] [Fallout] I comprehend that the platinum chip was probably very difficult to make, but why couldn't House just program a new software update in the 281 years between the bombs and New Vegas?

[Assistant]
He was in a coma for 61 of those years, for starters.

Beyond that, given what a pragmatist House is, it's likely that simply creating a new chip/OS simply wasn't possible with what he had to hand, or else he would have done so.

The chip itself wasn't made in Vegas, but a place called Sunnyvale; it's possible they had specific expertise, software, and/or hardware that House himself didn't have in Vegas and which was lost in the War. House says that he "designed" the chip, but he clearly needed someone else to put the physical hardware and software together for him. We know he has a brilliant mind, but that doesn't mean he had the ability to write an entirely new and improved software from scratch by himself, while he was contained within his stasis pod.


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

[User]
ELI5: Is olive oil good for you?

Or alternatively, how much olive oil is too much?

[Assistant]
Compared to other fats? Yes. It comes down to chemistry, or at least chemistry that is way off the scale for an ELI5. But here's the story:

* Your body needs fat to function

* There are two major kinds of kinds of fat (saturated, unsaturated)

* Saturated fats come from animal products (meat, dairy) and increase the type of cholesterol (LDL) that is linked to increased health problems.

* Unsaturated fats come from plant/fish sources (avocados, sunflower seeds, olives, etc) and increases the type of cholesterol (HDL) that is linked to lower health problems.

It should be noted though, that the direct results of eating LDL/HDL are really linked to heart disease. The human body needs some fat to survive, but even too much of a "good fat" like olive oil is unhealthy and can lead to other diseases.


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

[User]
[The Amazing Spider-Man movies] Had anyone else gotten bit by that spider would they have turned into a Cronenburg human-spider creature?

TASM 2 states that Richard Parker used his own DNA in the hybrid spiders allowing Peter Parker to obtain all the powers of a spider without any abhorrent side effects. Therefore, Peter is afraid to donate his blood to Harry Osborne because it might kill him or "worse", referring back to Dr. Connors. Given that Dr. Connors turned into a full blown lizard man, can we assume a spider bite would have similar consequences?

[Assistant]
One of the Garth Ennis Spider-Man books has another guy deliberately get himself bitten by a Magic Comic Spider. However instead of turning him into a man with the power of spiders, it turns him into a thousand spiders with the collective intelligence of a man.

Whether this would apply to TASM specifically is unclear though.


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

[User]
ELI5: During a shuttle launch, what happens at T-6.6 seconds vs. what happens at 0 seconds?

At T-6.6 seconds, you see a huge fireball come out of the rockets, but the shuttle doesnt actually lift off until 0 seconds.  What happens at 0 seconds that isnt happening at T-6.6 seconds?  I think I found a Wikipedia article, but its way over my head.

[Assistant]
At T-6.6s they begin firing up the three Space Shuttle Main Engines underneath the Orbiter. These are liquid-fueled engines that pull fuel from the big orange External Tank.  The SSMEs are *extremely* mechanically complex and things could go very wrong very quickly if an engine fails during launch, so NASA lets them run for a few seconds to make sure theyre working properly.

Once the SSMEs have stabilized, the two Solid Rocket Boosters strapped to the side of the tank are ignited and the Shuttle lifts off. Unlike the liquid-fuel engines, theres no way to shut the SRBs down after theyre lit, so they wait until the last possible second.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why does the search for extraterrestrial life revolve around water?

I mean, surely scientists understand that life as WE know it can't be the only form of life out there...

[Assistant]
As far as we know, all life requires water. Until we have evidence that there are types of life that don't require water, we'll search for what we know.

You can't find something if you don't know what you're looking for.


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

[User] ELI5: Biologically we have evolved to have carbohydrates as our main source of energy. Why are they such a taboo in the health and dieting scene?

[Assistant]
We actually work on sugar and we can break down carbohydrates to obtain that sugar.  We store the excess in fat that we can use later.

For the vast majority of the history of life, obtaining food was a major activity that we had to do in order to get enough energy to live and it took energy to do that.  For hundreds of millions of years, life walked that fine edge between getting enough energy to live while using less energy to get that food.  One of the big survival factors was being able to take advantage of abundances of food by storing it so we could get through times where we couldn't get any (i.e. fat).

With civilization and cooperation, we've made is far less energy intensive to obtain food but it's still too new of a concept for evolution to have possibly caught up.  So we have to consciously fight the instinct to consume the abundance of food that lots of people have access to because the mechanisms that used to help us survive (storing excess food as fat) eventually reaches a point where our bodies never evolved to handle the constant higher levels of fat for extended periods.

Focusing on avoiding obvious carbohydrates is a fairly straightforward way for us to self-regulate.


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

[User]
ELI5: With CPU chips having billions of transistors, What happen if a few go bad

So we know they jam pack billions of small transistors into a modern CPU chip. Does it only take 1 transistor to go bad to render the chip useless? Or can a few go down and the chip will still be functional.  Is there some type of redundancy on them so that it can keep working.

[Assistant]
Of course when such chips are made the manufacturing process isn't perfect and some errors may render transistors nonfunctional. The chips are designed with some level of redundancy so certain kinds of errors can be "worked around" but enough errors can render large sections of the chip inoperative.

Instead of just throwing out this under-performing CPU the manufacturers perform what is called "binning". Chips able to perform at certain thresholds are separated into different product lines so a higher performance product which is crippled by broken transistors might be sold as a lower performance unit for less.


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

[User]
[Burnout] How is Paradise City even able to function?!

One of the most popular activities is road rage were people slam their cars into each other, The Dj claims theyve shut down things like the train line so cars can drive on it, civilians can get their hands are not only police cars but a car that literally built from alien tech! Would the population drop like flies?! Wouldnt there be fires in the streets?! Wouldnt the local economy be in the toilet?!

[Assistant]
That's all with the assumption that Paradise City actually is a real, functioning city. It very well could be a Westworld-esque park, a place for the ultra wealthy to race cars in telepresence android bodies and crash them with no risk to themselves.

It makes sense given how the song we all know and love goes: Take me down to the artificial island in the South China Sea, where the grass is green and the girls are one revelation away from staging a global robo-revolution (with fast cars and sick explosions).


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

[User]
ELI5: why do we have such a strong urge to scream out when we're injured. It seems like the last thing we'd want to do from a survival standpoint is to alert others of our weakness.

Edit - a lot of posts on here are saying that there is an evolutionary advantage to having an animal scream out because it warns the other members of the tribe, and, though it may lead to the animal being killed, it's better for the tribe as a whole.

I'm fairly sure that can't be true. Evolution only works in the interests of the individual, not the group (at least, not if it means sacrificing the individual). Evolution is about passing on your genes to the next generation. That's all it is. If the individual dies, they can't pass them on. That's survival of the fittest. True - screaming out may help the tribe, but if it leads to those genes dying, they don't get passed on.

Editing my edit - apparently I'm wrong. Some know-it-all named Richard Dawkins wrote a book about how sometimes evolution can work for the interests of the group rather than the individual. Learned something new. That's what I love about reddit.

[Assistant] Humans are communal animals. Screaming alerts the rest of the tribe to the danger. It may or may not save the injured individual, but it definitely helps the group as a whole. Since genes are what matters, not individual survival, behavior that makes other close relatives more likely to survive is more likely to get passed on.


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

[User]
What happens if two electrons collide when they are orbiting a nucleus?

Just researching Cosmos. It got me thinking. As electrons orbit an atoms nucleus, what would happen if two of the electrons collided?

[Assistant]
I imagine you're picturing the nucleus as the sun and the electrons as planetary balls literally orbiting it? And a collision being two electrons' trajectories crossing?

This picture isn't really accurate. The electrons are not literally orbiting the nucleus with circular trajectories, and the electrons are not small balls. The electrons are dimensionless entities kinda smeared out as a wave over a region, and the shape/size of that region around an atom is the orbital, or state. The regions of each electrons' state can and do overlap with each other, and the nucleus at sometimes, but this isn't them colliding in any way.

As such, the notion of them having orbital trajectories that collide doesn't make any sense. The electrons certainly interact with each other. The charge of the inner ones shield the outer ones from the nucleus charge, and an electrons prevent any other electron from moving into their state. And in other situations, like say a free electron traveling, electrons can scatter off each other. But around the nucleus electrons in different states colliding or scattering off each other is not something that occurs.


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

[User]
Eli5: music memory

How does your brain remember music? For most songs I can't recall the beat or the lyrics but the instant I bear the music I can recognize the song and all the lyrics. How does this work and is this different than other memories I have?

[Assistant]
This is a fantastic question and part of neurological research.

Simple version: human brain tend to be very good at remembering sequences. Think of your ABCs. You can probably pick up the tune from any point in the sequence, but will struggle to go in reverse or random order.

This is true for so many things, such as dance and using tools for many tasks.


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

[User]
How do bacteriophages have the energy to inject their DNA into cells?

I've been curious for a long time about how viruses, specifically bacteriophages, are able to move, seemingly on their own, once they are attached to a cell. I am talking about the plunging that they do in order to inject their DNA into a cell. This seems like much more focused movement than what they do until they come around to the right kind of receptor, right?

After some Wikipedia reading, I came across this paragraph:
*Myovirus bacteriophages use a hypodermic syringe-like motion to inject their genetic material into the cell. After making contact with the appropriate receptor, the tail fibers bring the base plate closer to the surface of the cell known as reversible binding. Once attached completely irreversible binding is initiated, the tail contracts, possibly with the help of ATP present in the tail, injecting genetic material through the bacterial membrane. Podoviruses lack a elongated tail sheath similar to that of a myovirus so will instead use its small tail fibers in a teeth-like manner to enzymatically degrade a portion of the cell membrane before inserting its genetic material.*

However, I do not understand reversible nor irreversible binding, and I'm hoping someone here might be able to explain this in slightly less technical terms. Here's the question as succinctly as I can pose it: How to bacteriophages summon the energy to plunge into a cell?

Thanks for considering this question!

[Assistant]
Antiviral biologist here, not a biochemist though.  It's a series of chemical reactions similar to the way proteins can change their conformation as a result of a single binding.  In the simplest terms, when the phage connects to the membrane, the difference in polarities at the binding site creates a cascade of changes into what is the most ideal organization of atoms in the structural protein sheathing.  These changes eventually lead to the expulsion of the DNA from the structural protein and into the cell.

The reversible vs irreversible, in this case, just correspond to different phases of binding.  Reversible is before the 'hypodermic needle' section has made contact, where as irreversible is after, as the cell's membrane has been penetrated.


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

[User]
[Breaking Bad] How was Walter White so much better than everyone at making meth?

So Walter White produced extremely pure meth (98% or higher if I remember correctly) but Jesse was the only one who could come close. Once the recipe was out there, wouldn't it just take a lot of accuracy to make it well? It seems like making precise measurements is not something that only skilled chemists can do.

[Assistant] Walter used a different (meth)od than most other people. That's what gave it it's blue color, most people didn't know this. Some tried to copy him by putting blue food dye in the meth but wasn't as pure as his. Walter was also a genius at Chemistry and most of his competition besides maybe Gus were not very smart.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why we like "cold" water over "warm" water.

Title kind of explains it all. If i'm not particular over-heated or parched, I would still enjoy a cold glass of water over a warm one (basically all the time), however why exactly i always choose that might not make much sense...

[Assistant] We don't. In many places in the world, room temperature water is preferred. In most parts of Asia, it is not uncommon for people to ask for warm water, which comes to the table anywhere from 120F to just off the boil.


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

[User] ELI5: How do transsexuals change their genitalia? Does the new genitalia look and function normally?

[Assistant]
As with most things, males seem to have it easier.  With MTF, most of the erectile tissue is removed from the penis and the skin is sutured back together, then pushed into the body to form a vagina.  A bit of the skin and nerve endings from the tip are relocated to form a clitoris, and the surgeon takes some bits of the scrotum and folds them up some to form labia.  The balls, as you may imagine, are removed.  If the surgeon is good, without quite a close inspection and excellent lighting, it is difficult to tell the difference between OEM and and aftermarket lady parts, and apparently, some even self-lubricate after a while.

I don't know as much about FTM, just that the replacement part does not function the same way the OEM one does.


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

[User] ELI5: People used to drink more alcohol because it was purportedly safer to drink than water due to fermentation processes. How was that drinking habit sans water sustainable without them getting dehydrated from drinking so much alcohol?

[Assistant] You have to drink alcohol in concentrations of higher than 30% (60 proof) for it to cause you to lose more water than you absorb from the drink. So drinking beers and wine which ranged from 2% to 10% were not enough to dehydrate you. And most of the beers that they drank during the day were called small beer which were around the 2% mark.


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

[User] ELI5: Why do we need to use polygons in video games? What causes us to need flat polygons rather than simply having rounded shapes?

[Assistant]
EDIT: For the actual 5 year olds, feel free to ignore anything written between the (parenthesis) - this is extra stuff for people to Google-search for if interested.

---

I program 3D graphics engines.

To calculate a triangle, you just need 3 points and then you fill the space between them. This simple nature allows for some optimisation; we know that only the pixels between these 3 points will be modified when rastered. We can use this knowledge to simplify how the triangle is shaded, so simple texture mapping is just a case of interpolating texture co-ordinates between these points (keeping depth in mind for perspective correctness). There's more optimisations to be had here that will take a lot of explaining (our GPUs have evolved to be very good at dealing with space between 3 points).

To calculate a rounded surface, you need an equation for the 3D curve, as well as the limits of the surface. Interpolating texture co-ordinates here would involve re-using that equation over and over again, quite the expensive operation. That equation may also "push" the pixels of the surface out into unexpected directions, so optimisations related to the flatness of a simple triangle are going to be much more difficult (they'd need the 3D curve equation to be used again - clipping would definitely be more complex).

As a result, early graphics hardware evolved to be very efficient with triangles and all the research and development has been spent there, resulting in real-time graphics to be as amazing as it is right now in its current state. To go back and make a new way of rendering would involve a new class of graphics acceleration hardware that doesn't have all the years of development of the triangle-based hardware we have, that's not a good trade-off.

The graphics hardware we have now is also great at sending additional information along with the XYZ positions of a triangle vertex, so we can send texture UV, XYZ normal, reflectivity, roughness, and more as additional numbers tied to triangle vertices and these get interpolated between the triangle points too, very handy.

As GPUs get more and more generalised as compute-oriented machines, rather than triangle-rastering-oriented machines, we may see new types of rendering (real-time ray-tracing is possible now, as is voxel based rendering) but these almost always will be slower than using current hardware to render a triangle, so we see these techniques getting used in parallel to triangle-based rendering to achieve effects that aren't as efficient with a triangle-based world (voxels are fast for real-time global illumination, ray-marching [limited ray-tracing] is faster for limited reflections in scenes limited by the amount of triangles displayed).

Perhaps one day we'll gain a "curve" shader where we can use a curve equation to do a perfectly smooth surface between the points of a triangle (I expect the nature of current raster hardware will allow for some cheats here, interpolating between fragments come to mind), but for the time being that's slower than just having lots of triangles to better estimate the curve with current hardware.


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

[User]
Eli5 What do flying insects do when it rains?

When thier wings get wet they are immobile so what do they do?

[Assistant]
Knowing when it's going to rain is an important survival sense for a creature that's the size of a raindrop, so most smaller flying insects generally head for shelter when conditions become right for heavy rain.

A lot of them seek cover in the underside of leaves or the side of plants that are away from the wind. Some like bumblebees just park themselves and wait it out if they can't get to their hive in time.

And because bigger insects like dragonflies that eat the smaller flying ones don't have any prey to hunt, they seek shelter as well.


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

[User]
Does the Sun have Lagrangian points with the center of the Milky Way?

Most astronomers are aware of the Lagrange points between the Earth-Sun, Jupiter-Sun etc, but does the Sun share the same thing with the galactic center, just on a bigger scale?

[Assistant]
In short, no.

The Lagrange points are specifically libration points of a three-body problem, typically the Sun-Earth-L_point and Earth-Moon-L_point systems. You can also construct them for essentially any masses you want but they need to be the significant attractors in the range.

The Sun-Galaxy_center-L_point system cannot be defined without removing all the other large masses in that system. It doesn't work any better than talking about a Sun-Moon-L_p system. You just couldn't ignore the Earth in that scale.


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

[User]
[harry potter] does the ministry of magic collect taxes?

so i was thinking about gringotts and how they don't keep your money in an account in the traditional muggle sense, they just give you a safe deposit box to keep cash in. which means every time anyone wants to withdraw or deposit money, they have to ride the cart and all that.

this also means they are not collecting interest on this money, as gringotts doesn't appear to be able to use the funds which is why banks pay interest. it also means you can't write a check because the employees have no means of moving funds from one vault to another.

so everyone is just paid in cash all the time? how can this possibly be regulated in any manner to be taxable?

so that begs the question, how does the ministry pay for anything, including staff salaries, if they're not collecting taxes? furthermore, how does hogwarts make any money to pay its employees if they don't charge tuition?

the entire wizarding world economy seem tenuous at best. it's not only all cash but all coin. you have to physically carry around precious metals worth whatever you want to buy and deal with a tedious goblin cart anytime you want to go to the bank.

[Assistant]
Presumably they do in some form. The Ministry seems to be one of the major employers in the wizarding world, and we know that the employees get paid for their work. It may not be obvious taxation, but there are likely examples of taxation occurring (likely tax on luxury magical creations).
Or maybe everyone agrees to pay a certain amount, and Ministry employed arithmancers decide who is taxed what on a fairness aspect through magical numbers/divination; the governance of the wizarding UK does not have to be similar to the muggle UK.

Taxation will be different to muggle taxation because magic is so powerful, and wizards can essentially magic all their essentials (the Weasleys are poor by wizarding standards, but they have a large plot of farmable land, a large house and plenty of food. They just can't afford a lot of luxury items/services).


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

[User]
ELI5: Why does the mathematical Order of Operations exist?

We multiply and divide before we add and subtract. Why? Please don't guess. Back it up. Everybody answer I've read is a guess.

[Assistant]
The people who are saying "it's arbitrary" are wrong. Recall that multiplication is repeated addition, and exponentiation is repeated multiplication. Order of operations ensures that the answer you get when you solve "3x2+3" is the same as the answer you get when you solve the *mathematically identical* problem "2+2+2+3."

If order of ops were any different, then our definitions of addition, multiplication, etc would also necessarily be completely different.

Let's look at an example. Keep it simple: only multiplication and addition. Make it concrete: let's look at 3x2+3 again. Multiplying first gives us 9. Adding first gives us 15.

Why multiply first?

We could have easily written out the problem as 2+2+2+3.

Multiplying first gives us 9. The written-out version gives us 9. So *multiplying first gives us the right answer.*

If we added first, *we wouldn't get the right answer.*

Same thing is true for higher-level operations like exponentiation and whatnot.


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

[User] ELI5: How can open source software be considered "more secure" if everyone has access to the source? wouldn't that make it inherently LESS secure?

[Assistant]
You can find security holes without access to the source code, but you can't *fix* security holes without access to the source code.

And more generally, a security hole is a mistake or an oversight, and generally the more people you have reading something, the more likely it is that someone is going to spot the problem. With just a few people reading the code, like you have in a company, it's easier for mistakes to slip through, but a large open source project might have hundreds and hundreds of people reading the code, so one of them is bound to spot the problem.

Edit: Note that the recent OpenSSL news is a good example of this. We didn't find out about it because hackers got in and destroyed everything, we found out because security researchers were looking at the freely available source code and spotted the problem.


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

[User] Why doesn't glue harden while in the bottle?

[Assistant]
Type of glue here is essential for the explanation;  but I'll take a few examples.

1.  Superglue;  cyanoacrylic,  actually initiates bond with water molecules.  So being in an air-tight container extends the life significantly.  So without the water molecules to bond to the glue won't react and create the bond.  (This is why the stuff sticks to fingers so fast.

2.  Wood glue, elmers glue, and the like use PVA. -- it works by forming a chain (polymerization) when it dries.  The solution is usually water, so while in the container the un-evaporated water keeps the chain reaction from happening.

3.  Rubber Cement -- works like the PVA, its dissolved in a solvent such as acetone.  This solvent evaporates and creates the polymerization bond.  So once again, a sealed container keeps it from evaporating.


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

[User] [General fantasy] Do you think the top part of a mermaid also tastes like fish or that it would actually be red meat? Would there be a solid line where the meat changes in their body or would it kind of blend? Could you make a surf and turf platter with one carcass?

[Assistant]
Fish (and reptiles for that matter) developed to move through lateral undulations, and therefore their tails are arranged to move side to side.

Mammals on the other hand, developed a vertical gait, and mammals that adapted to a marine environment developed tails that follow this movement, i.e. moving up and down. This has happened separately several times in evolutionary history.

Mermaids have developed a tail that utilizes vertical undulations rather than a lateral one.

Therefore Merfolk are mammals. Their entire flesh would be the same, mammals flesh. As they are a subspecies of humanity (perhaps Homo Maritimus is a good taxonomic designation) they would probably taste similar to us, and some have said that human flesh tastes like pork.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why does the temperature of a food drastically change how it tastes?

For example, warm beer tastes very different than ice cold beer. Cookies fresh out of the over taste different from the same batch of cookies that sat at room temperature for an hour.

[Assistant]
Our tongue's taste buds have tiny microscopic channels (called trpm6) which send a signal to our brain when it comes in contact with 'taste molecules' which are then translated to a specific taste sensation. The reaction of the channels are much more intense when the food has a higher temperature so it sends a stronger electrical signal to the brain. Naturally, the opposite is in effect for colder consumables as the channels respond much slower. In conclusion, hotter food is more tasty than colder alternatives.

 (note that TRPM5 is only used to signal sweet and bitter tastes)


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

[User] ELI5:Why do some songs give me the chills/goose bumps? Whats happening to the body?

[Assistant] Body releases dopamine cuz the brain enjoys music. You start to get the chills because the brain is a good predictor of what may come next, and you predict what comes next because you've probably heard it before. It was epic then, and it's epic now, and here come them chills because Danny Carry is such a monster on these drums!!


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

[User]
ELI5: How does wifi work?

It's just like this weird force.

[Assistant]
Wi-Fi is a wireless networking technology that uses radio waves to provide wireless network connections using the IEEE 802.11x standard protocol. The communication is two way between a computer's wireless adapter and a router and uses the Radio Frequency (RF). When RF current is supplied to an antenna, it creates an electromagnetic field that propagates through space.

The wireless adapter converts data from the computer into radio signals and transmits it using an antenna. The wireless router receives the signal and decodes it. The router then sends the information to the internet using an Ethernet connection. When the router receives information from the internet, it translates it into a radio signal and sends it to the computer's wireless adapter.


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

[User]
ELI5: What exactly are headaches, and what causes them?

What are headaches actually in your head? And what causes them to happen?

[Assistant]
There are many causes, too many to mention.

They can be caused by dehydration, muscle tension in the neck and head, migraines, pinched nerves, toxins, withdrawals, blood vessel contracting, blood vessels expanding................


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

[User]
[Marvel Universe] Why shouldn't Ultron (and other constructs) be able to pick up Mjlnir?

I know there are a ton of Mjlnir questions on this sub, but I'm adding one more.

It has been established that an elevator can lift Mjlnir. Therefore, is it really a leap to suggest that any robot could do so, given that it's simply another mechanical device? Could Ultron lift it? Iron Man's armor without Tony inside? Bender from Futurama? What about non-sentient robots?

[Assistant]
If a robot is sentient (Ultron, Vision) they count as a person and have to be worthy.

Non sentient yeah they could pick it up, but they wouldn't get the powers of Thor because they aren't whosever they're whatsoever.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why tons of students I know that are fairly wealthy and well off are receiving high amounts from FASFA for college while I, from a middle-class family that is barely getting by and is heavily relying on FAFSA, only received a small sum that barely assists us at all?

My father works as a pastor in a church and only makes half the salary he should be. He also owns a small business but we make almost 0 profit from it because business is so bad. My mom works 2 part time jobs with minimum wage from each. We are also putting my older brother, 22 years old, through school. We are just barely cutting it to get by. Bills and taxes are often paid late, unless my mother dips into my bank account to "borrow" cash to make a payment. How do wealthy families with more ability to pay for college attain high sums from FAFSA while we are sitting here struggling for enough to get through the week?

Edit: I'd also like to add that I do understand the fact that we are white and that owning a business has something to do with it.
Edit: Thank you for your detailed responses and explanations. It is pretty easy to understand now that I realize I was technically incorrect in my statement that wealthier kids receive more than I do. Apologies for that. My personal conditions separate me from others and result in a lower aid package because I appear to have a lot of benefits, when they actually are not.

[Assistant]
Similar to that, it also seems like savers are punished. Take two hypothetical families, both with 3 kids, the same mortgage and both earning say $75,000: the Savers and the Spenders.

The Savers take no vacations, drive old cars, and manage to scrimp and save $5,000 to put towards their children's education each year.

The Spenders, on the other hand, take multiple vacations, lease new cars, and put nothing towards their kids' educations.

Flash forward 15 years, the Savers have roughly $75,000, the Spenders, $0.
Guess who will get more financial aid? According to FAFSA employees I've spoken with, the Spenders. Because on paper, they have less to contribute.

How is that fair?


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

[User] ELi5: how do people build oil rigs in the oceans? How do we put the giant pillars into the ocean floor?

[Assistant]
We don't actually anchor them to the floor. Those deep water platforms actually float there with anchor lines to keep them stable. The drill and pump mechanism is sent down some somewhat flexible tubing.

There was an article in The Economist about towing one to a scrap yard in Turkey.


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

[User] [Star Trek] what are the primary sources of energy for the Federarion?

[Assistant]
Mostly fusion for planetary and station needs.  Starships have a combination of fusion reactors and m/am reactors.

Starships need massive power output to travel at warp and one way to do that is a matter/antimatter reaction.  However, to get antimatter you need to make it.  The TNG:TM has this to say on antimatter generation:

>As used aboard the USS Enterprise, antimatter is first generated at major Starfleet fueling facilities by combined solar-fusion charge reversal devices, which process proton and neutron beams into antideuterons, and are joined by a positron beam accelerator to produce antihydrogen (specifically antideuterium). Even with the added solar dynamo input, there is a net energy loss of 24% using this process, but this loss is deemed acceptable by Starfleet to conduct distant interstellar operations.

As is stated above the creation of antimatter an energy loss.  Antimatter is also extreamly dangerous.  An antimatter containment failure on a planet of even a few kg would be devastating.  Where fusion is much safer.  Coupled with abundant space to build power plants and easy/cheap fuel sources, there is no need for m/am reactors on planets.


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

[User]
Pauli exclusion principle: how fast does 'this state is occupied' information travel?

Assuming it travels with c, does this mean that PEP can be violated for short amount of time?

[Assistant]
As the other poster stated, it's a man-made rule to explain what we observe. But the math tells us that this information is embedded in a field. So there is no "this state is occupied" information. You just have a wave behaving as it naturally will.

Unfortunately, in this case, the wave is a bit too hard to think about intuitively to give a satisfying explanation as to why it won't. You merely learn to accept it as a physicist that it won't.

Fermions are described by what we call "spinor" fields. A spinor is vaguely described as the square root of geometry the same way the imaginary number `i` is the square root of a number. We find mathematically that spinor's don't commute with each other the way a normal number will. IE 3 x 4 = 4 x 3 but ab !=  ba if a & b are spinors. Rather ab = - ba.

A spinor-valued field fundamentally has this property. So what we find is that a normal classical field is perfectly willing to double itself (f*f = f^(2)) but a spinor field can't since a*a = -a*a and the only number that equals negative itself is 0. So we simply find that this field won't let itself double.

So a quick example. An ocean wave can be simply compared to a spin-less boson's field. An ocean wave is obviously willing to cross another wave and the amplitudes of the two waves just combine. But a spinor field won't!


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

[User]
ELI5: Limited number of transfers from Savings accounts

I went to go transfer some cash from my savings to my checkings account, and again noticed something to the degree of "Federal law says you can only make six transfers out of your savings account per month"

ELI5 Please?

[Assistant]
It's due to 204.2(d)(2) of the Reserve Requirements for Depository Institutions. For 5 year olds, that means "rules for banks set by the federal government", specifically, the section that defines what a savings account is, legally.

Basically, the limit on transfers is part of what designates a "savings" from a "checking" account that has unlimited transfers. Certain protections and features are included in a savings account (namely, accumulating interest or waiver of service fees), and without passing this requirement to legally be a savings account, it wouldn't qualify.


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

[User] ELI5: How do some spiders manage to get stuck in the webs of other spiders despite being able to (seemingly) flawlessly move through their own webs?

[Assistant]
Not all strands in a spider web are sticky, and a spider moves on his own web by walking on the non-sticky strands. If the spider stepped incorrectly, they'd get stuck in their own web.

If that same spider tried to walk on a different web, they'd probably step on the wrong strand and get stuck.


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

[User]
CMV: The concept of microaggressions is harmful to both the "aggressor" and the target.

First, I want to say that I love this community. It is incredible, and I have learned so much since subscribing.

.

Now, Here are the points that I intend to make:

* aggression assumes intent.
* many people who commit "microaggressions" have no intention of doing anything harmful.
* viewing unintentionally harmful acts as aggressive encourages a person to react aggressively rather than constructively.

Edit:
>Microaggression is a term used for brief and commonplace daily verbal, behavioral or environmental indignities, whether intentional or unintentional, that communicate hostile, derogatory, or negative attitudes toward stigmatized or culturally marginalized groups.

definition by wikipedia
/Edit
.

if I was walking down the street and someone punched me in the face, I would probably hit them back. However if the same person tripped and accidentally punched me in the face, I would probably stop and help them. That situation changes if I am taught to assume that every time someone harms me it is an act of aggression. I would likely react the same way in both situations. That could create all kinds of problems for me down the road.

.

There are many versions of microaggressions that I have heard that could easily have no negative intent behind them. One example is:

>Are you bringing your husband to the party?

That statement could very easily be offensive. There are alot of assumptions implicit in it. It assumes the sexual orientation of the person, it assumes their marital status, it assumes that they should be married. However, the fact that someone is offended does not demonstrate the intent necessary to define it as aggression.

.

If someone assumes that an honest mistake is aggressive, then they are likely to respond aggressively in turn. This affects their mindset. They are likely to see the world as far more dangerous as it really is. In addition, they are likely to alienate people that could have been their friends. It is also possible that a kinder response could have helped the "aggressor" change their problematic behavior. Once the cycle of aggression starts it becomes much more difficult to put down our defenses and talk openly.

.

It would ultimately be much more helpful to first seek to understand. Then, if there is truly no aggressive intent, try to come from a place of compassion. That is much more likely to produce genuine change.

Edit:
I appreciate all of the responses. I would like to note one way that my view has been changed:

I do not have a problem with the actual concept behind microaggressions. It is important that these interactions be addressed. We should encourage them to be addressed in a kind and compassionate way. The term microaggression encourages people to address them in a defensive way. In addition this has been helpful in giving me hope to see that more people view this as something to be approached with compassion than I previously thought. I will be going through awarding deltas to anyone who helped in shifting my views.

[Assistant]
Are microggressions even defined as being aggressive though?

Merriam-Webster:

:a comment or action that subtly and often unconsciously or unintentionally expresses a prejudiced attitude toward a member of a marginalized group (such as a racial minority)

no mention of motive or aggression.

Wikipedia:

Microaggressionis a term used for brief and commonplace daily verbal, behavioral or environmental indignities, whether intentional or unintentional, that communicate hostile, derogatory, or negative attitudes toward stigmatized or culturally marginalized groups.

Explicitely "intentional or unintentional"

Psychology Today (don't ask, that's just the third thing that came up):

A microaggression is a subtle, often unintentional, form ofprejudice. Rather than an overt declaration of racism or sexism, a microaggression often takes the shape of an offhanded comment, an inadvertently painful joke, or a pointed insult.

Again, explicitly "often unintentional".

I'd say maybe the word is poorly chosen, bit the CONCEPT, which is what you were talking about, seems perfectly in line with your opinions on the matter.


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

[User] Eli5: what is negative g force and why does it make you feel so weird?

[Assistant] It's when you are being forced upward. For example, at the crest of a hill of a high-speed roller coaster where your momentum is going up from climbing the hill but the coaster's track curves downward faster than the parabolic trajectory you would otherwise travel. We're used to being held down by gravity, so when a situation occurs that makes up feel like we're being shot upward, it feels unusual to us. Particularly as we feel our organs being lifted inside our bodies.


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

[User]
Just got asked to write my first Letter of Rec

I am a graduate student who teaches undergrads in my department. This is my first semester teaching as the primary instructor and I have just my first request to write a LOR for a scholarship.

 The student in question was a good student and I have no problem writing one for him... except I have never done it and don't know what to include. Almost all of the LOR I have had written for myself I have never seen, as they were submitted directly to the school or scholarship committee.

Any advice is appreciated.

[Assistant] I have been told that many organizations don't accept letters of recommendation from grad students, or at least don't give them nearly as much weight as letters from faculty. You should check with the organization that awards the scholarship first to see if they have a problem with it.


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

[User]
[DC Animated Universe] Steven Mandragora was clearly a superhuman, being able to survive the Canary Cry and even several tonnes of steel falling on top of him. Why was he only escorted by 3 FBI agents and 2 street level Leaguers?

Why didn't the FBI bring 10 or 20 of their best, or ask J'onn for someone like Vixen, Booster Gold, or Stargirl to escort him?

[Assistant] The security was about who would be after him not to hold him there, he was cooperating with what ever agency held him. The main aspect of security was that people didn't know where he was, keeping people out and whatever deal he made keeping him in. And i think the league was only there because huntress was after him, sending some one more powerful would be overkill.