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

[User] ELI5: Why a widescreen movie played on a widescreen TV still has the thick bars on the top and bottom?

[Assistant]
Because some widescreen movies have pictures that are still wider than HDTV.  HDTV has a picture that is about 1.78 times wide as it is tall (this is called the "aspect ratio", expressed as 1.78:1 or 16:9 because 16 divided by 9 is roughly equal to 1.78).  Many movies have a "Flat" aspect ratio of 1.85:1, as the picture is only slightly wider than HDTV, such movies can play on HDTV without needing black bars.

But some movies are much wider.  Many movies have an aspect ratio of 2.35:1, also known as "scope," in memory of the first widely used wide-screen presentation format, 20th Century Fox's "Cinemascope."  Some movies are wider still.  The wider moves still need black bars top and bottom on an HDTV in order to show you the full width of the picture.

And no, there is no picture information hidden by the black bars.


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

[User] ELI5: Why does your nose burn when you burp through it after drinking sodas?

[Assistant]
drinking soda makes unstable solution of CO2 ( carbonic acid ). after consumption drink releases CO2 and it again gets condensed in respiratory track to form a dilute carbonic acid..

Or this could be due to brisking phosporic acid in it.


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

[User]
[Star Wars] What was life like for Emperor Palpatine after he took over the galaxy?

My understanding is that he didn't REALLY give a shit about the politics? He's a sith lord, so I know he wants to amass more power, but what does he do?

How does a typical day go when he doesn't have to deal with any politics? What's he doing? Where's he travelling? What are his next step/plans?

Also, I guess a side question, did he always wear that black cloak outfit everywhere, or did he have more elegant outfits for public appearances? He'd look like a homeless beggar if I never knew he was the emperor.

[Assistant]
He sat back and watch the sun rise over the grateful galaxy. Essentially.

In new canon - and to a certain degree in old canon too - not long after creating the Empire he sort of secluded himself, doing sith stuff, it was very rare for his subjects to actually see him in person.

I believe in both canons he was very preoccupied with transcending death - in old canon he was researching and practicing essence transfer into clone bodies, and in new canon he researched some sith sorcery.


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

[User]
[Star Wars] If Yoda considered Anakin too old to train, why did he leave Luke hanging around in a desert for so long before training him?

If using Luke against the Emperor was always in his plans, why didn't Yoda just take Luke to Dagobah with him, and train him from childhood?

[Assistant]
Using Luke like an anti-Sith weapon wasn't always the plan, but then fate/the force intervened and forced him to take part in the rebellion. Yoda knew that Vader would eventually find Luke and with zero Jedi guidance at all, he would have easily been turned to the dark size.

As for why Yoda immediately turned around and seemed to refuse to train Luke when he arrived on Dagobah, the answer is twofold. First, Yoda had to make sure Luke wasn't exactly like his father. If Luke showed the same trouble signs as Anakin: impatience, arrogance, irrational anger at slight inconveniences, Yoda would have walked away. If Luke was too much like his father, Luke was doomed to fall into the same traps that destroyed Anakin.

Second, Yoda was always a bit of a wildcard and liked messing with people. So his "He is too old" and erratic behavior upon first meeting Luke was both a test and Yoda's actual eccentric personality showing through. Yoda reined himself in when he had to be serious and instruct Luke.


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

[User]
CMV: there is a conspiracy (or a set of them) whose goal is to spread anti-intellectual ideas on the world, and to prevent any form of critical thinking.

Confusion, denial, dissonance, crazy stuff in general; so crazy that you're forced to believe "don't think about it." Isn't that what people nowadays are into? Those that are going on in TV and social media? I've seen people are digging this stuff a lot, and they show no signs of stopping.

I think we let our guard down once we stop thinking about anything, at least critically. It does look like to me that they're doing everything in their power to make us none the wiser.

It's probably due to me just correlating this to 1984, which is just fiction. Except propaganda and disinformation is real, and have proven to be potent weapons of control.

I for one, would hate to be controlled by stuff like this, so it shouldn't be a surprise that this is one thing I fear.

[Assistant]
Surely a much more likely explanation for all the anti-intellectualism and propaganda is that people with similar goals will end up using similar tactics and talking points to achieve their goals without forming any kind of conspiracy.

Say there's a new bill or set of policies meant to combat climate change, an oil lobbyist might want to oppose it because it would hurt their companies profits, while a neo-liberal might not like the amount of government spending and nationalisation in the bill, and a career politician might be against it simply because it might make their opponents who proposed it look good.

So they all go to the public square to attack it, and when one of them manages to capture a lot of attention they all copy that person's homework to use the tactics and points that work. And if that happens to take the form of attacking the idea of "experts" or claiming climate change is a Chinese hoax, or regulations are ways for "elites" to keep down small business so be it. They can't get good science behind them after all because good science points towards the policies being necessary and helpful.

And thus with no conspiracy or coordination whatsoever you have an anti intellectualism movement on the go.


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

[User]
[Star Wars] Did Sidious intend for Vader to be his successor? If not, what was his exit strategy as Emperor?

Also, did Vader intend to become Emperor after superseding Sidious some day? Or would he have wanted to continue in a military role while someone else became a figurehead as Emperor?

[Assistant]
Darth Sidious' plan was to rule the galaxy at the head of the Galactic Empire. Ultimate power. Forever.

Sith Lords are the ambitious type.

For some background, Darth Sidious was trained under Darth Plagueis, a Sith Lord who focused on using the force to sustain and even create life. Unfortunately his skill at sustaining life with the use of the force could be undone through sufficient application of Sith lightning.

Darth Sidious was particularly fond of using Sith lightning, hence his master's undoing. But Sidious still learned of his former master's ability to use the force to manipulate life itself.

How do you think Anakin was able to survive his wounds long enough to be placed in a walking metal coffin? Darth Sidious was at his side, refusing to allow him to die and sustaining his life until the medical droids could place Anakin within his new body.


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

[User]
Double slit experiment with electrons using detectors

My understanding of the standard electron double-slit experiment is as follows:

If you fire electrons at the correct momentum at a pair of slits, the electrons hit the screen in the distribution of an interference pattern. i.e. each electron hitting the screen at a position with a given probability which follows a wave-like distribution.

What's really odd is that this probability function is even obeyed if we send one electron through at a time. The explanation I've heard for this is that the electron actually travels through both slits and interferes with itself.

My question is whether this can be detected. Since electrons in motion produce a magnetic field, we could stick a field detector in each of the double slits. We could then work out which slit the electron went through.

What happens here? Is the magnetic field detected half of what we expect of a electron moving with that momentum?

[Assistant]
If you detect which slit the electron goes through, you collapse the wavefunction so that its position is defined at that point, so no wavefunction 'goes through' the other slit and there's nothing to interfere with. Instead, you see a simple ballistic pattern, without interference.

To say that another way, measuring which slit it goes through forces it to choose. We can't detect bits of wavefunction, only actual electrons, because the detector either detects nothing (the wavefunction didn't collapse to have the electron here) or an electron (the wavefunction did collapse to an electron here). Once we know which slit it does through, the interference of wavefunction through the other slit is negligible, even if you use an interpretation that says these paths are possible.


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

[User]
ELI5: Where does light go?

If one were in a perfectly sealed room and turned a light on, there would be light in the room and none visible from the outside. However, if the light were turned off, the room would get dark. Why? Where do the light waves go?

[Assistant] It would get absorbed by everything in the room, including the walls, ceiling, and floor.  That happens even when the light is on--some is absorbed, and some is reflected off, and what you "see" is the light reflected off of, say, a wall.  The light keeps bouncing around the room, until it's eventually all absorbed.  But as long as the light is on, more light keeps bouncing around, and some is absorbed.  As soon as you turn the light off, the light continues to bounce around for a fraction of a second, before it is all absorbed.


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

[User]
[Power Rangers] How powerful exactly are all the main villains in each Power Ranger series?

Ive been wanting to knows for quite a while.

[Assistant]
In general we can presume that they're stronger than the monsters they sent individually, but not strong enough that they aren't risking their own lives fighting the rangers

MMPR: Rita is a witch with various magic abilities, but doesn't fight at all. She did use her magic wand to blast Divatox, but that was effortlessly caught by Astronema. Zedd was better, where he can defeat Tommy Oliver rather easily, but retreated once his staff was broken. Serpentera, his zord, can destroy a planet, but runs out of power fast. Lord Vile can create powerful monsters way stronger than Zedd's or Rita's, but isn't seen fighting.

Zeo: King Mondo, even with his Damocles sword, was defeated by the Super Zeo Megazord, so more powerful than the average monster, but not the strongest.

Turbo: Divatox can teleport and have eye lasers, but also rarely fights.

Space: Astronema has fighting skills on par with the rangers. Dark Spectre took two planet destroying missiles before dying, and can launch a civilization wiping meteor through telekinesis.

Lost Galaxy: Scorpius took on all the rangers at once, but was killed by sneak attack by the red ranger. Trakeena, after training, easily defeated the red ranger, and her upgraded form survived a point blank hit by a battlelizer.

Lightspeed Rescue: Queen Bansheera has various magic abilities, and in her second form can summon a city destroying tidal wave. She was killed by her own demon underlings when she dropped into hell.

Time force: Ransik can fight the entire team by himself, but held back by his sickness.

Wild force: Master Org final form nearly destroyed all the zords and can regenerate as long as his heart is intact.

Ninja Storm: Lothor can take on the rangers by himself through martial arts, but was defeated by Mesogog.

Dino Thunder: Mesogog final form can absorb energy and multiply, but there's a limit.

SPD: Grumm can defeat the main five rangers, but lost to the shadow ranger one on one.

Mystic force: Octomus can travel through time and devour magic, but there's an upper limit until he explodes.

Operation overdrive: Flurious can freeze an entire city, and took two point blank attack from the battlelizer.

Jungle Fury: Dai Shi final form absorbed the powers of all the masters, who blew up all his monsters when they combined their powers.

RPM: Venjix defeated the main three rangers, and can delete people from existence until he was hacked.

Samurai: Stronger than all the rangers, and suffered zero damage from their attacks, but has a weak spot, but still took multiple attacks that could one shot other monsters on said weak spot before dying.

Haven't seen the other seasons.


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

[User]
CMV: Christianity is used as a way to justify pre-existing moral beliefs, not as a source of them.

This argument will be specific to Christianity, although I do think it likely applies to other religions. However, I don't know enough about other religions to have a meaningful conversation, so please keep your arguments focused on Christianity. This is also specific to Christians who claim the Bible is the word of God. I am aware that some Christians believe the Bible is the word of people, and their reflections and thoughts on God.

There are several reasons I think Christianity is not a source of most of it's practitioners beliefs, but instead is used as a form of confirmation bias to support beliefs they already hold. These reasons are: Bible verses that get ignored, how it is determined when books are added to the Bible, and how Christianity changes over time with society.

My first point is that people often cherry pick Bible verses. I know that this is pointed out often on change my view and gets tiring, so I'm not going to post examples. I also know that this differs across denominations and that Bible verses are open to interpretation, but in my opinion this actually supports my point. People choose Bible verses to argue beliefs they hold outside of the Bible. If a person believed the Bible was the word of God, why would they pick out specific things from it to believe? To me, it's clear that people don't believe in things such as harsh punishments and not eating shellfish because society no longer cares about those things. However, people do have very strong views about, for example, homosexuality and claim these views are because of the Bible, while simultaneously ignoring other verses of the Bible. This, to me, shows that people are not generally interested in learning from the Bible, but moreso using the Bible to support internal beliefs they can't find support for elsewhere.

They second point I mentioned was about how books get added to the Bible. This applies specifically to Catholics because I'm getting this information from the Catholic school I went to. However, the general methodology for deciding which books to add to the Bible I think applies to probably all denominations. Sometimes, people apparently find books that they think should be added to the Bible and whether or not they get added is determined by what people think about God. This information about God comes from the currently used form of the Bible. Why are we using the Bible to determine what other books should be added to the Bible if the Bible already says contradictory things about God? My view is that it isn't the Bible we use to decide what books get added, it's our own preconceived ideas about what "good" is, and since God is good, we ourselves use our ideas of good to decide what God does, not the other way around.

Finally, society changes all the time, and Christianity changes with it. Before, Christians used to believe gay people were evil, now it's just that they are sinning. We also used to believe in very serious punishments for what we now consider minor crimes. We used to be ok with slavery, and in fact, the Bible tells how slaves should act. But as society changes, so to do the teachings of Churches. To me, this is evidence that people don't get their beliefs from God, they define God's beliefs based in their own. Change my view.

Edit: Thank you guys for all the responses. I just wanted to clarify a few things.

1. I hold no animosity towards Christians in general. I have many Christian friends who I consider to be very intelligent. I will say that this is primarily because they see it as more of the experience and deciding for yourself what an all wise all good God would be like. They don't believe God himself had a direct influence on the writing of the Bible, only that it was written about him by people.

2. I'm already aware the purpose of Jesus was to invalidate the New Testament, or render its rules unnecessary. This kind of also proves my point on a more macro scale. As far as I'm aware, Jews and Christians believe in the same God, but Christians believe the messiah was found. The entire religion of Christianity was founded by a guy who thought those regulations were outdated and got rid of them. And also, why would an infinitely wise God have to change his mind about which rules are necessary?

[Assistant]
Both are correct. Some people use religion to justify their moral beliefs. Others base their moral beliefs on their religion (AKA What would Jesus do?). Others do both at the same time.

When a religious leader changes the personal belief of a follower by quoting their religious texts, the follower is basing his morals on his religion. The religious leaser might be justifying his morals with his religion or might genuinely believe what he preaches.


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

[User] [One Piece]in what sense are the straw hat crew pirates? I dont recall them pillaging anything, and theyre actually pretty cool guys. More adventurers than anything. I dont think they know what a pirate is.

[Assistant]
In One Piece verse, a pirate is someone who has Jolly Roger. That specifically means that theyve taken up arms against the government.

In the pilot chapter, there were explicitly two types of pirates: pillagers and adventurers.


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

[User] ELI5: Why can you grow plants hydroponically but if plants in soil get too much water they get root rot and die?

[Assistant]
Plants roots need oxygen, as counterintuitive as that seems.

In soil, there are a lot of tiny gaps that hold air. When you over water a plant those gaps stay filed with water instead of air and the plant drowns

Any hydroponic system includes a way to get oxygen to the roots. Sometimes they leave the roots exposed to the air for a while (ebb and flow), or sometimes they pump air into the water like in an aquarium (deep water culture)


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

[User]
ELI5: Why does certain music give us chills?

You know, like when you hear a really good song and your get chills at your favorite part.

[Assistant]
Research shows thats because music stimulates an ancient reward pathway in the brain, encouraging dopamine to flood the striatuma part of the forebrain activated by addiction, reward, and motivation. Music, it seems, may affect our brains the same way that sex, gambling, and potato chips do.

Strangely, those dopamine levels can peak several seconds before the songs special moment. Thats because your brain is a good listenerits constantly predicting whats going to happen next. (Evolutionarily speaking, its a handy habit to have. Making good predictions is essential for survival.)

But music is tricky. It can be unpredictable, teasing our brains and keeping those dopamine triggers guessing. And thats where the chills may come in. Because when you finally hear that long awaited chord, the striatum sighs with dopamine-soaked satisfaction andBAMyou get the chills. The greater the build-up, the greater the chill.


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

[User]
Why don't people with hypertension eat equivalent amounts of potassium rather than limiting sodium intake?

We know sodium can increase blood pressure and make hypertension worse, some people avoid/limit sodium in food.

Wouldn't eating potassium in proportion to one's sodium intake significantly reduce risks while maintaining quality of life?

Why I'm asking?

I searched and found eating potassium is an effective way of controlling high blood pressure but no one I know with hypertension does it. Is there something I'm missing or they should start doing this.

Edit: e.g. what if someone eats 1g of Sodium chloride with their food and then eats 1g potassium chloride or (however much is needed to balance the consumed sodium).

Edit: not advice or suggestion of any kind, purely academic question.

[Assistant] Increasing potassium intake can help control high blood pressure when the cause of high blood pressure is too much sodium. There are other causes of high blood pressure, such as obesity, hormonal conditions, kidney disease and sleep apnea. Potassium sparing diuretics due this without a change in diet, but are most often used in conjunction with an ACE inhibitor to reach a healthy blood pressure.


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

[User]
[Superheroes] Hey there, I'm an upcoming superhero and just passed the first year mark and I've started to notice something peculiar?

there seems to be a 1 in 5 chance that whenever I arrive on the scene the cute girl from my workplace that I'm crushing on is part of the danger in one way or another, is this a common thing for other heroes or what?

[Assistant]
You've got a stalker. Not too surprising, relatively normal for a celebrity.

As a superhero there is a significantly above average chance they want to kill and/or torture you into going evil. You should probably look into that. Deliberately causing scenes to try and get you to show up is also a possibility, which is better or worse depending on how much you value the lives of the public.


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

[User]
CMV: Movie Theaters should let people bring in outside food and drinks on the condition that they charge the people a small fee

I feel like Movie Threaters could be alot more successful if they allowed outside food and drink if they charge the person like 2 dollars for each item. Most theaters do not have food that I would actually want to eat during a movie and being able to bring in my own food for a cost would be great. Many people find movie theater food expensive and end up not buying anything. If movie theaters let people bring food in they would be making money on people who would not have bought food anyway. Plus, many people sneak in food anyway so its not like it would destroy the consessions stand's business. And while yes it could lead to people illegally selling food to others for a cheaper price, it would seldom happen and would not affect the sales in a huge way.

[Assistant] The fact is the movie theatre makes most of its money on the food.  The ticket price is primarily to pay for the movie rental from the distributor/studio.  They keep the concession profits for themselves.


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

[User] [MCU] Were the Avengers' actions in Avengers: Endgame legal under the Sokovia Accords?

[Assistant] At that point in time, what Accords? Most governments would have been struggling to offer the most basic of services, accepting help wherever they could get it, including from the Avengers. The Sokovia Accords at that point were worth only the paper it was printed on.


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

[User]
Light cannot escape the gravitational pull of a black hole. So where does the light go?

I mean, why is the black hole not lit up when the light gets "absorbed"

[Assistant] Fun fact: If you were orbiting a black hole, and say you were invincible,the gravitational pull of said hole would be so strong that light would orbit, enabling you the ability to look forward and see the back of your head.


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

[User]
The Earth & The Sun Spin Counterclockwise, Why Doesn't Venus ?

Venus & Uranus are the only two planets that spin clockwise. Why?

[Assistant] No one knows exactly why, but a very good hypothesis is that they both experienced collisions with massive objects in the past. Since the early solar system was a comparatively chaotic place (consider for example the quite likely collision of Earth and another planet named Thea, the debris from which was ejected from the Earth and formed our Moon).


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

[User]
What stabilizes a Neutron in a Nucleus from Neutron Decay?

The question is simple, but the answer is difficult.

If you have a neutron in, say, a helium atom... that neutron is stable for billions of years.

Contrast this with a free neutron, which has a half life estimated to be somewhere between 10 and 15 minutes. Free neutrons decay into a proton, an electron and a gamma ray (and an antineutrino or something like that?)

So what is it that makes such a huge difference in the stability of neutrons (in a nucleus vs free)?

[Assistant] Nucleons in (stable) nuclei are bound, they have less energy than free particles. A helium-4 nucleus has less energy than a helium-3 nucleus plus a proton plus an electron (and also less energy than lithium-4 plus electron). The neutrons cannot decay because there is not enough energy.


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

[User]
CMV: The chicken came before the egg

I am of the believe that, in regards to evolutionary biology, the chicken did in fact precede the egg. I admit, my specialty is neuroscience rather than broad evolutionary biology, but I fail to see any compelling reason or science for why the egg would come before the chicken. The egg is a way by which hens give birth to baby chicks. It makes no sense to me that a chicken-centric (a new term I'm coining, and you are more likely to get a delta if you use it too) method of reproduction would come before the very creature that procreates the egg itself. I know single cell organisms originated in the Earth's oceans millions of years ago, but how on Earth would an egg come before the creature itself? Especially since, based on my understanding, chickens are the evolutionary descendants of creatures that resembled dinosaurs. There is a clear evolutionary chain that precedes chickens, so to claim that the chicken came after the egg makes so sense to me.

CMV.

[Assistant]
The chicken egg came before the chicken. The thing that laid the first chicken egg was a close relative of the chicken, but not quite a chicken.

This fits with what Id call the common definition of what a chicken egg is - an egg with a chicken embryo in it - but if you want to claim it was a chicken-relative egg because thats what laid it, youd reach the opposite conclusion.

Obviously, eggs evolved before chickens, overall.


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

[User]
ELI5: How does the earths first gain more layers if there is a finite amount of material?

When we learn about history we learn that layers at the bottom are older and stuff up top is newer, so it's like things just keep piling up. Where did we get the stuff then? Will we run out of stuff?

[Assistant] Volcanoes eject material from below the Earth's surface to the top of the Earth's surface. Dust also travels with wind and can end up halfway around the world. Additionally, CO2 from the atmosphere is fixed by plants and those are eaten by animals. They all die and end up as part of the Earth. CO2 to fuel this can come from volcanoes, the oceans, or released by erosion.


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

[User]
ELI5 - How are "Pirate" car parts made?

I recently purchased some DEPO branded headlights for my car, because I was planning to cut them up to retrofit projectors.

Upon inspection I noticed that each component of the assembly was almost OEM apart from a few areas where plastic seemed to leak out of the mould.

I  was curious as to how they are manufactured to the same shape and specifications as OEM if they had to use their own production techniques. Are these parts just manufactured using old OEM molds and dies?

[Assistant]
A decent amount of the time they're made on the same molds and dies as the OEM parts. Some factory in China takes an order for 20,000 headlights from Ford, makes the tooling, makes the order, then files off the logos on the mold and runs off another 50,000 until the mold wears out.

Most of the big OEMs aren't really interested in pursuing that sort of thing because it's just seen as the cost of doing business in China.


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

[User]
ELI5: How Apple can publicly claim iPhone 5 is the thinnest smartphone in the world?

In their keynote they had a slide dedicated to this point. A simple Google search will show that there is more than one phone thinner. iPhone 5 = 7.6mm; Huawei has one that's 6.7mm, and ZTE has one that's 6.2mm and Motorola Razr is stated at 7.1mm.
Is there any commission keeping companies accountable for these things or can everyone just lie?

[Assistant]
American false advertising laws are incredibly lax. Only a competitor has any standing to complain about it; if a complaint *is* substantiated, they usually just have to run what's known as "corrective advertising". Let me tell you what that would look like:

iPhone 5. Thinner than most*. Better than all.

[in size 2 font:]*We mistakenly claimed that the iPhone 5 was the thinnest smartphone in the world. It is actually the thinnest smartphone in the United States.


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

[User] ELI5: How do aircrafts know when they are being targeted?

[Assistant]
Two basic ways:

Sensors on the aircraft detect the targeting radar of a ground installation or missile being pointed at the aircraft. Radars depend on hitting a target with energy and then detecting the energy as it bounces off the target and returns. Planes can detect when a radar is simply scanning the whole sky and when it is focused specifically on them by analyzing the radar energy hitting the plane.

Missile Approach Warning systems scan the sky for missiles using pulse-doppler radar, infrared, and ultraviolet sensors. The radar can quickly detect objects moving fast towards the aircraft, and the IR/UV sensors look for the bright light produced by the missile's rocket motor.


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

[User]
I believe alimony should be abolished. CMV.

After a divorce, I believe people should divide what's theirs and part ways. I think it's insane to expect a person to pay the other to maintain a certain lifestyle they grew to expect while in an intimate and legal relationship. Just because one of them makes more than the other doesn't mean the less financially well off person deserves "their cut." Yes, if there is a big gap in their wages one is going to be better off after the divorce and I could see how that's not fair. However, that's life; some people are very wealthy, some are very poor, and most are somewhere in the middle.

I'm not saying it can't be done voluntarily and this has nothing to do with child support, but being forced to pay out of pocket to support a perfectly capable human being after ties with them have been severed just doesn't make any sense to me. So, change my view if possible.

[Assistant] You can't just inspect the ownership of possessions at a superficial level like you're doing though. Yes, you could split up everything 50/50, or whatever split is deemed appropriate, but many decisions made during the marriage have effects that last long after. What if one spouse decided to forgo college or a career to raise a child at home while the other went and worked? In that case the stay at home parent would now be punished for a decision they made together during the marriage. Due to lack of training they might be completely unable to support themself because the couple built their lives together under the assumption that one income would cover both of them.


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

[User]
Why are countries really far from the equator so much more advanced than countries on/near it?

It seems like the most technologically advanced countries are really far from the equator and most countries on/near it are "third world." Is it because the climate is way colder/less consistent far from the equator and inhabitants had to make advancements to adapt/survive in it?

[Assistant] Jared Diamond guns germs and steel is a book which goes in to this. Boils down to availability of animals you can domesticate that are any bloody use. The Llama for example isn't very strong, the zebra is feisty and also not strong, elephants are a bugger to breed. We had horses, we lucked out, the industrial revolution couldn't have happened as fast as it did without them - they were a labour saving device the likes of which people living on the equator didn't have until they'd got them from us. If you doubt this theory, try mining with the aid of a kangaroo to pull your wagon load of metal ore. People power is always there, but people aren't very strong and they tend to rebel.


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

[User]
Why do many people still talk about stock trading when index funds exist?

YouTube for example is full of people trying to teach you how to profit from stock trading, what is the point of wasting time micro managing stocks when index funds exist? Am I missing something?

[Assistant]
There is a small, but nonzero chance of your stocks doing better than index funds. If you do your research into a firm and have an understanding of the industry it's operating in, you may identify smaller firms that will grow significantly more than indices. Investing in a stock index is basically the ultimate in diversifying in the stock market: Your chances of making huge money go down, but your chances of losing money also goes down.

Then the videos themselves can be useful tools to understanding how the stock market works and getting some grasp of economics. So even those who do not participate might watch and come out better.

On the flipside, the romanticization of the first paragraph's concept, where you could make more money by betting on individual firms rather than on indices brings in viewers as well. The potential rewards of having first put money into Facebook and come out 5 years later with millions of dollars is attractive, if incredibly unlikely. Despite the unlikelihood of this, it is still powerfully attractive to some people, enough to keep a few Youtubers making guides on how to invest, despite them possibly giving advice that would cost their viewers money in the long run.

Further, some people find it fun to manage their own stocks. In this case, making money may not be the primary goal, but instead finding successful businesses and rooting for them, as a hobby is. Like most hobbies, this may cost money but it can be fun.


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

[User] [ELI5] How does a glass of water standing for a while create small bubbles on edge of the glass?

[Assistant]
Bubbles mean something in the water is ~~changing from a liquid into a gas~~ escaping the water as a gas.

Tap water contains atmospheric gases, such as nitrogen and oxygen, dissolved in it (dissolved means microscopic bubbles of gas get 'trapped' in the water by any change in pressure, such as water in a pipe or the wind blowing against the top of the ocean). As the glass filled with water sits out for a few hours, its temperature rises slightly (water gets warmer), which causes the dissolved gases in it to come out of the water and form bubbles along the inside of the glass.


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

[User]
When the last black hole in the universe evaporates and explodes, what happens to that radiated energy?

A model of the future universe predicts that, after trillions upon trillions of years into the future, all the stars have exhausted, all matter has accumulated into black holes, and the black holes themselves evaporate. When the last black hole in the universe radiates away, there are no other structures in the universe to interact with those fluctuations. What happens to that last bit of energy? Does it simply diffuse through the impossibly vast, cold, empty universe? Does that mean that there will always be some amount of energy (and information?) that persists?

[Assistant] Just like most other radiation and stable particles (only a very small fraction will fall into black holes) it will just fly through the universe forever. The expansion of the universe will separate all these particles from each other.


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

[User]
Dasein vs Cartesian self ?

What is the difference?

To my understanding, the cartesian self is a mere abstraction of mind over matter, that asumes that these two are kind-of two separate things.
Then Dasein is kindof the state of being *with* the world, being *in* the world. For what I get this Dasein is a boundless self where identity melts into the world ?

I'm drowning *in* Heiddeger **HELP**

[Assistant]
You are on the right track. Another important thing to notice is that Dasein is "always already" in a world, while the Cartesian subject begins isolated, and then systematically builds up the world around it (although this seems more like Fichte than Descartes).

For Heidegger, we don't start with the "I" of the "I think," but start with Dasein's *eksistence*, our way of Being. Then, we "say I," because this Being is always "mine," but most of the time, when we say "I," we are really not ourselves, but merely *"das Man"*. That is, when we say, for example, "I don't think you should do that," we identify ourselves with "what one should do."

Heidegger is also worried about the tradition of grounding everything in the subject, and the subject/object distinction in general. Husserl also finds this troubling, but maintains this language. Heidegger drops the language altogether.

He also thinks that in modern philosophy, we understand Being to mean "present as an object before consciousness." Kant, for example, says that Being isn't a predicate, but only a relationship between the thing and our act of judgment. This is part, in his view, of the "forgetting" of the question of Being.

He sees the role of the subject or transcendental consciousness in modern philosophy as comparable to the medieval view of Being as "something created by God." Beings, in the middle ages, are understood as something created by God, a relation between an existing thing and the act of creation. Things "are" as long as God gives them Being.

He sees the modern subjective point of view to be prefigured already in Greek philosophy, where beings are understood in terms of the *eidos* (form or outward appearance).

The problem with this, for Heidegger, is that it leads to a picture where knowledge is only possible through representations. This covers over the Truth of Being.


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

[User]
[Mulan] Was Mulan secretly taking her fathers place in the army entirely pointless?

She took his place because her father is too elderly but later we see that Shang tried to kick her out of the army because she was proving to be too weak at the time. Wouldnt the same thing happen to her father if he went?

[Assistant] No. Zhou wouldn't have been a green recruit like Ping was, so he wouldn't have stayed behind with Shang for basic training. He'd have gone to the front lines with General Li and been slaughtered by the Huns. And without Mulan, Shang might not have beaten the main force of the Huns, and even if he did he certainly wouldn't have known about the survivors and their plot to sneak into the city and take down the emperor.


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

[User]
How does one point of a snowflake synchronize formation with points on the opposite side?

How do they "communicate" so they're on the same page?

[Assistant]
They don't really, they just grow that way because of the hexagonal shape of the initial (microscopic) ice crystal.

Each new molecule of the snowflake is in contact only with its closest neighbors, and aligns with them.  These neighbors, in turn, are aligned with their older neighbors, all the way back to the beginning.  The local alignment shows up because of the shape and charges on the water molecule, and gives rise to a global alignment.

If you're wondering how come two points on opposite sides look almost exactly alike, it's because they formed in almost exactly the same conditions.  Snowflakes are different from each other because the air each flake formed in has a different moisture content and temperature.  These fluctuations in the type of air occur over a distance that is much larger than the size of an individual snowflake, so each point on a snowflake experiences the same conditions as all the other points on that snowflake.


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

[User] When a woman dies giving birth, what exactly happens?

[Assistant]
The most common is hemorrhaging. There are fairly big blood vessels connecting the placenta to the uterus. During birth the placenta detaches from the uterus, so if anything goes wrong there, she can lose a lot of blood quickly.

Also possible are heart attacks or strokes induced by the exertion of childbirth.


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

[User]
ELI5 - What makes the whites of your eyes greyish / bloodshot when you're super tired?

I haven't slept well in months (cos baby). The whites of my eyes haven't been bright white for a long time now - they're perpetually greyish and feel really rough / sandpapery. Why does being tired make them discoloured? Also, by most evenings my eyes are bloodshot. What makes this happen and why aren't they bloodshot all the time given how knackered I am?

[Assistant]
Your tears have a particular mixture of water, oils, proteins, sugars, and salts to help moisturize and protect the surface of the eye.

As you stay awake longer, the quality of your tears degrades because your tear ducts also get tired. This causes your eyes to dry out easier, causing irritation and redness. It also makes you want to rub you eyes to help smear the tears you have left.

Your tear ducts need shut eye time to recharge and refresh it's production of tears. If you don't let your body sleep, your tear ducts are not able to produce good quality tears. You can substitute with artificial tears (different from the eye drops with medication to reduce redness) but ideally, you should restore your natural tear production.


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

[User]
[The Mandalorian] S2:E8 Spoiler Within

Ye be warned.

>!Bo Katan wants the Darksaber to reclaim her place as ruler of the Mandalorians, fair enough.  But when circumstances force Mando to duel Moff Gus Gideon, she is visibly riled at the sight of Mando holding the Darksaber.  Gideon explains this; the Darksaber cannot be given, but must be won, even as Mando offers it freely as payment for her part in the rescue operation.!<

>!But years earlier, a Mandalorian by the name of Sabine Wren does exactly this, freely giving the Darksaber over to Bo Katan, and absolutely nobody makes a fuss of it.!<

>!Why the discrepancy?!<

[Assistant] The difference is, Sabine didn't win it in a duel.  Also, there is the issue that that happened in the past and we didn't really see the outcome of it.  It's quiet possible that there was a lot of pushback against Bo Katan specifically because of how she came into possession of it, and she wants to come back again with a more rightful claim this time.


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

[User]
Where was the Big Bang and wouldn't that be the center of the universe?

The way I understand it the Big Bang came from one point that contained everything and expanded from there. Where in space is this original point?

[Assistant]
The big bang happened everywhere in the universe approximately simultaneously.

We have some good reason to believe the universe is infinite in size; and always has been. It's not conclusive, but it's the leading theory at the moment. So if it's infinite now, it was likely to be infinite then. The problem occurs with an ambiguity in language where we have a finite region of space that is our "observable" universe that is only a small part of the rest. It is this "observable" universe that is said to be contracted to a very small region (but probably not an exact point).

Think about it like this... Early on the universe was very *dense*. The big bang is the creation of space between the primordial energy that causes it to be *less dense*. That's the big bang. No explosion. No point ballooning into existence. The initial phase of this space creation was extremely rapid called inflation, but then settled at a more "reasonable" pace. But it happened everywhere at once. Tiny fluctuations in "at once" ended up causing irregularities in the density of the primordial energy that have propagated through the eons and gravitational interactions to give us the large scale structure of the universe.


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

[User]
CMV: Robots replacing people's jobs can have a likely positive outcome

Everybody is panicking that when robots and automated scripts take our jobs from us, there will be a giant socio-economic crisis. They do have a point, I must say.

However, what if instead of people losing their *jobs* we start to think in terms of people losing the *time* they spend at work? In other words: since robots will perform more Gross Work on our planet, it may become possible to share the remaining GW between people whose jobs were overtaken by automatisation. Instead a 8-hour-a-day worktime, humans will end up with 4-hour-a-day worktime.

The same amout of people will end up doing half of the work they had been doing so far. And the rest will be done by the robots. I mean, isn't more free time what we all are striving for?

[Assistant] It can have a positive outcome if and only if we establish ways to care for those who are unemployed and create jobs in other fields. If automation occurs too rapidly and we have not done both those things yet then there will be suffering.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why is raw egg white okay to drink in fancy cocktails but considered dangerous when eating raw cookie dough?

People always freak out about eating raw cookie dough for fear of salmonella due to the raw eggs.

Yet raw egg whites have been a common ingredient in fancy cocktails for ages and its never been questioned or regarded as dangerous.

What gives?

[Assistant]
They put that on cookie dough containers so that those companies aren't liable if you get sick. But, in general, raw egg is pretty safe in moderation. The uncooked flour in the dough is probably more dangerous than the egg.

I make ice cream using raw egg all the time. Mayonnaise is also made with raw egg, if you make it at home.


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

[User]
ELI5: How do some people survive a direct lightning strike to their body, while others die due to simply mishandling an electronic appliance?

(not sure what flair to use so I chose physics)

I see stories of people surviving lightning strikes. How is it possible for someone to survive one?

[Assistant] It really depends on the path the current takes. If it goes through the brain or heart, you're done for--but you can survive even very high currents with just burns and minor nerve damage if it takes a less dangerous path. That will depend on your body structure, your clothing, the source of the current, etc.


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

[User]
CMV: The best version of the song is, "If your're happy and you know it and you really want to show it..."

<To be read in a with a tone that is a mix between Seinfeld and Paulie Walnuts from the Sopranos>

>If you're happy and you know it, ***then your face will surely show it...***

Who thought of this? They are out of their mind and don't know what they're talking about. What's the point of clapping your hands and stomping your feet if you can just let people know you're happy just by looking at your face? It makes the whole song irrelevant. Ridiculous! They may as well sing, "If you're happy and you know it, just smile and then we're done here because everyone knows it <end song>"

>If you're happy and you know it, ***and you really want to show it...***

Now we're talking. This line binds everything together. Being happy, clapping your hands, stomping your feet. It gives me the motivation to do the actions in the song. Why should I clap my hands? Because I want to show you how happy I am. Look   how  happy  I  am!

I dont want to have to whack all these children's singers that are singing the wrong lyrics. Even if they deserve it because they're singing nonsense, it'll just make the kids cry more. CMV.

Sincerely, a New Yorker whose 15-mo old son just got into music.

[Assistant]
The "face will surely show it" is only for the first stanza ("smile at me").  When you are clapping your hands, your hands will surely show it.  When you are stomping, your feet will surely show it.  Etc.  One should certainly not repeat the same line stanza after stanza.  That way lies sheer drudgery.

Good luck with your toddler!


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

[User]
[The Walking Dead, The Zombie Survival Guide, Etc] Zombies appear to be immortal, not requiring warmth, oxygen, or food. Could you put one on a treadmill and extract free energy?

You would have to have some mechanism to hold their torso in place and some sort of bait for them to try to shamble towards of course.

There's also the possibility of extracting the brain from a zombie and using it like a potato battery.

[Assistant]
Zombies are not immortal. Both the outbreak of the Walking Dead Virus and the Solanum Strains have a documented decomp rate, although it is much slower than regular human corpses.

So your system would likely be more efficient than a horse drawn motor, but the law of Conservation of Energy would still be held as all of the energy applied comes from the slow decomposition of the organic tissue within the infected.


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

[User] ELI5: I just watched Coffeezilla about the Logan Zoo-Crypto-Scam. Can somebody explain me, how something can be worth millions of dollars, when no one is trading it? The whole stealth launch I dont understand. Where does the value come from?

[Assistant]
Of course, there is no value. The scam works something like this:

You create, say 1001 crypto coins or tokens. Then you sell 1 for $10, maybe to a friend or a sockpuppet. Now your coin is trading at $10. So you say that your 1000 remaining coins are worth 1000 times $10 because that's what you would supposedly get on "the market".

The real question is why anyone falls for that. The answer is that it makes sense for stocks and some other things. Here's how it makes sense:

When you take out a loan, you get a sum of money and pay it back in smaller sums in the future. The money you get is the present-day value of those future payments you make.

Stocks work on the same principle. You give money to a company which uses your money to build factories and stuff. Later, you get a share of the profits. The value of the stock, should be the present-day value of those future profits. So the value of all stock combined, should be the value of all the future profits.

With crypto, that calculation makes absolutely no sense. There is just nothing behind it. But people who don't realize that may be fooled because they know it from other investments.


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

[User]
[Star Trek] Why can't the Borg pre-emptively adapt?

So generally in Trek, the Borg adapt to weapons frequencies, rather than the weapons themselves; If they get damaged by a phaser shot, they adapt to that phaser frequency and then you can't use it again. But why can't they analyse the weapons frequencies they've already been hit with, think "Well, the enemy will probably use frequencies close to this one" and adapt to those as well before getting hit.

[Assistant] It actually takes the Borg quite a long time to adapt to just one frequency. Changing the frequency by 1 Hz is a completely new threat to deal with and would take just as long to adapt to as the original frequency. 1 difference is nowhere near the original and has to be recalculated from scratch completely. The range of frequencies that can be used is massive, to preemptively guess which ones would be used is hard. And anyway, the modulating frequency usually jumps around the scale by quite large intervals.


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

[User] When I take 2 hammers and hit the heads together, they appear as though they don't really touch each other. What's happening?

[Assistant]
Hammer heads usually aren't flat, they're slightly convex.  You're seeing two points on those curves touch, then bounce away - but to your eye, it (correctly) looks like most of the hammer heads aren't coming into contact.

Side note - be careful when you're doing this; sometimes tools shatter.


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

[User] [Alien/The Thing] What would happen if the "Thing" tried to consume and assimilate a xenomorph?

[Assistant]
The Thing doesn't really consume or assimilate, it takes genetic samples and mimics. So, provided it could safely extract a genetic sample, it would just do what it does best... Imitate the Xenomorph (provided it was advantageous to do so).

The issue is more about whether or not it could safely extract any usable genetic material without harming it's self. It hasn't really been shown to be resistant to Acid, so trying to harm or sample a Xenomorph safely would be like trying to take a blood sample from a fire elemental.


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

[User] [Star Trek/Hellraiser] The Borg find a Lament Configuration and proceed to have a drone solve it. Given that they are a hive mind and that it is desire - not hands - that calls them, how would they respond to suddenly finding themselves among countless Borg of a single collective mind?

[Assistant]
I believe it hinges on why the Collective tried to open it. If they were just like "it's a box, let's open it", the Cenobites likely won't show up; they'll just end up with a solved puzzle. If the Collective *knows* the Configuration is a gateway to something, and *wants* to get that something, then things get interesting.

Once they're through, they're probably going to be extremely excited at what they find. A single entity connected to the nerve endings of an entire nation? A gestalt being whose individual parts are endowed with sensory capacity that extends so far beyond human norms that it makes an eagle look blind? Oh, yes, they have such sights to show the Collective...

As far as the Collective's response, (Picard spoilers) >!odds are good they'd give whatever cube the Cenobites were at the same treatment as the derelict Romulan cube, severing it from the Collective to spare the entirety of the Borg the bizarre and alien sensations coming through the connection. Of course, this would leave the Cenobites with a massive pile of inert but alive drone bodies as well as an entire cube worth of tech; no doubt they'll think of something *interesting* to do with it.!<


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

[User]
[MCU] Why were the kids that returned after the blip required to complete extra schooling?

So I watched *Far from Home* the other night, and I noted that the kids were annoyed that they had completed their "Mid Terms" before the blip.

Now I'm not American, so I had to Google what a mix term was, and it said:

>A midterm exam, is an exam given near the middle of an academic grading term, or near the middle of any given quarter or semester. Midterm exams are a type of formative assessment, to measure students' grasp of the course materials and identify areas that need work.

Now I then asked an American friend, and the way they interpreted that was that basically you've completed a fair chunk of schooling, and given that the Snap happened in "Spring 2018" in Wakanda, it would be the last mid terms before summer. Given that Wakanda is north of the Equator, spring is before the middle of the year.

Ok cool, so we have some context, we'll assume that the Snap happened around the end of May, given that Northern Hemisphere Summer happens on the 1st of June.

So you assume here, ok, the kids had ~5 months of school, that's cool, the rest of the world loved 5 years, that's cool, then the kids come back in October 2023 with the Blip.

Now cool cool, everyone else lived 5 years.

The bit I don't get, is that to those that were snapped, they *did not live that 5 years, to them, 2018 was just yesterday, it was just a few seconds ago*

So it's not like the kids *forgot* what they learned, so why make them restart the whole school year? I mean, it's not like it was 1 or 2 kids and it would just be easier to not change the curriculum.

It was 50% of all kids, a fairly substantial chunk.

To me, it seems like it would make sense to stagger the year by 50%, 50% of the kids are half a year ahead if their peers, and now that 50% graduate mid-year compared to the other kids.

So give them 2 months off until January the following year, and start them off with what they would have learned Mid-Year forwards. Then those that were in their final year will graduate at the end of June, the new School year for those that were snapped now starts mid-year.

I mean, yeah it's a bit convoluted, but it's 50:50, and realistically, it'll only matter for what? 10 years? 15 years? When do you start schooling in the USA? Google says you start at 5 years old in New York, and Finish at 18 years old, so that's 13 years you'd have to run a dual system for. Seems a long enough time that the investment in setting up that system would be viable.

Like, it's not as if it's only a 2 year ROI on your effort, you'll have 13 years where that system would need to run.

[Assistant]
Because they were killed halfway through/towards the end of their school year, it means that said academic year was considered a complete write-off due to possible changes to the curriculum, among other things.

Remember, they do change things on tests and course material quite a bit, including reading material in English classes or what questions are asked in an exam. And with scientific advancements, particularly in the crazy world of the MCU, a lot of things could be considered just plain wrong or would include material that wasn't taught five years prior, such as the physics of space travel.


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

[User]
[Dark Souls 1] What the hell happened?

I've played quite abit of this game, and made alot of surprising progress. But seriously. I'm almost tempted to say "What story"?
It's obviously different in its presentation. So seriously. What happened? Who am I? What's going on?

[Assistant]
You were fed lies.

There is no chosen undead. You're not special, you're just driven enough to achieve what needed to be achieved and to gain power. What you do with that power is entirely up to you.

Either you perpetuate the flame, sacrificing yourself in the process (either because you we're fooled into believing you'd be lord of fire, or you knew what would happen), or you let the flame die and rule the dark.

Those are your choices. What happens is what you make happen.


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

[User] ELi5 Why do belly buttons collect lint??

[Assistant]
Most hairs on your belly are growing in the direction of the belly button. When wearing clothes that are susceptible to generate lint while you are moving around the lint can only travel in the direction of the belly button, eventually collecting there.

Having a smooth, hairless belly should therefore also reduce lint accumulation.


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

[User]
CMV: I think a technocracy is preferable to a Democracy as we have it today.

Technocracy, for those who do not know, is essentially instead of elected officials from parties running the State a group of experts running specific parts of the Goverment, for example Economists running the Economy, etc.

Democracy is a failure because it tricks people in to a vote every four years on a irrelevant topic, and hopes the nation goes to sleep while the government does as well. On top of that you can see with all national Crises, or just overall that everything gets politicized and a efficient democratic government is impossible because of partisanship. Of course under a Technocracy there would still be regular referendums to ensure popular support, but not actual election campaigns.

People fight over Ideologies instead of uniting over important issues and allowing experts to make better judgment. Why should the common Man decide if climate change is real or a wealth tax is effective or not?

As a last note before the discussion, I'd like to use a quote from Socrates. He points out the flaws of democracy by comparing a society to a ship. If you were going on a sea voyage, who would you ideally want deciding who was in charge of the vessel, just anyone, or people educated in the rules and demands of seafaring? Unless we wish to be obtusely contrarian, we must invariably answer the latter. Why then should just any of us, without regard to level of skill, experience, or education, be allowed to select the rulers of a country?

[Assistant]
Socrates' ship analogy conflates fundamental decisions with strategic ones. We trust the captain to make strategic decisions about piloting the ship, but you'd never board a ship where the crew weren't beholden to the passengers on fundamental decisions like where the ship is going in the first place.

The fundamental problem you face with a technocratic system is what prevents the technocrats from simply acting in the interest of technocrats and disregarding the needs of the public.


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

[User]
ELI5: The Grand Jury subpoenas.

I don't understand much about politics and even less the legal system. What does this mean? Why is it happening? What will this change in the grand scheme of things?

[Assistant]
A grand jury hears the available evidence and decides if it's even plausible that a conviction can be reached.   They then decide if it's worth going forward with a prosecution & deeper investigation.

They don't decide decide guilt, they just decide if it makes sense to issue a formal indictment or whether the proceedings should be dropped because they'd be a waste of everyone's time & do nothing but harass the defendant. .


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

[User] eli5: How do parrots copy humans on what they say, how does that work?

[Assistant]
So the short answer (being "how") is actually relatively simple; their tongues are so large and complex that they can use them to produce exceptionally distinct sound waves, reproducing not only human speech patterns, but the patterns of animals. Hell, any sound really, as there's been cases of domesticated parrots mimicking household appliances.

As to "why," the answer gets a bit more complicated. What's known for certain, and this is true with many species of avians, is that they have to learn or adjust to the 'local' mating call to find a mate. Imagine, if you would, you travel to a new country and now have to mimic their accent to even be seen as a viable mate, or even human. Weird, but that's how birds work particularly when their mating calls are from a distance.

Aspects of mimicry outside of mating are a bit theoretical, as it can be assumed to be bonding/play, or simple attempts at communication.

Hope that helped.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why are elementary schools so much smaller than middle schools, than high schools, etc?

In the area where I live in the US which I'm going to assume is generally emblematic of most areas in the US there are a ton of small elementary schools, often really close to each other, some middle schools, and a handful of high schools across the entire state.

Why are elementary schools made to be small and yet densely packed in an area compared to a high school?

[Assistant]
Several factors together:

Little kids tend to need more individual attention (smaller student:teacher ratios), so you need more classes at the elementary level. That means you need more classrooms. You could just stuff them all into one bigger building but...

Little kids don't do as well with long bus/drives, and they can't drive themselves. It's a lot more convenient for middle/high schoolers to walk/bike/drive/bus (far) to school than little kids. So you want the elementary schools close(er) to the students. That means a big number of relatively small buildings spread around, rather than one huge building.

And middle/high schools tend to use much larger/specialized/expensive resources, so you want to concentrate people to make best use of them. You're not going to build a 400m competition track, pool, mid-grate theater, full chemistry lab, machine shop, etc. at every elementary school.


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

[User] [Marvel/MCU] Could JARVIS be considered sentient?

[Assistant]
Sci\-fi tends to make a distinction between "really good AI" and "actually sapient AI". The difference is largely a matter of individuality. JARVIS may seem like they have a personality that can respond to virtually anything off the cuff, but he's simply programmed to act like that. He can't truly think for himself.

Of course, stories where the line blurs are classic to the point of almost being cliche. Vision basically leaped past the ambiguity straight to being an actual person with his own thoughts and feelings.


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

[User]
[Marvel] What makes Venom so different from other symbiotes?

Symbiotes seem to have other traits that make then seem more powerful while Venom seems almost bland with the only traits he has are similar to other symbiotes.

[Assistant]
It's said in the Lore that Symbiotes offspring are usually stronger than the parent, and most Symbiotes in Marvel are descended from Venom, so most symbiotes are actually stronger than Venom.

But it also depends on the host, while they can and will bond with anyone, they tend to have a "proper" host, a host who syncs with the symbiote, Peter Parker is actually Venoms perfect host, Cletus is Carnages.

But, as said, the next generation is always stronger than the last, and usually gains more varied abilities due to their first compatible host, Venom uses Spider-Man's powerset because of their compatibility, Carnage can create weapons out of his mass because Cletus is a serial killer.

But 1000th generation ymbiotes are supposed to be extremely powerful regardless of host, and insane, Carnage immediately tried to kill Toxin, his "son" because of that and Cletus's misogynistic tendencies (the act of "giving birth" disgusted him).


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

[User]
[Marvel/Star Wars] Is Obi-Wan Kenobi worthy to lift Mjolnir?

Obi-Wan is considered to be one of the greatest Jedi of all time, seen as the embodiment of everything the Order should strive to be. Hes powerful in battle and willing to fight if need be, but always looks for the peaceful option first and is renown for his skills in negotiation. Considering all of these traits, would he be worthy enough to wield Thors hammer?

Alternately: would any other Jedi, or even any Star Wars character, be worthy? My bet is on Luke, but Id love to hear others opinions.

[Assistant]
The guy saw his master die infront of of him, someone who was basically a father to him. Later he saw the woman he love get killed a few centimeters away from him by the same guy who killed his master. Then he saw someone he considered to be a brother to him help kill children and destroy the order he had served for his entire left. And then he spent nineteen years in a desert doing nothing but protecting Luke. And after all of that he didn't turn to the darkside.

If Mjolnir doesn't consider him worthy after all of that, then it's just nitpicky.


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

[User] If Padme died during childbirth, then why does Leia say "She was very beautiful, kind, but sad" when asked what she remembers of her mother in Return?

[Assistant]
Leia is known as Leia Organa, not Leia Amidala - the woman she speaks of is her Alderaan mother. Obviously, the lie was maintained for her protection, the same way Luke was told his father had died.

At this point, Leia still doesn't know of her true nature.


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

[User] ELI5: When a car traveling 50mph hits another car head-on also traveling 50mph it hits it with the force of a car hitting a brick wall at 50mph. Why isn't it more forceful?

[Assistant] If both cars are a similar mass, then they will both stop. Both cars will have a speed change of 50 MPH. The change in speed is what causes the forces in a crash, so coming to a stop by hitting a wall, and coming to a stop by hitting a car are the same. If a 50 mph car hits a 50mph 18wheeler, the car won't stop. The car will be pushed backwards because the truck weighs more, and it will have a larger than 50MPH change in speed. The truck will not completely stop in this collision, and it won't have as bad of a crash as if it hit a wall.


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

[User]
[Contact] Why do the aliens send back Jodie Foster with no evidence of her trip?

So the alien in the form of her father tells her this (introduction to new species presumably) is hows it been done for millions (billions?) of years. But why would they only have introduction to one life form from the planet and have almost no evidence of the contact (bar the hours of static on the video recording) she could bring back?

[Assistant]
It's all about faith, that's the message of the film. Due to her father's death and her nature in general, Foster claims to reject faith and religion, she dedicates herself to science. There is no God, no nothing.

Yet we see that despite her anti-religious stance, she is not dissuaded by the lack of evidence that there are other intelligent creatures in the universe. She spends her time listening for messages from people that might not exist, she's trying to prove that her belief that something else is out there is true. Foster's character actually wants to believe in something she can't see, so is using science to justify her faith. She claims she's unwilling to accept God because there's no proof, yet she's willing to believe in other intelligences in spite of there being no proof.

When she encounters the father/alien, her faith is rewarded. She believed something was out there, now she can prove it. There are aliens and she's talked to them. But when she returns, there is no proof, there's seemingly no evidence that her story is credible. Foster spent the day with an alien who claimed he took the guise of her father, she is now trying to get everyone else to take it on faith that she's being honest about her encounter. Can she convince everyone that it's possible to believe something you can't prove? Don't believe in God the father, just believe in Foster's alien father?

When we learn that there's a blank recording that matches up with the experience she claimed, we know that her contact was real. Is her claim that she had contact with aliens more valid than the apostles' claims they witnessed the Resurrected Christ? The alien suggests that there will be further contact in the future, a second coming of the aliens, will people be in a better position to understand them then or will we still insist on rejecting things we can't yet explain?

That's the message of the movie, that without believing in things you can't see, you can't discover them. Foster rejects God but it's her faith that leads her to discover that were are not alone in the universe. Her belief that there was something more led to the discovery of aliens.


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

[User] [WH40K] Is it possible to rise to the top in terms of combat ability if you are a normal human? Can a guardsman take down a Daemaon Prince. Does a normal Traitor marine like Kharn the Betrayer stand a chance against a Bloodthirster or any other Greater Daemon?

[Assistant]
Imagine a slug.

Imagine the fucking Batman of slugs. It's literally the strongest, smartest, toughest. fastest slug on earth. Any other slug it meets? It fucking wrecks them. Slug critics accuse it of being a mary sue. It is the best slug to live or to have ever lived.

It fights you, and you step on it. Because you are a human, and it is a slug.

Same here. There's a reason the two main Imperium troops are "massive swarms" and "engineered to the point of only nominally being human". Unless you have massive modifications or overwhelming numbers, you are a slug. Some fights you simply physically cannot win.


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

[User]
Why only some plant cuttings grow when put in water?

There are some plants that will happily grow roots and be perfectly happy when put in just water, like  some vines. Put just a bare section from a willow tree in a jar of water and it will grow roots and a new shoot of leaves from the top. But a branch taken from a birch will first grow leaves but then start to wilt within a week.

Why don't all plants or trees be like willows?

[Assistant] Well pretty much any plant can grow roots in water, it's just that plants that aren't woody grow them much easier and faster. Most woody cuttings need some rooting hormone to help them grow roots in water, but it's still possible. Willow contains lots of indolbutyric acid (which is an auxin) and salicylic acid which both help in growing roots. Some people use willow extract to help other cuttings root as well.


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

[User]
This is likely a very stupid question, but who is the narrator in The Republic (Plato)?

The book opens with "Socrates: I went down to the Piraeus yesterday with Glaucon, son of Ariston..."

But then continues later on with "I turned around and asked him where his master was"

So is the opening line quoting Socrates or indicating that "I" refers to Socrates? The reason I ask is because even though the text is written by Plato, I have not seen him mentioned once. Is he just writing it through the first person point of view of Socrates?

[Assistant] 'I' refers to Socrates. It's the character Socrates narrating the dialogue in these passages. Plato is the author, but not a character nor the narrator. So, yes, Plato is writing it through the first person point of view of Socrates.


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

[User]
[Marvel] Who is more accurate, Bullseye or Hawkeye?

Ive seen many people state that Bullseye has more ridiculous accuracy feats, but I havent really checked Hawkeyes top tier feats out. Is Bullseye legitimately more accurate than Clint, or is Hawkeye just as accurate, but his morality and preference for a bow prevents him from pulling off the same feats as Bullseye?

Im aware that Ultimate Hawkeye has looser morals than the 616 version. After all, the 616 version of Hawkeye vocalized his beliefs on the sanctity of human life in Solo Avengers issue 8 (I believe, havent read Solo Avengers in a while).

Im referring to both the comics and the MCU versions. Any versions, really.

[Assistant]
the main difference is that bullseye has an actual superpower that makes him accurate, while Hawkeye is 100% a "normal" human.

Bullseye has the better feats, but he's also extremely reliant on his ability.


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

[User]
Why (and how) do the cheese curds used in poutine squeak when eaten?

The best poutine in Qubec is produced with fresh salted cheese curds, which produce a distinctive squeaking sound when chewed (to the extent where it is often referred to as "squeaky cheese"). What properties of this cheese make it so?

[Assistant]
Fresh cheese curds have more elasticity than stale ones. As the curd material rubs against your teeth, it vibrates due to that elasticity, making the squeak. It should be noted that "fresh" in the parlance of cheese curds is usually considered to be 12 or fewer hours old, though some retain their squeak for a day or two.

The elastic squeak is why refrigerating cheese curds kills the squeak even if they're fresh - the cooler temperature reduces the tendency to vibrate. And that's why newcomers to the upper-midwest USA are often surprised to see bags of cheese curds in grocery stores sitting out on a table instead of a refrigerated case - the locals demand that squeak.


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

[User] ELI5 - Why is it that when we look at an object in motion, our eyes can follow it flawlessly, yet when looking at a static object our eyes move point-to-point?

[Assistant] What you're talking about is a "saccade". It happens because the portion of your visual field which is sharp and clear is actually far smaller than you think it is--the larger clear picture you see is built up by your eyes darting rapidly over the image, building up a larger, clearer picture in your head. If you're following a moving object, on the other hand, you don't have time to do that so you just keep moving your eyes to follow the object.


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

[User]
[The Walking Dead] Does the virus lower most people intelligence / makes them suicidal?

Now I've been watching the documentary of Rick lately and it becomes pretty clear that Walkers by itself are very easily beatable.  Rick woke up from a coma and minutes later he had figured out not only what a walker is but also how to do deal with it.  In the documentary largely untrained,  physically unfit and even children are able to kill dozens of walkers without much of a sweat.

Now this fact stands in glaring conflict with the world of the walking dead were all military bases and police station got utterly destroyed by walkers. None of the million of service personal that died to walkers seemed to was able to deal with them despite it his skill set making him,  at least in theory,  much better suited to kill unhealthy. After a few soldiers turned and bitten other soldiers, the hundreds of remaining soldiers should have been able to figure out, that a) you have to get away from the walkers, that b) the walkers are dead (something that should have been clear after the first guy discharged his service weapon into the body of a walker and c) you need to shoot them in the head.

This leads me to the only logical conclusion : in the majority of people the virus leads to a significant reduction of intelligence and deduction skills as well as alters their behavior to be much phrone to high risk behavior.  The survivors we see are immune to these effects to the virus (with many famous exceptions).

Do we have any information to confirm my theory?  What do we know really about the virus?

[Assistant]
I think they handled the initial zombie outbreaks quite easily. However, they probably didn't realize that everyone was infected.

Their main losses came from random people dying and immediately turning into zombies. No barricade would be safe from that. If a soldier dies in his bunk while everyone is asleep? Congrats you now have a bunch of zombies. In the chaos it was unlikely that anyone would realize that *everyone* is already infected, and the only people who did found out too late, and decided to off themselves instead.

So the main problem here is not that the zombies aren't easily handled (in fact, much like DayZ, humans are the real threat after season 1), it's that zombies can ambush you or that anyone can become a zombie.


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

[User] ELI5: If the brain relies on the eyes to "see" images, how in holy hell can I "see" my dreams (and, related to that, how is it always in the first person perspective)?

[Assistant]
Eyes don't produce vision. Vision happens in the brain.

Your eyes are just an apparatus for collecting light. Turning the information about that collected light into what you see is the brain's job.

Your brain is most certainly capable of producing images without your eyes telling them "there's some light here" whether it's dreams or hallucinations (which are surprisingly common) while you're awake.


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

[User]
[The Truman Show] What happened next?

Truman walked off the set of a TV show whose budget, according to Christof, approached the GDP of a small country. And from Truman's perspective, he went from being a nobody to the most famous man in the world. How did this all play out?

[Assistant]
After his dramatic exit from the sound stage, Truman disappears for a time.  Police records indicate that he was detained by studio security for 7 hours before being remanded to Police custody under undisclosed charges.  Mr. Truman was immediately released to a then unnamed law firm.  His whereabouts after that time are unknown for the next two years.

The studio suffered a serious shakeup of leadership with the loss of their biggest star.  Timeslots for the Truman Show broadcast reruns, and specials on the most memorable moments of the show.  Initially, the dramatic ending was downplayed.  Six months later, Christof retired from his position as chief creative director.

Under new creative direction, a movie documentary was put together by the studio with previously unseen footage, and interviews with cast and crew of the show.  The film made the case that Truman's actions were heroic, and that the deception surrounding his life was morally suspect, but that no laws had been broken.

Meanwhile, the law firm responsible for Mr. Truman's release from police custody filed suit against the director, the studio, the show distributor, broadcast companies, and every sponsor that ever appeared on the show.  After 2 years of court appearances, and negotiations, they settled the case for an undisclosed sum rumored to be in the billions.

The Truman Show returned to the air some years later with a number of spinoff shows revolving around other characters from the show, and continuing secondary story lines.  These shows were largely short-lived, with the exception of "Truman University Beach" that ran for eight seasons with scantily clad starlets and shallow plot lines.

Mr. Truman himself never appeared on the public scene again.  Investigations suggest that he lives in a variety of European estates, under assumed aliases, and surrounded by doctors under treatment for mental health disorders and periodic drug abuse.


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

[User] Where is the warmest place in the known universe?

[Assistant]
There are a few contenders for hottest known temperature, depending on your exact definition:

- 4 trillion K (4 x 10^(12) K): Inside the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider at Brookhaven National Lab. For a tiny fraction of second, temperatures reached this high as gold nuclei were smashed together. The caveat here is that it was incredibly brief, and only spread amongst a relatively small number of particles.

- 100 billion K (1 x 10^(11) K): As a massive star's core begins collapsing inside a supernova explosion, temperatures will skyrocket, allowing endothermic fusion to produce all elements past iron/nickel. Again the caveat is that this doesn't last long, but much longer than within a particle collider (minutes instead of nanoseconds) and that temperature is spread across a very substantial amount of mass.

- 3 billion K (3 x 10^9 K): Lasting a bit longer than a supernova (about a day), a massive star at the end of its life will reach these temperatures at its core, converting silicon into iron and nickel.

- 100 million K (1 x 10^8 K): In terms of sustained temperatures outside of stellar cores that last longer than a few months, the Intracluster Medium takes the prize. The incredibly hot hydrogen/helium gas that permeates throughout galaxy clusters is very massive (many galaxies worth of mass)...but also very thin. We're only talking about 1000 particles per cubic meter here, so while there's far more total mass than what you'd find in a stellar core, it's also much less dense as its spread out across a much, much larger volume.

EDIT: Correcting a F/K mixup.


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

[User] ELI5 When modern computers connect to Wi-Fi, do they still essentially do the same screeching thing as dialup, only quicker and silently?

[Assistant] Sort of yes and sort of no. That was essentially a handshake: the two systems negotiating what connection characteristics, communication protocols, etc., they could use to talk to one another. That still happens, but the process is very different. Modems screeched and shrieked because they used sound to transmit data--they worked over the standard voice phone lines--but wifi uses RF signals instead (and modern networking software uses electrical pulses).


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

[User] ELI5: Why does smoke only come off matches after one is put out?

[Assistant]
This is actually a really good question!

Smoke from a fire happens when the fire isn't really working well.

Fire requires three things:

* Heat
* Oxygen
* Fuel

In fact, this is called "The triangle of fire." Yup, there's a saying for that.

Now, a really good fire is really hot. And it gets really hot because the ratio of oxygen and fuel is *just right*. When it's just right, there is no smoke. Like when the stove is lit. Notice no smoke? This is because the amount of fuel and oxygen is just right.

When there is more fuel than oxygen, some of the fuel doesn't burn completely. And we can see that as smoke. Stuff that could have burned, but didn't. Because there wasn't enough oxygen.

When a match is put out, the heat is lowered and the fire quits. But it's still really hot. It's just not hot enough for the match to burn with the right fuel / oxygen mixture. So, it smokes until it cools down.


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

[User]
Do animals have a sense of time as we do?

Im not talking about a sleep cycle or anything, maybe more along the lines of do they comprehend time as flowing, like the present and past. etc.

[Assistant] Dogs have been shown to grow anxious as the time draws near for their owners to return home.  This would seem to indicate some understanding of the future as a possible event that has not happened yet.


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

[User]
[Black Panther] Does Wakanda really have the cure to major diseases? And if so, why don't they share it with the rest of the world?

* I can understand the Wakandian government's hesitation to share advanced technology with other countries on the grounds that it could be abused, but how could they justify keeping the cures to diseases like cancer or aids?
* While I can also understand why they distrust other countries and their leaders to their history of violence, I feel that the people who are suffering from diseases shouldn't be punished for the sins of their ancestors and leaders.

[Assistant]
They're xenophobic isolationists.

Just like we don't spend our resources on saving mosquitoes, they have no interest on saving non-Wakandans. They're just not very nice people, pre-T'challa at least.


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

[User]
[Star Wars] Does Tatooine have a temperate zone, closer to the poles?

Or does scorching desert abruptly turn into freezing desert?

[Assistant] Neither. There is only a small habitable zone in the northern hemisphere, which is where the few towns are. The rest is inhospitable, because the Rakatan Infinite Empire glassed the planet 25,000 BBY.


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

[User]
[Star Trek] why dont Starfleet ships come equipped with automated internal defense weapons in critical areas of the vessel?

If I were employed by Starfleets engineering department, I would suggest installing some automated turrets aboard their vessels. Given how frequently ships get boarded by hostile forces, I think it would be a valuable investment toward better security.

Particularly when they were preparing for large scale conflict with the Borg, who were known to board ships and also be difficult to kill.

The turrets could be set to automatically target, or could be manually controlled by security.

[Assistant]
I don't think they get boarded all that commonly. Yes, those are the stories we typically hear about, but you need to understand that, for every story of an enemy party boarding, there are thousands of other ships that have never had anyone board them.

Also, if enemies have managed to board then that means something is wrong with the defensive systems of the ship. So if defensive systems are down or compromised, that would include turrets.

As far as the Borg, the Borg adapt. You proposing an entire defensive system that's going to be able to get two or three shots at the most.

And, lastly, for every boarding attempt there is also some sort of energy being or alien virus or what have you that takes over the computer system. Now you want to arm it?


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

[User] ELI5: Why do we instinctively walk around, pace, or play with something while talking on the phone?

[Assistant] Your brain is wired to receive aural and visual stimuli during a conversation. Not being able to look at your conversation partners face causes a slight apprehension, which you subconsciously ease by fidgeting/pacing/etc.


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

[User]
[Skyrim] Are the Ideal Masters more powerful than Akatosh? Seems the magic of the Soul Cairn > Dragonborn's ability to absorb Durnehvirr's soul upon victory over him.

Upon slaying Durnehvirr in combat, I'd have assumed that the Dragonborn would have absorbed his soul as per the usual Dragonborn action of absorbing dragon souls. Hell it should even be automatic, as the Dragonborn doesn't even realise they're different until defeating (and absorbing the soul of) Mirmulnir.

But instead, Durnehvirr disappears, and reconstitutes outside the Boneyard as would be determined by the curse of the Ideal Masters. Does this prove that the Ideal Masters' curse is superior to Akatosh's divine gift/Dragonblood, and therefore the power of the Ideal Masters is beyond that of Akatosh?

[Assistant]
I think it's a similar situation to Miraak's, who you also aren't able to eat. Durnibro's soul was already spoken for.

Fun fact though, if you come at him before killing Mimjhrh3g5oj, he says he feels an urge to call you a fellow dragon though he can't explain it. He still names you Vanquisher in the end though.


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

[User] ELI5 Allergies: Why does exposure from allergy shots make you less senstive, but regular exposure to the actual allergen doesn't?

[Assistant]
Think about working out. If you lift weights and put them under a little stress, they get stronger. If you lift so much weight that you tear the muscle, the muscle isn't going to get stronger.

The same idea applies here. Allergy shots are tiny amounts of the allergen. They're designed to get your body's immune system to recognize the allergen as something that isn't dangerous. Eating the actual allergen is a much higher quantity, and (much like tearing a muscle) elicits a dangerous reaction.


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

[User] Why does grated cheese often taste better than a chunk of the same cheese?

[Assistant] Oxygen exposure has a lot to do with it. Many types of food taste better if it has a large surface area that is being oxidized as you chew it, which is why many chocolate bars have hollow or wafer-like structures. This effect is more significant if the food has recently been oxidized which is why freshly grated cheese tastes better than grated cheese sold in bags.


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

[User]
[The Stand] I am a historian, in the post plague year of 2050. What's the deal with all this stuff about how the Vegas dwellers were literally governed by the devil?

Is that just propaganda?

Was the Boulder Free Zone really founded on the mandate of God?

Was the nuke in Vegas really God's will?

I am not a particularly faithful person.

Now, I'm trying to teach an objective class here, and... to be honest, I don't know how to separate the myth from the people.

Is it possible that this... Randall Flagg... was really as bad as he was told to be?

Is it at all possible that a woman around a hundred could effectively organize a state that would conquer the world?

Is it really true that Flagg was in some measure responsible for unleashing the virus? All pre-plague records seem to have no knowledge of him.

Now, I'm not some Neo-Flaggist, but... it seems pretty ridiculous to me, as a man of science, that one man could have caused such a cataclysm.

Does the truth lie in the middle?

Lord knows that I'll be stripped of my post by Abagailists if this ever gets back to my university.

And if they ever see my tattoo, may the Crimson King help me.

[Assistant]
The issue we run into here is that the testimony of every original resident of the Boulder Free Zone includes at minimum one incident that can't be readily explained; a vision of Mother Abigail, rallying them to Boulder. Trying to be completely objective on the subject means confronting that elephant in the room, either to explain it away or to acknowledge it quickly and move along. *Something* beyond pre-Superflu science prodded that situation along, and it would be irresponsible to turn a blind eye to the existing something.

On the subject of both Abigail and Flagg, neither was the be-all, end-all of their respective faction. On Abigail's front, she mostly served as a figurehead and spiritual leader, while the actual nuts and bolts of building and running the Zone was performed by the residents. Flagg, meanwhile, was mostly working with tools built and mismanaged by the United States Military, and rode the wave of chaos created by their failure to contain and manage the Superflu. He nudged, and he prodded, and he drew people to his banner much like Abigail, but he wasn't micromanaging the downfall of human civilization.

The "middle", as it were, is that the Superflu and the resulting Boulder/Vegas conflict was a human issue, and while supernatural influence was in play, most of the big action was made by normal people. The forces beyond this would could nudge, and prod, and direct, but it fell to humanity to actually make the choices and take the actions at hand.


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

[User] ELI5: If depth perception works because the brain checks the difference in the position of the object between the two eyes and concludes how far away it is, how can we still see depth when one eye is closed?

[Assistant]
Because that isn't the only piece of information your brain uses. It basically collates a bunch of different pieces of information:

1. Your eye is always moving slightly and when your eye looks in different directions, it sees different things based upon the relative position of objects in your 3D environment.
2. Over the course of your life you have lots of experience with seeing various objects and your brain develops an expectation of their size. So something that your brain believes should be large but looks small will be interpreted as being further away, and something that your brain believes should be small but looks large will be interpreted as being closer.
3. The parallax created with two eyes can be replicated simply by moving. How things change relative to other objects as you move laterally, and how their size appears to change as you move back and forth, gives your brain information with which to construct a perception of depth.