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

[User] ELI5: How exactly do fireflies light up?

[Assistant] The firefly produces a chemical called Luciferin in its lower abdomen. It also produces an enzyme called luciferase which, in the presence of magnesium ions, oxygen and ATP (adenosine triphosphate), breaks down Luciferin and gives off light as a byproduct.


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

[User] [I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream] What is AM's endgame, and how long can he keep Blob-Ted alive?

[Assistant]
> how long can he keep Blob-Ted alive?

As long as it wants, though both AM and Ted are probably at a point where time is a somewhat fuzzy concept. AM most likely has the ability to alter Ted's perception of time. So even if Ted only has minutes left to live, AM could make it seem like eons.


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

[User]
CMV: Modern American society puts WAY too much emphasis on the importance of high school prom.

I blame a lot of this on TV and movies, but it seems like a lot people treat prom like it's this life\-defining event that will be so memorable that you will be remembering it and talking about it for the rest of your life. People obsess about having the perfect prom experience to the point where some people hold it in almost as much regard as a wedding.

This is even compounded by the fact that now elaborate "proposals" have become a thing, and in some circles, even expected.  You are asking the person to attend with you what will likely be an underwhelming single night dance, not spend the rest of their life with you.  Especially given just how rotten teenagers can already be to each other, I think this expectation for an elaborate "promposal" just adds to the social isolation of some people and certain social groups.

And no, I'm not one of those "you're just salty because you didn't get asked to prom" kinds of people.  I went to prom, it was just thoroughly underwhelming, and not nearly as memorable or life\-shattering as people made it seem like it would be.  10\+ years later, I honestly couldn't care less about prom or any of the people I went with.

Perhaps it's because so many TV shows and movies have prom as such a central element to different stories, that people end up holding it in such regard, but it's honestly not nearly as big of a deal as Hollywood would lead you to believe .

**TL;DR** \- society should stop holding prom in such regard and building up teenagers' expectations that it's such an important night in their lives, when in the bigger picture, it's pretty insignificant.

**EDIT** **1**: I should also add that I understand that seemingly insignificant things can seem like a big deal to teenagers, purely because of their naivety, but adults should know better, yet it's often adults who continue to feed into this idea that prom is some super important, life\-changing moment of your lives.

**EDIT 2**: I'm not saying that people shouldn't be allowed to enjoy prom.  Rather, my point is that the expectation is set WAYYYYYY higher than it should be.

[Assistant]
>TL;DR - society should stop holding prom in such regard and building up teenagers' expectations that it's such an important night in their lives, when in the bigger picture, it's pretty insignificant.

Most of highschool can be boiled down to insignificant in the long run, but does that mean you should discount a teenagers ability to enjoy it?


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

[User]
[Marvel 616] Can the Venom symbiote bond with Rogue?

What would happen in a physical contact scenario?

Also, since it can steal genetic attributes from hosts, could it steal a whole bunch of mutant powers?

[Assistant]
The symbiote needs to bond with the host for a significant amount of time, on the order of days,  before it can enhance the host and change it's own genetics. Unless Rogue's powers were subdued for any reason, the Venom symbiote would not be able to take root. Rogues latent power absorption would beat the symbiote, unless it was significantly made stronger by some other means.

If the symbiote was given time to bond, it would change it's genetics to match Rogue's, and then would be immune to her absorption powers once they are reactivated. It would then be able to take any powers it wants.


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

[User]
[ATLA] What was the Fire Lord's plan when he was dueling Zuko and burned his face?

Did he intend to kill the heir to the Fire Nation?

[Assistant]
Kill? Definitely not. Zuki is a crowned prince and slaying him outright for anything short an assassination attempt would look really bad, even for a Firelord.

Ozai's plan was exactly what happened: Teach Zuko a "lesson" by physically scarring him and then send him off on a wild turkey duck hunt.

Likely, the only thing that didn't go as planned was Zuko's refusal to fight back, but that only made Ozai's job a little easier.


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

[User] Why do the rings around a planet only form on one plane instead of forming multiple rings or a debris sphere?

[Assistant]
Because they originally start that way but form into discs over time.

They do this because when two bits of debris collide in the initial debris sphere stages, 1 piece of debris will have more momentum and push the other bit of debris in that direction also.
This continues untill all the debris is moving in a uniform plane.


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

[User]
[Star Wars] Weird question, but, since we all know Darth Vader indeed has a sense of humor...

Does he actually find things funny, or are his jokes/snide comments more just a sardonic reflection on the bitter nature of his reality? Like, does he laugh at his own jokes in a haha way, or a "hehe, the world is awful" sort of way?

[Assistant] Deep down, Vader is still Anakin. Trapped in a metal suit and in constant pain as well as suffering with the weight of his mistakes, dark side usage and duty to the empire. But, that snarky Jedi who wooed a senator is still in there somewhere.


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

[User] [Star Wars] How much did the average imperial citizen know about the Death Star?

[Assistant]
tl;dr, The average person probably knew very little about it.

First, consider the size and scope of the empire. Thousands of worlds, many with a population in the millions or billions. That isn't counting numerous permanent fleets and stations, each with their own populations. A single space base, even one the size of the death star, would likely not be so extraordinary that it would raise an alarm. Space facilities are built all the time, and it would be easy enough to write it off as another superstation.

There are always rumors flying around by dissatisfied people about their government, and the tinfoil hat types will come up with some wild theories. The average joe is so busy worrying about their day to day that even if these rumors were true, well, it's so far removed from their own life that it doesn't really matter. There's a good chance that the change in government barely even affected the majority of the population, so what's one more thing?


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

[User]
ELI5: What happens in our brains when we hold in emotions and then snap?

I want to know if there are any chemicals or enzymes that release when you suppress emotion and what happens when we finally release it. And then why do we then resort to extreme sadness or anger?

[Assistant] Your front brain simulates consequences and chooses the best action to take. When you're emotional, this usually means stopping you from doing something like punting your co workers. Sometimes one or multiple emotions become really strong and it takes lots of effort to stop you from acting on them. Effort makes your brain tired, and either it becomes worse at modulating behavior OR the emotions become too strong for the front brain to hold back. Then you have an emotional outburst where the front brain is kinda offline.


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

[User]
Do sparks break the sound barrier?

Do sparks break the sound barrier? is that the clicking noise?

When we hear thunder is that because the lightening is breaking the sound barrier?

[Assistant] The lightning bolt, or rather the flow of electrons creates plasma by superheating the air to temperatures higher than the surface of the sun. Air expands when its hot and lightning heats the air extremely quickly and the air expands in what is basically an explosion that we hear as thunder.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why is cellophane and other plastic bags/wrappers so god damn loud?

Cellophane is so thin and flimsy. What makes the wrapper on my Ritz crackers crackle and crinkle like a firework?

[Assistant]
Sound is the vibration of air, cellophane and other thin film like materials function like membranes in that their large surface area pushes a lot of air around when they move and deform, the elasticity of the materials and some of their other features such as the creases and folds make for some rather 'violent' motions within the material itself that make it momentarily push even more air around when you squish it around.

The membrane in your loud speaker is also thin and flimsy, move it around fast enough and it can push enough air to get pretty loud.


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

[User] ELI5: How can we see a full moon during the daytime if we can also see the sun? (Given that the full moon is due to the reflection of the sun on the moons surface)

[Assistant]
The geometry for this only works when the sun is near setting soon after the moon has risen or vice versa.  Because the moon, earth and sun aren't usually in a direct straight line the light can illuminate virtually the whole face that we can see in those circumstances.

In a similar fashion, a very new moon is less likely to be seen at night instead of the day because the moon has to be on the same side of the earth as the sun so that the visible hemisphere is not illuminated.


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

[User] ELI5: What does a producer do and why are they so valuable in media? Films/tv/radio. How can some films have so many?

[Assistant]
There's different Producers.  Producers are the project managers of various aspects of a production (thus producer > production).

An Executive Producer does the wheeling and dealing.  They may be named EP after they give money as a sort of 'hey, this guy is in on the project' to investors, or may be a working EP, who actually gets investors, seals deals on locations, etc.

A Line Producer does the day to day management of stuff on set.  Coordinating everyone on the backend, the actors, director, etc.  Then the Film's Producer manages all of this together to make sure the film comes out.

A Producer may be a Line Producer and/or an Executive Producer as well as the film's major Producer.


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

[User]
[Black Mirror] What kind of adventures might the crew of the USS Callister have?

**SPOILERS**

The crew of the *USS Callister* escaped from Daly's prison.

Now that they are free, what kind of adventures might they have in their new world?

[Assistant]
I think the show hints at a less than rosy ending for the crew. Even though theyre all optimistic with their visions of an entire procedurally generates universe, who is the first person they meet? King of Space , whos the typical MMO player, someone barely less sociopathic than Daly. Ready to kill them because they had nothing to trade. Theyre in for a lifetime of shallow barren planets and constant warfare.

But at least theyll have a chance to defend themselves, so lets hope they grind up enough space credits and XP to take care of themselves, and maybe meet some hardcore role players who like to just sit in a bar and talk all day and not do anything dangerous.


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

[User]
[Thor Ragnarok]: A bunch of questions.

I have a few questions:

* How did everyone in Asgard except Odin forget about Hela, an incredibly public figure? That seems implausible.

* Did Frigga know about Hela?

* Where is Hel located? How does Odin's lifeforce keep the doors of Hel closed?

* How did Hela know where to find Odin? How did she teleport herself?

* Where is Sakaar located?

* Why is the time in Sakaar different? What is meant by the edge of known and unknown?

* Is asgard a rounded planet or a flat one? It looks like flat, so how can a planet be flat?

* How did Thanos' spacecraft find the Asgardians lifeboat?

* How is it that Odin died the day his sons met him? How did he know and time it?

* How was Hela able to break the Mjolnir when no one could?

* How did Valkyrie survive and leave Hel when fighting Hela?

* How did the Quinjet, an aircraft that can't fly into space get into Sakaar far away in the universe?

* Why wasn't Hulk able to return to banner during the two years?

* Hulk is usually always seen to be angry. How is he calm throughout the two years in much of the time?

[Assistant]
>How did everyone in Asgard except Odin forget about Hela, an incredibly public figure? That seems implausible.

Odin is old, he's probably older than 99% of the Asgardians that are currently alive. Plus he basically censored that entire section of history.

>Did Frigga know about Hela?

Really depends on Frigga's age, but Hela's mother could very well be someone else and will show up later.

>Where is Hel located? How does Odin's lifeforce keep the doors of Hel closed?

One of the Nine realms. Presumably Odin is doing it like Hodar, but on a more metaphysical and cosmic level.

>How did Hela know where to find Odin? How did she teleport herself?

She's first born of Odin, the most powerful of Odin's children, so she knows where her dad is.

>Where is Sakaar located? Why is the time in Sakaar different? What is meant by the edge of known and unknown?

Sakaar could be in its own pocket dimension, or some weird spacial annmoly, hence why time works different on Sakaar, and why it has wormhole connecting to pretty much everything. Sakaar is probably fairly famous among smugglers, criminals, and adventurers for its wormholes and the games it hold, but at same time it is not really mapped or claimed by any major power. Hence known and unknown.

>Is asgard a rounded planet or a flat one? It looks like flat, so how can a planet be flat?

Asgard is flat, Asgard could have started out as a planet and then constructed into a floating continents, or was build by Asgardians from scratch.

>How did Thanos' spacecraft find the Asgardians lifeboat?

Thanos probably have means of finding the infinity stones, and he was tracking the tesseract when he noticed it is no longer in Odin's vault.

>How is it that Odin died the day his sons met him? How did he know and time it?

Odin probably has precognitive powers, and he was already dying. So he was basically holding onto his last breath until he had a chance to met his sons for the last time.

>How was Hela able to break the Mjolnir when no one could?

In one of the paintings, it is shown that Mjolnir used to be Hela's weapon, so she probably knows all the strength and weakness of the hammer, and its constructions. Not to mention Hela at that point is the most powerful Asgardian alive.

>How did Valkyrie survive and leave Hel when fighting Hela?

It was shown in the movie, one of the other Valkyrie saved her. Shielding her from Hela's sword, presumably that's when she high tailed out of there.

>How did the Quinjet, an aircraft that can't fly into space get into Sakaar far away in the universe?

It got sucked into a wormhole.

>Why wasn't Hulk able to return to banner during the two years?

Hulk was always fighting in those years. And lets face it, Sakaar is scary, Banner probably didn't want to come out either until he met a familiar face.

>Hulk is usually always seen to be angry. How is he calm throughout the two years in much of the time?

Just because he's calm doesn't mean Hulk is not angry.


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

[User] [DCAU] How did Poison Ivy die?

[Assistant] The wiki gives her cause of death as "killed by paradooms", suggesting she was a casualty of Darkseid's invasion of Earth in Justice League Dark. Though that doesn't apply to the original Batman Animated Series or Harley Quinn series, the former not showing her final fate and the latter having her getting harpooned but getting better.


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

[User]
How does forming a bait ball act as protection against predators in schooling fish?

After watching quite a few documentaries that show large shoals of fish forming bait balls to protect against predation, I am genuinely confused on how this is a protective behavior.  In EVERY documentary (that Ive seen at least) the entire school of fish gets consumed.   The fish seem to all form a tight ball which allows for large predators like whales, eat large swathes of the school in one pass.  After that, they flock to the surface to avoid predators from below, allowing birds to pick them off one by one.  It just never seems to work out well for the fish. Can someone please explain why fish do this, and what advantage it provides?  Thank you.

[Assistant]
It's not a great defensive measure, but rather a natural consequence of every individual fish trying to escape the predators. It's a last ditch effort when they find themselves unable to escape from their normal fish schooling behavior. Any fish by itself will quickly get eaten but if you're hiding yourself among thousands of other fish, it's more likely someone else will get eaten.

One way it _is_ actually defensive is that a sphere has the smallest possible surface area vs its volume, thereby the fewest possible fish are exposed to danger at a given time.


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

[User]
[Star Wars] When (if ever) did Luke and Leia find out who their real mother was?

Who was a famous politician who ended a trade embargo and helped elect a unifying galactic chancellor.

[Assistant]
In current canon, we don't know. It's likely that Leia had an idea who Padme was, considering her place in recent galactic history, but not her identity as her mother.

In Legends, they spent about 3 decades hearing rumors, chasing lies and following hearsay until R2 showed a hologram of Anakin and Padme discussing something. Luke realized that the senator in the recording was his mother, and that was that.


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

[User] Can you kill bacteria just by pressing fingers against each other? How does daily life's mechanical forces interact with microorganisms?

[Assistant]
In theory yes, bacteria can be crushed just like anything. When using microscope slides it's possible to crush them if you don't do it properly. But those are incredibly smooth surfaces. Your fingers are not. There are visible grooves and grooves and imperfections so small you can't see them. Your fingers also have a fair bit of give to them as do the cells that make them up. So most, if not all, of the bacteria present will not experience much force. Not to say it couldn't happen in the right circumstances though.

To have a good chance of crushing them you need a material that is rigid and so flat that they won't just be pushed into grooves or holes.


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

[User]
[Star Wars] Why don't force sensitive people just clone Midi-Chlorians?

The technology is there, highly advanced genetics, the cloners of Kamino created a huge army of clones, so why not clone a single celled organism such as the Midi-Chlorian? You could inject it in your bloodstream and BAM - Force. It may be that Midi-Chlorians are specific to a person, but even then those people could increase their force level by cloning their Midi-Chlorians.

[Assistant] I think, personally, that this is more evidence that the old fools on the Council are wrong, that midichlorians don't *cause* Force-sensitivity, they just *react* to it, perhaps feeding off the ambient Force energy in an individual's body, and the more Force-sensitive a person is, the more midichlorians are attracted to it.


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

[User]
[Star Wars] Could a strong Force user stop/deflect/absorb a shot from the Death Star?

In current canon? How about Legends or EU or whatever else? What about a shot from the Starkiller in TFA?

[Assistant] Well you see, if you get hit by the Death Star, you're going to die. That's the end of it. You won't die of anything in the conventional sense, you just stop being biology and start being physics. Even if you were able to absorb the beam itself, all the other physical properties that surround it, like the heat for example, would do you in just as well.


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

[User]
ELI5: Leaving aside the "nobody-know-why-it-works" reason, why is so innovative the EM Drive compared with others like Ion Thrusters, Plasm, Solar Sails...?

What is the difference if all of these methods already exist and can provide continuous acceleration anyway?

[Assistant]
The top comment is not quite correct. The EM Drive does require fuel - the battery is the fuel. What it doesn't require is **reaction mass**.

Every force has an equal and opposite reaction. In other words, in order to move you have to push against something. In space that means if you want to go in one direction you have to throw something in the opposite direction.

People get confused because for rockets the fuel is also used as the reaction mass. Other forms of propulsion separate the two. If an astronaut on a space walk had a bag of peanuts and began to throw them in a straight line away from their centre of mass, they'd begin to drift backwards. Their muscle would be the fuel/energy source and the peanuts would be the reaction mass.

An interesting consequence of this is that in space a weapon is virtually indistinguishable from an engine. The requirement of an engine in space is to push something away from your ship with as much energy as possible, which just so happens to also be the main aim of most weapons! This is something scifi always forgets. If you have an engine capable of getting you close to the speed of light, you also have an apocalyptically powerful weapon of mass destruction. All you need to do is point your butt at any planet which offends you and hit the gas.


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

[User]
[Star Wars] When did Obi-Wan come to accept he loved Anakin?

Obviously not romantically, but, when did he realize this? Was it during the Clone Wars? Because, he seemed very distant from his padawan during Attack of Clones (and prior to it, if The *Obi-Wan and Anakin* comic is taken into account), yet during the series and throughout Revenge of the Sith they seem very close. Was it during the duel on Mustafar, when he had to confront the reality of killing someone he loved? Especially considering how fondly he remembers his old friend by the original trilogy, though, even that fondness may have come later.

[Assistant]
I imagine he always loved Anakin, even stating as much after their duel.

After his beloved master passed, he likely developed an instant attachment to his master's 'last wish'.  Seeing as how the boy was innocent and quickly skilled probably made him endearing like a baby brother is to an older one.

Once Anakin became a teen, though, things changed.  Still, like a parent loves their rebellious teenager, Obi-Wan put up with it.

Either way, I'd say they did not truly become close until during the Clone Wars when they constantly fought side-by-side and saved one another.  After their duel, Obi-Wan knew in his heart that he loved his 'brother' but could not save him just as he could not kill him.  Maybe this is when he accepted it, perhaps going against the 'attachment' code of the Jedi.

From here, he fondly looks back at the friend/brother/apprentice he raised rather than the man he became.


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

[User]
[Marvel] What would happen if two Juggernauts ran at each other at full speed?

I'm not amazing with Marvel comics, but I'm under the assumption that once Juggernaut gains momentum, he can't be stopped. So what happens if by some coincidence there are two Juggernauts of equal strength and power and they both run at each other with as much speed as they can muster?

It would be effectively unstoppable force meets another unstoppable force, right?

[Assistant]
They would impact, a huge amount of energy would be released, each of their paths would be diverted, and the two would continue on at the new vector.

The magic that empowers it dictates that the Juggernaut cannot be stopped, not that it must always maintain its intended direction.


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

[User] ELI5: Did the US really create the Islamic State, and if so, why?

[Assistant]
When people say the U.S. created the Islamic State it's not like the U.S. went to Iraq and recruited people to be in this great new ISIS thing.

They mean that the U.S.' actions in the Middle East (specifically toppling Saddam) were the impetus that lead to the rise of groups like the Islamic State.


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

[User] ELI5 - What is limiting computer processors to operate beyond the current range of clock frequencies (from 3 to up 5GHz)?

[Assistant]
Mostly heat generation and lack of dissipation.

Faster things produce substantially more heat than slower things, and with as dense as we pack that stuff in, there's only so much heat we can get rid of so quickly.

Eventually it'll just melt. Or at least it will cease to perform as a computer needs to perform.

edit:: Making the CPU larger serves to increase the length between each transistor. This introduces a time delay that reduces overall clock speeds. CPU's are packed as densely as they are because that's what gives us these insanely fast clock speeds that we've become accustomed to.


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

[User]
[Star Wars] What if Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan got off a distress call?

Right after the Trade Federation tries to kill them with a gas attack in The Phantom Menace, the Jedi get loose on the ship and try to break into the bridge. But they get stalemated by droidekas and forced to go a different way.

Let's say instead of going for the bridge, they go for the comm room. They disable the jamming and send a Jedi distress call back to the Temple and Republic leaders: "It's a trap, ship destroyed with all hands, need backup!" Then they continue down to Naboo as before.

Does Palpatine still end up Supreme Chancellor? Does Qui-Gon still find Anakin? What happens?

[Assistant]
Remember when the Trade Federation asked Darth Sidious whether executing Jedi was legal or not, his response was "I will make it legal." What most likely would have occurred was that Palpatine would have had the transmission intercepted before it reached the Jedi temple, and events would have happened as we know them.

But if the Republic was made aware of it, it's likely Palpatine would have spun it into an anti-Jedi bent to make the invasion even more necessary and further discredit Valorum. The whole reason Jedi were sent was because the previous chancellor ordered it, so Palpatine would have traced the whole thing back to Valorum and ruined some of his power. Maybe he would have had all official recounts make it seem like the Jedi went berserk totally unprovoked (maybe by editing the records to remove references to the gas attack), or had resorted to lightsabers and force powers after only the barest of negotiations, trying to strong-arm law abiding Republic citizens. In that case, Palpatine might spin the story to make it seem like Valorum had started using Jedi as hired thugs to enforce his will, thus preventing legal due process.


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

[User]
[Pacific Rim] If kaiju are grown...

...how is one pregnant?

[Assistant]
Delayed-action mechanism. It was designed to incubate a small "offspring" and release it during the attack, distracting the enemy or even being overlooked long enough to devastate much of the city.

In addition, as a last-ditch subterfuge that didn't really work out, if the fight had taken longer the infant might have been well-developed enough to quietly tunnel out of the corpse and sneak away.


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

[User]
[ Rick & Morty ] How do you end up a blue collar Rick on the citadel?

I know C-137 is the Rickest Rick, but the idea of becoming a factory worker seems incompatible with Ricks whole outlook on life and abilities? A man with that intellect and skill set doesnt need to be making cookies on a conveyer belt, so how does he end up there?

[Assistant]
Because the citadel is an ultimately self-defeating proposition (as we see) but Ricks are too proud and stubborn to realize this.

When you're the smartest person in your entire universe, that's great. But once you get a bunch of "smartest-people-in-their-universes" you've eliminated that advantage. Among that group there are going to be gradients of relative smartness. Like Rocket says to Tony Stark in End Game: "You're only a genius on Earth."

As Rick says: "Whoever is stilll exploring the citadel is either stupid or one of the unfortunate millions held hostage by their terrible ideas."


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

[User]
Can you create DNA in a lab?

With companies such as 23andMe mapping your genes, could someone take that raw data and artificially recreate your dna?

What would be the implications of such a thing?

[Assistant]
Yes, you can synthesize DNA in the lab.
But mostly it's shorter stretches, from 10s to 100s of basepairs. They are widely used in molecular biology and genetics labs.
If you want to generate a whole genome from scratch that's a bit more complicated. Genomes can be very large and repetitive which can make quality control more tedious.


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

[User] ELI5: How are inches of rain calculated? Is it inches per square foot?

[Assistant] grab a glass and set it outside when it rains. When you collect it, the height you see is the height of rain reported. So long as your container maintains the same surface area the whole way down (Doesn't get wider or smaller), then it will be correct.


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

[User]
ELI5:Universality of the term "mama".

Every language I know (Arabic, English, Spanish, French, etc..) have similar terms for mother (madre, mere). Not only Latin languages, but also Arabic term is somewhat similar. Aside from that, every baby uses the word "mama" for mother and "dada/baba" for father and these are quite often their first words.

ELI5 why "mama" is all so universal, even if the languages are so different from one another?

[Assistant] the transition from closed mouth to open mouth sounding is one of the simplest phonemes. Since children will mmmaa mmaa mmaaa, and mothers respond to their childs noises...mama becomes a word when in fact its only noise...but words are just noise assigned meaning. Another common sound caused by forcing sound through closed lips Ba give us BABA for bottle....the use of the tongue to form D generally puts dada later.


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

[User] ELI5: Why is lead the best element for stopping radiation? It's a big atom, I would assume that small atoms arranged in a highly compact lattice would be best.

[Assistant]
Lead has the unique quality of possessing both a very high molecular weight and a very dense molecular structure. Those qualities make it appealing as a radiation shield material.

It's more commonly used over even denser elements because it's extremely cheap compared to elements like tungsten.


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

[User]
A bird traveling 60mph enters a train car traveling 60mph parrallel to it. What happens to the bird?

Lets say it enters the train car through a small window on the side of the car. What happens to the bird upon entering? Does it fly forward and hit the front of the car? Does it fly backward and hit the back? Or does it simply stay in the same position, flying in the middle of the car?

[Assistant] If the bird glides in through the window, it is liable to fall down to the floor of the car. It has been using 60 mph relative wind for lift, and that suddenly drops to zero. Also, it has been using its wings (or descent, if that is how it keeps its speed outside) to power it into a 60 mph relative headwind. The headwind suddenly drops to zero when the bird enters the car. It if keeps flapping its wings (or descending) when it is inside the car, it will hit the front of the car. If it just glides horizontally into the car, it will only have to contend with the change in lift and deceleration as it enters the air in the car.


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[User]
[The Legend of Zelda] Second princess from Adventures of Link

In Zelda 2: The Adventures of Link, the manual states that, while the Link we're playing as is the same one as in The Legend of Zelda, the Zelda we're rescuing is different. She's a princess of Hyrule from long ago, kept in a slumber by a witch's curse. At the end of the game, Link assembles the Triforce of Courage and revives her with its power.

My question is, would this cause any secessionist issues? If an older heir to the throne suddenly appeared out of nowhere, would their claim be more legitimate? Also, how come we never hear about the two princesses again, or any split in the royal bloodline this may have started?

[Assistant]
Regarding the rules of succession, probably not. If that elder Zelda was truly incapacitated, she would have been relieved of her royal duties, and a successor would have taken her place. Forced abdication, more or less. Also, it's possible she never rose to the throne; we don't know anything about her father the King, and its possible that the current Zelda is simply the "correct" heir.

But regardless, there wouldn't be much for the two Zeldas to fight over. Hyrule in the original two *Zelda* games was a kingdom in ruin; it was the end of the "bad timeline" where Ganon gained the Triforce and the Hero of Time wasn't around to stop him.

And the reason we never hear about her again is that there are no games which take place after *Adventure of Link*. Every game released since then has been a prequel, starting with *Link to the Past* and going on from there.

There could be a civil war raging in Hyrule, for all we know, but we haven't been around to see it.


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[User] ELI5: How does glass get recycled?

[Assistant]
If the glass vessel is hard to produce (ie expensive) then it may be cleaned and re-used directly.

For everyday things like beer bottles the glass is cleaned, crushed into small bits, and fed back into the glass production line along with other scraps from earlier production runs.  It's called 'cullet'.  Minor variations (like different color, composition) are corrected for once the glass batch is fully melted.


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[User] I've read that the reason water evaporates at room temperature, is because some molecules have enough energy to break free. Even ice evaporates. But then why doesn't every substance evaporate? Like metal or glass or rock.

[Assistant] Every substance does evaporate ... eventually.  But for most solids, the evaporation rate is many billions of times slower than liquid water or ice. The atoms are just held to the bulk material that much tighter.


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

[User] ELI5; What makes iron so special that stars stop fusing elements heavier than it?

[Assistant]
Iron takes more energy to fuse than is released in the process of fusion.

Take a look at hydrogen: the mass of the constituent hydrogen atoms  (four electrons, four protons) is more than the mass of the helium atom that comes out the other side (four electrons, two protons, two neutrons).

The missing mass is converted into the energy that sustains the star, and which can lead to further fusion chains.

Silicon-to-iron is the final stage in stellar fusion. Fusing silicon into iron takes more energy than the star gets out of it, and so it begins losing energy, ultimately leading to its death.


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

[User]
[Star Wars] Why does the galaxys level of technology never seem to advance?

In the three trilogies and associated other media, I never get the impression that technology is ever moving forward. Sure, people will build new planet killing super weapons, but the rest seems to stay exactly the same.

Theyre using the same starfighters for decades. Which I know is relevant to real life, but never do we get the impression that older ships might be technically outclassed by newer and more advanced variants.

Blaster weapons seem virtually unchanged in 60+ years. I would even say that some of the Clone Wars era weapons seem more advanced than later iterations.

They dont have electronic banking.

Furthermore, stuff from the Old Republic (which may or may not be canon, I know) seemed to be no less advanced, despite a thousand year gap.

Whats the reason for this technological dark age?

[Assistant]
Rapid technological growth can only last for so long. You can't have each generation have clearly better tech than the previous generation for 25,000 years. At some point you'd achieve technological godhood, and there's nowhere to go from there.

Technology peaked, or at least the growth has slowed to something more logarithmic.


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[User]
ELI5 Why does releasing an empty bow shatter it?

Why doesn't the energy just turn into sound and vibrations of the bow string?

[Assistant] A bow pulled back is storing a lot of energy. With an arrow in place, that energy is transferred (mostly) to the arrow, and it happens much more slowly. Without an arrow, the bulk of the energy gets absorbed by the string and limbs, and it happens much more quickly, so it's more of a sudden shock. Sudden shocks can be more damaging.


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[User]
Do larger smartphones have larger antennas and hence better wifi/cell reception?

Some engineer is probably going to cringe at this question, but it seems logical to silly old me. For example I have an iPhone 6+. Couldn't you fit a larger antenna in an iPhone 6+ than an iPhone 6? And wouldn't that make the wifi and cell service better?

[Assistant]
Given the frequencies being used, your antenna will actually be rather small.  Improvements in reception generally occur due to different antenna designs, not by increasing the size.

For example, since a cellphone antenna is, generally, omnidirectional, you can increase the gain (the "strength" of the antenna) by making it more directional.  The upside is that the same transmitted power is better focused; the downside is that you lose reception from particular directions.

Now, one method I'd like to see are adaptive antennas.  If the phone can detect the direction of the tower it's transmitting to, the adaptive antenna could focus the beam ("beamforming") to direct the transmission in the direction of the tower.  This would lead to better use of power for the phone, and hence longer battery life.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why are train tracks smooth?

If friction is the force that pushes a vehicle forward, wouldn't you want as much friction as possible like a car tire? Is the train so heavy that a low coefficient of friction is compensated for?

[Assistant]
Friction is also one of the main forces slowing you *down* (along with air resistance). Remember that objects in motion will stay in motion until another force acts on them. That means that once the train gets going, you don't *need* friction to keep going and all it does is act against you.

With cars, you need friction because you need to stop often and quickly, and you need to turn quickly and sharply. Trains don't have those limitations. The tracks control their direction and only take long, gentle turns. The tracks stay open and empty through careful coordination, so trains rarely need to stop until they get close to their destination.

The low friction means that trains do take a very long time to start moving, and to stop. The fact that they're massive also makes them take forever anyway. The low friction also means that they don't need to use a lot of energy to keep going once they get going. That makes trains *very* efficient.


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

[User]
If you reverse the Hubble telescope to be a microscope, how small could you see?

I assume there would be focusing issues and whatnot. That said, if all necessary adjustments where made, what would you see? What could you see if you sat there looking for 1 million years?

[Assistant] With a telescope, you can see at higher resolution just by making the telescope bigger. With a microscope though, you can't resolve below about half a wavelength (about 200 nm for visible light) no matter how good your optics are. There are some tricks to get below that, for example by chemically attaching localized light sources to the sample.


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

[User]
ELI5: why is it that we are able to subconsciously control our bladders when we sleep? How is it that we manage not to piss ourselves?

I know this is a stupid question but I'm laying in bed and it's late at night, so please forgive me.

[Assistant]
Your body releases a hormone while you sleep called vasopressin which inhibits the production of urine. You produce less urine while you sleep, and it's a thicker, more dense liquid (partly because of the hormone, partly because you're not drinking while you're asleep).

People who have lower naturally occurring levels of vasopressin have to take a synthetic form of it called desmopressin before they go to sleep. And that's why we don't piss ourselves!


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

[User]
ELI5:How did Trunki lose their court case for copyright?

The opposing company looks like an almost exact copy of the Trunki cases to me, what makes it copyright or not copyright?

[Assistant]
It's pretty clearly a copy of the *idea* of Trunki, but they don't have a patent on the overall idea, they only have a registered design. That covers the appearance, shape, and physical decoration of the design, and it still looks like the other product is a close enough copy

However, the images they actually included in their design weren't photos of the fully decorated product, they were images of the shape of the case with a plain grey surface and no decoration. The court has therefore decided that the registered design protects the specific shape of the case, not the animal decoration, and they feel that the shape of the copy is sufficiently different.


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

[User] What makes our voices sound the way they do when we hit an elderly age?

[Assistant]
There's a very kind term in medicine called "presby," and its used for all sorts of things like presbycusis, presbyphagia, and presbyphonia, but it basically just means old hearing, old swallowing, and old voice. Presbyphonia is the most common aging voice condition in which the muscles of the vocal folds begin to atrophy and no longer adduct as fully, leaving a small glottal chink in the middle when the vocal folds should be closed. This prevents the lungs from building up adequate pressure and the vocal folds from vibrating in their traditional, smooth pattern. It causes a breathy, weak voice. The tremor that happens with presbyphonia has many of the same causes (although may result from spasmodic dysphonia or essential tremor separately) with less control of the glottal wave.

Men and women also have aging changes that differ from each other with a thickening of the vocal folds in women with menopause (causing a deeper voice) and and a thinning of the vocal folds in men (causing a higher voice).

Hixon, Weismer, and Holt have a great introductory text book that examines most speech disorders through the lifecycle.


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

[User]
ELI5: What do scientists mean when they say that light is an electro magnetic wave?

I've seen one multiple educational videos that draw light as two orthogonal waves traversing through space. What is that trying to represent?What exactly is going up and down?

Furthermore, why do people often make the analogy that light acts like a ripple in a pond?

[Assistant]
There is an electromagnetic quantum field (EMQF) permeating all of space.  Electric fields and magnetic fields are classical representations of interactions involving this EMQF.

Light is a fluctuation in this EMQF, and this representation explains the photoelectric effect (which isn't explained in classical electromagnetism).

If you think of a flash of lightning, it's a lot like a rock tossed into a still pond.  This large electric current agitates the gas atoms in the atmosphere, and when they relax they release light in all directions, like how the rock sends waves in all directions on the pond.  The surface of the pond is 2D, and the EMQF is 3D, but otherwise it's similar.


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

[User]
[DC] If Lex had Superman's powers, would he essentially be the "good guy" as well? What would he do with it?

Lex keeps going on about how Superman makes humans useless and all the effort pointless because Superman is essentially a god. So it got me wondering, what would he do if HE had those powers?

Would he hate himself? Would he try to be the new superman? Would he still remain a villain and hate Superman (but not himself) like a hypocrite?

[Assistant]
Not entirely. All Star Superman has this exact scenario, when Lex takes the serum that grants him all powers of Superman for a time, and first thing he does is break out of death row and wreck havok a little bit before actually realizing what sort of power and insight Superman has... but all too late, as his temporary powers wane to zero.

In more mainstream universe he once gained nearly actual omnipotence by merging with some entity from Phantom Zone - at a cost of not harming anything... and promptly loses this power, since one of his first plans is how to get rid of Superman.

He got a bit better in New52 version, after getting his hands on New God technology from Apocalypse and upgrading his Warsuit, he seemingly tried to be heroic and put his money where his mouth is on topic of being better than Superman, but that was due New52 Superman actually dying on seemingly permanent manner, so he had no distractions.

So, unfortunately, while Lex Luthor is undoubtedly brilliant, he's also equally obsessed and very *very* hypocritical in his opinions of Superman.


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[User] If even police departments in rich countries struggle to solve a high percentage of crimes (e.g. murder clearance rate of around 60%), then just how bad is it in poor countries with very poor police departments?

[Assistant]
Really bad. I've been reading Janice Pearlman's *Favela*, on Rio, and they have clearance rates of something like 10%, and less for drug violence in the favelas themselves.

But it is certainly quite complicated, and really depends on the place you're talking about--Rio is exceptional because of the high numbers of firearms and the drug trade. In Mumbai, according to Katherine Boo's reporting, in similarly poor slums, there really isn't much gun violence to contend with. There are stabbings and acid attacks and such, but the police are a much bigger--though terribly corrupt--apparatus. They do end up making arrests in many more cases.


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[User] ELI5: Why is there a separate security code on credit cards? If the three extra digits make it that much more secure, why not just make the number three digits longer?

[Assistant]
In the olden days, credit cards were often not scanned with the mag strip, because the equipment was still too expensive for smaller retailers.

What they did instead was use a carbon paper and a roller machine to take an imprint of the front of the credit card with the numbers. This was commonly part of the receipt, and one copy would be torn off and given to the customer.

The problem with this, of course, is that now all these receipts you are just throwing away left and right have your whole card number on them.

This is where the extra numbers on the back to confirm an online(or at the time, over the phone) purchase can be used,  if you only had a receipt you found with the front of someone's card, you would not have all the numbers needed to complete a transaction.


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

[User] What causes people to act different when drinking than when sober?

[Assistant]
From a medical perspective, alcohol affects different parts of the brain in different concentrations. The most sensitive area of the brain to alcohol is the prefrontal cortex. This is the area of the brain responsible for urge inhibition, planning, and executive thought. With alcohols intoxication, these processes are impaired leading to changes in behavior and poor impulse control.

As you continue drinking and blood alcohol levels rise, more parts of the brain are impaired. The frontal cortex is next, leading to problems with speech, coordination, and certain reflexes (like visual tracking). After that, the hippocampus is affected leading to the inability to form memories (blacking out). If you continue to drink, the brainstem can be affected leading to depression of the reticular activating system and several centers critical to the support of vital functions. This will make you pass out and possibly stop breathing.


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

[User]
ELI5: What actually determines the moment that you fall asleep?

Is it a specific mix of brain chemicals, heart rate, and environment conditions that trigger it? Is it more complicated than that? And on top of that, why is it sometimes easy to fall back asleep if you wake up, but sometimes you lie awake for an hour?

[Assistant]
There really isn't a exact moment when you fall asleep, because it isn't a synchronised thing. Different parts of your brain do different things at different times. And sometimes you can be asleep, and awake at the same time, like sleep paralysis. And you can be asleep, without going through all the phases of sleep. And these stages are just based on our observations and scans, we don't actually know everything that happens in our brains. But we know that lack of sleep is deadly. There is fatal insomnia like  *fatal familial insomnia.*

But since sleep messes up with our memory, we don't actually know when we fall asleep. Like for example when you get general anaesthesia, when they tell you to count down from 100, the moment you recall that things went "black" was just the moment your consciousness went asleep and memory failed, not the moment you fell asleep.

Like... You know sometimes you just lay there, you feel like you are asleep, but you are awake, and next or when you get up, you feel well rested and fully awake? Well you did sleep, sorta, kinda, in a way. Only thing that really matters is that the certain parts of your brain did the things it had to do to make you feel rested. Human brains are really strange.


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

[User]
ELI5:what is information (referring Black Hole Information Paradox)

i understand the logic behind the conservation of matter and energy, but i just can't grasp my head around why the information about the state of a system needs to also be preserved.

if i take an apple and I dismantle it until it is nothing but protons and electrons, how in the world is the information about its previous state conserved?

i am trying to understand why it is so controversial that matter falls into a black hole and then it irradiates away as hawking radiation (without conserving the information about what that matter was)

[Assistant]
Disclaimer: Some simplifications that are not technically true but make it easier to understand the principles.

On a deep level physics doesn't care if time moves forward or backward. Speaking in your apple analogy, it is physically possible to "un-dismantle" an apple and reconstruct it the way it was. Due to entropy it is unrealistically unlikely for something like that to happen, but it's physically possible.

To take this to the next level, if you have the dismantled apple in your hand it is possible to reconstruct how you dismantled it and in which state it used to be before just from looking at where the apple, you and everything involved are *right now*. The movement can sort of be "rewinded", and the rewinding is a process that follows all fundamental laws of physics (it reduces entropy, but again, that's not impossible, only so unlikely that it never happens).

Black holes seem to violate this principle. In standard black holes an electron drops in and photons come out at a later time, but it is not clear what their connection is. On a mathematical level, the process is not reversible: If we take all photons and their times when they exit the black hole we still don't know when and where an electron or something else dropped in.

To put it into an analogy: Let's say some sort of God randomly steals particles from our universe and randomly inserts them at other places. In such a universe we can never say when and where a particle will appear or disappear, and if we look at the universe as it is right now we cannot say what it was like in the past because the God may have stolen particles earlier and from looking at today's universe no trace of them remains. Black holes seem to do a similar thing - they take particles away without going into a state that allows us to trace back that a particle entered at a certain moment.


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[User] ELI5: Why do mountains have a gray, hazy appearance from a distance?

[Assistant] Contrary to first appearance the air isn't perfectly transparant. Over large distances it starts to form a faint blue haze. Disturbances in the air or a heat current can further distort the view, which is why faint stars twinkle when viewed from earth. Their light gets slightly distorted as the athmosphere moves and flows.


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

[User]
CMV: Allison Mack's sentence of 3 years for sex slavery doesn't seem right

Sentencing guidelines were 14-17 years. She gets 3 years and community service for charges of sex trafficking, sex trafficking conspiracy and forced labor conspiracy. She was second in command of NXIVM, lured women into sex slavery, even branding some with her own initials, a ritual she created. Raniere,  the cult leader,  appropriately received 120 years, on the same charges.  If she were anything but an attractive young  actress, she would not have received such a light sentence.
( yes it was a plea bargain but she played a major and  instrumental role in the crimes)

[Assistant] She was arrested for those things but she plead guilty to racketeering and was sentenced for that. You're right that 3 years is light for the crimes for which she was arrested, but in the American Justice system, she's not guilty of those crimes so she shouldn't be sentenced for them.


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

[User] ELI5: why does air from a normal fan FEEL colder when it hits your face, even if the fan doesnt change the temperature of it?

[Assistant] The air that is hitting your face is not colder (well, its probably colder than your body temperature), but there are two reasons it feels colder. First, if youre just sitting still and the air around you isnt moving, the air closest to your skin gets heated up by your body and doesnt go anywhere. But if the air around you is constantly moving, that warmer air next to your skin will be replaced by cooler air. Second, moisture on your skin evaporates, and if air is moving over your skin, it evaporates faster - and the evaporation itself does cause cooling (this is why we sweat, because it cools us off). In fact there are even machines called evaporative coolers or swamp coolers which can cool the air in a room significantly just by moving air over a damp surface (but these only work in places where the air isnt very humid).


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

[User]
philosophy to cope with anxiety and depression

Ive been reading Schopenhauer for a year now. Beautiful, consoling, however id like to switch to another writer for now, any suggestions? Ive heard Spinoza is great for understanding your emotions (On the Improvement of the Understanding)  from Schopenhauer himself  (WWR 1 book 4 chapter 68)  but hes too difficult to read for me. Any suggestions are appreciated thanks.

Note: I do want to read Spinoza eventually so any advice on understanding him would be appreciated. Thanks!

[Assistant] I think you are the first to find Schopenhauer consoling as oppose to pushing yourself further into the pit! But if you want a discussion of emotions, and especially a discussion of Schopenhauer himself, then reading Nietzsche makes sense. *The Gay Science* is normally the recommend starting point.


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[User] ELI5: Just how bad are the potential effects of more and more antibiotic resistant bacteria? Would it cause a global crisis or just be an inconvenience? How long are we looking at before it does become critical?

[Assistant]
There is no way to tell. Right now, if you get a bacterial infection, we can usually treat it by using antibiotics to kill it. If a bacterial infection evolves to the point where our strongest antibiotics don't kill it, then it will be like we don't have any medication at all. This can mean a minor inconvenience, or it cause a global crisis. In the 1300s, bubonic plague, a bacterial infection, killed 30-60 percent of the population of Europe.

That being said, modern societies understand the link between improper hygiene and bacterial infection. As long as we keep washing our hands (which doesn't kill bacteria, but simply removes it) and properly cook our food (bacteria can't become resistant to boiling) then we should stand a far better chance of survival, even without effective antibiotics. Developing countries might get hit pretty hard though.


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

[User]
[Watchmen] Why is the Comedian troubled by the plan?

Why is Comedian troubled by Adrian's plan? For someone who seems like he doesn't give a fuck about anything, he was horrified when he went to see Moloch.

[Assistant]
The Comedian was a realist thug who spent decades working for the status quo.  His worldview was a simple one, that what ultimately mattered was strength and that to win you "just hadda be tougher."  He also has a dim, misanthropic perspective on human nature.  Dr. Manhattan at one point said that Blake perfectly understood the dark side of humanity and didn't care.  Blake lived in a world where humanity was broken and ugly, where he fit right in.

But then Blake encounters a secret plot to save the world that destroys his worldview.  He knows that the plan will work, that humanity can be saved.  But the cost is so enormous that keeping it a secret breaks hims.  The scheme is too dark even for this murderer, this rapist.  It's also too big, radical, and unprecedented for a cynic operating in a world that he thought was simple, brutal, and predictable.  Blake doesn't really have the amoral detachment or the psychological flexibility to truly be at peace with this idea, even though he knows it has to happen. It becomes a joke in his mind, that the route to saving humanity is unspeakable horror, and he desperately wants it to be funny.


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

[User]
ELI5:Why is Judge an elected position?

So in my state (California) we elect judges in the same way as all politicians.  Unlike politicians, they don't campaign.  I had to spend a fairly significant amount of time searching to find anything about them.  This seems like a dumb way to choose judges given that many people might just choose randomly or vote for the cooler sounding name.  Why is it done this way? And why do they not campaign like other politicians running for office do?

[Assistant] Perhaps not the answer you're looking for, but electing judges (and a few other legal professions, such as district attorney) is an almost uniquely American habit. Much of the rest of the world (certainly that which is based on the British legal system) performs judicial appointments via the legislature or executive, or from within the judiciary itself. Seems to be working out fine for us so far.


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

[User]
What are your thoughts on the idea that some people just don't have the ability to code or don't have a logical enough mind for understanding the syntax and logic of programming languages?

I've heard this in a few places both across the web and also from a CS professor I once had. It was for a web dev class and he basically said on day one "I don't expect you to master JavaScript and HTML by tomorrow, but I'll know by the time of the first exam if some of you are meant for programming and some of you aren't", or something like that.

And so I was just wondering what you all think about this?

[Assistant]
There are people who exist without the intellectual capacity.

There are people who dont have the inclination.

There are people who dont have the interest in such work.

And, there are people just like you.


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

[User]
Exactly what was wrong with Keynesian economics?

Without trying to get too personal or political, I am an older Millennial (30), and am interested in history.  I would very much like to know how we got to this point economically as a country.

From what I've been able to gather, we went from demand side economics (Keynesian) to supply side (Reaganomics?) in the 1970's.  I'm old enough to look back at how this has effected my life and generation. I would love to know what the catalyst was for this change.

I'm not an economist, so I don't really understand demand management or why the 1973-75 recession was so incredibly bad that we couldn't have waited for it to run its course (I am going a lot on the wikipedia page).

Without trying to get too personal/political, it seems to me that supply side economics was a well intentioned idea (and you know what they say a road leading to a certain somewhere is paved with) and maybe we should try going back to the Keynesian way?

I wasn't alive for the 1970's stagflation, so what do you think?  Was it sufficient reason to fix what possibly wasn't broken instead of waiting a little longer for things to sort themselves out, or seek other solutions?

[Assistant]
For a quick and easy introduction you could pick up Tim Harford's recent book **The Undercover Economist Strikes Back: How to Run-or Ruin-an Economy** While he does not get into the politics of the shift in political support, he does lay an accessible groundwork to understand the approaches.

Keynesian macroeconomics is, at it's most basic, approaching the problem of how well the economy does or does not run from the perspective of demand side management. That is, that if government policy is centered around managing the demand, Aggregate Demand (AD), in the terminology, then the economy will be much more stable in the long run, and produce more wealth in the long run. That problems with the economy are typically problems with the demand in the economy being inadequate or disrupted, and that is the cause of recessions.

Supply side economics is a school which is something of a subset of classical, or neo-classical economics. The classical (whether neo or not, or something along those lines) tends to see problems in the overall economy in terms of problems with the supply of goods and services, and that recessions result from the supply side.

Further, the classical schools of thought tend to see economic disruptions as coming from outside the economy. The classical schools see shocks to the economy which may cause recessions or other disruptions as exogenous, that is, factors that are outside of the normal run of the economy. And because the shocks come from outside, and because they're not about demand in the economy, then government policies aimed at demand management, are thought to be the wrong approach, and so government shouldn't do them. In fact, the classical approach tends to believe that for the most part there's nothing practical that the government *can do*. At least in the short run.Keynesian economics, on the other hand, see shocks to the economy primarily as endogenous, that is, as originating from within the economy, and as being a natural part of the economy. And because they are a natural part of the economy, and because government policy *can be used effectively* to mitigate recessions and other economic disruptions, that government *should act*.

Also an important factor is that Keynesians see government economic policy as critically including regulatory policy. The believe that a lot of the endogenous problems in an economy can be prevented or mitigated by a proper regulatory framework. While the classical schools tend to be much more opposed to economic regulation, to one extent or another.

Supply side economic kind of takes this old debate and heads off on a tangent. Like the Keynesians, Supply siders think that the government can act in some ways to stabilize the economy. But unlike the Keynesians, they do not see the problems with economy as Aggregate Demand problems, but rather as Aggregate Supply problems. And so while they will intervene in a malfunctioning economy, their methods of intervention are intended to be to improve the situation on the supply side. That is, if the supply of goods and services available in the economy is improved, or if obstacles to supply, often regulations, are removed, then the economy will improve.

So Supply side isn't entirely within either the Keynesian or the classical framework, though it has a lot more in common with the classical then the Keynesian.

Now which is right? Harford in his book makes a point of demonstrating that both endogenous and exogenous shocks do happen. But it appears that most shocks to the economy are endogenous. Though the oil shock experienced in the 1970s was exogenous. And, importantly in the political context, the Keynesian economists who were dominant in macroeconomics  from WWII until the 1970s did not have good theory, understanding, or policy prescriptions, to offer to government to deal with the type of exogenous shock that oil was to the US at that time. As a result of this the Keynesians took a critical hit to their reputation that they never really recovered from.

Here enters Aurthur Laffer and Ronald Reagan. Laffer was able to convince Reagan, and a number of up and coming Republican leaders such as David Stockman, who became Reagan's budget director, that the Supply Side theories were the way to go. Now had Reagan not won the 1980 election, it might have ended there. George HW Bush, who you recall became vice president under Reagan, famously labeled Supply Side economics as Voodoo Economics. And the old guard of the Republican party at the time mostly agreed with Bush.  But he did win, and also a Republican majority won in the Senate. That plus the Republicans in the House, and many conservative Southern and Western rural Democrats known at the time as the Boll Weevils were sufficient so that Reagan was mostly successful in getting his legislative agenda passed into law. Reagan, for whatever else you want to say about the man, was typically pretty effective in his relationships and ability to work with Congress, including Congressional leaders who were opposed to him on ideology.

So that's really the story of how Supply Side economics came to be. How it became enshrined in the Republican party is politics. Bush promised to not raise taxes, but then he did, because he was a real fiscal conservative, and very much wanted to address the deficits that Reagan had left behind. And then he lost reelection to Clinton. The lesson Republicans took from this is never raise taxes.

Now we could get a lot more into the politics of how and why the Republicans got locked in where they did. But I'll leave off from that here.

>Without trying to get too personal/political, it seems to me that supply side economics was a well intentioned idea (and you know what they say a road leading to a certain somewhere is paved with) and maybe we should try going back to the Keynesian way?

Others around here are better at explaining just what the current schools of economic thought are. Typically among the professionals and academics in macroeconomics, there's a lot of agreement in a synthesis of economic schools that grew out of the 1980s. The golden age of politicians actually listening to economists was in the postwar era. No matter what economists are saying now, politicians are really only hearing what they want to hear.

>I wasn't alive for the 1970's stagflation, so what do you think? Was it sufficient reason to fix what possibly wasn't broken instead of waiting a little longer for things to sort themselves out, or seek other solutions?

The problem that was going on in the 1970s was inflation due to an exogenous supply shock. Oil. And the economist at the time didn't understand how to deal with that. In hindsight we can say a lot of things. And it probably just had to run it's course. But the politics at the time said otherwise. And the inflation did get serious enough so that a lot of people were open to a different approach.


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

[User] ELI5: Why does it matter which side is up or down when microwaving bagged popcorn?

[Assistant]
The popcorn bag has some metallic looking material built into one side of it that absorbs microwaves better. It basically acts as a microwave activated hot plate.

Turning the bag upside down puts this heat source on top which is less effective for its use as a hot plate, and would shield the microwaves from reaching the popcorn directly.

You popcorn will still pop but not as evenly or quickly.


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

[User]
I believe that crimes that have no victim besides "society" or "increased risk of harming" are inherently wrong and are part of an oppressive society in which freedom is permissive, instead of assumptively permitted in the absence of an obvious victim CMV

Dui, reckless driving, intent to commit murder, intent to transport, drug trafficking, prostitution, statutory rape (where the victem is simply underage, or can't "legally" give consent but otherwise hasn't indicated they did not give consent) etc

If a person... directly... has not been personally victimized, then I do not believe a legitimate crime has occurred.

If you are able to do these things without hurting other people, I find the statistics that you "may" or are "more likely" to hurt someone irrelevant.

They are simply limitations of personal freedom.

EDIT : Clarification. The intended title was "are inherently wrong (to be considered crimes)  MY MISTAKE!

[Assistant]
Just a point of clarification:  Why shouldn't reckless endangerment be a crime?

If someone is running around shooting a loaded gun at random, why shouldn't we be able to stop them before someone gets shot?  Should the police just follow him around until someone gets hit, then arrest them?


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

[User]
Is being hungry unhealthy?

Although I am not in poverty nor am I broke, sometimes I do not have time to eat or just rather continue what I am doing. I do eat throughout the day but sometimes I will skip a meal and it won't phase me much. So basically there are several times throughout the day that I am hungry and sometimes I will go to bed without dinner. Is it unhealthy to be hungry? Does it have any negative effects on our brain, body that would be detrimental in the future?

[Assistant]
A number of scientific studies have established a direct inverse relationship with caloric intake and overall lifespan.  Mice, Rats, and even Chimps have all tended to live longer on reduced calorie diets than their more "satisfied" counterparts.

There is a very big difference between hunger and **starvation**. Imagine the few hundred thousand years the human species existed/developed in before modern agriculture and supermarkets.  Periods of hunger were perfectly natural in most environments because nutritious/high energy food sources were not always a guarantee.

A healthy human body has evolved within this reality and is perfectly capable of handling short intervals of little to no caloric intake.  Also keep in mind that this applied to human beings with far less stored energy(fat) than your average modern day human.  In short, no. Skipping a meal(or even 1-2 days of meals) has very little adverse affect on a **healthy human being** other than the discomfort of hunger itself.

It's been suggested that periodic short interval fasting *may actually be beneficial to overall health*, but the scientific consensus is split. This is primarily due to influence of the health and food industry funding for specific topics(or lack-thereof).  Exploring the benefits of fasting isn't exactly good business sense as there is nothing to sell and actually suggests the consumer should **buy less.**

If you have blood sugar disorders, diabetes, or similar digestive abnormalities the above may not apply to you and it would be best to consult a physician specializing in dietary concerns.


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

[User]
Amassing Wealth is Theft: CMV

At this point in my intellectual journey, I have come to the conclusion that I agree with Gandhi's assertion: "Strictly speaking," Gandhi once said, "all amassing or hoarding of wealth above and beyond one's legitimate requirements is theft."

As an American, I live in a society where the amassing of wealth at nearly all costs is the apparent goal. I've further come to believe that it is impossible to amass significant wealth (I'm talking bulletproof here -- tens of millions of hoarded dollars) without taking advantage of other humans beings (screw them! They should have known better than to buy my AS SEEN ON TV product!) or investing in notably corrupt practices (yeah, these crappy mortgages are totally ok to sell).

I've come to believe that the only way to become "rich" is to prey on other human beings, that most of the products that make people rich are unnecessary and the product of significant propaganda and manipulative practices, and that these practices and the attainment of serious wealth are immoral.

Change my view.

[Assistant]
That's a terrible definition of theft.

Theft is the taking of someone's property via force or fraud.

In even semi free nations, wealth is amassed through consensual and mutually beneficial trade.

You're equivocating a handshake with a gun to the head.


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

[User]
ELI5: How are nuts so high in calories, yet so healthy and good for weight loss?

I'm on a diet and bought a 2 3/4 oz bag of mixed nuts and it's 470 calories (380 from fat). This kinda goes against everything I've learned about calories and weight loss.

[Assistant] They're healthy but not "eat all you can" healthy. They are nutrient rich, and the fat in them will help curb your appetite making it easier to make it to your next meal time without snacking. The energy you get from eating them will last a good long while with no crash. That being said you must still limit the amount you eat, and supplement your diet with other food groups.


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

[User] ELI5 In the mother's womb, how does the baby get the needed bacteria?

[Assistant] They dont, the amniotic fluid should NOT have any foreign organism in it. The baby picks up all sorts of bacteria on the way out however, more through a vaginal birth, but either way from that moment on theyre going to be exposed. Since most babies spend a lot of time with their mother, thats going to be the source of a lot of that early exposure.


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

[User]
[Frozen] What kind of religion do Elsa and Anna belong to? How does it conflict/mesh with Elsa's magic?

I was recently reading *The Art Of Frozen*, and I learned that Anna and Elsa's home includes artwork depicting Jesus Christ's Parable of the Ten Virgins.

Along with the church where Elsa's coronation took place (which is based on a real-world Anglican church), this implies to me that Arendelle's royalty belongs to some sort of Christian religion.

(There's also the painting of Joan of Arc, but that could possibly simply be a historical painting)

However, despite this, there aren't any specific Christian symbols anywhere (crosses and the like), not even on the bishop. Is there an explanation for this? What kind of religion do the Royal Sisters belong to? Are they especially faithful, or is their religion merely a formality for appearances?

Assuming that they still have the Bible, how do followers of this religion reconcile their love for Queen Elsa with the "thou shalt not suffer a witch to live" stuff (particularly the bishop, who seems aware of Elsa's powers and sympathetic to her plight)? Did this ever cause Elsa undue stress as she grew up?

[Assistant]
Ain't nothing in the ~~rulebook~~ bible says a person can't have magical powers.

Elsa didn't get her powers from any type of demon so she's not a "witch", by their definition. She falls short of living a perfectly christian life, though that's also true of every christian that has ever lived.


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

[User]
[Avengers]Why did Bruce Banner choose to try to kill himself in such an ineffective way? Why didn't he use poison or something?

Shooting yourself raises your heart rate while you are preparing it, plus the noise of a gunshot couldn't help and the self preservational instincts were obviously a factor in stopping a suicide(at least for the hulk). Bruce Banner would have to know these things. Why wouldn't he use something that would lower heart rate like over dosing on heroine?

[Assistant]
Because he probably would've gotten nervous over the poison, gotten stressed, and BAM. Hulk fucks your poison. It's not his heart rate that does it, but the chemicals in his brain that relate to stress, such as nervousness, anger, irritation, sorrow, that kind of thing.

That said, the noise of a gunshot wouldn't register if you were shot in the head. It's very possible he was hulking out as he pulled the trigger and either missed a vital area or didn't notice.


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

[User]
ELI5:Why is a decreasing population considered a bad thing for a country?

Why is a decreasing population seen as a negative for industrialized countries? Doesn't increasing automation technology mean that with less people everyone will have more? Surely cities being less crowded with higher average wealth is a positive?

What am I missing?

[Assistant]
People are an input into the economy, just like oil or farm land or machines.  As a general rule, the more people you have, the more you can produce. So, on a surface level, a shrinking population is bad for an economy in the same way that a dwindling oil supply or lack of capital is bad.

Unlike most of those things, people also create demand, not just supply. So fewer people can also mean that people aren't out there looking to buy new stuff---especially land and houses. which can also upset the economy quite a bit.

On top of that, shrinking populations also usually mean aging populations.  As people get older they tend to go from being net producers to net consumers, especially when health deteriorates.  This can force a country to make hard choices about how, and how much, to support an older population that increasingly can't support itself.  This is made worse by the fact that some jobs simply aren't suited to older people (There are very few 80 year old coal miners, or 70 year old ER nurses, and even when people are only 40 or so they may find that family and health makes it hard to work the kind of job or hours they could have worked when they were 50.)


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

[User]
Does evolution opt for lifespan?

Is there any reason why evolution would cause variances in life span? I guess Im just curious why there are discrepancies in the lifespans of organisms. If it inevitably rids the gene pool of disease and defects, should lifespans continually expand over time? Thank you in advance.

[Assistant] Organisms just have to be alive long enough to reproduce and depending on species also do "community stuff" (like e.g. care for young). That's like the general rule of thumb. There are also factors like for example metabolism. The higher the metabolic rate, the more things like oxidative stress occur, muscles get damaged, dna gets damaged, etc. So the shorter those will live, unless they also develop mechanisms to repair such damage again in order to be alive long enough to reproduce.


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

[User] Why do slugs react so violently to salt?

[Assistant]
It's simple osmosis. In case you don't know, osmosis is a biological phenomenon whereby water passes from one region of high water concentration, through a semi permeable membrane to a region of lower water concentration. This occurs until the concentrations of water in the two regions level out.

Water makes up a very high proportion of a slug's body mass and their skin is very permeable in order to keep it moist and to allow the secretion of mucus which they use to move around. Salt is a desiccant and when you sprinkle it over the slug it creates an osmotic imbalance on the surface of slug's skin. The salt has a very low water concentration, the slug has a very high water concentration. The laws of physics will try and resolve this imbalance and, as a result, water is dragged out of the slug and into the salt.

Certain species can deal with small crystals of salt by excreting large amounts of mucus in the area, reducing contact and water loss. However, when the salt load is too much, large amounts of water are osmotically drawn out and results in severe dehydration. What you end up with is a gooey mess consisting of a load of water that has been drawn out of the slug, some partially dissolved salt, secreted mucus that the slug released in an attempt to defend itself, and one very dry, very dead slug.


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

[User]
CMV: The majority of government economic disaster relief funds should go directly to the consumer, not to corporations.

Whenever there is a major *economic* disaster (as opposed to the natural kinds), financial fear can spread quickly and cause consumers to scale back spending. Cash flow dries up and the economy grinds to a halt. Governments can jumpstart the economy by appropriating funds and injecting liquidity, which acts like financial grease.

Most of relief funding should go directly to individuals and families, not corporations (exceptions follow below). Here's why:  It is far more efficient to rescue an economy by helping the consumer than it is by giving the same amount to corporations. The consumer will spend the money where they need it most, which will incentivize companies to supply those needs and do so efficiently.

Example: Imagine that there are two farms:  One farm raises chickens and produces eggs, and another that only makes artisanal cheese from the rare milk of wild Siberian grass-fed goats. If you give 10 families each $20, they will likely reward the chicken farm with most of that $200, buying their chickens and eggs. But if instead you give each farm $100, the chicken farm producing the product in highest demand at this time will not get the funds they could use to expand their operations, hire additional workers, and better serve the community.

Exceptions: There may be a need to target specific industries, but it should be evaluated for health and safety reasons, not for mere convenience. Hospitals are one example where one can make a reasonable argument that their financial viability serves the public good.

Give the relief funds to the consumer and allow them to direct it to the products and services that are the most  valuable for them. The money gets spent and will still go to businesses  and corporations, but this way maintains market efficiencies while still  achieving in the desired outcomes.

[Assistant]
> Whenever there is a major economic disaster (as opposed to the natural kinds)

COVID-19 is a natural disaster, not an economic one. It's a supply-side shock meaning that companies can't make things even though consumers want to buy them. It's different from a demand-side shock where consumers are afraid to buy even though companies are making stuff. The goal is to keep workers and businesses afloat until the natural disaster is resolved, not spur additional consumer demand for non-existent products.


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

[User] Can Iron exist in the "steam" or "vapor" state? Can Helium be frozen solid? Is there enough energy to do either of these things?

[Assistant]
Not all *compounds* can be found in all states (as they often decompose under certain conditions), but under the right conditions you can get any element into any state.

In fact, most of the periodic trends you probably learned about in general chemistry (including for metals like iron), are actually gas-phase properties. All those electron configurations they teach you? Gas phase electron configurations, not necessarily the most accurate for solid metals. All of those ionization energies and electron affinities? Those are measured for gaseous atoms as well.


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

[User]
Is it bad form to bring your partner to a conference with you?

Im a grad student and just got my first conference proposal accepted. The conference is being held in a somewhat touristy city thats in driving distance, and my partner would love to come with me, as hes never seen it.

Of course he would occupy himself during the conference sessions and such, but would like to grab dinner with me, see a museum, etc. Ive never been to a conference, so I dont really know whats frowned upon and what isnt. Would it be bad to bring him with me and enjoy some sightseeing together in my downtime? Or is that a no-no?

[Assistant] Definitely allowed, but make sure you leave time for networking after the conference. As long as your partner understands those expectations, this works really well - and it's so nice to come back to the hotel after a long day of conferencing to your SO!


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

[User]
ELI5: the physiology of that "butterflies in your stomach" feeling.

I'm studying a bit of human biology at university, so you can explain like I'm six for this one!

Edit: I'm also wondering if it differs between situations, such as when you feel nervous or in danger, when you go down a big water slide, when you kiss someone special, that sort of thing?

[Assistant] From what I've heard before, that feeling comes from our Fight or Flight instinct. Your body senses that you're nervous (that's fear) for something coming up, and as a natural response from the fear, your body begins preparing itself for the potential of fighting/flight. It sends more blood to the more important areas of your body (eg muscles in your arms, abs, and legs) so that if you have to fight/flee, you can in a better way. The butterfly feeling is what happens when blood is rushed away from your stomach area, simply put.


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

[User]
(Nuclear Physics) Does the fission of Uranium 235 release all of its binding energy?

First off, forgive me if my terminology is off or if I've completely misunderstood something, nuclear physics is still new to me.

So the mass defect of Uranium 235 is \~3.082\*10^(-27)kg, which is equivalent to 2.77\*10^(-10) joules, or the binding energy of 7.6 MeV per nucleon. Is all of this energy released when this atom is fissioned into krypton and barium?

On top of this, how energy efficient are modern nuclear plants? (i.e. how much energy is lost in the process instead of turning water into steam?)

[Assistant] No. The binding energy is the energy needed to completely separate the nucleus with Z protons and N neutrons into Z free protons plus N free neutrons. So when you rearrange one heavy nucleus into two lighter nuclei, youre not completely disassembling it into individual protons and neutrons.


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

[User]
[GoT] Why does no one in the Night's Watch wear armour?

I understand that the Night's Watch are underfunded and a large protion of their numbers are prisoners but some of them are noble born bastards and second sons.  You would think that Ned having treated Jon as a well as a legitimate son would have had some armor forged for him, at the very least a chain shirt or breast plate.

[Assistant]
Several brothers do actually, even that Samwell Tarly kid has armor. Most of the Watch wears boiled leather though, usually with some chainmail. It keeps them light, as been said, but you also have to remember the Wildlings have shit weapons. The best you'll find north is the Thenns with their bronze, but they're so far north the Watch rarely encounter them.

Edit: Holy grammar Batman.


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

[User]
[General Fantasy] What do Dwarves eat? Are there Dwarf/Elf farmers?

What do Dwarves and other subterranean creatures eat for sustenance? How are their societies structured to provide for their needs? Do Dwarves rely on imported grain to feed themselves (paid via their craft and mining)?

What about Elves? They certainly eat bread and other common food, so they must have farmers, right? Are there wide swathes of Elf farmland? If not, how do these societies sustain themselves?

What about Orcs, for that matter? Surely they don't have well-developed agriculture! Do they?

[Assistant]
Well, the Dwarves of Discworld like rats in all variations (and don't you dare replace the rat meat with chicken!). There's also dwarf bread, but that's more of a motivation and weapon than a food.
Probably mushrooms too, as they're easy to grow underground?

Elf farmers are somewhat hard to imagine...

Behind the evil bit of Mordor, there are apparently vast farmlands, farmed by human slaves, to support Mordor. Not that I've been there, though.


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

[User]
[Harry Potter] Can Muggles make potions?

As far as I've understood, the "power" of potions doesn't come from the wizard making it but rather from the ingredients used. So could Muggles learn how to make potions?

[Assistant] Rowling said in the past that while a Muggle could perform most of the steps, there's still some magic required. We saw in the old Pottermore potion brewing minigame: at the end of the brewing, you need to wave your hand over the cauldron to channel magic into the potion and activate it.


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

[User]
ELI5: Does it matter when we get the recommended 8 hours of sleep? For example, if I sleep at 3AM and wake up at 11AM everyday, its still 8 hours.

Does it make a difference instead if I sleep at 10PM and wake at 6AM everyday?

[Assistant] it does , theres this thing called diurnal cycle (circadian rhythms) if you mess this up then chances are you may end up with sleeping disorders , even though probability of disorders are low but its individual based.


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

[User]
ELI5 Why many people seem to hate the ACLU

I read something on the founder of the ACLU recently and he seemed to be just trying to defend people nobody else would. So why, in modern times, does the group take so much hate from people on both sides? What have they done to cause this?

[Assistant]
It's because the ACLU defends people that nobody else will that they are hated.  It's easy to say you support free speech until a city tries to block a KKK rally.  It's easy to support the right to a fair trial until it involves a terrorist.  It's easy to be for separation of church and state as long as it's somebody else's religion.

Ensuring equal rights for all means that somebody has to fight unpopular fights.  The ACLU does this.


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

[User]
[Hitman] Why does it seem like all of 47's targets are bad people?

Like surely a hitman would get contracts to kill people who aren't criminals right?

[Assistant]
I think it's explained somewhere that Diana specifically vets the targets to prove they're irredeemable bastards due to 47's crisis of faith during the second game. Make sure the guy prpgrammed to kill doesn't feel so guilty that he offs himself.

It could also be ICA policy that theynwon't kill "Innocents", since murdering a truly-altruistic charity worker because his home for the orphans is slowing doen constriction of a new sweatshop or a ten-year-old who witnessed a rich man's son raping and murdering some stripper would be a major PR problem, even in the shady world of contract killings.

There's a reason respectable tattoo parlors won't do hate tattoos, since one swastika will get you labelled as, "That shop that does Nazi shit" and will drive away respectable clientele.


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

[User]
[Daredevil] How is it possible for Matt to struggle against Fisk when he can beat up entire squads of highly trained ninjas?

Matt can go toe to toe aginst elite fighters like Nobu (without any lethal weapon), Elektra, Stick yet struggle to win against Fisk who is just a buff human with no real technical knowledge of combat.

[Assistant]
Because Fisk is actually extremely strong and athletic. His heavyset appearance is similar to a sumo wrestlers where its largely muscle.
In S2E9, hes shown to be bench pressing about 500lbs (10x 45lbs weights, plus the bar which would also be around 45 lbs) with relative ease, not breathing heavily afterwards and hes confident enough to be lifting that weight without a spotter (For context, the world record for a single rep is a little over 750 lbs)