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

[User]
[LOTR] why did Eru intervene against Sauron (bringing back Gandalf and making Gollum fall into Mt. Doom) but not against Morgoth, a more powerful enemy, in the War of the Jewels?

Seems Morgoth winning was a greater threat.

[Assistant] He did intervene in the War of Wrath, just in different ways. Eru is always influencing ways and means in the world, and there's no way Erendil could have made his journey to Aman without Divine Intervention (realized or not) from Eru.


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

[User] (DC & Marvel) Who could actually defeat Doctor Manhattan in a 1 on 1 fight? If no one, who could pose a challange?

[Assistant] I think technically the best way to kill Manhattan is to destroy his mind, because to physically wound him would just have him rematerialize. If he cannot think properly he cannot maintain his corporeal, physical form. So, Phoenix, potentially. Definitely Cthulhu. Everyone else the Avengers or JLA have thwarted, as they've all been generally *evil*.


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

[User] ELI5: How is possible that people have really bad breath at the morning even they've brushed their teeth before going to bed?

[Assistant]
No matter how hard you scrub and rinse even with mouth wash some bacteria is going to live and/or sneak in, and then it's going to have eight hours to grow and multiple in an enclosed dark and moist environment.

Also probably because your mouth is connected to your gut.


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

[User]
CMV: Black Lives Matter vs All Lives Matter

First, I definitely support the BLM movement and I'm honestly horrified at the inequality that black people are facing right now. But...

I have no idea why saying "All lives matter" is a bad thing. How am I being racist for trying to support all groups facing inequality instead of just one? I'm bisexual and hispanic, but if I say all lives matter (or even hispanic lives matter) I'll get labelled as racist even though I'm literally supporting ALL lives.

Somebody attempted to explain it like this: "If one house is on fire, you don't put water on all the normal houses around it, you put water on the one that's burning." This is a horrible explanation, because it's pretending that no other groups of people are facing inequality. Within that analogy, almost every house would be on fire. Maybe one fire is larger than all the others, but you can't just ignore the other fires.

I feel like a total asshole for believing this, but I just don't understand how supporting every group is worse than only supporting one.

[Assistant]
ALM didn't start as a movement to make sure equality was brought to everybody. It was started to tell BLM that they're not important in the context of All Lives.

So while you're correct "all lives DO matter". The actual ALM movement was started to silence BLM.

That's the difference.


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

[User] Why is the USPS going bankrupt but FedEx and UPS (doing the same job) are not?

[Assistant] FedEx and UPS can charge whatever they feel the market will bear, and isn't compelled to maintain offices in every tiny town in the country.  The post office charges what the government decides it can charge, and is severely limited in its ability to make what FedEx would call routine business decisions.


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

[User]
ELI5: How are there national radio stations but local ads?

I've found that when I'm driving round there'll be a national radio station with the same presenters and songs etc, yet all the ads are for local businesses. How do they time all the local ads around the country to end exactly on time when the national presenters come back on air?

[Assistant]
National radio stations' content has to be rebroadcast by local stations. Local stations sell advertising and just broadcast that during commercial breaks the national broadcast contains.

It's similar to how you can watch Jeopardy (a national broadcast program) and still see an ad for a local restaurant.


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

[User] Did life on Earth originate from a single location?

[Assistant] That is a theory. There is no undeniable answer yet. Many scientist say our genetic base pairs are proof that everything, plants and animals on earth came from one single cell 3 billion years ago. Other scientists believe the base pairs would be pretty much the same in the entire universe, so it would be impossible to say where theres more progenitor (first ones) cells.


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

[User]
Does the force of gravity extend over an infinite distance (only becoming infitesimilally small with large distances) or is there a distance after gravity has no influence?

Basically I'm asking whether there is a fundamental 'unit' to gravity at which point the force cannot get any smaller without ceasing to exist at all (quantization I guess).

And is this true of the other forces too, magnetism, strong and weak nuclear forces?

---

*Edit: Thanks all, there have been some truly mind expanding answers in here and certainly a lot to chew over.*

[Assistant]
Not... quite. See, the deal is that gravity stems from General Relativity. We solve the equations of GR around a massive body (like the sun) but we do so by assuming the sun is the only thing in the entire universe. And we get a curvature of space-time; this curved space-time gives rise to the effects we commonly call "gravity," as in Newtonian Gravitational Attraction (with some slight modifications that are very important, but that's a different discussion).

**But** let's go back to that initial "sun is the only thing" assumption. Clearly it's not. But the same kinds of solution seems to work on the scale of galaxies, and even clusters of galaxies. This is why the Andromeda and Milky Way galaxies are gravitationally attracted to each other and going to collide eventually.

But what happens when we look on the very very large scales, cosmological scales; scales where galaxies are just little point masses (approximately). Well on these scales the universe is approximately uniformly dense (at a very very low mass density). And we solve GR here, and we find not gravitation, but the metric expansion of space.

So on local (galaxy clusters and smaller) scales, GR generally solves for gravitation. And on Cosmological scales, GR solves for metric expansion. Does this mean that gravity doesn't "stretch" across the voids between galaxy clusters? Not exactly, it's just not the gravity you're familiar with; it's highly modified by the vast integrated volumes of dark energy between them.


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

[User] [Star Wars] I'm an Imperial stormtrooper and some kid just attacked me with some sort of green sword thing, but don't worry I'm fine, I managed to kill him. However now Lord Vader wants to talk to me about the kid I killed and he sounds pissed. What's going to happen to me?

[Assistant]
Hmm, well it is pretty abnormal for a rank and file trooper to manage to kill a lightsaber-wielder.

Almost like you're special, or maybe had some kind of help from an unseen force.

Just out of curiosity, do you ever have moments of highly-accurate deja-vu? Or do objects tend to move around when you are feeling emotional?

These are probably the types of questions that Lord Vader, or perhaps even His Excellency, the Emporer will have for you.

When they ask, just be honest. They'll know if you're lying. They'll *know*.

But don't worry, they'll take care of everything once you inform them of your little specialties.

You may want to send a hologram to your mom before you go meet Lord Vader. Just let her know you love her and everything is fine.


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

[User]
[MCU] Why is Thanos the only one with the plan to get and use all 6 Infinity Stones?

The earthly MCU villains wouldnt know about the stones (except Ultron) but the non Earth MCU villains clearly know about the stones.

Loki, Hela, Ronan, Malekith, etc know about the Infinity Stones, and all have the power to wield one, so why dont they try to get the other 5? Why doesnt Ego try to get the stones?

Is Thanos the only being powerful enough to wield multiple infinity stones?

[Assistant]
I would also add that events have transpired in such a matter that all the stones were obtainable.

Time: Protected by the Ancient One for ages, a highly powerful sorcerer. Her demise and passing of the Stone to a gifted but relative rookie in manners of a grand scale made it easier to grab.

Reality: Hidden away for ages by Asgard, only recovered due to the machinations of the Dark Elves. Would otherwise be protected by Asgard, but Asgard has been under internal strife and conflict for a while.

Power: straight up hidden. But its discovery set into motion events that would lead to every other stone.

Soul: also hidden, for a very long time. Others HAVE tried to obtain it, possibly as a way to the other stones, but they lacked the conviction of Thanos.

Mind: seems Thanos had it all along. He may have been holding onto it waiting for the right time. But then a sequence of events saw it leave his grasp and tumble around Earth.

Space: also protected by Asgard for eons, recovered and then lost and then recovered again. By cosmic scales it was recovered relatively recently in WW2, and all other stones at this time were still hidden or under safe keeping.

And thats not to say nobody else has tried. We know the Collector has an interest in gaining all six stones just to have them. Asgard was well aware of the power of the stones and may have collected some of them, but realized their danger(reality and space were known to them).

I would wager that the events of Captain America ultimately are what set things in motion. A stone is uncovered after a millennium and openly used on a backwater planet. Later on the events of Thor lead to a weakened Asgard, and Thanos takes note. He likely had Mind already, and was working to get his hands on Power as well. Now he knew he could get Space, and thus began to act. He may have known tIme was on Earth and thus saved it for later, with Reality and Soul hidden.

His gambit in Avengers and GotG initially failed, but succeeded in getting half the stones in the open and protected. In fact, by making sure the stones were in known locations guarded by those who would not seek to use them, it made collecting them childs play. Despite his failure to get Power and Mind at first, they were trivially easy for him to obtain.


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

[User] Why does light need to consist of particles to explain the photo effect?

[Assistant]
One key to seeing this is that even as you increase the intensity of the light beam, the ejected electrons don't move any faster.  This is explicable if the greater intensity arises from having more photons.

In addition, if the frequency of the light is too low, regardless of how bright the beam is, electrons will not be ejected.  Why?  Each individual photon of this light does not have enough energy to eject an electron.


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

[User]
ELI5:Why do some people become aggressive and violent after drinking alcohol, while others become nicer, docile, and/or energized?

I personally am a very docile drunk but its impossible to ignore the fact that alcohol makes some people, even those who would never be violent while sober, into aggressive maniacs. Why is this?

[Assistant] Maybe they are violent in their head but never act on them because they know it may not be acceptable. Alcohol lowers people's inhibitions which causes them to act on more of the thoughts they would not otherwise have acted on.


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

[User]
[Matilda - Film] Aside from the fact her punishments are so over-the-top to be believable, how is the Trunchbull able to get away with abusing the kids?

It's explained in the original book that there *is* a board of governors who are technically Miss Trunchbull's employers and are in fact just as terrorized by her as students (and even parents who do show concern are threatened by her to stay away), but aren't there ways for the board of education to check on the students' welfare or notice issues with students that come out of Crunchem Hall?

[Assistant] In theory, there are people who could roll in and destroy Trunchbull. In practice, those people rely on responsible parties like the teachers and the Board of Governors to alert them that Trunchbull needs destroyed, and so long as she's got them by the short hairs her reign of terror can go on indefinitely. Any student going over their head without hard evidence is probably going to get ignored, and this was a time period where compact user friendly video recording devices weren't commonly available and even still frame cameras could be bulky and require training and practice to use well with no option for rapid upload to cloud storage; the odds of a student getting a clean set of pictures of Trunchbull hammer throwing a kid without getting caught are pretty thin.


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

[User]
CMV: It is entirely possible for some races to have lower IQ on average, genetically.

First of all, I'd have to answer the obvious question - why does almost the entirety of modern science disagree? Well, it is beneficial to society that we all think everyone is born equal. You all know what does stupid, baseless racism look like. Now imagine how violent and intense would substantiated, science-supported racism be. So it would actually be a smart move from the governments and scientific institutions to silence and discredit any research that says otherwise, if it were the truth.

Now, races differ genetically. Whites people have white skin, black people have for example, higher center of gravity. Asians are shorter. Basically every ethnic group has discernible physical characteristics that allow a skilled professional to differentiate between them.

The widely accepted sentiment that races are very physically different, but exactly the same mentally, just doesn't make much sense. Evolutionally, higher mental acuity is an investment. Just like being taller, having bigger lung capacity, or stronger skeletal muscles. It uses up more energy and is not always the priority. So, for example, it is not unreasonable for some populations to end up less smart, but stronger - as a reaction to their environment.

My second point is:
Selective breeding in humans. Average IQ of a human populace CAN change over time. And it's not only because of the socioeconomic circumstances - having higher IQ can mean greater success in life and better opportunities for passing your genes, resulting in the population getting smarter. OR, as predicted in Idiocracy, being more intelligent might be a detriment to having children, making the populace dumber. But overall, the average IQ of a populace may vary over time.

So, it is entirely possible for two ethnic groups to have different average IQs. EVEN if you take all the underlying genetic predispositions from the equation. And when you put both these groups into one society, it WILL be possible to make assumptions, such as: "This person looks to be of Ethnicity A. Therefore, it is probable that he is dumber than this other person, who is of Ethnicity B."

To summarize, I am not saying that any race in the world definitely is smarter or dumber than other races. But it IS a possibility - and if it is actually true, we will never officially know. Because admitting it would destabilize the society.

EDIT: Many people are saying that the concept of "race" is a social construct and isn't really relevant anymore. Sure. You can still compare people with skin color in the range of (#1a0e0b - #995341) to people with skin color in some other range. Skin color is the result of some genes, and not the cause of potential mental advantage/disadvantage. But it can correlate with IQ, so it's not unreasonable to do research based on skin color ranges.

[Assistant]
Why is this a useful or interesting question?

It's possible tall people have higher IQ than short people.  It's possible people named "Eleanor" have higher IQ than people named "Walter."  It's possible people with lots of nose hairs have higher IQ than people with fewer nose hairs.

There's a near-infinite number of ways to divide up the population and then compare IQs (and, let it be said, a confounding variables lumped in with what you call race).  Why are you focusing on this one?


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

[User]
I believe Term Limits in a democracy are really just a lazy alternative to actively participating in the democratic process, and actually do more harm than good. CMV

Is your Congressman lazy? Hard-working? Corrupt? Honest? Ideological? Practical? Crazy? Data-driven? Term limits ensures that an elected official who embodies any of these qualities will be prevented from continuing to serve in the public domain past a given point.

Now, obviously we don't want lazy, corrupt, ideological, crazy people serving in our government. But why should we subject the hard-working, honest, practical, data-driven people to the same standards?

I believe that citizens use term limits as a catch-all to guard against [a repeat of] the former at the expense of the latter, when we would be SO much better served as a citizenry if people would simply do their due diligent research on politicians and what they've been doing, and re-elect or throw them out accordingly.

People use the term "career politician" in an overwhelmingly pejorative sense, but is it really such a bad thing for us to have, as our elected representatives, people who actually listen to expert opinion and analysis on a given topic, and who know how to write, debate, and pass legislation on said topic?

Obviously the last part of this is a utopian ideal, but in my opinion it is one that we, in a representative democracy, must strive for. CMV.

[Assistant] Two words: Incumbency Advantage. Incumbents are nearly always re-elected. Challengers face numerous disadvantages when running against an incumbent, ranging from the fact that the incumbent has higher name recognition to the incumbent's ability to use the franking privilege to  tell all the voters the good things he or she has done in office. With all of these advantages built into the system, challengers generally don't win against incumbents, regardless of who's views most closely represent those of the district. Having two (or more) challengers on more-or-less equal footing gives a better chance of reflecting what the voters really want.


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

[User]
[Star wars] how much galactic history would the average republic civilian know?

Would highschool kids be taught about the great sith war or the mandalorian wars? Would the average citizen know about zayne carrick or darth revan?

[Assistant] Galactic History is a two year high school class. It mostly covers major galactic wars (the reason for them and the resolution). Times of peace are glossed over. More in depth classes are available in college. The Empire, however, keeps specific knowledge of the clone wars classified and discourages most recent history classes.


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

[User]
ELI5: What are the mechanical/biological functions of a ventilator vs. something like an ambu-bag, and what are the practical difficulties in constructing DIY ventilators?

I read a comment section somewhere where a (self-identified) ER medical staff member talked about an ambu-bag and I did a little reading.  It seems as if the downfall to an ambu-bag (which I know is like calling all facial tissues kleenex) is the manual nature of it, but I can't imagine constructing a mechanical bellows would be terribly difficult.  If oxygen level of the forced air is of interest, what is the fallback to rigging up a system to supplement the bag?

[Assistant]
There is a lot to inflating the lungs,  both manually with a bag or automatically with a machine.  It's more than breath size and rate. Its inspiratory flow, the "waveform" throughout the inspirarory phase, peak pressures, mean pressures and end-expiratory pressures.

Damage to the lung tissues can result from over pressuring (barotrauma), too much volume (volutrauma) and even too little end-expiratory pressure (causing shear stresses when there are areas that are collapsed that lie next to areas that are inflated- you can shred the alveoli to pieces).

Then there is trying to keep the lungs sterile.

Studies on manual resuscitator demonstrate that it's very difficult to consistently ventilate the patient breath to breath for days at a time.

Source: Former RT and currently working in "the industry".


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

[User] ELI5: Why are people in medieval paintings often depicted with tilted heads?

[Assistant] Medieval European art developed directly from late Byzantine art, which was mostly religious in nature. In early Christian art, the peoples faces were always depicted as being turned attentively to God, the heavens, etc. to illustrate that their attention was on holy things, while their bodies were doing something else, meant to help identify who they were or what their station in life was. In combination, you often got strange or unnatural postures as a result. In addition, the artistic style was generally relatively primitive and non-realistic compared to modern tastes, so subtleties like depicting proper head posture while letting the eyes indicate the focus of a persons attention were more difficult to achieve.


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

[User] ELI5 - Why is it if someone puts drugs in their rectum it quickly enters their bloodstream, but people have feces in the same area all the time and it doesnt go into their blood and make them sick?

[Assistant]
Three things.

A) you have a giant ecosystem of bacteria living in your gut. They protect you by killing foreign bacteria and they help you digest your food.

B) you have a very strong immune presence in your gut and you even have a whole nervous system dedicated to it called the enteric nervous system. These two coordinate to prevent infection.

C) things don't just diffuse through your gut to your blood. There's a very tight barrier. The cells have what you may call a biological seal between them preventing things from passing through. While it can't prevent small things like some ions and water and so on (depends on the region of the gut) it most certainly blocks big things like bacteria. Things that get to your blood usually have to go the transcellular path (as opposed to paracellular). This means the cells lining up your gut take them up actively or passively at the front door (apical or luminal side) and they go out the back door (basolateral side) where the blood vessels are.

Depending on the drug, some passively take the paracellular path as they're small and their properties permit it. Others passively pass through the membrane of the cells due to their chemical properties or they get taken up by the cells like nutrients. So it's a very different thing. Pathogens are big, they can't go about unnoticed. And waste products that the body doesn't want, have no specialized way to cross to the blood, that's why they even stay out in the lumen (inside of the gut tube).


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

[User]
[Star Wars] why do blasters shot so slow that you can seem their blast traveling and follow it with the naked eye?

It seems like the guns of today shoot faster and would
Be harder to block than blaster blasts? Is this a plot hole or is their some explanation?

[Assistant]
They're still not easy to dodge for *normal* people; you can see arrows and crossbow bolts with the naked eye, too, but good luck dodging 'em reliably. Blasters aren't designed to gun down Jedi, since Jedi aren't exactly common occurrences. They're designed to kill normal people, and for that purpose it's better to have raw damage output than a little extra speed.

Slugthrowers exist in the Star Wars -verse, but military-grade armor (like what stormtroopers wear) is extremely effective against such projectiles, and even civilian vehicles are made of things like durasteel that will shrug off flechette cannons and the like but can be turned to slag by a high-powered blaster.

Look at what Leia does to the vent covering the garbage compactor on the Death Star in *A New Hope*: one shot literally **vaporizes** a big chunk of durasteel. Try that with one shot of a handheld rapid-fire modern gun.


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

[User]
ELI5: How did prostitutes manage contraception before modern methods?

And what did they do if they got pregnant?

[Assistant] There have been contraceptives for a very long time, the Egyptians used honey, and the Greeks used olive oil. The Greeks also used a specific plant for this very purpose that drove it to extinction, Silphium. As well as other methods, anal sex has always been popular with prostitutes, as well as knowing when they are ovulating to have the lowest chance of pregnancy.


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

[User]
[DC/BrightBurn] What would Superman do if he learned about Brandon?

[I considered waiting until *BrightBurn* actually came out, but since this is mostly a question about Supermans reaction to the situation rather than any specific plot/character details, its probably okay to ask it now]

If *BrightBurn* took place in the DC universe and Superman learned about a psychopathic child with all his powers causing mayhem, what would he do?

Try to talk to him? Imprison him? Fight?

Would he be willing to kill/injure a child, even one as evil as Brandon?

[Assistant]
Of course he'd talk to him. Then he'd take him somewhere he couldn't hurt anybody and be shown how to use his powers properly.

Superman's first move when dealing with an unknown entity is ALWAYS to talk it out.


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

[User] ELI5: The large health insurance companies are arguing that having only three major corporations controlling the majority of the market will be more efficient and bring down costs. How is this not an argument for single payer healthcare?

[Assistant]
They're saying what they have to to reach their short term goals (merge or buy competitors, which is good for the business, but not necessarily for the consumer), they will turn around and say the exact opposite if it benefits them.

Technically, having a lower number of insurance providers could reduce paperwork for care providers, but when you remove competition, then the need to meet customer needs most efficiently starts to go away, so there's probably a sweep spot where the number of providers maximizes the benefits of competition and efficiency.


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

[User]
[The Boys TV/Comics] Vaught is paying the members of The Seven rather well. What would, Black Noir for example, even do with his paycheck?

Light spoilers for Season 2 I suppose:>! A-Train mentions to Starlight "you don't fuck with the money" of being in The Seven.!< That got me to thinking about what each member would spend their earnings on in their personal lives, most of them it's not hard to imagine. Black Noir on the other hand, I can't really say. I'm aware of his true comic origins, so that even further makes me wonder if he'd even give a shit about money. Vaught likely supplies everything they need regarding being a supe and recovery from fighting, all of his armaments, his suit and everything else.

What does Black Noir spend his paycheck on?

[Assistant]
From all the information we have, Black Noir appears to be a normal human (super)being.  He seems fairy reserved so its possible he simply puts most of his pay in a bank, or donates it to charity, or something similar.

However he is also known to have several hobbies.  He clearly knows how to play the piano, as he demonstrated at a Vought function.  Vought promotional material also shows that hes interested in Japanese tea ceremony.  Its possible he simply spends his money on learning new skills and hobbies in his free time.


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

[User]
ELI5 The difference between Libertarian Economics and Anarcho-Capitalism.

I'm currently looking at various schools of though on economics. I'm confused on the difference between Libertarian Economics and Anarcho-Capitalism.

Could someone please explain like I'm five.

[Assistant]
Libertarians believe that a government should exist that supports property rights (e.g law enforcement (police), courts, etc) whereas, Anarcho-Capitalists believe that there does not have to be a government to protect property rights as everything associated with them (law enforcement, courts, etc) would exist without government funding, people would pay for their own security.

So just as Libertarians believe that government doesn't have to fund some things as they would exist privately (e.g, healthcare, education, etc) Anarcho-Capitalists go one step further and believe the same of law enforcement, thus there is no need for a government whatsoever.


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

[User]
The largest prime number known is 2^57,885,161  1. How do we know that this number is prime?

Were computers involved in the calculation? And if so, how can computers calculate past their [current] maximum values of 2^64?

[Assistant]
>... how can computers calculate past their [current] maximum values of 2^(64)?

That isn't the current maximum value for computers. It's (one past) the maximum value of a 64-bit unsigned integer, which is the natural (fastest/most convenient) way to store integers on modern consumer general-purpose computers (i.e., the general purpose registers on x86-64 CPUs are 64 bits). But a program may combine several such integers into an aggregate data structure that can represent arbitrarily-large numbers (up to addressable memory limitations).


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

[User] ELI5: Why does water make grease fires worse?

[Assistant]
Three facts: water is heavier than oil, burning oil is hotter than the boiling point of water, and when water boils, it expands- by a lot.

So when water falls onto a pool of burning oil, it sinks, then boils, then it blows oil- burning oil- all over your kitchen.


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

[User]
Why aren't individual taxed only on "profits" like corporations are?

Generally speaking corporations are only taxed on their profit - that is the cheese they actually keep after they have accounted for losses and operating costs and other debts. Individual citizens on the other hand are taxed on their entire income, effectively all of their "revenue", despite what other expenses they may have to account for - rent, medical insurance, dent payments, etc. Are there any valid reasons for this discrepancy?

I am looking for a non-political answer to this, hehe, as much as possible. I know that's kind of an oxymoron, but what I mean is that I am wondering if there are any *well reasoned* positions, supported by some kind of data or academic theory, and not just something rooted in principles of social justice or free-market evangelism or anything like that. e.g. is there a monetary or "sound money" reason.

**I am American and only have experience with individual taxes in the United States, I understand that this question might not apply other places, but I am assuming it is the same in _most,_ so let's just take that as a baseline**

[Assistant]
The simple answer is that it doesn't really matter.

Let's consider a simplified world where profits, wage income, and equipment/input sales are taxed at a constant rate. Call the rates `tau_p`, `tau_w`, and `tau_e` respectively.

A company generates `Y` revenue, pays `W` in wages to workers, `E` in costs for equipment.

How much tax is paid? Well `tau_w*W` gets paid on the wages, `tau_e*E` gets paid on the equipment, and `tau_p*(Y-W-E)` gets paid on profits so total taxes paid are `tau_p*Y + (tau_w-tau_p)*W + (tau_e-tau_p)*E`

Now suppose we replace the profit tax with a revenue tax `tau_y` (i.e. we don't let corps deduct their costs). Let's also update `tau_w` and `tau_e` to `tau_w2` and `tau_e2` will we are updating the tax code. Now taxes paid on revenue are `tau_y*Y` and total taxes are `tau_y*Y + tau_w2*W + tau_e2*E`.

So we can see that if `tau_y=tau_p`, `tau_w2=(tau_w-tau_p)`, and `tau_e2=(tau_e-tau_p)`, the tax structures are equivalent! It doesn't matter whether we tax profits or revenues, as long as we make sure to adjust the tax on operating costs.

In reality, we choose to tax profits because taxing revenue would lead to "double taxation" of wages (any dollar you received as a wage would first have been taxed when the company paying you earned it as revenue, and then would be taxed again when you receive it as income) which is something people generally try to avoid/dislike, although, economically, it doesn't really matter (due to the same logic demonstrated above).


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

[User] eli5: What is the goal of bacteria or viruses that make humans sick? Why do they weaken their host?

[Assistant]
They all "want" to live, divide and spread. They basically use your body as food and a living ground and a factory (viruses). Often the symptoms of a disease are just a side effect of them using your body and it fighting back (e.g. pain, fever), but sometimes the symptoms help spreading them (sneezing).

Evolution plays a big part here:

Over the long term, it is against the interest of pathogens (bacteria, viruses, etc.) to kill or damage its host body, since a dead human does not move around, limiting the chances to spread to other humans. We see that usually diseases become less damaging the longer they have infected humans (decades to millennia). AIDS viruses already have become less deadly. Ebola on the other hand is a very deadly disease, but quite rare, because people die before they can spread it a lot.

On the other side is the common cold. Theses viruses are so successful, because they only make you sneeze a lot, but leave you enough energy to still go everywhere. They are the most "successful" disease, and due to their adaptation to the body, only make you sick a little bit.


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

[User] What is different between Earth and Mars that gives Earth a Magnetic field, while Mars does not?

[Assistant] The molten semi-liquid core, made primarily of iron, for the most part. Mars's core is iron, but it is not in a liquid state, rather solid. It has to do with the fact that there is circulation, or "rotation" within it. That is mostly what generates a magnetic field, movement of a magnetic conductor.


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

[User]
If I jumped on the moon with the same force as I use when I jump on Earth, would I hit the ground just as hard?

I'm not jumping off of anything, just up and back down on level ground.

[Assistant]
Ignoring air resistance and gravity effects while you are actively jumping:

Your initial velocity at the moment you separate from the ground will be the same as the velocity you have when you hit the ground.

The difference between Earth and Moon will be how long it takes gravity to decelerate you to a stop and then accelerate you back down.

If you can apply the same force in both jumps you will hit the ground / moon-dust at the same speed.

Same speed means you will experience the same impact.


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

[User] [Star Wars] Are hand movements and gestures needed to use the Force or are they just a way to focus it?

[Assistant]
The hand gestures are a bit like a meditation tool or pose, giving the user something to focus on to help them concentrate and center themselves. It also has a bit of a placebo effect. Reaching out your hand makes someone believe that they can lift a rock with the Force which actually helps them.

All that's really needed to use the Force is to stretch out with your feelings.


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

[User]
ELI5: What is the difference between HipHop and Rap?

I find myself quite knowledgable on music, I listen to practically all genres, know a lot about cultural origins of a lot of genres and I play some instruments on a relatively high level.
But I havent been able to wrap my head around the difference between hiphop and rap, because I'd call Kendrick Lamar rap, but grandmaster flash hip hop. (please dont kill me if this is dead wrong)
But I have no idea from what attributes this distinction is made.

[Assistant]
Rap is a style of lyrics and vocals. Rap has been described as using your voice for rhythm, whereas singing is using your voice for melody.

Hip-hop is a style of music that commonly uses rap vocals. Rap is nowadays strongly associated with hip-hop but can be heard in other musical styles, for example nu metal (such as Linkin Park, Limp Bizkit) or grime (such as Dizzee Rascal, although he's also done hip-hop.)


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

[User]
How can we successfully "do philosophy" after Derrida?

When I first read Wittgenstein's _PI_, I was initially worried that the entire discipline of philosophy had been defeated, until I came to the conclusion that Wittgenstein ultimately showed that particular words (e.g. "truth") cannot be given absolute _definitions_, but we can still search for _concepts_ that those particular words resemble.

Now that I am reading more of Derrida, he seems to me to have got even closer than Wittgenstein to defeating philosophy: any word (e.g. "truth") is now not only unable to be given an objective definition, but any _usage_ of the word is indeterminate and "slippery", to steal a Derridean term. How can we engage in the discourses of philosophy if our words "are not ours", so to speak, and their meaning shifts and slips around, unable to be controlled or determined by us? It seems like Wittgenstein disassociates stable definitions from words, and Derrida has disassociated stable/immutable/fixed _meanings_ from them.

Thank you.

[Assistant] The same way we can have conversations after Derrida.  (Also, the same way we can even have Derrida!). We may have to shift the kinds of questions we ask or the attitude we take toward the projects of philosophy, but Derrida doesnt make anything impossible unless, paradoxically, he has made his own work impossible too.


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

[User]
[ASoIF/GoT] Would a Valyrian Steel club be as effective against a White Walker as a sword?

We know the magic is in the steel itself, otherwise Ice would have lost its power when it as melted down.  But if it retains its power no matter what form, it seems like it would be more effective to melt down each sword and build a few maces with Valyrian Steel heads out of each.

[Assistant] I don't know if it would work or not, but as to your point about melting down the swords and making maces out of them, almost no one actually knows how to do that. There are supposed to be only one or two smiths *in the world* that have the ability to reforge valerian steel, and they don't work for free, either.


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

[User] [Warhammer 40k] How much does the average citizen of the Imperium know about the state of the Emperor?

[Assistant]
They know that he "suffers" upon the golden throne for the benefit of all humanity; but he's probably depicted with all of the features that he had in life, not the dilapidated corpse that he's become.

Certainly it hasn't been related to the general population that the technology of the golden throne is slowly failing. The fact that a thousand Psykers are sacrificed every day is also likely kept from the public.


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

[User] ELI5: When theres a mirror scene in a movie or television show, how do they get the shot without showing the camera in the mirror, especially with a head on face shot?

[Assistant]
The "head on" face shots are actually shot at a slight angle.  So the actor is looking at the camera in the mirror, and not at themselves.

And in cases where it's absolutely impossible to shoot the mirror at an angle, they just edit out the camera using computer software in post-production.


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

[User]
[Star Wars] Why do so many helmets have the long part in the back? Do people get stabbed in the neck in space a lot? Who is doing all this neck stabbing? And WHY aren't the Jedi doing something about all these neck stabbings?

I was carving Darth Vader today and it occurred to me that many different cultures and governments in the Star Wars universe (Vader's helmet, the Naboo soldiers, some rebel pilots, etc.) use a helmet design similar to pith helmets with the back of the neck protected especially. Was there ever any sort of explanation for that or do they just look cool?

[Assistant] Blasters are very powerful tools, and often produce small explosions where they land. Flying molten metal, shrapnel, or other debris would be a very real risk - particularly in close-quarters environments, where an attacker can fire into cover above a hiding soldier and try to flush them out with the hot, falling debris. In this context, protecting the back of the neck is an important part of the armor; it's hard to ignore something painful landing there.


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

[User]
is floating in water at 1g equivalent to floating in more/less dense fluid at higher/lower g?

In the pool yesterday and I was wondering, could I have much the same experience of floating in the water if I were on a low-g planet? Not water - at low-g I'd think that water would push me up too much, like, I wouldn't be able to swim down as easily.

So, is there some lower-density fluid that, on the moon, I could swim in and have much the same experience as swimming in water on earth?

And same for a high-g planet, could I swim in something heavier and have much the same experience (though I suppose the weight of my organs etc pushing on one another wouldn't change - I'd still feel the same *inside*)?

[Assistant]
What determines if something floats in a liquid or not is the balance between the gravitational force pulling the object down, and the buoyant force pushing the object up. If the buoyant force equals the gravitational force, an object will float. If it's less than the gravitational force, the object will sink, and if its greater, the object will rise.

The gravitational force is simply F=mg. The mass of the object is invariant, so going to a higher or lower gravity environment will scale the gravitational force by the same ratio.

The buoyant force F_b=dgv, where d is the density of the liquid, g is the same as above, and v is the volume of liquid displaced. Like the mass of the object, the density is invariant with gravity, so the question becomes does an object displace a different amount of liquid under different gravity?

Following the condition that the two forces be balanced for the object to float, we can see that the gravitational acceleration cancels out and gives us a hint that gravity doesn't play a part in this, but let's keep going.

F = F_b

mg = dgv

m = dv

The mass of the object can be expressed as m = DV, where D and V are the density and volume of the object. Which brings us to

DV = dv

D/d = v/V

Since we know the densities are invariant with gravity, the quantity D/d is a constant. That means the displaced volume of the liquid, v, will only change if the volume of the object, V, changes.

So ignoring small changes in the volume if a human body under different pressures, temperatures, etc, this means that floating in a liquid or not does not depend at all on what the acceleration of gravity is. You would float the same in water under 10 times or 0.1 times the surface gravity of Earth, and only another liquid with the same density as water would give you the same floating experience.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why do some food products require to be cooked for example at 425 for 15 minutes while others are 400 for 20 minutes?

What is the difference and why do they do that?

[Assistant] Higher temperatures will cook the outside faster than the inside, thus resulting in having a burned exterior and an uncooked interior if you decide to bake a cake or something at 3000 degrees for two minutes instead of 300 degrees for twenty minutes. Lower temperatures will result in more even cooking and keep foods moister.


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

[User] [Dr. Seuss] Whoville exists on a snowflake, like the one on your sleeve. What happens if / when it melts?

[Assistant] Well, as seen in Horton Hears A Who, the civilization normally exists on a dust speck. Its only during the Christmas season that they are frozen into a snowflake. The Whos are small enough that the water cycle of the normal world doesnt affect them that much.


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

[User]
Recommend a must read paper or scholarly article for the layman.

What's a paper you read that you felt everyone in the world regardless of their academic background should read?

Any field.
Must be simple enough so that someone with only a general understanding can understand it.

[Assistant]
Bruno LatourWhy Has Critique Run Out of Steam

He explains in the first five pages how social scienceincluding his workcontributed to conspiracy thinking. He ultimately argues social science is important to the world, but it has to be more careful with how and what it argues. Plus, hes pithy as hell.


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

[User]
[X-Men] Why are Scott summers and Jean Greys children always really powerful or special.

It just seems to me that the majority of their possible children end up being much stronger than the both them.

[Assistant]
Jean Grey is a very powerful mutant, and Scott Summers is no slouch himself.

As a rule of thumb children of two mutants have a merged power set of their parents with a spin of their own on top. Most examples are in Exiles, but in general it still works. Nocturne for one is daughter of Scarlet Witch and Nightcrawler, so she can teleport and shoot hex bolts, but also can possess people.
Son of Magneto and Rogue had all powers of his father, but his touch transmuted living beings into steel.
Ruby was a daughter of Scott and Emma Frost, so she could shoot eyebeams and transform into a ruby form.

So in hindsight it's no wonder that son of monstrously powerful psychic like Jean Grey would also end up a monstrously powerful psychic.


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

[User]
Is it possible for identical twins to have a major height difference?

I know of someone who is 6'9", which is quite an abnormal height.

I was wondering if that person happened to be an identical twin, would both of them be so tall? Or is it possible for one to be tall, and the other to be an average height (around 6').

Or their height determined by individual genetics?

[Assistant]
Several non-genetic factors can stunt growth.

An absolutely appalling diet and malnutrition during periods such as puberty could stunt the growth of one twin so that he is shorter than the other twin.

I cannot think of any factors that would cause a twin to grow significantly taller. Just cause one to *not* grow taller.


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

[User]
[Batman Forever] How does causing Two Face to fall to his death meet Batman's code?

Two Face flipped a coin. Batman threw a bunch of coins at him to mess him up. Harvey loses balance and plummets to his death. How is Bruce's conscience clear from this?

[Assistant] A few years prior to the Two-Face/Riddler incident, Batman was seen placing a bomb on one of the Penguin's circus goons and pushing him into an open manhole, whereupon he exploded. It seems safe to say that this particular Batman doesn't have a code against killing.


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

[User] ELI5: There are many gregarious mammals, birds and fish. Why so few gregarious reptiles?

[Assistant]
Reptiles rarely live in social groups because they rarely raise their young. Instead, most reptiles lay lots of eggs and then abandon them to the wild. The young survive because of the sheer number of eggs that were laid. But they don't grow up socializing with their parents or siblings, and remain solitary the rest of their lives.

It's just a different method of survival which has worked for most lizards. It's not necessarily better or worse than forming social groups. There are also some lizards who are raised by parents and form social groups, but they are the exception, not the rule.


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

[User] [Superman] If you hit Superman with a sword would the blade bend around him or just break?

[Assistant] It's more about the construction of the sword than the man. A low hardness/low ductility sword (like a shitty mall gift shop sword) bends on impact and stays bent. A low hardness/high ductility sword (like a light foil for sport fencing) or high hardness/high ductility sword (like a very good, modern make spring steel blade) bends, but rebounds to the original shape unless heavily stressed, with the high hardness sword potentially suffering some damage. A high hardness, low ductility sword (like a traditionally forged katana) breaks if swung into Supes with sufficient force.


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

[User] ELI5: Why are so many tech problems solved by turning things off and on again?

[Assistant]
Poor explanations so far so here goes.

ELI18:

There's Non-Volatile storage (A hard drive for example) and Volatile storage.

Non volatile storage is able to persistently store data by hard-writing it to for example a block in flash memory.

Volatile storage works more directly with electricity. Each bit has a capacitor, this is what makes up the data in RAM. These capacitors "leak" very very fast, and so when they lose power they will immediately leak until empty, where data is lost.

Programs use RAM to store data that may be used frequently, because using RAM is much faster than pulling from the hard drive.

Programs aren't perfect, and frequently make errors. It might store data it thinks it hasn't stored but it has,  creating memory leaks meaning things slow down because there's less memory.

Restarting the machine clears the RAM, and as such clears the errors the program has caused.

ELI5:

You have a sink. You wash the dishes every now and then.

Sometimes, a bit of food comes off and goes into the food filter at the plug hole, but the water still drains so it's okay.

Eventually there's too much food in the filter and the water is taking too long to drain. You pull out the filter and clean it, and the water now works fine.

The sink is your PC. The tap is a program. The water is data. The filter is memory. The food is programs making errors.


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

[User]
[Star Wars] What exactly is a holocron?

I thought they were like advanced flash drives, but then some of them seem to have Force powers. Are they inherently Force sensitive or does that only happen to some of them? And if so, how?

[Assistant]
A Holocron is created and accessed, at least partially, through making an impression on the base item using the Force. They have certain crystal structures as part of their design that we can infer have the ability to interact with the force, similar to the focusing crystals of a Lightsaber. All Holocrons are, in some way, created through using the Force. They can often detect the level of ability of a Force User, preventing users from accessing data they're not ready for, and there is some degree of artificial intelligence to the holographic user interfaces in some cases, allowing some level of intelligent interaction with them.

They're not, in themselves, alive, though, so they are not so much 'Force Sensitive' as they are 'Force Imbued'. But, regardless, they are a Force user technology.


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

[User]
ELI5: Can the US declare Bankruptcy?

If this is a yes, how would they go about it and how badly would it hurt the world economy?

If this is a no, why not? If there's a debt, should they not be allowed to file that bankruptcy? Seeing how business can do it fairly easy, shouldn't a country be able to as well?

[Assistant]
Sort of, although 'bankruptcy' is the wrong term. A sovereign state cannot declare bankruptcy because there is no-one to declare to. Instead they could announce they would fail to honour their debt obligations and default on the debt. This would cause massive shockwaves throughout the global economy since US debt is considered one of the safest investments possible, and would wipe out a huge amount of wealth both in the US and around the world. For instance, about 30% of US debt is held by foreign investors (China and Japan being the largest sources), and 20% is held by domestic investors. The remaining 50% is actually owed to the US Federal Reserve.
The US is in a very unique position because of the dollar's hegemony, so they wouldn't have an economic reason to default on their obligations (the only risk factor would be political grandstanding around the debt-ceiling).
However, for other sovereigns, the reason they choose not to default (even though they can), is the fear of being locked out of borrowing in the future. Creditor-led restructurings of debt are much more common.


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

[User] ELI5:Why does drinking things feel colder after eating something minty?

[Assistant]
Mint and similar substances stimulate nerves that detect cold temperatures.  Thus, mint substances feel "cool".  Similarly, peppers and other "hot" food, stimulate nerves that pick up high temperatures.

So, if you eat mint, then drink a cold beverage, the effect is magnified.  Also, if you eat a spicy food, then drink a hot beverage, the effect is magnified.

It's all about the type of nerves the chemical (mint or pepper) stimulate that also picks up temperature.


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

[User]
CMV: China and Russia are 21st century empires.

Dictionary.com and Webster state " a group of nations or peoples ruled over by an emperor, empress, or other powerful sovereign or government: usually a territory of greater extent than a kingdom, AND a government under an emperor or empress."

I mention these two sources to say provide support to my definition, which focuses on MODERN empires....

**1.  Empires are authoritarian powers that hold disparate people in one political body against their will.**

**2.  Empires favor one group of people above others and subjugate non-core groups**

*Ethnic Russian and Han led governments control neighboring territory against the will of the people of that "state".  In both cases these populations are large and the central government does not give equal rights and representation to the affected people.*

*Unevenly applied tactics are used to subjugate people inside 21st century China and Russia.  Suppression or elimination of culturally distinct languages, religions, forced relocation of people, inability to speak out against the government, lack of basic freedoms.  These tactics are frequently applied against disparate peoples because the authoritarian government is too powerful (i.e. ruling party or ruling figure, aka emperor) to oppose or the core population will support that policy because it gives them a benefit at the expense of the other.*

Some exclusionary statements:

 - A democracy cannot be an empire because groups are not held against their will.

 - A country that has substantial portions of its population live without representation against that population's will is NOT a democracy.  (Puerto Rico votes to remain a territory instead of becoming a state, thus choosing one set of rights and privileges over another i.e. democracy in action).

 - An authoritarian state is not an empire if it does not control disparate peoples and have a core group (N. Korea only controls Koreans in Korea and thus is a terrible place but not an empire).

 - A state need only favor core groups to be an empire, the level of oppression to non-core groups is largely irrelevant.  If no core group exists then it is more likely a dictatorship and not an empire.  Oppression is an example of preferential treatment.  A group's desire to leave the empire can be independent of the harms suffered against it.

 - Historic empires in the 20th century and before are not part of this discussion.

[Assistant]
Who are the emperors of China and Russia? If they are empires, then they must have an emperor that controls them.

Basically, they are empires if you completely change the definition of empire. But if you adhere to the strict definition (the one you gave in the first part of your post), they would not be considered empires. Oppressive states? Yes. Empires? No.


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

[User] Do battery in new unpack electronic degrade over time ?

[Assistant]
Yes they do. The electrical power in a battery is caused by a chemical reaction. That reaction  starts the day the battery is assembled and doesn't end until the chemicals are exhausted/fully converted.

In addition, if left for long periods of time, batteries can swell up and leak their contents. It is always best to remove batteries from anything that will be stored for any length of time.


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

[User] How can yogurts like Activia have "active cultures" but show no evidence of gas being produced in the container (the lids are not popped up, for example)?

[Assistant]
Yogurt is made over a heat source at about 115 F and becomes too acidic for most bacteria to live due to fermentation products. It is then cooled down so the heat-loving bacteria that survived become mostly inactive. They're not dead but they're also not doing much.

Activia markets the presence of bacteria more heavily, and has trademarked a strain of bacteria and given it the extra-healthy-sounding name Bifidus Regularis. If there is any evidence of the benefits of "Bifidus Regularis" at all it is buried too deeply in their advertising literature for me to find...


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

[User] ELI5: Why did Joseph Stalin kill so many people?

[Assistant]
He had a vision for Russia and the world, and thought that fulfilling it was more important than lives of millions.

Russia, renamed the USSR, was the world's first self-proclaimed socialist state. Stalin reasoned that sooner or later she would have to fight a war with the capitalist states. In order for her to win, she needs tanks and guns, which have to be built in factories. The technologies and machine tools for them will have to be bought from the West. The only thing Russia could export in return was grain. The problem was that during the Great Depression, the price of grain on the world market dropped. So Russia had to export more, and the Russians themselves got to eat less. In 1932-33 around 7 million Soviet citizens died of hunger. Stalin thought that this was a worthy price to pay for the Soviet Union to export enough grain to import enough machine tools to build enough tanks to defend herself in a future war with capitalist states.

In June 1941 the Soviet Union had 14000 tanks against Germany's 4000. This did not do the Soviets any good; most of the tanks were abandoned and the Red Army almost crumbled away. A popular modern Russian author thinks that this was because ordinary Red Army soldiers did not wish to fight for the regime that starved and killed its citizens by the million in pursuit of Stalin's vision.


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

[User]
CMV: The worst part of this election are the precedents it sets.

No matter who you voted for, I'd like to think that everyone can agree these are objectively bad precedents to set for our elected officials and election process.

Presidential candidates revealing tax returns? Why bother? Trump didn't need to.

Electing a Supreme Court justice in the last year of a presidency? Why bother? Just ignore it and hope for the best next election.

Care about fact checks on wildly incorrect statements? Why?

Admit to saying things there's video evidence of you saying? Why?

Agree to accept the outcome of an election? Why?

Reject an endorsement by the KKK? Why?

Trump supporters are going to be very happy about this victory for a long time. Maybe the Trump presidency really won't be as bad as it seems it will be.

But I legitimately think these precedents are going to continue to harm the quality of our democracy for awhile. if it will be enough to counteract these negative precedents that have been set.

[Assistant]
>Maybe the Trump presidency really won't be as bad as it seems it will be.

The precedents you mentioned are the worst things about this election if we limit our view to a macro scale. But it gets much worse on a micro scale for a wide swath of Americans if Trump is able to execute even a fraction of his vision.

- People who had health insurance will lose it. Some may die as a result.

- People who are LGBT, Muslim, Latino, or any number of other groups will be discriminated against. Constitutional protections against that discrimination may well be rolled back if he comes to power with control of the House, Senate, and Supreme Court.

- Immigrants who would have found a better life in the US will not be allowed to enter. Depending on where they are coming from (Syria?), some may die as a result.

If you fall into one of these groups, the precedents set in this election don't necessarily matter as much, because you may not live long enough to see them played out in future elections. From that perspective, the precedent means nothing.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why does the hair on our head grow so much faster than other parts of our body?

Today is also my bday!

[Assistant]
Humorously enough, someone just recently asked why the hair on the head grows so much slower than on the rest of the body.

In actuality, it all grows at about the same speed. The hair on your head gets *longer* because the cycle at which hairs are shed and replaced with new hairs is longer, and therefore they aren't shed as often and can achieve a greater overall length.  That might make it *seem* like it grows faster, since the hair on your body 'appears' to be staying the same length while it is growing on your head. But it's just that it is being replaced more often on your body.


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

[User] [Star Wars] How is some blaster fire explosive? Such as tanks and cannons.

[Assistant]
Blaster fire is actually highly energized tibana gas. It is a "piece" of plasma fired. The reason it is explosive is because it holds such high energy that is held together until it impacts. You also see the fire from hand held blasters explode (just on a smaller scale). As soon as it impacts it loses its "form" and spreads out. It also drastically heats up the area of impact which, depending on the property of what it hits can cause explosions.

**EDIT:** Obviously the shots fired from a tank holds significantly more energy than one fired from a pistol or rifle which logically makes a bigger explosion due to a higherenergy transfer to the area of impact.


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

[User]
Why does fire go up?

I was holding a torch the other day and when i moved it towards the ground I noticed the flame got bigger, and when i lifted it up toward the air, the flame got smaller (while moving).  I deduced that this was occuring because the flame naturally goes up, so by moving down I'm injecting more Oxygen into it...but then I had to wonder, why does fire go "up"? Seems like it should form into an elongated ball around the ignition point.

[Assistant]
The visible red-orange-white flame of a fire is fine solid/liquid particles of half-burnt fuel (soot) that are so hot that they are glowing (incandescence). This particles are small enough that they are carried about by moving air. The air in a flame is heated by the reaction and becomes less dense. Gravity pulls harder on the surrounding colder/desner air than on the hotter/lighter air in the flame. As a result, the cold air rushes down and under, forcing the hot air to go up. The glowing soot particles get carried by this updraft of hot air and you see a flame billowing skywards.

In summary, flames go up because gravity pulls colder air down.


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

[User]
CMV: the only "non-binary" people in the world are those born intersex.

 Everybody else claiming to be non-binary is a 20-something with funny hair dyes, piercings and tattoos all over, and other signs of a quest for identity couple with a deep-seeded need for attention.

Having different taste in clothing and enjoying dressing with male or female cloth doesn't magically create a new gender.

You're just a girl who enjoys stereotypically male clothing and activities, not "something in between". Nobody will take you seriously outside of Twitter if you don't grow out of this.

[Assistant] Let's get one thing out of the way before we continue this discussion: Do you believe that trans people's identities are valid and that they can have a gender that differs from their sex assigned at birth?


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

[User]
What is quantum spin? Are there any "everyday" examples?

I was reading in a physics book (by Jim Al-Khalili, I believe) and it started talking about a property called quantum spin? I looked it up, and didn't really get any good info. So, Reddit, what is quantum spin? Are the particles actually spinning?

[Assistant]
Ordinary objects, when they are rotating, have a property called *angular momentum*.  Angular momentum measures not just the rate at which something is spinning, but also how big the arc is through which it is rotating.  Thus, when an ice skater is spinning and pulls his/her arms inwards and starts spinning faster, this is an example of conservation of angular momentum: the ice skater's arms, pulled in, rotate through a smaller arc, and so have to spin faster to maintain the same angular momentum.

At the quantum level, it turns out, objects can have some angular momentum that they get not by spinning, but just by existing.  This intrinsic angular momentum is called *spin*.  When you compute the total angular momentum of something, you need to include the spin as well as the contribution from the combination of position and velocity.

Interesting fact: Combining quantum mechanics and relativity predicts the existence of spin.

You asked about an everyday example.  The magnetic effects of ordinary bar magnets are a consequence of spin.


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

[User]
[Avatar TLA] Someone mentioned a windsword... which isn't very monk-like

I was hanging out at this local weapons shop one day, just looking for a new pair of nunchucks. Gotta impress the ladies after all. And I notice this group of kids walk through the door. One dude was goofing off with a ton of different weapons, probably picking out his first one.

And there was this other kid with a headband. He dressed up in this giant metal suit and mentioned to his girlfriend that he'd want to have a windsword... which is evidently a handle that an airbender could blow air out of and cut I guess.

But I thought all airbenders were pacifist monks. Its why the Fire Nation curb stomped them. Some people think they didn't even have an army.

So what's up with this windsword? Was there a subsection of warrior monks? Were there some airbenders that didn't follow the religious path at all? Or did this kid just make it up for his fan fiction where he pretends he's an airbender or the Avatar or something?

[Assistant]
Many monks in our world practice martial arts, despite following a code of pacifism. The constant striving for perfection of techniques that challenge both the body and mind allows the monk to focus on within, and gives them something to attempt to perfect. It makes sense, then, that in their world Airbenders would attempt to reach the peak of martial superiority, which also gives them the chance to prove how strong-willed they are by never actually using their powers in combat,

Additionally, it is entirely possible that the Windsword technique was invented by a previous Avatar from a non-Air tribe. Perhaps a Fire Nation origin Avatar created it, combining his people's natural affinity for warfare with the incredible deadliness of Airbending.


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

[User]
[Marvel] Does Xavier's school accept non-mutants?

Okay, so long story short, about two weeks ago I escaped some secret facility, possibly HYDRA's, and I woke up the next day with the ability to shoot lightning from my hands. Now, that's cool and all, but my family doesn't seem to think so. I've been looking for a place to go where I will be accepted, and Charles Xavier's school for gifted youngsters seems like the place to be. However, I heard they're pretty big on mutants there, and I'm pretty sure I'm not one of them. Will I still be able to go there if I'm missing that special X gene? And if not, where can I go?

[Assistant]
You can probably still go as you are a mutate and definitely need to learn to control your very deadly powers. Additionally, you may be missing the X gene, but that's not to say that your children (if you ever have any) won't have it.

Remember, the X-men reached out to spider-man and requested he join when he was transforming into a Man-spider. He too lacked an X-gene. But learning to accept yourself and learning your place in the world is what the school is all about, not specifically the X gene. Having it does, however, help the teachers understand the full nature of your powers and (possibly) if it can be reversed ... if you ever get out of control.

The Prof. has never turned anyone away, but if you feel some other place is better, you might try the military. Particularly SHIELD. They may give you the training needed to improve  and join one of their elite teams or the protection from evil doers who might want to abduct you and turn you into a massive lightening bomb dropped into the middle of NYC killing millions (not that I've thought about it).


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

[User]
ELI5: Why can't we have smaller pixels? Why are pixels used?

EDIT: thanks for all the great answers, guys!

[Assistant]
Smaller pixels than what? We do have small pixels, and they get smaller depending on the device.

Look at the iPad 2 versus the "new" iPad (3rd or 4th generation). Both have the same sized screen, but the new iPad has 4 times as many pixels per inch.


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

[User]
Where does the energy to create new "space" come from?

Since the universe is expanding, more space is being "created" in between objects, if my understanding is correct. This new space has a non-zero vacuum energy associated with it. My question is where did the energy of the newly created space come from?

[Assistant] Nowhere, energy is not conserved on cosmic scales because there is no time-like Killing vector, meaning time translations don't leave the equations of motions invariant. Thus, there is no associated conserved quantity.


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

[User]
What is your brain doing when you're trying to remember something?

Specifically if you know you know something and are trying to search through your thoughts for the answer?

[Assistant]
The short answer is that a precise answer is waiting further research. The most compelling answer today is that declarative memories are enduring patterns of changes in connectivity between neurons in association neocortices. These areas are indexed by the hippocampus (if they are fairly recent) or by the prefrontal cortex (if they are older). You are trying to remember something, so you start with a clue that you think is involved in that memory. The clue goes the association neocortices, and activation from the association cortices activates the indexing unit (let's call it the hippocampus for now), and it then activates all the association neocortexes that are part of the indexes related to the clue. So a recurrent wave of excitation goes back to the association neocortices and becomes part of consciousness. Your consciousness is bombarded by things associated with the clue. You may recollect something else about that memory based on this process, and then an activation triggered by the original clue PLUS the new information goes to association cortices -> hippocampus -> back to association cortices resulting in a second bombardment. You repeat this process until one memory beats the others down and is satisfactorily correct enough that consciousness will accept it.

Also, Ray Kurzweil doesn't understand jack about the brain.


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

[User] Why can tenured professors teach poorly and stay employed?

[Assistant]
The whole point of tenure is so professors can concentrate on research.

The professors primary job isn't to teach, but to make advancements in his or her own field of study. Teaching is like a side gig for tenured professors.


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

[User]
Do black holes grow when they "absorb" matter?

I have no education at all In cosmology, but I've been reading a basic level book recently and if my understanding is correct, black holes are so massive that their gravitational pull causes matter (and even light?) to be "absorbed" (I imagine that's an incorrect term). Does the black hole "grow" when it absorbs matter then?

Edit: Thanks for all the replies - clearly it's an area of cosmology/physics that interests a lot of other people too.

[Assistant] If you think of the size of a black hole as the radius of its event horizon, then yes. The radius of a black hole's event horizon, called the Schwarzschild radius, is 2GM/c^(2), where M is the mass of the black hole, G is the gravitational constant and c is the speed of light. As a black hole gains mass from things falling into it, its mass increases and so does its Schwarzschild radius.


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

[User] [Nolanverse] It's been 5 years since John Blake became the new Batman. What's been happening in Gotham during that time?

[Assistant]
Gotham becomes a national tragedy and is rebuilt using federal, state, and Wayne estate dollars.  The new Batman gets to hone his craft on the small crime that proliferates during the rebuilding process.  He also gets to take advantage of adjustments made to the city infrastructure during the rebuilding that aid the Dark Knight, like personal rapid transit tunnels and equipment caches.

If Gordon's right about the effects of Batman's presence, though, then the criminal element doesn't stop trying to counter Batman.  The Rogue's Gallery continues to populate under the new Batman in the new Gotham.  A new status quo emerges of Batman spending night after night tracking down the latest weirdo to escape from the asylum.


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

[User]
[Star Wars] Would the off center cockpit design of the Falcon make flying difficult?

It's probably ok for cruisin' the galaxy, but wouldnt it drastically effect precision flying during battles?

[Assistant]
First off, lets remember that the Falcon is based on a  Corellian Engineering Corporation YT-1300, which is a light freighter.  So as far as the original design is concerned if you're in battle, you're doing it really wrong.  Given that, the off-set cockpit isn't a problem worth solving.
Now, the Falcon itself is modified for smuggling, which means it is more likely to get shot at, but if that happens, you're still doing it wrong.  Even in the more likely case you find yourself in battle here, it's going to be open space and you're going to be trying to run.  So again the off-set cockpit is of minimal concern.
That said, due to some un-smuggler-like behavior, the ship did find itself in quite a number of pivotal battles, and in some tight quarters, despite the fact that it was never designed for that purpose.  None the less, it acquitted itself quite well, from which we can deduce that a skilled Captain and pilot can overcome the disadvantages of not having the pilot's seat on, or even near, the ship's center of thrust.
A less experienced crew probably would not have done so well.


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

[User]
The purpose problem.

In the (far) future, let's say we will be able to build AI and robots that make life easier for humans. They will do every job better than us. What would we do then? What would bring purpose to our lives when problems that we are currently inspired to solve like war, hunger, poverty etc are solved? What if a child's upbringing would be good guaranteed, what role would parents play then?

[Assistant]
Bernard Suits considers this question in his book *The Grasshopper: Games, Life and Utopia*. His answer is that in such a situation the ideal existence would be for everyone to engage in intrinsically valuable activities. He argues that to play a game is to engage in an intrinsically valuable activity. Therefore in such a utopia everyone would play games, which he defines as voluntary attempts to overcome unnecessary obstacles.

It's also just a very fun read.


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

[User] [General Discussion] How are spaceships built in space?

[Assistant]
That's a very broad question, but the short answer is "in pieces".

At our kind of technology level, the quintessential example is the ISS. We built it in "modules" small enough to transport up to orbit using existing rockets, and then just bolted the modules together once they were up. This has the advantage of using our existing production facilities to make something bigger than we'd be able to get up to orbit if we were trying to do it in one go. The downside is that the resulting space stations are quite limited in design, and are still forced to be quite small.

It will take us quite a long way to get there, but the next step would be to move much of the assembly process to an orbital "shipyard" - rather than shipping up completed modules, we'd send up the parts, and then assemble them there. This would let us make much bigger, much cooler spaceships. However, for this to be practical, a space elevator is probably a prerequisite.

The logical progression from here is to move the entire manufacturing process into space. This would require asteroid mining to acquire the raw materials, and probably more efficient drive tech to actually collect them, but not having to contend with moving things into and out of a gravity well removes the biggest inefficiency from the process. At this point, the entire process is probably done entirely by robots, which removes the need for the work to be carried out either in a pressurised "drydock" or using spacesuits, which makes the whole thing a lot simpler as well.

After that, we've moved out of the realms of hard SF, so it's hard to predict what would happen. Star Trek has shipyards that use replication technology to build most of the ship, which simplifies the supply chain considerably, but presumably at some point the civilisation in question stops being planet-based at all.


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

[User]
Any tips for reading research papers?

I am trying to read and understand research papers at the moment regarding path finding algorithms. I find a lot of research papers to be a bit hard to get through. Does anyone have any tips on how to tackle them?

[Assistant]
Read them over several sittings. Take notes. Try to rephrase/reproduce the main arguments. Discuss it with others. Read related material and references.

Its ok if you dont understand every detail the first time. Just try to get them with time.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why does water taste different at different temperatures?

Chilled water tastes different than warm or boiled water. What is the reason for this?

[Assistant]
Assuming that it's the same water and not from different sources which may contain different salts.. there are 2-3 major factors
1. The temperature itself. When water touches our taste buds, the temperature sets off slightly different responses to the brain.
2. The material. Chilled water may be stored in any container- plastic/glass/metal. Warm/Hot water is almost always used with metal and sometimes glass. So this is also a small factor.
3. Gases. The most important factor is gases. If a liquid surface is kept in contact with a gas, the gas WILL dissolve in the liquid slowly. The colder the temperature, the faster the gas will dissolve in liquid and vice versa. Boiled water is thus absolutely devoid of gases ( bud-bud-bud-bud bubbles, remember? ). That's why bottled water tastes sweet while boiled water tastes bitter. Oxygen.


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

[User] Do trees have a lifespan or are they immortal?

[Assistant]
They definitely have lifespans. The right conditions can support them for long periods but time gets everything.

Many palm trees have lifespans of about 100 years, which means a lot of the palms that give famous Los Angeles streets their look are almost about to die off.


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

[User] ELI5: Why did the US go into Iraq, and why are we still there?

[Assistant]
Our stated reasons were to depose Saddam, who was suspected of constructing WMDs and supporting terrorism. In reality, his WMD programs had been defunct for years and he'd been blustering out of a desire to intimidate Iran, who was a much more pressing threat. Saddam's contact with terror organizations like Al Qaeda was also rather limited. To this day, a plurality of Americans think he was involved with 9/11, when no link has been found.

There were more personal reasons for many of the war planners. Bush had a grudge with Saddam after a failed assassination plot against his father following the gulf war. Some of the Bush cabinet like Wolfowitz, Rove, etc were involved in the Project for the New American Century, which even before 9/11 advocated invading Iraq for purposes of demonstrating and maintaining US power in a post-cold war world. There have also been allegations of corruption, less in the "we want their oil" sense, and more in that much of the reconstruction and contracting work went to firms such as Halliburton with ties to administration members, or to right wing think tanks who wanted to try out their ideas on the country's new government.

Why things went badly is a megapost in itself. The short version is that there was a power vacuum in the absence of the government, exacerbated by the decision to disband the Iraqi army. The government put in place by US-allied Iraqi exiles tended to be rather corrupt, and the country has fundamental problems with stability due to being comprised of three different populations (Kurds, Shiite, Sunni) who don't get along particularly well. Add to that no WMDs or solid terror links were ever found.

Anyway, we were stuck there for years trying to keep the country together. We were subjected to a pretty bad guerilla insurgency, and when the Iraqi government declined to renew the lease on US troops 10 years later, we declined to press the issue.

After that, regional instability in Iraq's northwest and next door in Syria, the arab spring uprisings, and sectarian militias that sprang up post-invasion all combined to create ISIS. They're really bad. We want them to go away. We're hesitant to do another full invasion, but we're kind of poking at them as best we can through airstrikes, drones, etc.


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

[User]
If all matter is equally old, how does carbon dating something tell how old something is?

Maybe this question is too easy to answer. I don't know anything about carbon dating.

[Assistant]
Carbon dating works because there's a radioactive form of carbon (carbon 14) in the atmosphere. It decays naturally (as with all radioactive matter), but it gets replenished by sunrays. The level of carbon 14 in the atmosphere thus remains more or less constant.

Living cells receive carbon 14 from the atmosphere, and so they maintain roughly the same amount of it, but when they die they stop replenishing it. From that point on, carbon 14 will decay at a very predictable rate. The practical consequence is that if you find dead organic matter, you can measure the remaining amount of carbon 14 and, thus, calculate how long ago it died.

It only works with dead organic matter, though. And it only works insofar as we know the historical levels of carbon 14 in the atmosphere (which we do, and it's not totally constant).


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

[User] ELI5: How does mopping clean the floor, if the soapy water just stays on the ground?

[Assistant] you will typically mop in back and forth passes. The mop will get the floor wet which will help dissolve dirt on the floor. A second pass will catch the dirt. You repeat multiple times until the floor looks clean. You then put the mop in the bucket to get fresh water and release the trapped dirt. You do not necessarily use soapy water. That can leave a residue. Other cleaners that evaporate however can be used.


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

[User]
dad passed away - requesting reading recommendations

Hi reddit - my dad passed away 10 days ago. I am looking for reading material dealing broadly with the subject of death and existence. I would love some recommendations for good philosophical writing that you found meaningful or interesting or compelling. What are your favorites? Thank you!

[Assistant]
I'd recommend Tolstoy's novella **The Death of Ivan Ilyich**.

It's one of the greatest works of philosophical fiction written.
Martin Heidegger emphasizes it as an expression of Being towards death in his seminal work *Being and Time*


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

[User]
ELI5 How do seedless grapes carry on their species?

My English sucks, sorry. Hope you understand my question.

[Assistant]
They don't.

Seedless grapes, like many domesticated plants, require human intervention to spread. New seedless grape vines are grown by cutting a piece from an existing vine and planting it in the ground.


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

[User] [Greek Mythology] Hera's finally divorced Zeus. What are the ramifications of this?

[Assistant]
The gods aren't just people. Hera is the divine embodiment of the sanctity of marriage, and she just defied her own sphere and divorced the most powerful being in creation?

Maybe the whole idea of marriage is broken. Major upheaval in divine and mortal relationships.


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

[User]
[Star Wars] How did the Rebellion win the Battle of Endor?

Alright, maybe this is a stupid question, but how the hell did the Rebel Alliance win against the Empire in the Battle of Endor? OK, they managed to destroy the Death Star and the Super Star Destroyer, but there were a lot of Star Destroyers there and the Death Star had destroyed at least a couple of their capital ships. Did the rest of the Empire's fleet scatter after the Death Star was destroyed or did something else happen?

[Assistant]
The *Executor* was the flagship of the Imperial fleet while the Death Star was, well, the Death Star. The sailors of the fleet likely were aware that the Emperor himself was on board the Death Star, and the destruction--in fairly quick succession--of their command ship, the Death Star, and the Emperor would have done a number on their morale. There would have been chaos as command and control attempted to re-organise after the loss of their flagship, and the death of most of their senior commanders. Perhaps the survivors of the Imperial fleet could have continued and even *won* a continued engagement with the Rebel Fleet, but at that point the surviving commanders of the Imperial fleet decided that it was time to retreat and regroup, rather than try and make a glorious last stand. They had already lost the battle, since their objective was to protect the Death Star while it destroyed the Rebel fleet, and it was just a quesiton of how they would respond to that failure. Retreat to a nearby system for regrouping, reorganistion, and even reinforcement was an entirely sensible option. After all, while the Empire had suffered heavily, the Rebel fleet had as well, and the Empire still had more forces to draw upon.

Unfortunately for the Empire, after their retreat from Endor, the political break up of the Empire began. Instead of a quick regroup and renewed assault on the Rebel fleet, the Battle of Endor was the beginning of the end of the Galactic Empire. The Rebels had the initiative, and when combined with the political infighting that resulted from the succession cirsise of Palpatine's death, the Empire was quickly forced on the long term defensive.


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

[User] [Charmed] Do other cities have charmed ones battle their local demons or do demons just run rampant in other cities?

[Assistant] I believe there are other Whitelighters and Witches running around vanquishing demons, but the Charmed Ones are sort of the "chosen ones" that have greater magical powers. So really every other place will have *some* demons, evil creatures and Witches/Whitelighters to deal with them, but San Francisco is where the Charmed Ones live and where the tougher demons and The Source tend to appear when not in the Underworld.


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

[User]
ELI5: Hexagons are the most efficient shape for stacking adjacent to each other while not wasting space. So why are lots of batteries cylindrical?

Also, wouldnt electric cars and home battery storage, etc. increase its energy density if they could be packed with no gaps?

[Assistant]
The contents of the cylinder are essentially a long flat sheet of thin materials, all rolled up into a round log shape.

To get the same contents into a hexagonal shape, you would need some sort of former in the center of the cell, which is wasted space.

So you either waste it inside the cell, or outside the cell. The cylinder is cheaper, and faster to make, and then you have plenty of room in the wasted space around the outside for things like cooling passages.


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

[User]
[Animatrix - Detective's Story] How is Trinity able to show up in a story set decades earlier than the events of Neo's arrival?

I'm not sure exactly what time the events of Detective's Story take place but it's safe to say it's at least three or four decades in the past.

So how does Trinity show up in a totally different time period?

[Assistant]
The simulation is just set during a different time period. Just like Neo thought it was 1999 but it is really closer 2199, the detective was set in the 1930 or thereabouts even though in the outside world it's still 2199. Trinity is still on the Nebuchadnezzar hacking into the simulation.

Different servers of the matrix are set at different times.


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

[User] [MCU] How comes Stark never revealed Peters identity during that five year gap between IW and Endgame to honor him? He was one of the heroes who fought during the battle of Titan after all. (Thanos and everything is public knowledge as we know)

[Assistant] Presumably, out of respect. Spidey is one of the only MCU heroes to maintain a secret identity. To Tony's mind, it would be uncool to out the kid. Peter wanted to remain a secret, so Tony honored that wish even after his death.


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

[User] Is inflation that is reported just a big generalization of all the companies raising their prices?

[Assistant]
Inflation is by definition an increase in the general price level.

Mostly what people mean when they say inflation is the CPI, the consumer price index, which measures the price level of consumer goods and services.


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

[User]
[Star Wars] Was the Emperor a capable administrator?

I'm curious if the EU explores the Empire at all from a political science angle. What was the Emperor's tax policy? Did quality of living improve at all? What important treaties took place and how high was the level of diplomatic intrigue?

Yes, yes, we know he was a Sith and he was evil - but even Genghis Khan's subjects write of him as providing a stable and peaceful government once the pillaging was over.

[Assistant]
[](/starlightangry) Ooh, that's an excellent question! Let me dig up the records of Palpatine's healthcare policy for you. They're right over here in the Alderaan Cultural Archives...

Oh wait.

Nevermind.


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

[User] My coworker insists that by walking briskly while smoking, he is not damaging his health. How wrong is he?

[Assistant]
This man should be wearing a helmet at all times.

The air he breathes is still the same, filled with the same carcinogens, and leaving the same chemical deposits in his lungs. He eventually can ~~and will~~ develop lung cancer.

obvious edit.


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

[User]
[Dragon Ball Z] What if Gohan had held resentment towards Goku during the Buu saga?

Instead of being happy to see Goku, he grows bitter hatred/resentment towards him. There are times that Goku has left and did not choose to be with Gohan and the family. I think it would have been interesting to see Gohan affected by that.

After they defeated Frieza, and Goku wanted to learn IT on Yardrat. Especially the  seven long years of Goku wishing to stay dead, where he could have easily been brought back with the Namek Dragon Balls.

If he had it out with Goku with all the times he had abandoned him. If he called him out on leaving him without a father, his mother without her husband, and denying Goten the chance to have known him. If he called him a deadbeat father, a lo good husband, just letting it out.

How would the conversation between them play out?

How would Goku react?

[Assistant]
Goku would have no broken his character over it. He would have told Gohan that there was no other way and that he thought Gohan was strong enough to take his place despite Gohan being angry. Basically the same treatment Goku his been giving an angsty Vegeta for decades.

As long as Goku can maintain that goofy ass attitude, he can talk his way out of most things.


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

[User]
[DC] I'm a crime boss. My local hero is no big deal, but he joins the JLA and I have to deal with the frigging flash and A-list heroes every week. What are my options?

Serious question.

In the justice league cartoon this happened to Lex as superman used the help of the JL to stop his corrupted empire.
Luthor formed an injustice league of his own but totally failed.
Then he joined the legion of doom and even took over...didn't go well.

So, I'm no Luthor but I just want to keep the A-list A#$holes out of my operations...What are my option in the DC universe? (Any universe)

[Assistant]
Be a criminal who establishes order and stays away from the really gruesome crime that affects regular folk.  Punish your goons who cross the line and bring unwanted scrutiny to your organization.

Taking you out will cause things to get worse as turf wars ensue over your territory by people who don't have the same code of honor as you.  You become part of the establishment, even if you are crooked and have an illicit income stream.