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

[User]
CMV: The "left" is also culpable for Trump getting elected.

There are three reasons I can think of as to why the Left indirectly helped get President Trump into office. I am hoping to understand differing views better because I believe progress will only occur when we have mutual accountability and find common ground.
1. I have quite a few Right-leaning friends who said there was no way they were going to see another Clinton in the White House. They say they were disgusted with Bill's extra-marital affairs and HRC's treatment of the whistleblowers. They also believe her to have knowledge of Benghazi and hate her for it. This made them come out to vote.
2. They told me that they are disgusted with the way the media and those on the Left have treated conservatives and their religious views. They feel that Liberals are inclusive as long as you are not a white Christian man. This made them come out to vote.
3. The DNC played games to get HRC as their candidate. Subsequent a large demographic who supported Sen Sanders just stayed home or voted third party on Election Day.

I have tried to discuss with my FB liberal friends and that was met with insulting and hateful replies. Which kinda reinforced my thoughts that the left are also driving that wedge deeper. I seriously walked into that storm.

I want to have faith in humanity that reasonable discussion will only help us and we need to analyze our behaviors into to grow positively.

In full disclosure so you can understand you audience (me), I lean libertarian and voted third party. I look at both sides and see good as well as bad. I lose every election so I understand the left's pain just for different reasons.

Note : FB politics have left a very sour taste in my mouth. Since this is a super heated topic, please please remember the rules to not be rude to others. On that note, I tried to choose my words such that they would not offend. If they did would you please comment or message me as to why so I can adjust my communication style to promote reasonable discourse.

Please help CMV that the Left is also responsible their role in current affairs.

Edit:
OP here. I am a Reddit newb and this is my first CMV. I am trying to reply to everyone but it seems to be near impossible. Plus I think my kids are outside scavenging for their food. I guess I need to feed them. :)

I am blown away in a positive way at the responses here. You all ran a broad range of how to reply to me. I saw facts used. I saw people use language similar to my views but were able to twist it enough to let me see it differently, some questioned the basis of my views which helped me understand I had some weaknesses there. This last point was so impactful for my as I got to experience firsthand the effectiveness of the Socratic Method. Holy cow this was awesome. Please don't be offended if I don't reply to your questions. I will make as much effort as possible; however, I need to go be a parent and I think some answers will require me to do research in order effectively respond. Holy cow, thank you for such a positive experience.

[Assistant]
> They say they were disgusted with Bill's extra-marital affairs [...] This made them come out to vote

They were so upset by adultery, that they came out to vote against *the victim of those affairs*,  in favor of an infamous known serial adulterer, who abandoned two wives for  younger mistresses in a row. Either that, or they are lying.

Besides, Bill Clinton had approval ratings in the high 50s at the end of his own term, after the Lewinsky scandal. Democrats overlooked it. *Moderates overlooked it.* Anyone who is still upset about it after decades, was on the hard right all along.


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

[User]
Accidentally deleted all my code using Git

Ok, so i was using Visual Studio and i heard Git was a great way to manage your files (ironic). Ok, so i installed git and made a github account. I made a directory for my project early this morning and them worked on the code all day.

I figured i would try to do a branch since the changes i made were not fully workimg, so i pressed to start it. The editor said i couldn't do it because of divergences on the code (?) and gave me two options: stash or checkout. I figured stash meant it would save changes before making the github branch, so i clicked it.

Boom, all the files i didn't modify were gone. I panicked and tried again, clicking on the checkout option. Boom, the files i worked all day were also gone. They didn't appear on github, nor are stored locally. I have just a copy of what i had yesterday. What can i do?

[Assistant]
Your code is stashed. From the command line, you can get it back with `git stash apply`.

You might get some conflicts that you'll have to brute-force your way through, but at least your code still exits.


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

[User]
What causes logs to turn white while burning, and why do moving black patches appear?

I was camping this weekend, and I noticed that the burning logs that were already white had black patches moving up and down the log. What causes this phenomenon?

[Assistant] The ash that is produced is composed of several products.  Some of of it is incompletely combusted carbon which tends to be black.  Other components are due to other elements in the wood such as magnesium which forms white magnesium oxide when burned.  The colour fluctuations you see while it is burning is due to blackbody radiation. When a surface doesn't emit light of its own (luminescence) it is considered black.  When heated, the body starts to emit radiation at low frequency first (infrared, which we feel as heat).  As it gets hotter,  the frequency of the radiation increases to red, orange, and then white.  The hotter the object the higher the frequency of radiation emitted.  The temperature in the fire fluctuates due to convection currents causing areas of the wood to change temperature resulting in the colour of the blackbody radiation to change as well.  When it's very hot it appears white, if it cools off it appears black again.


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

[User] ELI5: Why do we still have to purchase mortgage insurance when it did nothing to stop the mortgage crisis of 2007?

[Assistant]
Because after the mortgage crisis of 2007, the only groups financing mortgages in any volume (Freddie, Fannie, FHA, VA) require it if the buyer doesn't have 20% down.

One of the problems during the crisis was that several mortgage insurers also failed, leading them to reduce their payments to the above agencies furthering their losses.


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

[User]
[Superman/WH40K] Superman makes his appearance to the Earth, as the God-Emperor watches. How does the GEoM react?

How would the GEoM react to Superman's public appearance on Earth in the early years of M3? Is it exterminate on sight, or would he love that a Xenos is just as pro-humanity as he is?

[Assistant]
If we're talking about Superman showing up in M3, the Emperor remains in the shadows as always and sees how Superman's influence plays out. The Emperor hadn't adopted his hardline anti-xeno stance until the Great Crusade.

If we're talking about Superman showing up in 30k (i.e., when the Emperor is still walking around and such), it turns into a fight between Emps and Supes because the Emperor is so vehemently anti-xeno.


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

[User] [Jojo] If Hamon is the same type of energy as the sun does that mean it could give people sunburns?

[Assistant] Yes. In fact you can see that when Kars blasts Joseph with Hamon strong enough, it clearly harms him, even though it's supposed to be nearly harmless to humans. Hamon has a lot of applications, and in all likelihood it can also be manipulated in a way to cause a sunburn.


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

[User] [star wars] Im a Jedi master in a duel, what stops me from using the force and crushing my opponent into a ball?

[Assistant]
If youre battling another Force user, they would likely be able to tell what youre doing and defend against it.

If youre fighting a non-Force user, the only thing stopping you from doing that is that that is a very Dark Side thing to do.


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

[User]
[Attack on Titan] Why does everybody seem to suck so much at fighting the titans?

I am about half-way through the series and maybe I am missing some fundamental point but it seems that the majority of the soldiers fail spectacularly at fighting the titans and end up being eaten.

I understand that in order to kill a titan you have to cut the back of their neck in a specific way, but isn't this what they were training for at the boot camp?

Also, it frustrates me that the majority of the soldiers can't escape using their 3D maneuver gear. Sure, there have been times when they have run out of power and can't get away, but a lot of the time it seems that it shouldn't be too hard to outrun the slow moving titans.

Can somebody explain this to me a bit better?

[Assistant]
Most soldiers never get to fight a Titan. EVER. There has been only 2 attacks to the walls for over 100 years, plus the best soldiers are send to protect the King, so they never actually see any real action. I'd say most veteran soldiers can't even use the 3D maneuver gear correctly, they only used it in their 2 years of training.

The only soldiers that actually know how to fight Titans, are the Recon Corps, and they aren't that good either.


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

[User] [Pokemon] So my Gyarados just got beaten and fainted, the problem I'm standing on a small island after using my Gyarados to surf here. I've heard people talking about pokemon still being able to surf, fly, and use other abilities after they've fainted. Is this a real thing? And if so, how?

[Assistant]
Your Pokemon might be too weak to battle which is known commonly as being fainted, but it can still ferry you where you need to go.

The energy needed to produce a Hydro Pump, Hyper Beam, or even to Tackle an opponent is significantly, even incredibly, higher than the energy needed for simple locomotion.


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

[User] [WandaVision] Legally speaking what criminal charges is Tyler Hayward likely to face after his arrest at the end of WandaVision?

[Assistant]
He's probably gonna have to answer some questions the law isn't well equipped to handle about what he decided to do with the "corpse" he found himself experimenting on.

As for how he handled the Westview situation as a whole... he was attempting to subdue an ongoing hostage taker who was actively torturing a broad population. His options were vast and his restraint was pretty sizeable all things considered. The biggest thing he'd have to justify is attempting to drone strike Wanda. But again... she had hundreds of hostages and was seemingly torturing them all, actively or passively. She's a known terrorist that has assumed to be reformed, but her capacity for destruction combined with her return to troublesome behaviour was a situation that begged for swift resolution.


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

[User]
ELI5: How do suspect drawings work?

 In crime tv shows, they have drawings of suspects based off a witness description - it usually matches criminal spot on when they get it figured out. IRL, are these drawings actually that spot on? Its mind boggling to me that someone could draw a face that perfectly, when I dont even know where I would begin describing the face even of a loved one. Are there people out there whos sole job is to draw people based on description?

[Assistant]
The artist has several templates to show the witness, and ask them questions like "Are the eyes more like this or that?".  They combine a bunch of features and ask the person "How is this wrong?".  The work takes skills beyond just drawing, to interact with the person and get a good drawing.

Some people are not very good in their recollections, often as affected by recent drinking etc.  The pictures are pretty generic, and lots of people look "like them".  Of course in a TV show set in LA there are still only 100 actors+extras in the shots.  If the drawing is accurate to 1:100, that means it only looks like one person on the set.  But in real LA with a population of 4M people, the picture looks like about 40K of them.  That's not going to be an Ah Ha moment in real life like it is on the TV show.


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

[User] [WARCRAFT] When you kill an undead being, can it be resurrected again or can they only be resurrected only once?

[Assistant]
The only limit to reanimating corpses is their condition. When an undead entity is 'slain' the magic animating them dissipates. So long as there's enough pieces left, you can just reanimate it again. And again. And again..

That's why the Kirin Tor tended to utilise specialised fire magic against the Scourge (cited by Ronin in the War of the Ancients trilogy, and Krassus in Night of the Dragon). They could disrupt the magic, and destroy the body all at once.

I should clarify that the Forsaken are different. They have souls, whereas most Undead do not. Bringing them back intact, IE re-binding their soul, is far, far harder than just animating a corpse. Only the Val'kyr can do it.


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

[User]
I do not believe that pacifism is effective against terrorism. CMV

I've been reading a lot about Malala Yousafzai in the news, and I watched both her Daily Show interview and recent UN speech.  While I find her story and message truly inspiring, I believe some of her pacifist views are naive.  When she says that the Taliban should be confronted by peaceful dialogue and education, but never violence, I can't help but think that this alone would accomplish nothing.  Of course, education and dialogue are a crucial part of the solution of dismantling the Taliban, and really combating any political or religious terrorist movement.  However, these organizations seem so steadfast in their beliefs and principles that I don't think anything short of pure force will be able to stop them.  After all, you have to admit that it takes an impressive amount of commitment to your ideals to point a gun at a child's head and pull the trigger.  I simply don't believe that challenging the principles of somebody so utterly committed will be effective, and unfortunately, the only solution is to point the gun back at them.

[Assistant] Nonviolence will not stop the violent, but it will convince laymen sympathizers to stop backing the violent ones. Gandhi's objective wasn't to convince British soldiers of the error of their ways, but rather to shock the British public out of their indifference and convince them to withdrawal their support for their government's occupation of India. Similarly, Malala has captured the world's eye and advances the cause of women's rights and universal education for children all over the world.


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

[User]
[Star Trek]If Ferengi females never leave the homeworld, how has their species become numerous enough to maintain holdings on other planets and become an interstellar power? AND A BONUS QUESTION INSIDE!

By the end of DS9 the Ferengi seem to be making major, popular societal reforms to make their society... nicer? Is their eventual joining the Federation inevitable?

[Assistant]
Even if it may have been stated plainly, it is unlikely that females are literally not allowed to leave Ferenginar. Rather Females are not allowed anywhere outside the home without male escort.

> Is their eventual joining the Federation inevitable?

Lol, no.


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

[User]
[Batman] Why haven't any criminals or citizens figured out Batman's real identity just based on the astronomically expensive vehicles and gadgets that Batman has? How many male Billionaires are there in Gotham?

Examples: His own fighter jet (batjet), rocket tank/car, advanced gadgets, and suit made to withstand ballistics while also being able to fly.

No average Joe earning a Taxi driver salary will be able to afford this.

[Assistant] I mean dudes running around in high tech gadgets isn't exactly uncommon in Gotham. Mr.Freeze, Firefly, Red Hood, Deadshot, Joker, and countless others use a variety of makeshift and professional made gear.


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

[User]
ELI5: How do wireless phone charges work?

How does it manage to charge your phone through a entire rubber / plastic / metal case, and through the actual phone itself, and somehow penetrate the battery to charge it?

[Assistant]
Any sort of electric current will generate a corresponding, changing magnetic field. Vice versa, a changing magnetic field will create a current in a nearby electrical circuit. This is how most electricity is generated; you physically move a magnet near a coil of wire to create a current, which is the electrical power that everyone uses.

So wireless charging uses the electrical current in the charger to create a changing magnetic field. This changing magnetic field, near a phone, will create an electrical current in the wireless charging "module" in the phone. The phone is designed to use that current to charge itself.


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

[User] ELI5: Why are there Two Hurricane Models, the European Model and the American Model when physics and statistics are the same everywhere?

[Assistant]
Models as complicated as the ones used for predicting the behavior of weather systems are *extremely* complex, and for a "perfect" model would require an immense amount of processing power, time, and an unrealistic amount of data to feed into the model.

Thus, the only way to make the models functional is to make assumptions about the physics and use the models to provide a "best-guess" of a weather system's behavior. If you have two different models with different core assumptions, then you can end up with different results.

The European model is generally a "stronger" model in that it makes less assumptions/more valid assumptions, but the cost of this is that it also requires a much more powerful computer to run than the American model.


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

[User]
ELI5: Where does surplus electricity go?

I was thinking about a post I saw that said Germany was shutting down power plants because solar was producing so much electricity. Supposing that is true, what happens before they shut them down? Is there more electricity being produced than used? What happens to the extra?

[Assistant]
In a general sense, unused load is wasted.

In a practical sense, unused load is often stored in a number of ways, such as mechanically in a fly wheel or chemically through any number of processes, such as hydrogen production. Occasionally, this extra power is delivered to something like a distillation plant, to produce clean water, for example. These sources can usually be passed back into a generator to produce power when required.

It isn't 'wasted', it just isn't use for what we typically use power for. It'll be diverted into something vaguely useful, or it is lost.


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

[User]
CMV: The materialistic world view is not sufficient to establish any set of moral standards for humans.

My view is based on the four logical propositions outlined below:

1. No one reasonably holds animals to any moral standard
2. This applies to animals of all gradations of  complexity, from ants to chimpanzees.
3. On the materialistic world view, humans are merely very complex animals.
4. Therefore, on the materialistic world view, no should reasonably hold humans to any moral standard.

For example, no makes moral judgements about ants killing each other or lion infanticide. There is no gradation of increasing moral standards across the spectrum of animals. What justifies the massive step up in moral standards from the rest of the animal kingdom to Homo Sapiens?

Is my reasoning wrong on this? Does the materialistic world view provide some logical justification for human moral standards?

[Assistant]
A lot of people take issue with 3.

I take issue with 2.

The world isn't black or white. Everything or nothing. cooperative speices do have moral standards. A animal  that betrays it's group will not be welcomed.

Humans are more able to understand moral judgment so can have guilt. Would a more perfect creature be more judged? Yes. Can you judge a dog that knows it broke the rules as many think they do. Yes but dar less so.


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

[User]
[X-Men] Have the X-Men ever had an even somewhat positive public image?

We know that the X-Men's deal is that they fight for a whole that hates and fears them because of who they are, but have they ever had a positive reputation among the public? Has anybody ever shown the team any real gratitude or appreciation for how many times they've risked their lives for mankind? Have they ever gotten the government to stop wanting them to go extinct? It can be the most obscure X-Men story you can think of, just give an example.

[Assistant] There was a very brief moment in time, shortly after the Siege of Asgard, where Steve Rogers in his capacity of Commander of SHIELD had the US President give a Medal of Freedom to Cyclops in recognition of the X-Men's efforts to protect the world and humanity. It didn't last long, but this was the period where the X-Men were based in San Francisco, a city that was way more accepting of mutants than the rest of the US, and loved having the X-Men around.


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

[User] [Monsters Inc.] How come in Monsters University the Dean kicks Mike out for not being scary? Is she not aware of the handler/supervisors in Monsters Inc. that coach and train their scarier partners?

[Assistant]
Mike was specifically in the "Scaring College" of the University. There were plenty of other departments he could have joined (and we saw them at one point, even-- the door engineers.)

He was, in effect, majoring in "being scary."


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

[User]
[Star Wars] In Episode III, what if Anakin just killed Palpatine instead of letting him kill Windu and convert Anakin to the dark side?

First post here, I love this sub!

[Assistant]
In the short term? Crisis adverted, high-fives all around.

In the long term, Anakin was already well on his way to the dark-side and eventually falls maybe even as soon as the death of Padme. Now we have a problem because the most powerful Jedi in the galaxy has gone dark and, unlike Vader, he is not hampered by his suit and has his full powers. Knowing what must be done and having two newly born force-sensitive twins, Anakin disappears for a while.

Then one day the doors of the Jedi temple open and in walk three figures each bearing a red lightsaber. And were all in for a very, *very* bad time.


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

[User] Since all life evolved from a common ancestor, does that mean that life began only in a single location on the planet? Did multiple "trees of life" compete early on across the globe with the one that exists today ultimately winning out?

[Assistant]
This way out in hypothetical zone. There are excellent viable ideas on how life first came about, but we simply don't have the data to do much more than speculate as to the exact "how's" here. The short answer is: "we don't know, but we can make educated guesses."

>does that mean that life began only in a single location on the planet?

As far as we know, yes.

All life that exists today (again, as far as we know) shares a single common ancestor that was almost certainly restricted to one geographical area at some time.

>Did multiple "trees of life" compete early on across the globe with the one that exists today ultimately winning out?

Almost certainly, minus the "compete" bit. But don't start imagining whole big ecosystems of forests and coral reefs and such...these other "trees of life" probably consisted of stuff that was maybe barely bacteria. At the most.

They probably didn't directly compete, but instead either flourished or (much more commonly) did the opposite of flourishing in their own little microcosm.


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

[User]
ELI5: why can kids pick up a new language and speak it like a native with no accent but adults cannot?

Assuming an equal amount of language immersion as a 10 year old who moves to a new country, why can't a 30 year old pick up the language to the same extent?

[Assistant] Human beings have what is described in linguistics as a language acquisition device, wherein exposure to language before puberty, will result in a native tongue; after puberty the mastering of inflection within the language is rarely successful and certainly not easy. This is what we were taught in linguistics at university anyway.


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

[User] ELI5: If you are bitten by a very venomous snake or spider, what exactly happens to your body that kills you?

[Assistant] There are actually a lot of different kinds of venom and they can kill you in different ways.  Some cause destruction of skeletal muscles (myotixon), some causes destruction of the heart (cardiotoxins), some cause destruction  of the circulatory system by constricting blood vessels or by making it so blood can't clot (hemotoxins), and some cause nerve damage or paralysis (neurotoxins).  So the way someone dies depends on the type of venom and the potency.  For example, rattlesnakes are mostly hemotoxic.  The venom of rattlesnakes and other pit vipers damages tissue around the bite. Venom may cause changes in blood cells, prevent blood from clotting, and damage blood vessels, causing them to leak. These changes can lead to internal bleeding and to heart, respiratory, and kidney failure.  The bites are also incredibly painful and cause dramatic swelling.  That gets worse as the effects of the venom spread throughout the body, so it is critical to get to medical care as soon as possible.  With neurooxic snakes (like cobras), your body can become paralyzed. Usually people die because they can't breath and the lack of oxygen causes the tissues in the body to die from lack of oxygen.  This is also how the wandering spider venom kills people.  So, how you die depends on the venom of the specific animal.


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

[User]
Are There Infinite Colors (Rather, Can Wavelengths Be Infinitely Fractioned)?

I was discussing with a friend if it was possible to find an infinite number of points between colors.  For instance, between red and yellow is orange, between red and orange is a darker orange, and so on.  Of course the human eyes can only perceive up to a certain level, but theoretically -- could these colors/wavelengths be infinitely fractioned?

My thought process is that the variables that determine wavelength have universal constraints on them, and so I would suspect the same is true of wavelengths.  Could anybody shed some light on this question?

edit: Thanks for the overwhelming response!  I'll be alt-tabbing to my dictionary a lot tonight.

[Assistant]
We're going to drop "infinity" from this conversation, because it will only hinder us.

What you want to know, stated unambiguously, is whether the electromagnetic spectrum is continuous, or whether it's discrete. Is there, in other words, some fundamental quantum of electromagnetic energy, and all electromagnetic radiation is an integer multiple of this fundamental quantum.

The answer is no, it's a continuum, and here's why:

Imagine you have a lamp that puts out only one colour of light. You have an idealised detector, and pointing it toward the lamp tells you the wavelength of the light the lamp is emitting.

If both you and the lamp are at rest relative to each other, you point the detector at the lamp and read off the wavelength call it ** units of length, because we really don't care. Wherever you stand, no matter how far from the lamp you are, you always get the same reading.

But if you're moving *toward* the lamp, you find your detector registers a shorter wavelength, and if you're moving *away* from the lamp, your detector registers a longer wavelength.

You play around for a while, and discover there's a simple relationship between your speed relative to the lamp  either toward or away from it  and the difference between the emitted wavelength and the detected wavelength.

Which means you can plug in *any wavelength you like* and compute the necessary speed at which to move either toward or away from the lamp in order to register that wavelength on your detector.

Of course, in the real world no detector can detect *all possible* wavelengths of light. But we can ignore that because the fact that we're imagining an impossible detector is irrelevant; what matters is that *there exists* some speed, call it *v*, at which you can in principle move relative to a light source to make the light from that source any wavelength you like.

We call this "boosting," and it's a maths thing. It's possible to boost a light-emitting system, mathematically, to get whatever wavelength of light out of that system you like. Since boosting a system only involves changing your velocity relative to it, and since velocity is definitely not quantized, the electromagnetic spectrum cannot be quantized either.


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

[User] ELI5:Why is it so important to break up the biggest banks?

[Assistant]
One reason is that you have banks that are "too big to fail." We bailed out the big banks in 2008 because allowing them to collapse would have been even costlier to the economy.

The worry is that the precedent set in 2008 incentivizes the banks to engage in more risky behavior since they can be confident that if there is a collapse the government will bail them out again. By splitting them up, it ensures that one bank going under isn't so disastrous for the economy and there won't have to be another bailout.


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

[User]
eli5:Why does slouching feel more comfortable than sitting up right?

Got a new chair which is meant to help support better posture due and been sitting in it for 2-3 hours and the lumbar support is causing discomfort and it feels so nice to just slouch and lay backwards where my lumbar is floating like im curling my body.

[Assistant] It feels more comfortable since your body is more used to the slouch position than sitting up straight, doesn't make it more healthy. The lumbar support forces you to use muscles that you've neglected for so long that they have to re-establish themselves first before it can be comfortable to sit up straight for longer periods of time.


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

[User]
[WH40K] why does the imperium do the one thing that lead to the horus heresy?

Reading up on HH lore and wondering why people worship the emperor as a god, despite it being the thing that the emperor himself didn't want to happen and was the thing that made the word bearers seek out a god, found chaos and kicked off the HH? Surely people know this and know of the imperial truth?

[Assistant]
At the end of the Horus Heresy, the Emperor lies broken upon the Golden Throne, his sons either missing, dead, or turned traitor. The Terran High Council swamped with the work of an intergalactic empire at war they were never equipped to deal with. With no one at the helm, the Imperium, it was starting to fall apart.

Then, faith in the God-Emperor came back. The Temple of the Saviour Emperor became the No.1 religion of the Imperium, despite numerous attempts to stamp it down. The High Council, seeing a temporary way to improve morale and stem the tide, turn the Temple into the official institution of the Imperium. Thus, veneration of the God-Emperor began, and the Emperor's hope of a rational and scientific Imperium died.


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

[User]
[Thor: Dark World] Can someone explain these things to me?

1. The Dark Elf born of the night, before light. Does that mean the very early stage of the universe?
2. The Convergence happened every 5000 years. So Bor's war against the Dark Elf only happened 5000 years ago?
3. After an eternity of war, Asgard won against the Dark Elf. Is that literally true? Have Asgard been fighting against the Dark Elf for billions of years?
4. In the span of 5000 years since the previous Convergence and the one on the movie, Bor defeats the Dark Elf. Odin take his place. Odin have Hel. Odin and Hel conquers the 9 realms. Odin banish Hel. Heimdall take position as Gate Keeper. Odin have Thor. Odin goes to war against the Frost Giant. Odin adopt Loki.

[Assistant]
1.  Yes, probably very early, before most stars coalesced.

2.  Likely 5000 years ago, but it's also possible it was some multiple of 5000 since we don't really know how old Odin was.  10,000, 15,000, etc.

3.  He was speaking hyperbolically.  It was a long war.

4.  That's one interpretation, yes.


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

[User]
What is the most amount of electrons forcibly added to an atom?

So like the title says, I know ionization energy increases with each additional electron taken away, I assume the reverse is true for adding electrons. How many electrons has someone tried to add to an atom in a laboratory? How unstable was it, how long did it last? What chemical properties were attained from the extremely negative ion?

[Assistant] Only one electron can be added to a neutral atom. All doubly charged negative atomic ions are unstable with respect to electron detachment. This often comes as a surprise to chemists who are used to writing things like O^2- . There are some large organic molecules which have stable, doubly-charged anions, but such examples are fairly rare.


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

[User]
[Marvel]Does Wolverine's healing factor also replace his gut flora?

Say he gets his entire stomach region cut out/otherwise destroyed, would he then have indigestion until the bacteria that live in the digestive tract multiply back to normal or do they instantly get healed like the rest of his body?

[Assistant]
This is hard because his healing factor has changed so much over time. Back in the day if something like this would happen, he would be out for weeks and have a very hard time recovering, but he would not only survive it but fully recover.

Nowadays, he might have some indigestion as he heals but he would heal so quickly it would go away just as fast.


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

[User]
ELI5 Why does the skin on male genitals darken?

I was in the shower this weekend with my son (aged 5) after swimming and he awkwardly asked me why mine is darker (than my skin). I had no answer for him. So can anyone answer this for my son who is actually 5.

[Assistant]
You might want to hold off on the explanation.

Your nipples and penis get darker when you go through puberty. The sex hormones cause a surge in Melanin (which is the pigmentation in your hair and skin).


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

[User]
Is this "sun-flipping" scenario as important as the media is making it seem?

Over the past couple of days, I have noticed news stories cropping up about the Sun's magnetic field 'flipping' over. It appears to an uneducated person (like myself) that it's probably being blown unnecessarily out of proportion.

Is it that important, or is the media just sensationalising it all?

[Assistant] This happens every ~11 years and it happens over the course of months. It *can* increase the chances of solar flares, but for the most part you have nothing to worry about unless you have a heliocentric satellite floating around.


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

[User]
Do we act in accordance to what we think is rational or does is rational determined by our actions?

What kind of reading should I do to understand, do we act in accordance to what we think is ~~rational~~ meaningful or does is our values which ~~rational~~ determined by our actions?

Maybe I mean, values rather than rational.

[Assistant]
More of a cognitive/social psychology question. There's various famous theories addressing this, most prominently: cognitive dissonance, and self perception theory. Either way, they both came about to explain why behavior often determines attitudes, as demonstrated in many studies.

There's a bunch of criteria for predicting when behavior is more likely to determine behavior and visa versa by I've forgotten what they are.


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

[User]
[Futurama] Why was New New York built over Old New York instead of the old one just being demolished?

Wouldnt have it been cheaper and easier to bulldoze the old one instead build over it? To build over first you need some kind of platform over the entire old city or did the old city sink like old Seattle present day? Even it had sunk they still needed a big platform over it since it sunk so deep. Filling it in would have been easier.

[Assistant]
The way it works in NY is that if a developer wants to demolish a building, they have to get all the tenants out of the building first.  Usually, they'll buy them out for a generous offer, because most people are reasonable, but sometimes you'll get people who won't leave for anything, and set their asking price for millions or billions, so the developer has to pay their extortion fees, or wait for them to die.

Well, for New New York, the developers realized a third option. It was cheaper to build a big ass platform over their heads than buy them out. So there you go.


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

[User]
Why is argon used in sputtering PVD processes?

Last week during a lecture about PVD and sputtering my professor showed a graph of sputter yield for each atomic number, and it looked like the opposite of atomic radii for each atomic number, the yield goes up as you move to the right in the periodic table, and drops down when you move from a noble gas to an alkali metal. He said this graph explains it because argon has the highest yield, but it doesn't. Every noble gas below it in the periodic table has better yield (according to that graph).
My question is - why use argon? And what makes noble gases have the best yield for their row in the periodic table?

[Assistant] For the best momentum transfer you want the sputtering gas to have a similar mass to the target atoms so the ideal gas depends on what elements you're using - sometimes neon or krypton or whatever is more suitable. Argon is also the cheapest noble gas. Noble gases are good because they're chemically inert.


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

[User]
Is rotation (angular momentum) possible in two dimensions?

I learned about angular momentum in school, and how the vector representation of angular momentum points perpendicular to the plane of rotation, so if a disc rotates in the xy plane, the angular momentum vector associated with it would point in the z axis.

Does this mean that in a two dimensional universe, it's impossible for rotation to occur because there's no "room" for the angular momentum vector?

[Assistant]
In two dimensions, angular momentum is a scalar (strictly speaking, a pseudoscalar, just as in three dimensions, it's a pseudovector).

Really, in any number of dimensions, angular momentum is given by an n by n antisymmetric matrix.  In three dimensions, this has three independent components, and can be grouped into a (pseudo)vector; in two dimensions, this has one independent component, and can be written as a (pseudo)scalar.


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

[User] [Marvel]Many official heroes have seen Wilson Fisk act as the Kingpin. Whats stopping him from being charged?

[Assistant] Prosecutors won't bring charges based on testimony of masked vigilantes. Assuming that a prosecutor was ballsy enough to try, Kingpin's lawyers would fight them being added to the witness list. Because how do you prove that the person you have up on the stand testifying is the actual vigilante? That could be any guy in a suit or mask. Same as if they testified without the suit or mask. How do you prove that is the actual person and not just some random they got off the street?


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

[User]
ELI5: Why is my groin tan compared to the rest of my pale skin that never gets any sun?

Answered!

[Assistant]
Okay little Timmy. You asked about a big boy part of the body. That's fine. If you are ready to ask the question then you are  ready to hear an answer.

Remember how red a red balloon is when you first take it out of the package? Remember how it looks much lighter red after you blow it up? That's because the balloon is all squished together before it is inflated and the red seems darker.

Well, the skin on your boy bits are like that balloon. Squished together and they can be streched out where they would look as white as the rest of your skin.

Don't worry about the streching out part until you are older. Right now you are far too young and you could hurt yourself if you pull and strech too much. Later when you are a teenager yo will be able to understand this stuff better.

[***Wow! These 5 year olds are asking the tough ones these days!***]


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

[User] ELI5: What's the difference between the DOW, NASDAQ, and S&P?

[Assistant]
The Dow Jones Industrial Average is a stock index made up of 30 of the largest companies in the country- companies like Disney, Boeing, Visa, and Microsoft. Each stock has a certain weight based on what it needed to be to keep the index the same when they swapped the stock onto the index- (they keep changing up the stocks that make it up, and General Electric is the only one of the original stocks that's still on the index).

The Nasdaq composite is an index made up of all the stocks on the Nasdaq stock exchange (but not the ones on the New York Stock Exchange or any other exchange). Technology stocks make up a bigger portion of the Nasdaq than the NYSE, so technology is over-represented in the Nasdaq composite number.

The S&P 500 is made up of about 500 large companies, which together count for the vast majority of all stock trading. This index is probably more representative of the economy as a whole than the Nasdaq (which is too heavy on technology) or the Dow (which only covers 30 companies).


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

[User]
ELI5: How does an authenticator app work?

With the release of 2FA today, this is on everyone's minds.

[Assistant]
> How does an authenticator app work?

The idea behind an authentication app is to have an algorithm with two inputs: A static secret key and a publicly known, changing input. The output of this algorithm does not reveal what the secret key is from its output.

Both the server and the legitimate client have the secret key, and the publicly known input is typically something like the exact time of the requested login. When the login is requested both the server and the client run the algorithm with the agreed on public input and come out with an answer; if the client's answer matches that of the server then they can be sure the login is legitimate.

An observer who is up to no good would see that exchange but from the answer would have no way of determining the secret key. If they tried to log in later the time would be different so the old answer wouldn't work, and there is no way to predict what the new answer should be from the old answer. Every legitimate user would have their own secret key which makes the overall algorithm capable of being used for anyone.


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

[User]
[MCU] Why didn't Fury call Captain Marvel during the Chitauri invasion?

Seriously is the invasion of New York City with gigantic alien worms led by a literal god not considered an "emergency" to Fury? Did he have that much faith in the avengers that he didn't even bother sending a message? Or was it that Danvers just ignored the message because she was in the middle of something?

[Assistant]
- The Chitauri invasion was limited to New York and Fury had his own team by then. It was basically the first test, and they passed.

- While Fury has known that hostile aliens want the stones, Banner informed everyone of Thanos and his specific plan. It's safe to say that the team got in touch with Fury to let him know what was going on sometime up until the battle in Wakanda.

- When Fury saw people turning into dust he knew that it meant his team had been defeated. No other choice at that point but to send the signal.


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

[User] ELI5:What is the purpose of feeling embarrassed?

[Assistant]
There is no such thing as "purpose" behind biological features of humans or any other natural organism because we were not designed, only functions which such features perform and impact our rate of survival. Embarrassment is a feeling of discomfort which tends to cause us to seek the acceptance of the community and social group in which we reside.

This is very important to our survival because we are social creatures which are heavily reliant upon others in order to thrive. Being a social outcast would not only greatly reduce or remove the ability to reproduce successfully but would often actually result in the death of the individual.

Ultimately then embarrassment exists for the same reason pain exists, as a prod to avoid harmful and life-threatening behaviors.


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

[User]
How can the morality of an action be seperated from its consequences?

In a philosophy video I saw this quote from Kant (I appologise in advance if this is dumb question I'm new to philosophy):

>Because morality is not empirical, whether an act is moral or not cannot be determined by it's consequences -- rather it must be determined by the nature of the act itself.

If this is true, wouldn't the logical conclusion be that shooting someone could be a morally neutral action? If pulling a trigger is the action, wouldn't the action itself be judged in Kant's assertion regardless of whether or not the consequence is someone being shot?

[Assistant] Kant argued that morality of our action depends on our intentions. If our will is good then our action is good, despite of all possible consequences. This seems reasonable if you remember that our actions don't always brings results that we expect. For example, you are a royal healer who healed a daughter of a peasant out of goodness of your heart in a plagued village. Then to your shock you found that the villagers killed the girl because they suspected her to be the evil witch who caused the plague. And they suspected her because her health suddenly improved. Her parents told them about a kind royal healer, but they didn't believe. Would be her death your fault?


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

[User]
[Invincible] How is the technological discrepancy between the government and the world itself explained in fiction?

Let's take any comic book world, let's say the Invincible universe.

This world technolgically speaking is like our world, but there are self sufficient combat robots(Robot), incredibly fast and, from the looks of it, 100% error free cloning(Mauler twins), reanimen(made in a sewer), and the secret government agency lead by Cecil has hovering scout drones, a space laser, and hovering stretchers.
So my question is how all of these technologies even happen when there is basically 0 established infrastructure to make them and how can the world at large just stay behind, drive in polluting cars when even the fucking shadow government has flying stretchers.

[Assistant]
Not going to spoil, cause thats a plot point in invincible later.

But basically, the way cecil thinks is that the world is fine as it is.

Polluting land car are manageable.
If everybody had a flying car it would be chaos.

Every big scientific stuff is up to one single genius that uses it for his own goals (mauler twins) or is too dangerous to be given to general public (cecil)


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

[User]
Why are salaries in academia in the US so (comparatively) low?

US salaries are higher than those in other developed countries for most skilled professions across the board, but the same doesn't hold true for academia, where salaries are comparable to those of "poorer" countries such as Germany. Especially PHD students are treated like, well, garbage compared to places such as Western Europe, where they work far less (or, better said, far more reasonable hours) for far better compensations. And the career prospects don't seem that different as well - you might make a lot of money if you are a genius and end up in a top position in the US for sure, but for the average Joe entering into that path seems generally just as hard as it is in Europe. Given that US universities generally have more money than their European counterparts it's weird that their employees aren't paid better as well.

Why is that, in your opinion?

[Assistant]
Not a function of universities having money or not. Its a function of demand and supply. There are too many PhD candidates competing for a limited number of positions. Too many.

In Europe salaries are regulated by governments and laws. (Actually the entire high education system). In the US it is private.


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

[User]
[Ted] Why is no one else freaking out about Ted?

I was hanging with my dealer when that Ted guy walked in to buy some bud. I fucking couldn't believe my fucking eyes.
Why is no one else freaking out about this? There is literally an inanimate object walking about on its own with a personality. I mean does no one realize what this fucking means? What about all the philosophical or religious implications that come from this? Everybody just says, "It's just a fucking Teddy bear. Chill"

Why is no one taking this seriously???

[Assistant] Ted not only made national news when it was first discovered he could talk but he was appearing on many celebrity talk shows as well, so he got a lot of coverage. Even though people seemed to get bored with the 'talking teddy bear' thing pretty much everyone in the world knew about it.


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

[User]
Eli5: Why does an IV of fluids make you feel so much better than drinking the same amount of fluids?

I know it goes into your body faster but an IV seems to make me feel miraculously better even if I drink fluids and wait.

[Assistant]
Because the fluid is going straight into your blood and your blood isnt having to use excess energy & part of the digestive to get it there. Normally water is absorbed from the walls small intestine & then goes into the blood stream. Going from an IV is a super fast short cut.
Then your blood passes the renal system (kidneys) to process out toxins & excess liquid - the waste becomes urine.

Short cut.


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

[User] Does the Universe have a center of gravity?

[Assistant]
No.

There are two possibilities:

Space is flat and simply connected. This implies that it is in fact Euclidean space, and is infinite. Then you cannot average the position of masses in the Universe because the sum diverges. The mass distribution is uniform on very large scales, and this goes on forever.

Space is curved and/or not simply connected. This means that positions cannot be thought of as vectors and they cannot be summed, therefore they cannot be averaged.


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

[User]
[Harry Potter] How did Muggles in the Middle Ages react to the news that their child was a witch and was being offered an education at a far away castle named Hogwarts?

Hogwarts is about a 1,000 years old and humanity hasn't been kind to witchcraft for most of that.

[Assistant]
Likely in the height of Middle Ages and anti-magic hysteria, most muggleborns weren't invited to Hogwarts unless they and their families weren't a threat. What's the point of trying to teach a child that doesn't want to learn and that their parents don't want to give up?

That's in huge part why pure-blood supremacy was able to flourish. It was an accepted thing because for a long time much of the Wizarding World was mostly pureblood. It's only after the hysteria died down that the Wizarding World opened up again and muggleborns are more and more integrated into magical society.


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

[User]
[General superheroes] How do superheroes with long hair keep it out of their face while fighting and flying and swinging around?

A lot of them just wear a little domino mask and leave their long hair loose and flowing, and it sure looks cool, but as someone with long hair, let me tell you, it gets in your face just walking around.

[Assistant] A lot of heroes who can fly instinctively use that power on just their hair, making the hair move away from their faces. They don't realize they do it, and if you make them aware that they're using their powers on their hair they will all of a sudden become incredibly aware of it and then have a week where they just can't make it work right.


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

[User] How long after death does all electrical activity in the brain cease?

[Assistant]
Theres multiple definitions of death, and it actually varies by area. Most definitions look at cardiac death and brain death. Cardiac death is when there is no heart beat. Without blood flow delivering oxygen to the brain neural activity stops in minutes.

Brain death is defined by certain testing parameters such as an apnea challenge or by cerebral blood flow imaging. Brain death can occur even with a pumping heart and most legal definitions of death accept this. With brain death there may be some electrical activity but it is without organization or purpose. Most times there is some residual electrical activity until blood flow completely stops following cardiac arrest.


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

[User] ELI5: Why do I have to pay or jump through 1000 loops to get my credit report but cell phone and other companies can see it instantly?

[Assistant]
Your credit report itself is free to view once per year from each of the three credit reporting bureaus, Experian, TransUnion, and Equifax.  You can look at it by going to annualcreditreport.com and entering in your information.

The *number* used to report your credit score, the FICO score, is proprietary information and it is calculated differently by each of the bureaus.  Companies that regularly check credit usually have subscriptions to these services, which they have paid in advance and allows them to pull your information quickly, rather than having to "jump through 1000 hoops".


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

[User] [General] I've just killed the most successful version of myself in the multiverse and taken over their life to reap the rewards. What can I do to protect myself from the other versions of myself who might have the same idea?

[Assistant]
First, shore up whatever vulnerability you exploited to cap your doppelganger.

Then check your basement for other corpses of yourself - you may not be the first one who's done this.  Do some basic forensic sleuthing and see if there are common causes of death.  You all may come up with very similar plans.  Then plan contingencies to prevent those methods.


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

[User] [Star Wars] I am a self taught Jedi I trained by reading and studying old Jedi books and Holocrons and even built my own lightsaber, how powerful am I?

[Assistant] Really just depends. Your natural force aptitude, your studies, what you had access to, how disciplined your mind and body are, etc. With the given info you could in theory be extremely powerful or a youngling level.


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

[User] [Night Vale] What exactly do the street cleaners do, and why should everyone be so afraid of them?

[Assistant]
They clean the streets, obviously.

Any street gets dirty. There's still a lot of cleaning to do after the last bout of WORMS, the telephone poles are still littered with fliers from the last Mayoral election, and due to the inexorable breakdown of societal norms, litter is sadly quite common.

And of course there are all the people. The terrible people with their awful flesh and hateful sentience, with their stink and their sweat and their heat, performing their monotonous jobs so that they can ooze to some club and perform their awkward mating rituals. The filth of humanity is everywhere, seeping into every crack and crevice, permeating the very fabric of this world, swarming over the city like a bacterial infection, like the spores of some poisonous mushroom. The people, the *people*, so many many people, they must be found and they must be punished and Night Vale *must be cleansed* of the contamination of the **people**.

Also, they live in the desert. Sand and dirt and dust are going to be blowing in all the time, and that needs to be swept up.


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

[User]
If a wave is cancelled out by another wave (destructive interference), where did the energy go?

This question sprouted from trying to explain how noise-cancelling headphones work, but I also wonder about other waves. If two laser beams in a vacuum come out of a semi-transparent mirror, one half-wavelength apart, would only darkness emerge? But, energy cannot be destroyed. Where did it go?

[Assistant] Whenever you have destructive interference in one place, you have constructive interference somewhere else, and that somewhere else is where the energy goes. In your example of the half-silvered mirror, if they're one half-wavelength apart on one side then they'll be in phase on the other side.


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

[User]
ELI5 Why does the body reject transplanted organs?

What is it about a transplanted organ that tells the body it's foreign and doesn't belong?

[Assistant] Every cell in your body is covered with "Human leukocyte antigens" which is a crazy random protein that is different for basically everyone alive.  The immune system looks for all sorts of things, but if it finds cells and they don't have the right HLA then it defaults to "kill this thing".


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

[User]
[Star Wars Rebels] Why are the stormtroopers so staggeringly incompetent?

They can't seem to hit a target from twenty feet even with superior fire support. How does the military let such grossly incompetent soldiers into service?

[Assistant] They're on a backwater planet in the outer rim. You're not dealing with crack troops. Still, they're not that terrible. Every blaster bolt deflected by a lightsaber is one that could have potentially done some damage. They don't bother to deflect the one's that aren't.


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

[User] Since the sun is eight light-seconds away, is all sunlight seen on earth simply what that sunlight looked like eight seconds ago?

[Assistant]
Yes, although it's actually 8 minutes, not 8 seconds.

This is a very important fact idea in astronomical research, because it means that the more distant the objects we look at, the farther back in time we are looking.  Since things like galaxies evolve on timescales much longer than a human lifetime (longer even than humans have existed!), it's impossible to watch any single object change through its lifetime.  Instead, we can look at more distant, similar objects, and compare them to the nearby ones to see how things have changed over time.


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

[User] ELI5: Why is the majority of the human microbiome in the gut and not anywhere else in the body?

[Assistant] Think of it this way.your gut is actually outside your body. From your mouth to your butthole is outside. All the rest is inside.which is protected by your immune system. If the bacteria in your gut got loose in your bloodstream youd be very sick and your immune system would jump into action and try to kill them.


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

[User]
[MCU- Iron Man] How effective was Happy Hogan as a body guard in his prime?

I saw something in the news awhile ago about how Iron Mans body guard was in the hospital after getting blown up. I know he probably gets a lot shit for being a body guard for a super hero, but to rise to the position of Tony Stark's personal body guard he has to be a badass, right? Is he ex-military? what kinds of training would he need to even be considered for the job?

(side note: I would love to see a Marvel one-shot set 10 years before Iron Man showing Happy being badass while younger Tony stumbles around drunk)

[Assistant]
Quite effective, for a time. The responsibilities of being personal body guard to the likes of Tony Stark require a unique combination of basic martial arts skills, military or law enforcement training, and defensive training like reading a room... but they also require a great deal of patience and a soft spot for Tony, which were Happy's biggest assets. Lumbering behemoths that can throw down are a dime a dozen, but most of them would go insane working for an egocentric playboy who also happens to be a genius. Tony has a very big personality, and it takes a particular type to work with that.

Happy's not just a badass, he's the right badass for Tony.


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

[User] ELI5: why is it so hard to find a cure for cancer despite the money that has been poured into cancer research?

[Assistant]
Because there are many, many cancers. Saying 'a cure for cancer' is about as reasonable as saying 'a cure for physical injury'. There are as many different kinds of cancer as there are ways and places that a person could be cut, bruised, broken or burned.

The research, tests and trials are constantly discovering, testing, and bringing into full production treatments for different cancers. As a result, the outcomes for people are getting better all the time. Some cancers that were a death sentence just a few years ago are now routinely cured, and as we gain deeper insights into the genetic causes, this can only get better. But it will always be an area where more research will be needed, as there will always be less common cancers that need new treatments, or more common cancers that could have better treatments.


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

[User]
(Star Trek) Why can't the shields be automated?

If the sensors can tell wether or bot the enemy has weapons online and can track wear they are aiming. Why cant the computer shift the shields wherever needed?

[Assistant]
A lot more than that could be automated on a starship. But Starfleet and the Federation value humanoid insight, intuition, and judgement. If every time a starship encountered a new situation or a new species it automatically raised shields, this might be interpreted as intention to engage in battle by whoever or whatever they are encountering.

Also, shields deploy extremely quickly, and the standard command, "shields up!" can be given very quickly also. All in all, it is better to let such a decision to the ship's commander than to have a computer do it without full appreciation of the circumstances.


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

[User] Is there really any difference between the seemingly infinite amounts of brands of shampoo, conditioner, soap, toothpaste, etc., or do they basically all do the same thing?

[Assistant]
When you break the ingredients used down to their actual sources the answer is a lot more clear. No, there isn't really much difference, chemically speaking, between Crest and Colgate or Tresemme and Pantene.

 While the source ingredient and overall content of the product is very similar ,the 2% that they change can have a very large effect on how it works or tastes.

An easy analogue for this is cheese. Nearly all cheese comes from the same source, milk. If you break down the chemical composition it is largely the same from any kind of cheese... but does it taste different? Yes, very much so.


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

[User] [Star Wars] What is the symbolism behind the eight-spoked cog emblem of the Galactic Republic?

[Assistant] In Legends it's was a variation on an ancient symbol of the Force. Canonically, it appears to be of more recent advent, along with the reborn Galactic Republic after the war with the Sith. I'd guess it symbolizes rebuilding, trade, and unity.


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

[User] ELI5: How does the gun controller for Duck Hunt on NES work?

[Assistant]
Everyone is missing an important point about this so I'll explain how it actually worked.

When you press the trigger, the screen goes black. The *entire* screen, for one frame (technically, one interlaced field).

*Then*, on the next frame (field, technically)  the target goes white.

If there are multiple targets, only the first is replaced by a white box on the first frame; then on the next frame the second target is highlighted and so on.

Then the screen goes black again for a frame and then it returns to the normal display.

This all happens in a fraction of a second so it looks like it's all one frame. It is not.

The reason it is done this way is to prevent cheating. If you held the gun towards a light source you would always register a hit, if not for the initial black screen. The gun must detect a switch between black and white in the narrow window of time it's supposed to work. This prevents cheating by pointing at light sources.


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

[User]
[Children of the Corn] Where was the US government during the incident?

So apparently these children were sacrificing adults for years, and yet the US government didn't show up when whoever went into that town suspiciously disappeared.

It's not like those roads and public services weren't publicly funded, and I'm pretty sure that the adults in the town paid  taxes before they were killed, so if an entire town suddenly stops paying taxes, do you think the IRS aren't going to come looking?

Even if the IRS sends people to see what's happening and they end up being killed, that would warrant an investigation and possible police involvement.

So, what's up? I reckon if a number of years have passed and everybody in a town has disappeared, I'd have sent people to investigate very early on.

[Assistant]
Well, Gatlin, Nebraska is a very small isolated town. It's not even a town you drive through. Back in the 1970s and 80s, it was probably a lot easier to get away with things when you're that isolated.

It's also kind of unclear how much influence the entity "He Who Walks Behind the Rows" had over the town and the surrounding area. Maybe they left the old mechanic alive to pay the bills? Hell, maybe He Who Rows was the one writing all the checks and paying the bills.


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

[User] ELI5 why does insulin sensitivity make people fat and why is too much sugar in blood bad?

[Assistant]
Insulin sensitivity is good, insensitivity or resistance is bad. Insulin lets glucose into cells so that they can use it for energy. Without it, cells cannot make energy and thats obviously not good

Insulin resistance doesnt make people fat, becoming fat makes you insulin resistant. Its called metabolic syndrome and it can lead to things like high cholesterol, triglycerides and diabetes.

Sugar in blood is bad because it can damage the blood vessels. This can lead to kidney failure (binds to blood vessels in kidneys) or the eye (blood vessels in the eye) and overall reduces the integrity of the blood vessel to cause things like heart attacks and strokes. It can also damage nerves and cause numbness in the feet.


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

[User] ELI5: what difference does it make to buy 9.5% share of twitter? IIRC you need 50% BOD onboard to pass a decision and 75% for special cases. is 9.5% that big of a deal?

[Assistant]
It doesnt matter if the other 90.5% all agrees on stuf, which usually isnt the case.

Lets say the shareholders are divided into factions of 45% each.

The 9,5% then gives you the power to swing votes into your favor.

Of course this isn't the case for all votes. Not everybody votes with the same "faction" every time.

But 9,5% is quite a significant part of the vote and in issues where the majority is divided, it can easily decide the outcome.


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

[User] ELI5: How can a universe that started off at a finite size and has expanded at a finite rate for a finite amount of time be infinite?

[Assistant]
The universe did not start off at a finite size.

You know about the "number line?" It's a way of illustrating numbers and how they relate to each other. Starts at zero, then one, then two, and so on, all laid out in a line. To the left of the zero, you have minus one, minus two and so on.

The number line is infinite. It has no limits. You can start at one point on the number line and move in either direction forever, never reaching a boundary nor arriving back where you started. It's *infinite.*

Because the number line is made up of numbers, we can easily establish the concept of distance on the number line. It's just subtraction. What's the distance between *this point* on the number line and *that point* on the number line? It's the numerical difference between the numbers associated with each point. If the first point is five and the second point is two, the distance between them is 52, or 3. Easy.

But because the number line is made of numbers, we can also imagine *doing things* to it, mathematically. Like doubling it. We can easily imagine multiplying every point on the number line by two. So five becomes ten, and two becomes four. The distance between those points then is 104, or 6.

The number line was infinite before we doubled it, and it was infinite after we doubled it, but doubling it caused all the distances on the number line all the *intervals,* we'd say to get bigger.

That's how the metric expansion of the universe works. It's an infinite manifold  without boundary or limit in any dimension  in which all distances are a function of time. To say the metric expands means that over time, all distances get bigger. But this has no impact on whether or not the universe is infinite, any more than doubling the number line changes the fact that it's infinite.


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

[User]
[TF2] What's the Canon explanation for why the Spy (and his team) can't travel through enemies and their buildings while they can?

Ask if you need me to reword. Idk if that's clear.

[Assistant]
Presumably, the friendly spy knows the passwords and vernacular - he knows what to say to you to get you to move over just a bit so he can slip past, and he knows the ins and outs of the machinery so he can get by without nudging it. The enemy spy doesn't, however.

It's like meeting a tourist head-on on the sidewalk - you steer to the right, because you're a fucking human being who's been living here for decades, and they swerve left, because that's what their country does, or because they're just a fucking idiot visiting from a fly-over state, and now you're dancing face-to-face, and then you give him a blast from your backburner and he runs off and you finish him off because he's a fuckin' noob.


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

[User] [MCU/LoTR] Let's assume the One Ring persisted to present day. Would it be considered a powerful artefact comparable to an Infinity Stone or would it be relegated to being just a minor curiosity at best?

[Assistant]
That's not how the ring works. Only a few select beings could fully unlock the potential of the ring, them being the divine and perhaps the most ancient of High Elves.

The ring only uses mortals as a vehicle to reunite with its owner. It kept to Gollum to keep it safe for when the time was right, it latched onto Bilbo to escape into the world once more, and lastly it went to Frodo to get him into Mordor where Sauron awaited. The Ring answers to might alone, and few are mightier the Sauron.


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

[User]
How does spatial expansion cause photons to "lose" energy i.e. redshift?

My naive understanding:
A photon is a an excitation in the EM field. So when space expands all its consituent fields expand, and this causes an excitation to be diffused over a larger area of the field. Ergo the wavelength is longer. But wavelength defines a photon's energy, so where did that energy go? Doesn't that violate the conservation of energy?

Why doesn't that cause electrons to redshift (or does it?), what about if the electron is trapped orbiting an atom - wouldn't it lose energy from the expansion of space?

[Assistant]
Conservation of energy doesn't apply because the redshift is relative to a reference frame where you and the source are at rest, and energy doesn't need to be conserved between different reference frames.

The energy of a redshifted or blueshifted photon depends on how you make the measurement so you can't really compare them and say energy is lost or gained.


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

[User]
ELI5: Is there anything the US government can do about companies moving their wealth offshore to avoid taxes?

I hear stories about companies like Google doing this all the time. Is there anything the US government can do to prevent this from happening, or is it a lost cause?

[Assistant]
Yes, but exactly what to do about it has been a consistent debate for very very long time in business and in government, and in the end, not that much has happened to be too impactfull.  There's even a debate about whether these companies really want to bring some or all of their cash back to the US or if they may prefer to hold it overseas instead.

 Its also not just a US thing either of course, plenty of countries have issues with large companies doing complicated multi-national ventures in order to manipulate their regulations and tax burdens.


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

[User]
[Adventure Time] Were the bombs from the Mushroom War literally standard nukes, with their effects simply working differently in this universe like an even more outlandish Fallout, or were they made with other magical properties?

Also, just how many bombs were there? If I'm not mistaken, don't the episodes with an alternate timeline seemingly imply that there was just *one* big bomb, but other episodes indicate an ongoing conflict that couldn't have been defined by a single detonation?

[Assistant]
We know the world had been magical in the long past but only the elementals were left around by the time the war happened (possibly also the vampire lords).

 We do know that magical artifacts never went away and are buried deep in the earth as that's how simon found the crown.

The bomb dropped seemed to be nuclear in direct effect but the explosion had magical visuals as well as the standard mushroom cloud.

Long term it had massive mutation effects and also imbued things with magic bringing about a new age of magic and bizzare creatures.

There are many nuclear wastlands and craters so either the war was raging before the mushroom bomb or continued for some time after.  The implication from marceline and the ice kings history is that the bomb was a sudden event.
____________________________________________
So, unless one of the elementals was involved in it's construction, the bomb was probably just a huge nuclear device. When it split the ground it may have disturbed some long buried magical objects causing magical and nuclear fallout.
The magic fallout may have kept things alive through the effects of raditation poisoning leading to weird genetic abominations instead of them just dying to create a madmax or even the weirder Fallout type wasteland.

This didn't end the war immediatly and the whole world was messed up pretty badly (but nowhere as bad as the mushroom bomb site). This left lots of hotspots for the creation of magical mutants and humanity in no position to prevent them becoming the dominant intelligence in the world .


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

[User] ELI5: Why does depth matter in regards to water resistance on cell phones? The new iPhone is rated for up to 6 meters for 30 minutes. Why is 6 meters ok when anything deeper isnt? Does pressure matter that close to the surface?

[Assistant]
You answered your question already: pressure.

Small slits and sealings fail at certain pressure.
Pressure increases rapidly under water. Starting from the surface, pressure increases by 1 atm (100 kPa) every 10m.

1 atm at surface level

2 atm at -10m

3 atm at -20m

and so on.


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

[User]
ELI5: What makes a Race car driver "good" at racing?

I'm assuming that most people in a given race have roughly similar cars... At least in the large professional races.  What is it about the "stars" of racing that makes them win more often than other drivers?  What sorts of "strategies" do they use to win more often?

[Assistant]
Top tier race driver needs to have great mix of skills that include
1. driving skill - being smooth with the car, knowing the limits, being able to feel the car, to sense the optimum line, react instantly to the unexpected. The smoothness is the reason why fast drivers look like they are driving slowly, but it is needed to maximize traction, thus speed.
2. Balance of aggressiveness and cool headedness. The driver needs to be aggressive enough to eg. commit for overtaking manoeuvres, resist other drivers' pressure, but at the same time, "to finish first, first you need to finish".
3. technical competence. They say that the edge Michael Schumacher had over his competitors in his golden days was that he understood the car well and could help with proper set-up. For not the jet-setter levels of drivers it is even more important, they often need to help with the car themselves
(4. Sponsors and networking. To break into the top level of drivers (ie. F1, GT2 etc.) you need to have serious money behind you.
5. physical fitness and low weight. Lot of the events are physically demanding, require several hours of exercise and concentration. In some of the disciplines the driver's weight is substantial part of the total vehicle weight. having 10kg less can mean 10ths of a second on a lap)


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

[User] eli5 Why do trucks and busses do the tsshhh thing when they stop?

[Assistant]
As others have said, large vehicles such as busses use compressed air to apply pressure to the braking pads that stop the vehicle. However this doesn't quite explain the hiss on stopping because if the brakes are on while stopped then surely they want to *keep* air pressure, not release it right?

The reason this happens is because there are actually two braking systems at work, the usual driving system that uses air to apply braking pressure and the parking brakes which apply pressure with springs. While driving normally the parking brakes are held open with air pressure, but if for some reason pressure was to drop below a critical point the parking brakes could close under spring pressure.

It is an automatic safety feature just in case the vehicle brakes fail, but this also is how the parking brakes are normally applied. Normal procedure is to apply the parking brakes at every pickup, and to do this the pressure in the lines between the storage tank and brakes must be released. The hiss you hear is that happening as the parking brakes are applied.


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

[User]
If we manage to confine air in a space with no perturbation (wind, sudden temperature changes, etc), will the heavier molecules sink to the bottom?

Just wondering. Also, if brownian motion keeps the system homogeneous, would a decrease in the temperature of the system decrease it enough to achieve a seperation of gases?

Not sure if it's an adequate question. Couldn't find much online (or maybe I suck at looking it up).

[Assistant]
A gas in a uniform gravitational field and uniform temperature will have a density profile proportional to exp[-mgz/kT], where m is the molecular mass of the gas, g is the gravitational field strength, z is the altitude, k is Boltzmann's constant, and T is the absolute temperature.

mgz is typically small compared to kT, so the gas is approximately uniform (for example, in your room). However for very large systems, like the atmosphere, it's important. The density of the air that makes up the atmosphere of the Earth is obviously not the same at different altitudes.


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

[User] [Marvel] Dr. Doom is evil but he creates positive results for his country. So is Dr. Doom ruling Latveria good or bad?

[Assistant]
There was a time when Doom was...gone. Dead, disappeared, it didn't matter. The Fantastic Four were in the country, swept into the power vacuum. A seemingly idyllic European microstate.

Until Mister Fantastic revealed that one of the "houses" was the execution chamber...and consisted of a bloody block and an axe.

The thing about Doom being a despot, he holds the power of life and death over everyone in Latveria. He truly cares for the people, but he does not tolerate crime or rebellion. To live in Latveria is to surrender to the will of Doom in all things - and the only blessing they have is that Doom is largely a benevolent tyrant. But for those who fall out of line... there is the axe.

And there is no democracy, no freedom or rights save what Doom allows. His spies and machines watch everything, all the time. The people of Latveria live their lives with the sure knowledge of that. They have no choice in the matter. No escape.


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

[User] [LOTR] Would Sauron die if you'd drop an atom bomb on Mordor?

[Assistant] His body would be destroyed, but Sauron is a Maiar, he's the same type of being as Gandalf and Durin's Bane (the Moria Balrog,) but a much higher class of that being.  He is totally immortal, so while destroying his body and his fortresses and orcs would buy you a substantial amount of time, he would eventually retake physical form and rebuild his fortresses and orcs.  Barad-dur as well would be rebuilt every time you destroyed it, no matter how thoroughly, since Sauron poured his power into its foundations, so while you can destroy its exterior with a nuke, its foundations are indestructible until you destroy the One Ring or Sauron's soul itself.


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

[User]
In guitar amplifiers, why are the "Presence" and "Resonance" controls on the power amp and the rest of the EQ controls (Bass, Mid, Treble) on the preamp?

I've owned quite a few guitar amps in my day, but I've never really understood why the "super high" and "super low" frequencies are always adjusted via knobs on the power amp and not on the preamp with the rest of the EQ controls.

[Assistant]
The tone controls aren't really "on" the preamp. The tonestack is a separate stage, *in between* the preamp and the phase splitter (input to the push/pull power amp).

The "presence" control is (usually) negative feedback from the transformer to the phase splitter, with an RC filter in the feedback path. It was done to increase the linearity of the power amp stage, the filter is there to prevent oscillation but also rolls off the high end. The original designers could either pick a cutoff frequency for that filter to hardwire and that would just be the tone of the power amp, or they could allow the user to adjust it with a pot. In the latter case, you get your "presence" control.

I've never looked too deeply at an amp with a "resonance" control though, if you list the name of some models someone can give you a circuit analysis.


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

[User]
[The Addams Family] Why are Pugsley and Wednesday still alive?

Apparently these two keep playing games killing each other. The documentary shows Wednesday playing the game "Is there a God?" with Pugsley, and zaps him senseless in an electric chair.  Morticia watches and doesn't seem concerned in the slightest.  At other times they chase each other with knives, cleavers, swords, etc. and no one seems to care.  How are these kids still alive?

[Assistant] An Addams can't kill another Addams. It's the curse. They can die, yes. But if you go to their cemetery plot, you'll notice they were all killed by other non-family members. (It's also why they weren't scared in the least by Uncle Fester's wife trying to kill them all, since she was part of the family she then had the curse and couldn't kill them.)


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

[User]
ELI5: What happens to cause the delay when I hear someone but don't understand, then say "what?", but before they answer/repeat themselves I realize what they said from the first time around?

It happens to me from time to time - that part in a conversation where you hear someone but I feel like I didn't hear them or understand what they said.  Then you say "What?" indicating for them to repeat themselves, but before they say anything you realize what they said.  I'm curious what causes that second or two delay in hearing someone and understanding them sometimes.  Is it just our brains deciphering context or something?  Or maybe something not working 100% right?  Thanks ever so much.

[Assistant]
Your brain does lots of things in parallel. So one part of your brain didn't catch or understand what was said and triggered you to say 'What?'. But another part of your brain was still working on it, and that part delivered the results, a half-second too late.

Quite often, as you are listening, you don't catch the order of the words. From the start of the sentence, you are expecting one thing, but the end of the sentence goes elsewhere. Your brain needs a moment to reconsider the sentence from the beginning.

It's nothing wrong - indeed, it is your brain working correctly. It happens to everyone - almost every time one of your friends asks you, 'What?'. If they are a good friend, wait half a second, and ask them if they really need you to repeat themselves. You'll probably be surprised!


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

[User]
Do Superheros get payed for the bounties on the criminals they bring in?

For example.

Say Spiderman captured the number 8 guy on the FBI's top ten list and turns him over to the authorities, there's a million dollar bounty for the guy.

Do they cut Spidey a cheque?

[Assistant] Considering Spider-Man is a vigilante they would probably use that as a reason not to shell out the bucks. Also, what would Peter Parker do with it? Sounds like it's a good way to get caught for tax evasion. Peter (and most other super heroes for that matter) gets satisfaction from helping people, not from any possible reward he might receive.


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

[User]
ELI5: How does adrenaline work so instantly?

Adrenaline, the fight or flight hormone, works in a matter of milliseconds. But being a gland which releases its hormones into the bloodstream, how does it work so fast? I think that blood circulation speed is much slower relatively.

[Assistant]
Adrenaline works very quickly, but the initial response is actually due to your SNS! The SNS is the sympathetic nervous system.

Basically there is a part of your brain called the amygdala. The amygdala controls responses to distress, feelings of fear, anger, etc. There is another part of your brain called the hypothalamus that controls your bodies homeostastis(keeping your body temp, breathing rate, etc. normal) Once your amygdala recognizes a threat, It signals distress to the hypothalamus which in turn signals for the neurons in your SNS to fire.

The SNS controls your fight/flight response and sends signals to your adrenal glands(the glands that produce adrenaline) to release it, but initially sends signals to the entirety of your body to increase heart rate, widening the bronchial passages(pockets of air in your lungs to increase efficiency of breathing), etc.

The cause of this is that the SNS is connected to a network of neurons that release noradrenaline, which is technically a neurotransmitter and a hormone, but when it is released from the SNS It acts more like a neurotransmitter, kind of like a drug, hence the immediate response.

Your hypothalamus and amgydala respond to the threat and signal these reactions even faster than your brain is even able to visually comprehend what is happening, which is why if you put your hand on a hot stove for example, youll pull away before you even feel the burn initially, or youll jump back before oncoming traffic is about to hit you.

The SNS is then kind of like a gas pedal, and if the gas pedal is still being pressed down, your hypothalamus will then send signals for your adrenal glands to release noradrenaline and adrenaline through your bloodstream. The adrenal glands are sitting right on top of the kidneys which is the organ where blood flow is most prevalent, and by 3 main arteries, where it quickly travels throughout your body and maintains your stress alert phase for longer. If this gas pedal is let go though, your PNS or parasympathetic nervous system will be activated by your brain through neuron firings and you will calm down, as it will signal for a release of neurotransmitters that will calm you down.

A little abridged towards the end but hope it makes more sense OP! feel free to correct me if im wrong about anything.


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

[User] ELI5: Why are the different bloodtypes: "A", "B", or "O". Why aren't they "A", "B", or "C"?

[Assistant] "A" and "B" are just arbitrary letters. "O" was chosen cause it looks like a zero and represents the absence of A or B antigens on the red blood cells. Members of the AB group, unsurprisingly, have both A and B antigens on their blood cells.


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

[User]
CMV: No matter what you eat, you cannot make your body into an "alkaline state".

I have a couple friends who consistently try to convince me that disease is impossible in an alkaline environment. They tell me of all the food I should eat which is "alkaline forming" in the body. My moderate education in biology tells me that if you do change the ph of you body - you will die. Who among you has any credible evidence in this "alkaline diet" stuff. It just doesn't make any sense to me.

As a preemptive statement: please don't include links to websites that solely peddle alkaline diet information. I'm not looking for unbiased sources, as they don't exists, but sources that do not have the "alkaline diet" as their main shtick.

[Assistant]
Eating alkaline food or supplements (like antacid/tums tabs) will mostly change the pH of your stomach. So yes, it will have 'some' effect on you body. Beyond your stomach, it won't change much. You can always define 'alkaline state' as increasing the pH in your stomach. Note that increasing the pH in your stomach might make your body more vulnerable to infections as a less acidic environment might allow for mere bacteria and viruses to survive ingestion.

Edit: corrected one of the two 'increasing' (was 'decreasing' before)


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

[User]
CMV: Washing dirty dishes with a sponge without a preemptive cleaning is gross as shit

Let's say you got that big ol' spaghetti sauce pot ready to get cleaned, and it's still rimmed with that beautiful hardened crimson juice. Now you let that bad boy sit in soapy water for a minute to soften everything up, so far so good, but then why would you just dip a sponge in that disgusting spaghetti water, scrub it, rinse the sponge and call it a day? Now you're just left with a smelly spaghetti stained sponge. What I suggest is this: you should scrub it first with a scrub brush (or anything that does not suck up everything, it could be your fingers for all I care) to get most of it clean and then finish off with the trusty sponge, make that pot all nice and pretty. Now I've heard some people say shit like: "well, I can use a sponge or a scrub brush, what's the difference"? WHAT? Do you not understand material matter? Would you be fine eating on a cloth plate and just rinse it off afterwards? A scrub brush does not consume everything it touches, hence it makes way more sense to scrub the nasty out with this first!

Thanks, looking forward to your comments!

[Assistant]
the point of soap is to stop things from sticking together so that they are easier to wash away with water

the point of a sponge is to use friction to unstick things that are stuck.

anything that transfers from gross sponge to plate should be easy to rinse away.

your scrubbing implement need not be clean, as its purpose, like soap, is merely to unstick.  the water is what is meant to carry away the unstuck grossness.

if you are further concerned about bacteria, you can disinfect after scrubbing, with diluted vinegar or other disinfectant, then rinse again.  but scrubbing implements are not meant for disinfecting.


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

[User]
ELI5; why can't we, instead of charging batteries, use them in reverse?

So forgive my ignorance, as I'm sure if this was possible it would've been done LOONG ago, but to my knowledge a li-po/li-ion (or really any) battery works by taking a positively charged material (cathode) and negatively charged material (anode), separating them with an electrolyte, and equalizing the charge through the circuit and ions through the electrolyte.

So if we charge li-ion batteries to effectively redraw the ions into the cathode, why couldn't we essentially just discharge the battery in the opposite direction and "flip" the anode/cathode to continue to output energy until the electrolyte shunts and prevents flow completely?

I feel like, if this was possible, a lot of devices (with the aid of a controller board) could benefit from li-ion/li-po's power capabilities while allowing for an alkaline battery - like experience of changing the whole thing once the entire overall lifespan of the battery is exhausted.

TL;DR: Why can't we flip a li-ions polarity to continue to use it after it's dead instead of charging it?

[Assistant] You said it yourself, by "equalizing the charge" we are making both the anode and the cathode have the same potential, the voltage potential across a fully discharged battery is zero and would still be zero after "flipping" the leads. Your post reads like the design for a perpetual motion machine.


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

[User] CMV: The ancient Egyptians were not black, and the modern Egyptian people are the direct descendants of the ancient Egyptian peoples.

[Assistant]
Whatever the original Egyptian peoples were, Egypt has been invaded a *ton* - Canaanites, Libyans, Nubians, Assyrians, Kushites, Persians, Greeks, Romans, Arabs... Even Celts.

Whatever the Egyptian people were, what they are now is some mix of all of the above.