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

[User] What happens that makes us want to turn up the volume higher when we are enjoying music?

[Assistant] The music makes us feel a certain emotion and chemicals in our brain make us want to experience more of that sensory thing. Just as you prefer flavorful food over bland food, so too does the adrenaline or dopamine or other chemicals in our brain make us want to overwhelm our ears.


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

[User] [DC Comics] If kryptonians and humans are so genetically different, why was Jon Kent able to be born? Is Jon Kent infertile bexause hes a mix of different species? Or are humans and kryptonians similar enough to have children?

[Assistant]
Unlikely isnt the same as impossible. As unlikely as it is for two different species from different planets to be able to mate with each other, the fact that it did happened means that we have to accept it as possible.

Since Jon is often shown having descendants in Future timelines, they must be interfertile.


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

[User] ELI5: Do Map apps add stop signs and red lights into travel time? If so how?

[Assistant] For each segment, the road between two places you could turn, there is an "average travel time".  This ATT parameter includes the time spent at a stop sign and the average time spent at a traffic signal (it's plus 0 if the light is green and x if you have to slow down, wait, and go again).  When their is traffic, a "traffic penalty time" is added to ATT.  Minimization of ATT is the benefit function used to select a route.


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

[User] [Fullmetal Alchemist] If someone stabbed Scar in the arm, would the resulting gash and later scar tissue be enough of a disruption in the alchemical symbols to make it unusable?

[Assistant] Yes, something similar happens to Kimblee (he had *two* tattoos just in case). However, that would require you to get into melee range, which is the most insanely dangerous place to be when fighting him.


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

[User] ELI5: Why can cows and other animals constantly produce milk but humans cannot?

[Assistant] All female mammals only produce milk after being pregnant. If you're thinking of dairy cows, they "constantly" produce milk because they are constantly being inseminated, going through pregnancy, giving birth, then having their babies taken away (and killed if male), and being artificially milked for human consumption. Then the cycle repeats until they aren't seen as being productive anymore, then they're killed. The same thing *could* be done to human women, but it would break a whole bunch of different laws (plus, you know, ethics) ....


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

[User]
CMV: climate protesters do more harm than good by blocking traffic

I would understand if they were bringing attention to a heinous issue that few people actually know about but literally every knows about climate change.

I really do not understand the thinking behind the numerous Extinction Rebellion protests around the world that involve blocking traffic and shutting down busy city streets. It seems like overall it would turn people against them and create resentment and disdain for all environmental protests. How does making people late for work help the climate?

100 companies cause 70% of emissions. The problem is caused by a very small handful of powerful people. Shouldnt XR be pressuring people who actually have the power to change things rather than fucking with random people?

[Assistant]
> 100 companies cause 70% of emissions. The problem is caused by a very small handful of powerful people.

Those 100 companies are fossil fuel companies. If you got rid of those 100 companies and we all didnt stop using fossil fuels, 100 more companies will pop up in their place.

If you buy *anything* instead of making it yourself, put fuel in your car or use electricity from the power grid - then youre a customer of these 100 companies.


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

[User]
ELI5: why is nuclear power not used for space travel/ space ships

Obviously you would still need fuel for the inital launch, but after that why not use nuclear for propulsion through space?

[Assistant]
Radiothermal generators are commonly used in spacecraft because it turns out that a big chunk of plutonium is a very reliable way to generate power long term.

Nuclear fission isn't used simply because it doesn't scale well. A tiny nuclear reactor isn't really a thing. Even the small ones are pretty big, and ridiculously heavy. Big and heavy just isn't a good combination when you're talking about spacecraft that cost hundreds of thousands of Dollars per pound to launch.


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

[User]
What causes pruney fingers?

Whenever I go swimming, my fingers looks wrinkly after. What causes this? Is it pool water hypotonic, causing my fingers to absorb water or hypertonic, causing them to lose water.

My scence teacher insists that the pool water is hypotonic and that my fingers take on water, but wouldn't that make them look bulbous and not shriveled?

[Assistant] Two portions of your skin, the epidermis and dermis, are tied down to one another in certain areas. As you spend a lot of time in the pool, your skin absorbs water and expands. However, since the two layers are connected, your skin has nowhere to go, so it wrinkles. Once you're out of the pool, the water in your skin eventually evaporates and it returns to normal.


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

[User] [LOTR] How did the dwarves thrive as a people after the one ring was destroyed?

[Assistant]
Very well, thank you. The 7 had been either lost in dragonfire or gathered by Sauron, so unlike the Elves, none of the great Dwarven kingdoms suffered any direct consequences due to the destruction of the One.

After Din II Ironfoot was killed in the early stages of the Siege of Erebor during the War of the Ring, the Dwarves of Erebor were led to victory by his son, Thorin III Stonehelm. Thorin III had a descendant, Durin VII, also known as Durin the Last, who was held to be the last of the line of Durin. Durin VII led the Dwarves back to Khazad-dm several centuries into the Fourth Age; with Durin's Bane defeated by Gandalf, they were able to reclaim Khazad-dm. There they remained for a long, long time.


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

[User]
How do slide rules use logarithms to perform calculations?

I went about making a very basic slide rule with two strips of card stock and how it multiplied decimals wowed me. I know that they can also be used to divide, square/cube (root) and many other functions all based off the log system, but what exactly is it about logs that makes it so? Also, what is an anti-log and what does it mean to take an anti-log?

[Assistant]
The key property of logs that you need to know is this:

log(a)+log(b)=log(ab)

So if you take the sliding strip of the rule so that it starts a distance log(a) from the beginning of the first strip, and then look at the spot a distance log(b) from the beginning of the sliding strip, you'll be at a spot a distance log(a)+log(b) from the start of the first strip, i.e., a distance log(ab) from the start of the first strip.

Since the strips are labeled logarithmically, you find the spot at a distance log(a) by looking for the label a, etc., and so your slide rule will do multiplication easily.

(By analogy, if you took two ordinary rulers, labeled linearly, you could make a slide rule that did ordinary addition.)


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

[User]
[DBZ] Why didn't Trunks have a tail as a child?

or for that matter, why didn't Goten?

[Assistant]
In universe: Goten and Trunks were the first generation born after fully understanding how a saiyan's tail worked.  Bulma had an idea from knowing Goku as a child but it was not confirmed before the fight with Vegeta.  Bulma being so science oriented, she probably had trunk's tail surgically removed soon after birth.  Chichi is fairly close to bulma so probably did similar.

Out of universe: Toriyama was tired of the tail mcguffin by the time the android chapters were beginning,considering it fully played out. Can't really disagree.


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

[User]
ELI5 Diabetes, please.

I understand there are different types, and I'm still struggling to understand it the difference between them and what exactly triggers it . I don't have it, but it seems somehow common.

[Assistant]
Basically the issue with Diabetes is Insulin.  Think of insulin as a keycard, glucose(sugar) as you and your friends, and your body's cells as a locked room with a party inside.

Normally, you would use a keycard to swipe the reader near the door, the door then opens, and you and your friends walk into the room. In this way, insulin changed the state of the door (from locked to unlocked) and glucose(you) could then enter the cell(room) and keep the party going.

In type 1 diabetes, there just aren't any keys. There may have been when you were young, but somebody destroyed the keycard-making machine. Without you being able to get keys from elsewhere (insulin injections), you won't ever get in the room(glucose can't enter cells).
Without any keycards, no-one can get in and the party dies.

--This used to be commonly called "juvenile" diabetes as the cells which make insulin (located in the pancreas) were destroyed by the bodies immune system.

In type 2 diabetes, the keycards you have just don't work very well anymore, you sometimes have lost some, and the reader might have broken a little bit. So, sometimes the door opens and people can get in. The problem is so many people want to get in, that there's a line out the door. So, the party is still going, but all these people are sitting around with nothing to do, and start to go around the neighborhood, trashing the place.

--This is what happens in type 2 diabetes: you get sugar levels going way up since the insulin doesn't work so well at getting it inside cells, and these high sugar levels can damage other body tissues. We're not fully sure the exact way that this happens, but it seems diet and exercise can have an effect on it.


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

[User] ELI5: Yellow jacket bugs such as wasps and bees and hornets use their stingers as a defensive mechanism but die shortly after utilizing it. If the ones that don't use their stinger are more likely to survive, why hasn't evolution/natural selection phased out stingers?

[Assistant] Solitary wasps and hornets do not die when they sting. The sting lacks the hooks that makes it stick in the victim. (I would assume solitary bees would be the same.) But colony bees do. This makes sense. The colony insects live to protect the hive. By leaving the stinger in the animal, they cause continued pain that makes the attacking animal give up sooner. This protects the hive better, even if it causes the death of the single insect.


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

[User]
[Treasure Planet] How does the universe... work?

I re watched Treasure Planet recently (massively underrated Disney film) and came to some questions about how things work in their universe. In the beginning of the film, there's a line about the "Etherium" which i'm assuming is their version of space. What is it? It's obviously shown that it has some semblance of an atmosphere, enough to allow wind, clouds, breathable air and gigantic creatures to go throughout it, so what is it? Is their space not a vacuum but some kind of gaseous area? How if at all does that affect planet formation or space travel? How did the giant creatures they see evolve in space? Additionally, when the supernova occurs and they're on board the ship, how on earth do they not instantly be vaporized by the waves of radiation coming from the collapsing star, or get pulled apart as they get sucked into the black hole... and for that matter how did it happen so quickly? are the distances between objects massively reduced? The universe of this film raises so many questions...

[Assistant]
The Treasure Planet universe is an abandoned MMO, still running after all these years. It's why everything looks like it came out of the 1700s and why so many aliens are only superficially different from humans. Morph is descended from slimes, the traditional low-level enemies. Treasure Planet is the remains of an adventure town, with a teleporter hub connecting to all the main areas.

The game must have been abandoned before the first patch, because some things don't look quite right. Have you *seen* Silver's arm?


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

[User]
[The Matrix] How did Morpheus get out of the Matrix?

Did another person offer him the red and blue pills? If so, who was it?

[Assistant] Morpheus is just the captain of what is essentially a recon vessel, one of at least dozens that we see, probably hundreds. The process for Morpheus was presumably no different than for neo. He met someone in the matrix who gave him a pill and he woke up in the real world to be shortly thereafter plucked from the sewers by a man driving a ship a lot like the Nebuchadnezzar.


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

[User]
Why does water freeze clear after it's boiled?

I was just wondering why when you freeze water it is cloudy. But when you boil it, it freezes crystal clear?

[Assistant] The 'cloudiness' comes from oxygen which is in solution in the water.  When there's oxygen in water as it freezes, ice crystals can nucleate in many, many places which leads to polycrystalinity and you get some diffuse scattering of light through the ice.  When you boil water, most of the dissolved oxygen is expelled.


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

[User]
[Star Wars] Before Geonosis, did the Jedi think Dooku was an honorable man who just had opposing political views?

Did the council think he could be negotiated with?

[Assistant] In a word? Yes. He initially ragequit over the death of his protg, and his closest confidant was so rogue that he ordered the Clone Army in the name of the Order. Until a few years before the Geonosis debacle, he worked quite covertly; afterwards, he relied on propaganda to make his movement too legitimate to simply put down by force.


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

[User] ELI5: Why were black people considered 3/5 of a person? Obviously they didn't want blacks to be a "full person". But 3/5 just sounds like such an random number.

[Assistant]
It's important to note at the beginning that the "3/5ths compromise" came up in a debate about voting.

The Slave states wanted slaves to count as whole "people" for the purposes of voting.  This would mean they'd have more representatives and have more influence in presidential elections, because they'd be counting the slaves, who wouldn't be able to vote but would still "count."  The non-slave states didn't want slaves to count at all.

That's why three fifths was arbitrary. It wasn't mean to capture the role of the slaves in society or how much they counted for in law. It was the amount that the non-slave states could live with and the slave states could accept when it came to political representation.


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

[User]
What happens when you disconnect from a vpn while streaming media?

Scenario: You're connected to a VPN and streaming a youtube video.  You disconnect from the VPN...the video appears to play uninterrupted.

Does the streaming connection automatically reconnect before it runs out of buffer when it's network context changes, or is there something else at work? What's technically going on underneath this scenario?

[Assistant] Depends, a lot of media will NOT keep playing. If this media is on a public page, as with your example of a youtube video, then it will simply send a request and download the video as normal, but a lot of content which requires authentication will fail to load and require you to login again. If a video does not require any authentication, just about anyone can grab any piece of that video, so it really shouldn't matter if you switch, but content which requires authentication will most likely 403 you.


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

[User] ELI5: Can terrestrial planets get as big as Jupiter? Or can they only get so big?

[Assistant]
Terrestrial planets can't get much larger than 5-10 times the mass of the earth.

As a planet becomes bigger, its gravity increases, and it is able to retain a larger, thicker atmosphere.  After a point, that atmosphere becomes so thick, that planet is mostly atmosphere, and it becomes more Neptune like and less Earth like.


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

[User]
ELI5: What is the evolutionary significance of the ridge between our nose and mouth?

It's like an appendix. Nobody knows what it's for but sometimes it just decides to randomly kill you (in this case, people get a cleft lip).

[Assistant] It is called the "philtrum" and in other animals would carry moisture from the mouth to the nose through capillary action to keep it wet. In humans it is vestigial, but is formed by the fusion of the nasomedial and maxillary processes which if it fails results in a cleft lip.


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

[User]
[Marvel] What is the relationship between Thanos and the celestials ?

It wouldn't be a strech to think that Thanos is aware of his earthly roots and celestial hosts that brought up to rising of the eternals, who later came on Titan.

But was it ever explained what is their relationship ? Does Thanos see them only as cosmic bio engeneers ?

Do the celestials see him only as descendant of those test subject they have left on earth ?

Is there any respect between them and if not should there be one ?

I'm really interseted since, with exception of  Thanos kiling one with IG or CC,i can't really remember,i have never seen them having any interaction between them.

[Assistant] i dont think i have ever seen him interact with the celestials outside of the IG and thanos wins storylines. they dont seem to interest him that much, not do they care much what he does as long as he doesnt threaten the universe. outside of him going "there is a celestial over there" when they show up, such as against the cancerverse, i dont think he has ever even spoken about them.


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

[User]
CMV: Russia is not likely to invade Ukraine with it's current posture

|*Country Invaded*|*Total Committed Troops at Time of Invasion*|*Percentage of Total Military Personnel (Committed Troops / Total Available Personnel)*|*Land Area of Invaded Country (Sq Miles)*|*Troops per Sq Mile*|*Notes*|
|:-|:-|:-|:-|:-|:-|
|Kuwait (1990)|88,000 (Iraq)|9%|6,880|12.79|Pushed out by Coalition troops during Desert Storm|
|Chechnya (1994)|23,800 (Russia, 1994)|2%|6,700|3.55|Failure|
|Chechnya (1999)|80,000 (Russia)|5%|6,700|11.94|Chechnya reintegrated into Russian Republic|
|Iraq (2003)|309,000 (Coalition Forces)|13% (US forces)|169,235|1.82|Saddam Hussein ousted, decade+ occupation of the country by coalition forces|
|Ethiopia (1935)|500,000(Italy)|16%|426,400|1.17|Italian Victory|
|Poland (1939)|825,000(Germany)|22%|150,470|5.48|Two Front Push with the Soviet Union, Warsaw falls|
|France (1944)|1,452,000 (Allies)|13% (US Forces)|246,368|5.89|Successful Invasion, Axis defeated in two front war.|
|Russia (1812)|612,000 (France)|Unclear|990,000 (Rough estimate from western Russian border to Ural Mountains)|0.61|Russian Victory, repelling Napoleon led France|
|Russia (1941)|3,800,000 (Germany)|52% (!)|990,000 (Rough estimate from western Russian border to Ural Mountains)|3.83|Failure to reach AA line and pushed back|
|Ukraine (2022)|175,000 (Russia)|19%|233,062|0.75|TBD|

I am not a military strategy scholar, but looking throughout the history of modern warfare, it's clear that the more troops you have, the better chances of your ability to invade a country. Obviously there are many factors that go into invasions, and in this day and age the use of robotic weaponry like drones takes away the need for actual troops. But if you want to invade and hold something, you can't do it remotely. Someone has to be there to maintain order. Which is why I am comparing land area vs troop size. You need to have people patrolling the country, looking in buildings and under bridges for partisans. Can't patrol there with drones and aircraft.

Based on the estimates provided by various news media, it is believed that there are 175,000 Russian troops amassed at the Ukrainian border. This amount to 19% of Russian forces. As far as I can tell, only Nazi Germany committed more of their troop pool to invasions than Russia would in the hypothetical invasion of Ukraine, but that was the Nazi Germany double-edged sword that worked out in the beginning but ended up leading to their downfall.

Based on this information, I believe the Ukrainian invasion from Russia is not imminent. That does not mean it can't happen in the future, but with the present troops at the border it doesn't seem likely. Unless Russia moves more troops or a nearby country assists with the Invasion, Ukraine will remain (further) unmolested.

I'm wholly interested in learning if my thought process is way off, so fire away!

Edit:  awarded. An invasion encompassing everything east of the Dnieper seems likely.

[Assistant]
Setting aside that you're looking at those troops stationed on the border as the only forces that will be involved in an invasion, this chart is making a point about whether or not the invasion will succeed not whether or not it will happen.

If anything all of those failed operations are evidence that countries WILL invade areas with less than ideal numbers.


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

[User] [Blade Runner 2049] If K failed his baseline review, would the LAPD try to diagnose and fix him, or just retire him outright?

[Assistant]
There's nothing to fix. Replicants aren't robots, or even remotely robotic. They're marvelous feats of bioengineering. The name "replicant" is a mental trick, to help people think of them as things, and not sapient creatures. If K failed his baseline review, that would mean he would be developing one of the last remaining things that greater society (in 2049) has determined to be what separates replicants from humans. That would literally ruin the balance of order--because that would be akin to admitting that replicants aren't just things, but the next (engineered) evolution of mankind.

So yeah, to prevent that kind of existential crisis, K would probably just be retired.


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

[User] What is occurring in your brain when you forget the word you need to use, but "have it on the tip of your tongue"?

[Assistant] Tip of the tongue phenomenon. It happens because your brain controls retrieval of past information. Sometimes, signals get confused, and your brain retrieves the incorrect information. At some level of processing, you recognize this is incorrect. But your brain, in some way, 'insists' that that is the right information. So you are unable to call it up. If you wait a minute (until you have stopped trying to recall that information) you will be able to bring it up. Source? Years of neuropsychology.


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

[User] Eli5 How the name John/Jane Doe got associated with unidentified bodies?

[Assistant]
Both names have been used in the English common law system to refer to an unknown person since before legal records were widely kept.  No one knows exactly why those names were picked beyond the fact that John Doe/Jane Doe would have been very common names in medieval England and would have very much been the "Joe Average" of their day.  After hundreds of years of use, its just sort of stuck.

The terms also aren't just used for dead bodies - in legal documents, any unknown male is referred to as a John Doe, any unknown female is referred to as a Jane Doe, and any unknown person of an unknown gender is referred to as a Doe.


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

[User] ELI5: How are Google's self-driving cars apparently so reliable with real-time response when all computers seem to suffer slowdowns and freezes?

[Assistant]
Personal computers only slow down and freeze because they are designed to try to do whatever you command them to do, even if such tasks are beyond their ability to do quickly.  That means they sometimes get overloaded.

There are many, many computers in embedded control systems that run for years without so much as a hiccup.  By strictly limiting the functions that a computer is required to perform, and evaluating the worst-case amount of time those functions could take, engineers can ensure that the computer is never overwhelmed.


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

[User]
Are there any medical consequences or curiosities to obese humans having more skin/higher surface area?

Can larger people regulate their body temperatures better or any other curious effects to their larger surface area?

[Assistant]
Interestingly enough, their surface area to volume ratio is lower than that of skinny people. This is the main reason why they are more resistant to hypothermia, as Stylian_SyHugh says.

I wonder if there are other consequences to them having lower surface area to volume ratio...


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

[User] ELI5: Why does diarrhea need to come out RIGHT F*CKIN' NOW, but regular poo is cool to chill for a lil bit?

[Assistant]
Because you only get the urge to poop when the feces pushes on the internal anal sphincter. Most of the time, feces is stored in the descending portion of the large intestine, far away from the sphincter, but every once in a while, intestine muscles will push the feces into the rectum where it will push against the sphincter and you get an urge to poop. However, if you hold it and don't poop, the intestine muscles pushes the feces back into the colon, and that urge to poop passes.

However, with watery diarrhea, it pools right into the rectum, where it produces a continuous poop signal (your body think your colon is *completely full* and freaks out).


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

[User]
[Back to the Future] Does the coins Marty uses to pay for his coffee in 1955 (presumably minted sometime in the 70's or early 80's) set off a massive hunt by coin collectors to find a couple of "misprinted" coins? If they were ever found, how much would they be valued at?

So we all know the scene.  Marty orders a coffee at the diner in 1955, haphazardly lays out some coins on the counter from his pocket, the diner owner, Lou, picks up a couple of them and then goes about his business.  Those coins were probably minted in the 70's or early 80's.  So we're talking about future money now existing in 1955.  Would anyone even notice and if they did, how crazy would the frenzy be to track down these future, or probably for coin collectors at the time "mistprinted", coins?

[Assistant] 1955 coins would have been 90% silver. Modern coins are cooper and nickel, so they have a lighter weight and different sound. If the coins with a newer date and different composition were noticed, the person would probably just assume they were counterfeit or well-made play money.


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

[User]
[Star Wars] What's the interspecies dating scene like?

Is it common for human males to date say..... Twi'lek girls? Asking for a friend....

[Assistant]
Dating between species is fairly common. When you have a galaxy of trillions and trillions of individuals spread between thousands of different species how can it not be?

Now, breeding between species is much more rare, but not completely unheard of. Humans have been known to breed with a couple of different species (including Twi'lek, so make sure to wrap it up.) Be aware, that some species do not look kindly upon hybrid children, so make sure you take that into account before you decide to have kids.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why does acid+base make salt + water?

Ex. why can't HCl+NaOH remain where they were instead of dancing around and form the double displacement (H2O+NaCl), aren't their charge already stable to remain where they were?

[Assistant]
HCl and NaOH are both strong electrolytes (meaning that they completely dissociate into ions when placed in water). This means that you don't have HCl or NaOH in solution. You have H^+, Cl^-, Na^+ and OH^-.

When H^+ ions come into contact with OH^- ions, they form water. Since water is a very weak electrolyte (only about 1 molecule in 10 million will dissociate), it stays in its liquid form. All of the other possible combinations of ions (H and Cl, Na and OH, Na and Cl) will not form in appreciable amounts because of how soluble they are. At the end, your solution is left as H2O, Na^+ and Cl^-.


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

[User]
What happens when a photon hits an electron but doesn't excite it?

When a load of photons bombard an atom but don't have sufficient energy to excite any of its electrons, what happens to the photons? Do they simply not collide with electrons or are they re-emitted without change?

Thanks!

[Assistant]
'Hitting' an electron isn't really a thing, neither the photon or electron are small hard spheres.

The photon is a change in the electrical (and magnetic) field and the electron is a charged particle that responds to it. The end result can be that the photon just passes without any change, that the electron is excited if the photon has sufficient energy, or that the photon gets scattered (the scattered photon may also have higher or lower energy than the original photon).


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

[User] ELI5: Do radio stations have to pay record companies each time they play a particular song?

[Assistant]
No. Radio stations have what are called licenses with music licensing companies. The two biggest are ASCAP (American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers) and BMI (Broadcast Music Inc.). Most major record labels and popular independent artists are represented by one of these two.

Radio stations (and other venues that play a lot of music, like clubs, bars, stadiums, etc) buy licenses from these organizations. Many radio stations have multiple licenses from multiple licensers. These licenses vary in their scope, but generally allow you to play whatever music is included in your license however many times your license says you can play it. The licensing company then distributes the money to the artists they cover.

Sometimes, the licensing agreement requires the station to track how often they play which songs, but not always. But generally this is more on the licensing company to calculate how much they pay out to an artist, rather than how much theyre charging for a license.


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

[User]
CMV: Communist symbols and iconography are just as disgusting as Nazi iconography and symbols.

 Communist symbols & iconography are often considered cool and hip. They are put on handbags, t- shirts, jackets, posters, bumper stickers, etc. Think Che t shirts, mao hand bags, red stars, hammer and sickles, etc.  I think these symbols are just as detestable as a Nazi swastika or SS lightning bolts. All of these symbols represent ideologies, leaders and organizations that have killed tens of millions of people and enslaved millions more.  It should be no more acceptable to wear a Che t shirt than it would be to wear one with the image of Martin Bohrman, or have handbag with a red star on it than it would be to have one with a swastika. Communism has an evil history and displaying it symbols shouldnt be considered socially acceptable.

[Assistant]
Nazism was a specific ideology pushed by a specific man toward a specific goal (a primary one being kill all Jews).

Communism on its surface is a specific ideology, and was proposed by a specific person originally, but without a specific goal of mass suffering and racial supremacy. It has been spun into that, but if you read up on the original concept that's not what it's about *at all.* When people push for Communism they're pushing for the ideals founded by Marx and other thinkers -- a classless and moneyless society where every one contributes how they can, and receives without worry of being without food or shelter. No power dynamic or anything. So far no countries claiming to be Communist have achieved this (and honestly don't seem to want to).

If we should be rid of iconography and ideology because in the past it's been used/abused to carry out bad things, we should eliminate the Army Star as it stands more for political dick-swinging than homeland defense for decades, we should eliminate the almighty United States Dollar that people rob and kill for, we should eliminate the cross as it stands not just for the sacrifice Jesus made for sinners but also many holy wars and church-backed murders and massacres. Really we shouldn't even celebrate humanity at all as we are our own biggest impediments and the cause of the suffering of ourselves and many other species of life more than any other living thing could ever hope to be. We proudly wave our US flag like it's a bastion of freedom and liberty for all like we hadn't spent several centuries swindling and killing the indigenous folk, treating human beings as literal fucking property (and another century after that as "separate but equal" meaning let's waste money building two of every thing because we can't be touching the same water fountain as no *ethnic slur*), and subjugating and oppressing one another through the rule of law because God forbid a gay couple living their own life which has literally nothing to do with anyone but the two themselves enjoy a bit of equality, and now we're having another political war with trans rights like it's some big goddamned deal and we need to police whether people call themselves a guy or a girl.

Almost every ideology is stained with blood, even the ones (and at times *especially* the ones) that claim to have such virtue and honor. Why then is Communist iconography such a problem in particular to be seen as synonymous with a group that saw racial supremacy as key to their policy?


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

[User]
ELI5: What is the difference between digital and analog?

For example, you can have a digital or analog signal. What's the difference?

Edit: Thanks everyone for explaining! I use a computer every day and even do some coding, but I never had a strong understanding of basic things like this :)

[Assistant]
A digital signal is a string of 1's and 0's that encodes your data. Meanwhile an analog signal is a continuous spectrum.

For example, say you're trying to get the number 7 from one machine to the next. You could do that by sending a sequence of 0111 (7 in binary), or you could send 7 Volts over the connection (analog)

Analog signals tend to be more noise sensitive. Long wires tend to deform the signal a bit due to interference and other crap. If you have a crappy pair of speakers try listening to music next to a high power appliance (Washing machine or something), you'll notice a clear 60Hz hum thanks to the interference.

Digital does not have this long distance decay (You'd need some really heavy interference to turn a 1 into a 0...). But digital has its own problems. You can only encode so much information into a string of 1's and 0's. For example, a string of 4 characters can only contain 16 possible values. So if you have to use those 4 characters to encode sound, you only get 16 possible tones. You can increase the number of tones by increasing the number of characters, but then you run into throughput problems. If you have to send 100k characters for every microsecond of sound your system will be too slow.


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

[User]
[Harry Potter] How do wizard prisons work?

Obviously we have the use of Dementors in Azkaban, but what other measures do they use? How do they counter wandless or voiceless magic? I assume the same spell as is on Hogwarts to prevent apparating, but are there other anti-magic spells?

[Assistant]
As seen in the FB2 movie, the American prison, which doesn't use dementors, take away the person's wand. If they are still belligerent, they will be fully immobilized and may have their tongue removed.

Edit: There is also still the death penalty for those who make themselves too big a threat to contain.


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

[User]
[Game of Thrones]A Game of Logistics! What are all the Dothraki women and children doing while their men are... occupied and how are they being fed?

Did Danny march the entire Dothraki civilization to the western shore of Essos?  They are a nomadic people, they don't farm and their flocks would rapidly eat all the grass in one area.  How is she possibly feeding all of the non-combatants who must be in western Essos and must number in the hundreds of thousands?

Even the combined resources of Slavers Bay couldn't feed that many people.  Does Danny have Food Making Magic unique to her heritage, not unlike Euron's teleportation magic?  Did she feed all of the non combatants to her dragons?  Even that would take months!

[Assistant] Dany doesn't have *all* the Dothraki, she's nominally the leader of the Dothraki, but her actual horde is about 100,000 riders. It's implied there are khals that didn't show up to the Khalar Vezhven, although since Dany killed all the crones she might technically still be their leader as well.


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

[User]
(Star Wars) Why was general Grievous such a threat to Jedi?

Granted, he could match or excel their strength, speed, agility and lightsaber skill. But he has no force powers. Couldn't a Jedi just force push him off the nearest cliff, or use the force to pull his armour off, or to immobilise him, or influence his mind, etc etc?

[Assistant] Most Jedi were not lightsabre combat masters.  Remember the Sith have been gone a long time so for most Jedi they are used to fighting guys with blasters. so that is what they spent most of their sabre training learning.  When confronted with a light sabre wielding foe they fall back to the rudimentary training they had at the Temple.  That training was ostensibly built around fighting Sith and Dark Jedi.  With those foes using force pushes isn't the best idea since they can be countered with the force and take concentration away from your sabre combat.  So when Jedi that has never fought sabre to sabre outside of the temple has a four armed cyborg leap at them swinging light sabres they default to their training and focus on textbook fighting.  This is even more of an advantage to Grievous since Dooku trained him so he knows the rookie moves most Jedi would be using and how to counter them.  Since Obi Wan actually fought against a Sith Lord and knows the danger that poses he dedicated a lot of his Sabre training to how to fight Sabre to Sabre and used a defensive style that was a good counter to what Grievous did.


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

[User]
ELI5: How/Why are we continually discovering more numbers of Pi?

I took Calculus in high school so I understand the concept of Pi but I just don't understand how we keep discovering more and more numbers in the decimal.  I get that it's infinite but how are people discovering more minuscule numbers in it?

[Assistant]
The dificulty with discovering digits of Pi, or other similar numbers, is in computing them, and verifying them.

Computing such number requires a lot of processing power and time, which is expensive.

Verifying usually requires the execution of other algorithms which also take a lot of processing power and time.

As time goes on, computers get better and can do more costing less, so new digits are found.

Newer methods compute digits are also discovered.


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

[User] ELI5: How can companys require MANDATORY overtime. It's not in my scope of availability.

[Assistant]
If it's legal or not depends entirely on your contract and where you are in the world.

Apparently, in some industries, this is pretty standard.. things like software development will routinely have an expectation to do overtime.


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

[User] ELI5: How do companies like Valve which have a "flat" organizational structure work, seemingly without bosses or direction?

[Assistant] These kinds of flat structures don't mean that there aren't leaders.  Theoretically everyone is there to do something impactful to the industry, and the more senior folks have good business sense and can figure out what's most important to work on.  Then, since you want to have a big impact, you join on with a cool, impactful project.


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

[User]
[Star Wars] What's the tow cable on my Snowspeeder actually for?

I know there's some chatter about using them to trip AT-ATs if the Empire finds us, but outside of that, if you hook the cable (which is on a high-power harpoon gun for some reason) onto anything (a broken-down Snow Speeder, probably. They're real pieces of shit) all you end up doing is damaging it more and then dragging it along the ground while your engines make pained whining sounds.

And what idiot thought to put a pair of ruddy great cannons on a recovery craft? Do you know how rarely we actually get to use those, and how often I wish we had a bit more room for... oh I don't know spare parts? So we can keep these shit-heaps in the air a bit longer?

Yours,
Bion Henricos
Mechanic / Recovery Pilot, Rebel Alliance (Hoth Base)

[Assistant] The T-47 Airspeeder is a cargo hauler. The tow cable ends in a magnetic head which is attached to cargo containers which is hauls. It was never designed to be a combat fighter.... but Rebels make do with what they have.


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

[User]
[Star Wars] "We've got to give those fighters more time. Concentrate all fire on that Super Star Destroyer." How did attacking the Executor give the fighters in the Death Star more time if they were already close to the reactor when Ackbar gave the order?

Any new TIE fighters pursuing the Falcon would be too far behind to shoot down the Rebel fighters.

[Assistant]
The first death star required 3 groups of fighters to run the trench. Admiral Ackbar wasn't sure how much effort and fire power, nor how many fighters would survive the run into the reactor. Only that engaging a fully operational Death Star battle station is foolish.

However (legends title, performing what would be come to known as the Ackbar Slash) engaging the enemy fleet at close range means the empire couldn't fire the primary laser without risking their own ships being hit by a miss, which also goes for moving between other parts of the Imperial fleet.

Standard tactics would have called for keeping distance and maintaining full firing authority of a broadside while rolling to preserve shields on each side (giving the enemy one side at a time to minimize damage).

Ackbar recognized that the Death Star laser means staying distant turns your entire fleet into a shooting gallery. Just a matter of time for them to pick off your heavy ships. Diving in and crossing the enemy fleet lines lets you dish out damage and makes the enemy risk hurting themselves. That buys time for your fighters to kill the death star and any remaining ships at the end can flee. The primary objective was to eliminate the death star threat.


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

[User]
ELI5: Does your body keep taking in water when you get wounded underwater?

Lets say you got shot or something and then fell into a big (or small) body of water. Would a bunch of water fill up in your body causing you to die or?? Sorry if this seems like a stupid question but I've always wondered how dangerous it would be to be underwater with a wound.

[Assistant]
No question is stupid. People who say that a question is stupid are the stupid ones themselves.

Anyway, no, water wouldn't fill into your body. Your heart is constantly pumping blood throughout your body, meaning that it's generating pressure to move all of your blood around (this is referred to as one's blood pressure). If you get a major wound, the heart will still continue to pump blood, but since the blood has an opening to escape from, and it's constantly being pumped under pressure, it's going to want to move out of the wound quite quickly to an area of less pressure. This means that instead of water moving into the wound, the wound would instead push water away from it, with blood.


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

[User] [Mass Effect; The Expanse] If the (Mass Effect) Quarians have ruined immune systems due to generations of exclusively shipboard life, how do the Belters (The Expanse) avoid that problem?

[Assistant]
Quarian immune systems are fundamentally different than that of a human.  Specifically, they never really had one in the first place.  instead, Quarians evolved a sort of symbiotic relationship with their homeworld's microbes.

Even before the Geth Uprising, Quarians traveling offworld would need some form of enviro-suit.


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

[User] [Warhammer40K/Star Trek] How much damage could a gene stealer cult do to the Federation? Besides changelings, have Star Trek civilizations ever been infiltrated by alien species before?

[Assistant] In TNG in the episode 'conspiracy', there were some alien parasites that had infiltrated Starfleet. They were identified by strange changes in behaviour in the hosts, despite all the high tech it seems Starfleet is big on privacy and isn't constantly scanning people for alien parasites. For Genestealer cults since they play the long game over decades, they would likely have their unusual DNA flagged up on their first medical screening.


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

[User]
ELI5: how/why does radiation cause illness?

An earlier post asked what was radiation which was answered by explaining particles and waves and degradation etc. So to follow from that, what is it about these loose atoms that cause cancer and other illnesses (or for that matter, how does it cure stuff too?)

[Assistant]
Ok - so based on the earlier post, you know that radiation is little "bits" of matter that are moving at high speed, or light that's a very high energy.  Both are carrying a lot of energy, and that energy is the problem.

Living things are made up of little "bubbles" called cells, and each cell is alive.  At the heart of the cell is something called DNA, and it's special.  It's special because DNA is like a really long book that tells the cell how to do everything it needs to do.

Cells eventually "divide", or split into two cells.  This is how we grow bigger, and how we heal when we're hurt.  Some diseases, like cancer, are what happen when cells get out of control and start dividing like crazy.

When radiation strikes DNA, it's carrying so much energy that it can damage the DNA, so that the instructions in it are now wrong.  Usually it means the cell will die.  Sometimes, the change makes the cell forget how to stop dividing, so it keeps going - this is cancer.

Now, cells are so small that, aside from cancer, damage to a single cell isn't going to do much.  You need to kill a lot of cells, all at once, for you to notice.  A lot of radiation will damage a lot of cells, and that's where "radiation sickness" comes from.  This affects different body parts in different ways, and I'll explain why.

When cells become damaged by radiation, they don't usually die right away.  They usually die when they try to divide.  Not only that, but cells have a way to fix the damage caused by radiation.  So, if a lot of time passes between the radiation and when the cell divides, there's a pretty good chance that the damage was fixed, and the cell will not die.

Some parts of the body need cells to keep dividing all the time.  The cells that make up your skin and make hair are always dividing, but brain cells don't divide very much once you're all grown up.  So, if you get a lot of radiation, your hair falls out, but your brain is ok.

The faster the cells are dividing, the more sensitive they are to radiation.  But remember that cancer divides really really fast - out of control?  That means that if you expose cancer to radiation, it's not going to have time to fix the damage, and it will die.  That's how we use radiation to treat cancer.  Surrounding healthy cells might die too, but less of them will die than the cancer cells, because they're dividing more slowly.  Because only some of the healthy cells die, you don't notice, and you're just glad you don't have cancer any more.


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

[User]
ELI5: What keeps me from rolling off my bed at night?

If I sleep alone in a Queen size bed, for example, I could theoretically fall asleep on one side of the bed and wake up on the other side. But what keeps me from rolling off entirely?

[Assistant]
Ever seen people falling asleep sitting upright, and then slowly slouching over until they realize it and snap to enough to sit upright again, and then fall immediately back asleep?

Same thing: your body's sense of acceleration doesn't stop when you go to sleep.  Your body knows and wakes up when it suddenly accelerates (like if it's about to fall off a bed).  You probably stop yourself from rolling off a bed more often than you know, because most of the time you go right back to sleep and forget the whole thing.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why does Americans call left wingers "liberals", when Europeans call right wingers "liberals"

You constantly see people on the left wing  being called liberals (libtards, libcucks, whatever you like) in the USA. But in Europe, at least here in Denmark "liberal" is literally the name of right wing party.

Is there any reason this word means the complete opposite depending on what side of the Atlantic you use it?

Edit: Example: Someone will call me "Libtard cuck" when in reality I'm a "socialist cuck" and he's the "liberal cuck" ?

[Assistant]
When Americans are talking about liberals, they are referring to social policies usually, (what is commonly referred to as "the left") when Europeans use the term they are referring to economic policies (what is commonly referred to as the "right").

In the US long gone is the time when there was any real challenge to liberal (i.e. free market) policies, whereas in Europe where socialist and even communist or anarchist parties continue to exist, the term defines where some parties lie not socially but economically. Whereas people on the "left" are simply called leftist.

Whether or not a real "left" and "right" still exists is debatable if you ask me, and these seem more like vestigial terms inherited from the early part of the 20th century when the divide was more evident, and when social liberalism was fundamentally anti-capitalist, unlike for example the CDU in Germany, which is relatively economically to the right, but socially still more to the left that even the most leftist of US Dems.

tl;dr - One refers to social policy. The other to economic.


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

[User]
ELI5: How do people solve rubix cubes in <10 seconds?

Edit: Rubik's, my bad.

[Assistant]
Rubik's cubes are actually solved with a formula, or simple set of rules. Once you know those rules by heart, it just becomes a matter of applying them in the most efficient way (to minimize the number of moves required) and then moving your hands very, very quickly. Those with good memories for images can actually look at the cube once then put on a blindfold and solve it from memory.

EDIT: Rubix -> Rubik's, got it.


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

[User]
Same-sex relationships and Utilitarianism

Hi all, I am writing a research paper in support of homosexuality or same-sex relationships through a Utilitarian perspective. My argument is that same-sex relationships can provide the same utility as opposite-sex relationships. Also, trying to force one to conform to one sexuality or identity increases pain instead of utility. I have been researching to see what would be a common objection to this view and how would I respond to it as a Utilitarian but had no luck finding any? If anyone has some suggestions, please feel free to share :)

Thank you!

[Assistant]
Jeremy Bentham himself wrote in favour of the decriminalization of "sodomy" (at the time, punishable by hanging in England) in his *Of Sexual Irregularities*, saying "to destroy a man there should certainly be some better reason than mere dislike to his Taste, let that dislike be ever so strong". It would therefore seem hard to mount any convincing argument against same-sex relationships on utilitarian grounds, since Bentham seemingly disqualifies the majority's disgust at them from even counting as genuine loss of utility at all, and it's not hard to see why: disgusted though they may be, they do not suffer any harm to their person, possessions, or reputation, nor is there any threat of such harm. The homosexual couple, however, are free to enjoy the utility of engaging in their preferred acts.

With regard to the suffering inflicted by criminalizing (or at least stigmatizing) same-sex relations, we can look at Bentham's four circumstances of pleasure and pain (Principles of Morals and Legislation Chapter IV Paragraph II) to straightforwardly reason this out:

Intensity: The intensity of the suffering incurred by punishment for homosexuality is often immense, and in some places punishable by death.

Duration: For a homosexual person living in a homophobic society, the duration of suffering for their orientation has a duration of nearly their entire life, since they are forced to keep their sexuality a secret and put themselves at (sometimes mortal) risk every time they want to enjoy it.

Certainty: As with duration, homosexual people living in homophobic societies must keep their sexualities hidden out of a fear that they will very certainly face dire social and physical consequences.

Propinquity (closeness): The propinquity of this suffering is likewise immense, since it concerns not only the person with homosexual desires, but one of the deepest parts of their being, and one of the greatest opportunities they have to attain pleasure.

Even if we do consider the disgust of the masses to be a legitimate loss of utility on their part (which, again, Bentham clearly did not: "let that dislike be ever so strong"), it would be hard to see how that loss would be even the tiniest bit proportional to those suffering under this law or stigma on the metric of any of the four circumstances. The homophobic majority seldom even thinks about the existence of gay people except for brief moments of disgust, but the gay minority must live in constant, intense pain and pleasurelessness because of an irrational prejudice.


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

[User]
Why is autism more common in boys than girls?

I've read that autism is 4x more common in men than women. Is this a fairly concrete fact, and if so, do scientists have any intuition why this is the case?

[Assistant]
This is not 100% known at our current level of understanding. It's thought that the same mechanism that prompts faster language and social development in developing girls may have some protective or 'cloaking' effect on ASD.

Something to also stew on is the women that are diagnosed are often more severe as a group than the men - so there is also a possibility that high functioning females with ASD simply aren't been diagnosed. There is a lot of (anecdotal at this stage) evidence of women who believe they reach the criteria but have not been given a diagnosis due to their gender.


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

[User] War isn't a game. So why are there rules for war? What incentives does a nation have for adhering to them?

[Assistant]
The idea that war isn't a game is very new. Up until World War I, it didn't really occur to anyone that wars weren't a valid diplomatic tool; declaring war on someone was just a strong diplomatic statement, like cutting off trade or recalling your ambassador. The point of diplomacy is (broadly) to get other countries to respect you, and following the rules of war made you seem more respectable.

In modern times, when every war has at least one side seeking to eliminate the other side completely, you're completely right that rules of war don't really make sense. This is why they're regularly ignored.


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

[User] [Comics] why is it when someone tries to change society for the better most times it ends horribly and is heavily discouraged?

[Assistant] Restricting ourselves to purely Watsonian answers, I'd imagine it's because having superhuman abilities does not guarantee that a person will be any better a making public policy than anyone else. Superheroes may have powers that could rival some gods but in many other ways they're still only human.


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

[User] ELI5: Were always taught to never pull a sharp object such as a knife out of someone who is stabbed. How exactly do medical professionals pull it out then? Would they have to pull it out the same way anyway?

[Assistant]
It's all about setting and training.

An untrained bystander with no medical equipment pulls a knife out of a stab wound, the knife is no longer keeping the blood in and the victim will bleed out faster.

A surgical team with medical equipment pulls it out and can get the veins sewn together and close the wound before the victim bleeds out.

That being said it is still risky even for trained professionals. They have to act quickly to avoid killing their patient.


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

[User]
ELI5: How does radioactivity work

If radioactivity is a decaying atom.  What is left behind at sites like chernobyl.  What causes some atoms or isotopes of atoms to be radioactive while others are not?

[Assistant]
Some atoms are just unstable and will eventually break apart. Imagine them like a bunch of legos chained together and being spun. Some configurations will allow a little piece to go flying off while others will stay together.

At Chernobyl, Uranium atoms were being split in half in the nuclear reactors. When uranium splits in half, the two smaller atoms that remain (each being about half the size of U) are typically unstable (they have too many neutrons). So they convert neutrons to protons in what we call *beta decay.* This happens slowly and releases some energy as it goes. That energy can cause biological damage and is therefore dangerous (especially if ingested).


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

[User]
According to Nietzsche socialism is a "residue" of christianity, what does he meant and is it true?

Nietzsche talked about socialism as a later development of christianity. Did he mean that there is an actual "genealogical" filliation between Christianism and Socialism? Or did he mean that both "doctrines" promoted similar values without one being the descendant from the other?

And what can modern philosophers say of this assertion? Was Nietzsche right to think that?

Thank you in advance for your answers!

[Assistant]
Hard to say. Nietzsche has a strong critique of the egalitarian nature of socialism and in this regard it seems to resemble what Nietzsche understands to be the issue with Christianity. Im not entirely sure if he writes that Socialism springs from Christianity, but it somewhat follows his logic of the development of the sciences.

He also interestingly points out in the *Genealogy* 1:5 that the commune...[is] ... the most primitive form of society and that the inclination for the commune is now shared by all the socialists of Europe.... It could be that, from Nietzsches understanding, the communal nature of humanity actually predates religiosity.


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

[User]
CMV: Saying "everything happens for a reason" is dumb and insensitive

Far too many times have I experienced someone sharing some form of traumatic experience or sad
story, and someone has replied "everything happens for a reason."

First of all, no it doesn't. As humans we have to accept that most of the time life isn't some fairytale with a resolution and happy ending. More often than not, things happen for no reason. There is no life lesson that came from stubbing my toe, there is no hidden meaning behind my pet fish dying. We are not characters in a book and not every single event has a purpose that contributes to the "plot."

Second, it is super disrespectful and insensitive to say this to someone talking about a sad or traumatic experience. If a person is opening up to you about something, and you just dismiss it by saying that "everything happens for a reason," that's just gross.

[Assistant]
> and you just dismiss it

They're not dismissing it - at least, they're *probably* not dismissing it. It's a way of trying to offer support, even though it may not be logical. Is it *really* as insensitive as saying:

>  life isn't some fairytale with a resolution and happy ending. More often than not, things happen for no reason.

to someone who just had their dog die, or something?


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

[User]
[Invincible]Viltrumites

So how do Viltrumites fly exactly?And how do they get their abilities?

[Assistant]
The abilities are natural.

A somewhat recent development in their evolution (Around a million years). The powers come from smart atoms a phenomenon in the Invincible universe that allows for superpowers which defy the the laws of physics. Their flight is achieved by using these to manipulate internal flux to propel themselves through the air and through space.


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

[User]
ELI5: What does boiling a bagel do to the bagel?

Why is bagel dough boiled first before baking?

[Assistant] Boiling it in the lye water, sugar water, or salt water depending on the type of bagel is what gives it the unique skin that you find in no other kind of bread. Without doing so it would just be a hoop of normal bread and would have few of the characteristics that define a bagel.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why can we see through clear objects like glass even though they are solid, same for water and air? Why don't the atoms block light like they do in wood?

Same goes for water or air.

[Assistant]
When a light ray with a given energy (wavelength) hits an object, one of three things can happen:

* the light is reflected back opposite from where it came

* the light is absorbed

* the light passes through unimpeded, but bent a little

The material being hit by the light is made up of atoms. Picture the atoms as little nuclei with electrons buzzing around them. These electrons want to jump further away from their nucleus to a higher-energy orbit, and they need to use the light to make this jump. But the catch is that they need very specific amounts of energy to do so. Think of using electricity to power an elevator in a building-- you either could use 60W to make the elevator go to the 2nd floor, or 120W to make it go to the 3rd floor. There are no in-betweens.

The atoms in glass have electrons that need higher specific amounts of energy to make the jump than visible light can provide. They have no use for that light, so it's free to pass through. The atoms in wood have electrons that DO need the specific amount of energy that visible light can provide, so that light is absorbed and the electrons can jump.

There is so much more to the story than this, but it's a good place to start.


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

[User] ELI5: Why is it that waterdrops can't be bigger? What's stoping water from forming like the size of a golfball or even bigger?

[Assistant]
Water drops are held together by surface tensions, and the hydrogen bridges that create it.

Whichever force is applied to the drop will "battle" with surface tension. If the force is bigger than the tension, the water drop breaks. If not, the water drop stays together.

Here on earth gravity is the most common force, when the drop is somewhere on the ground, or dripping off something.

In space, for example on the ISS drops of water can be huge because gravity doesn't apply anymore.


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

[User]
ELI5:How do drilling companies drill 7000+ feet below the surface? And when it comes to fracking, how do they begin drilling horizontally that deep underground?

Basically, how do oil drilling companies manage to drill that deep into the earth?

[Assistant]
Basically when the drillers get to the depth where they want to start deviating from vertical there are directional parts of the drill bit they start pointing in a direction other than straight down to increase the angle of inclination. The angle is usually measured in degrees per 100ft. So the transition of vertical to horizontal is relatively gradual. They are able to do this from the huge amount of weight pushing down on top of the bit.
The joints of drill pipe from surface to drill bit are very heavy. They pump drilling mud through this hollow drill pipe and out the end of the bit this is what causes the bit to rotate and penetrate through the rock. The mud exits the drill bit and is circulated back up to the surface between the hole and the drill pipe; also carrying the rock cuttings to surface for hole cleaning purposes.
Signals are pulsed through the mud column down to the drill bit and control the directional movement of the bit.
Sorry the comment was a little long but things tend to get misinterpreted with this sorta thing.
Source engineer working with a drilling co.


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

[User]
Why isnt there an odd RAM capacity ? Like 3kB or 9GB (not talking about combining different stick capacity)

So 1 byte = 8 bits

2\^10 bytes = a killobyte, why couldnt (wasnt ?) there be 3 kB ram ?

It was always 4kb, 8, 64, now 1, 2, 4, 8 gigabytes

I really couldnt find an answer for a long time because if we have 8 bits thats 2\^8 states = 256 possible states, so if we have 3 kilobytes thats 3072 bytes = (3072 \* 8) bits and thus 2\^(3072\*8) possible states. Im not missing anything, so why there is no ram capacities with odd number of bytes/kilobytes/gigabytes ?

[Assistant]
There have been.  They're just rare.

Memory is addressed by an address bus, meaning a set of wires that are each connected to ground or a voltage.  Say you have two wires. That means there are exactly four memory locations: each of the wires can be connected to ground or voltage, making four unique combinations.  So if you build a two wire memory chip, it makes sense to put four memory registers in it.  You can't put any more, because you wouldn't be able to select them uniquely.

You _could_ put in less, if you wanted.  If memory registers were super expensive and you only needed three of them, you could make a two-wire, three-register memory.  But as soon as you started combining them, you'd be wasting pins.  Suppose your project calls for seven memory registers.  You'd need three of the 3-register chip, meaning 4 address lines (two that go into the chip and two to select between the three chips).  Compare this to two 4-register chips, which can do the same job with just three lines.  Your CPU only has a limited number of address lines, so wasting them like this is undesirable.

As a result, memory chips intended for general use are pretty much always "full" - every address they can decode is mapped to a register, without any addresses wasted.  And this in turn means that memory chip capacities are always a power of 2.


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

[User] Would it be possible for an epidemic relative to the size of the Bubonic Plague to happen today?

[Assistant]
Yes, the SARS epidemic is a good example of how a respiratory virus can quickly spread from China to Toronto. It narrowly missed spreading like a wildfire. I've been watching some animal diseases especially in herded animals which can spread rapidly among the animals (not humans), kill (depending on the strain), and be undetectable through routine surveillance until essentially it spreads to a new location.  If a similar virus affected humans with a few days latency period and high virulency...definitely.

Edit: I've been involved in national planning meetings in regards to such scenarios with the Dept of Homeland Security, USDA, FDA, CDC, state health officials, and academia.


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

[User] [Star Wars] How did Darth Vectivus rise to the rank of master if he did no evil? Surely he would have needed to kill his master to take his place?

[Assistant]
Of course he was evil. He was Lord of the Sith. He had given himself to the Dark Side of the Force. Just because he supposedly died "surrounded by his loved ones" doesn't mean he wasn't up to no good. For all we know these supposed "loved ones" were alchemical homunculi bred from his slaves.

It's important to keep in mind, that majority of this "Tragedy of Darth Vectivicus the Good One" was told by a scheming and twisted sith acolyte to her hopeful apprentice with express purpose to persuade him that it's possible to fall to the Dark Side and be totally alright.


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

[User] ELI5: how does the petrol pump know when to stop?

[Assistant]
Suction.

There is a small hole in the tip of the nozzle that is connected to the handle by a small pipe, when the tank is not full, this suction is pulling in air, and remains open, but when the gas rises enough to block the hole, the suction stops, releasing the handle lever.


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

[User]
[Thor:Ragnarok] Why didn't Heimdall warn Thor that Loki had usurped Asgard's throne?

 At one point in the movie Thor calls for Heimdall and he uses his powers to teleport Thor's vision to Asgard, why didn't Heimdall use the same ability to warn Thor about Asgard's situation? I believe Heimdall knew that Odin was not who he appeared to be, for Heimdall fled when Loki sent soldiers to arrest him and as far as I know Heimdall would not disregard an order given by the king of Asgard.

[Assistant] Heimdall was really busy after he was exiled. You know, wanted for treason, keeping a low profile, gathering intelligence on the Odin impersonator, all that. It would be politically disastrous if knowledge spread that Odin was had gone missing. Thor is the opposite of low profile, and Heimdall knew he was busy fighting villains across the Nine Realms and looking for Infinity Stones, so he didn't bother reaching out. He was probably planning to once he had more information.


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

[User] [Marvel] Why didn't Spider-Man modified the Spidersuit at end of NWH instead of making new non-tech suit ??

[Assistant]
A few reasons.

First, a clean break and a new start was something he needed. A way to cut ties with the old life he couldn't go back to, and assert himself as his own man instead of "Stark's kid".

Second, without access to Stark resources, he may not be able to keep the Starktech suit working over an extended period. After Tony's death he was able to turn to Happy to a certain extent, but that door is closed.

Third, having Stark Industries hardware is kind of a dead albatross at this point. The Feds are finally sick of Stark's shit as a result of the EDITH incident, and anyone running around with his gear is going to be targeted. Flipside, Stark Industries just took a massive public L because someone jacked a piece of kit they didn't even know they had, so anyone running around using their gear unauthorized is in as much danger from SI crews trying to recover their wayward hardware as the FBI/NSA/SHIELD/SWORD and the rest of the Alphabet Soup crowd.


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

[User]
Is the Asteroid Belt in our Solar System 'flat' or does it cover 360 degrees around Mars?

This may be an absurdly dumb question, but just curious

So was wondering - is the asteroid belt in our solar system flat like the belt of rocks around Saturn or does it basically cover 360 degrees around the area between Mars and Jupiter?  I know the asteroids are very far apart from each other, but was curious if they coalesced into a "flat" formation like Saturn's ring or are they in every single direction?

Thank you for your time!

[Assistant] Most asteroids orbit within 30 of the ecliptic plane, so they don't form a razor sharp plane like Saturn's rings or a sphere.  It's somewhat of a toroidal (donut) shaped distribution, with higher density at low inclinations.


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

[User]
Is division by zero truly undefined?

  It seems there is an explicit definition for it: 0 or 1 or -infinity or +infinity.  As far as I can tell, the operation has no other outcomes.

[Assistant]
Well 0/0 is obviously undefined.  E.g., 0 * x = 0 for any number x, so if you can do the invert the operation of multiplication of zero, by dividing by zero, you could get x = 0/0 = any number.

An operation like 3/0 isn't well-defined either.  You may say its infinity; e.g., if you look at it like the number 0 is reached by repeatedly dividing by a small positive number 0.1 (get 30), then divide by 0.01 (get 300), etc and as you see the number blowing up you define it as + infinity.  However, if it was coming from the other direction; e.g., perceive zero as coming from -0.1, to -0.01, -0.001, ... you see the result being (-30, -300, -3000, ... -infinity).

So division of a non-zero number by zero should always be +/- infinity, though it isn't defined which and each are equally valid.  Division of zero by zero is any number.  Hence it's undefined.

(Note: these concepts are very well defined in calculus; read about the concept of limits).


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

[User]
ELI5: How can Supermarkets just flat-out rip off a product

Why can I go in and see "Frosted flakes" next the Frosties, yet they don't get sued?

EDIT- I'm not just talking about Frosties, you see it everywhere. If there's a popular product, there will also be a store-brand rip off.

[Assistant]
First, a large portion of store brands are made by the same companies that make the name brand items.
Second, the only way kellogs could sue over frosties is if they were to emulate trademarked elements of the packaging (ie character, font etc) in a way that creates a substantial similarity which could reasonably cause issues of differentiation by prospective purchasers.....or if kellogs had patented EVERY possible process to flake corn, and coat it in frosting. EVERY possible process...because a very small alteration in equipment and procedure can be sufficient to sidestep a patent.


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

[User]
Tell me all about sun burns.

Yesterday I relaxed in the sun for about 3 hours. It wasn't hot, it was the perfect temperature fo relaxing. I went inside to go to the bathroom and realized that I was starting to get burnt. I have pretty fair skin, so I usually burn in the summer. It got me thinking about some questions I have about sun burns.

- How come the whole burn doesn't come out for a while? I wasn't red while I was in the sun, but today my arms are bright red.

- How come it continues to feel super hot for so long? Why does warm water feel extra hot on burns?

- What causes it to turn into a tan after?

- Why does the skin feel tight? As in, when I stretch my arms out the skin hurts a little. Is it a little swollen?

- Why does the sun age your skin faster?

- What is the best remedy for a sun burn? I've always heard aloe is the best, but it doesn't seem to work as well for me as our family sun burn recipe of noxema (which doesn't make sense because it's a cleanser. But it seems to make it turn into a tan faster and prevent peeling).

Thank you for your time!

[Assistant]
The red color of a sunburn is the body's inflammatory response to sun damage. The capillaries in the skin are suffused with extra blood to promote repair. That extra blood makes the surface of your skin warmer. The resulting tan is caused by the production of melanin in order to limit the damage from future burns. The skin is tight because some of the uppermost cells are dead and have become less elastic. This also tends to age people who suffer from repeated sunburns over long periods of time.

Aloe is great for keeping moisture next to the skin and speeding the healing process. Keeping the skin clean will also help prevent infection.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why aren't babies allowed to sleep on their side?

My girlfriend is about 34 weeks pregnant with our first child and she recently asked me if I knew what position you're supposed to lay babies down in to sleep. I said that I thought you lay them on their side, so that if they were sick in the night they wouldn't choke, but she told me that babies were in fact only allowed to sleep on their backs.

I obviously believe her and since going to antenatal classes they also said the same thing, so without question I will lay our baby on his back to sleep. I still feel a little bit anxious about doing it though. Maybe I'm thinking of the situation in adult terms too much, but I just can't seem to shake the worry that, similar to an adult who'd passed out, if he's sick while lying on his back he might choke.

Please can you explain why it's safer to lay him on his back and why it's unlikely he'll choke if he's sick in the night/during a nap.

[Assistant]
Babies can't really lay on their sides.  They're pretty round and have little control over their limbs, so if you lay them on their side, they pretty quickly roll either to their back or to their front.  So your only options are on their back or on their front.

The evidence is overwhelming that babies are way less likely to die from SIDS if they sleep on their back.  It's not clear why that is (mostly because we won't experiment on babies and watch them die to figure out why, for obvious reasons); the leading theory is that babies on their front can end up with their mouths and noses in a position where they can't breathe and they're not strong enough to clear them.

Overall, being sick while on their back is actually not a big concern.  They have a functioning gag reflex which makes them spit out anything that gets in their throat.  The problem with adults is usually being drunk, which impairs the gag reflex and makes it possible to choke if liquid ends up in their throat.  Unimpaired adults don't normally choke on their own vomit either.


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

[User]
CMV: All subreddits should specify the exact account age and post/comment karma required to post on them.

When I first joined reddit I tried to post in several communities but my posts were either removed immediately since I had a new account, or would just disappear from "new" on the sub while still being visible on my profile. This can be very off-putting to new users who could be confused as to why their posts are being removed, and in addition users could put a lot of effort into creating original content that just gets removed immediately without a chance to be viewed.

If every sub specified the exact account age and karma required to post there, then people would be more motivated to post higher quality content elsewhere on subs to gain the karma that they need to post in a sub with stricter rules that they have created original content for.

The subs that don't currently have a restriction on account age/karma would be unaffected, since this requirement would only apply to subs that have a restriction. In addition, although the upvotes on individual posts tend to fluctuate a lot, karma would still be measured in the same way that it is for moderator requirements so this wouldn't be an issue.

[Assistant]
I mod several adult subs.  In the biggest of those, the ratio of spam to real posts was probably 5:1 before we implemented the policies that you don't like.  With those rules, the spam to real ratio is more like 1:20.  One time we listed the required amounts and the spam ratio immediately jumped to 1:1 or higher.  Like within a day.

Your idea sounds great in theory, but fails when it comes to subs that attract a lot of spammers.


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

[User]
[General Action] I'm a truck driver hauling a load down the highway and now there's a group of people I don't know having a martial arts battle on top of my rig - what am I supposed to do?

What are my legal options and potential liabilities?

[Assistant]
You're supposed to keep driving.  Keep it straight, and at a steady speed.  If possible, though, drive under bridges that are *just barely* high enough for the guys on your trailer to duck and hang on.

Eventually, you'll either be able to pull up to another truck, you'll have to stop for a train, or you'll go over a river.

If it's another truck, just pull up next to him, and whichever one is on the right should take the next exit.  One faction will be on each truck.

If it's a train, you can expect them to move the action onto the passing train.

If it's a river, at least one faction will jump, fall, or be pushed into the river, or onto a passing boat.

In any case, you'll be done with them.

Unless you're hauling something for Wayne, Stark, Umbrella, or LexCorp.  Then your best bet is to just jump out of the moving truck and run.


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

[User]
Is there a limited number of protons, neutrons and electrons or they are created all the time?

If they are limited, can they be destroyed?

[Assistant]
Creating a proton, neutron, or electron, requires creating the corresponding antiparticle at the same time.  Destroying them requires annihilation with an existing antiparticle.

It is easier to create electrons and positrons, because they are much less massive than protons and neutrons, so much less energy (mc^(2)) is required.  It is a common astrophysical process.


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

[User]
[Harry Potter] What does Dumbledore do during the events of Chamber of Secrets to stop the attacks or uncover the identity of the attacker?

It seems really strange that a wizard as powerful as he can't manage to surveil his own castle well enough to at least catch the Basilisk  action. This had to be his only concern for months on end, and yet he can't come up with some kind of alert system or booby trap to catch the attacker? Why not thoroughly  question the obviously-not-telling-you-something Harry, or read his mind to see what he knows?

[Assistant]
Dumbledore knew exactly who was opening the Chamber of Secrets: Voldemort. He just didn't know what form he was taking. In particular, he had no idea that a horcrux has been given to a student, bringing her under the control of the ghost of Tom Riddle.

It's also very likely that Dumbledore knew that there was a basilisk in the castle. The petrified students, combined with the fleeing spiders, would have been enough information for him to go on. That means he \*couldn't\* surveil the school for the creature; if he had seen it through his spell, he would have been petrified, and thus taken out of the game.

Also, Dumbledore couldn't enter the Chamber of Secrets himself; that required a parselmouth, someone who could speak snake. Word of God indicates that Dumbledore \*understood\* parseltongue, but could not speak it. That means the Chamber was sealed to him.

So we know a lot about what Dumbledore \*couldn't\* do, but not a lot about what he did. This isn't surprising, because Dumbledore is a wizard, and wizards keep secrets like junkies horde needles. We can speculate, but that's all it would be.


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

[User]
Socrates and the method named after him

*Hey, I asked this question on ELI5 and a mod suggested me to come here instead.*

Who is Socrates, why is he important and what's the big deal about the 'Socratic method?'

[Assistant]
Socrates was a philosopher in Athens, Greece about 2400 years ago. One of his students, Plato, wrote a number of texts which went on to pretty much be the foundation of Western philosophy.

Socrates didn't write anything himself (that we know about), but Plato used him as a character in his works. In many of these works, the character Socrates has a questioning style. He'll approach a priest, for example, and say, "Hey, you're a priest. You should know what piety is. So, tell me, what is piety?" The priest will try to answer it, Socrates will point out how that answer is unsatisfactory. The priest will try again. And so on and so on. Eventually, presumably, the two would eventually figure out what piety is.

This never happened, though. In the dialogues, the other character eventually gets sick of Socrates' questions and begs off.

Socrates was pretty annoying. And, he embarrassed a number of important Athenians by pointing out they didn't know key concepts of their disciplines. And these embarrassing episodes took place in front of well-to-do Athenian youths, like Plato.

Anyway, this questioning style is what's meant by the Socratic method.

Socrates was eventually arrested and executed for "corrupting the youth."

You can read the priest dialogue in The Euthyphro, and Socrates' trial in The Apology.


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

[User] Why does rain fall as individual droplets and not sheets or continuous lines?

[Assistant]
Long streams and sheets simply are not stable and would break up into droplets, due to surface tension. Spheres are the least energy form for free floating water and that's what it goes to.

Droplets form in the atmosphere when rising air cools to the dew point and starts forming droplets or ice crystals which start forming clouds. When droplets grow heavy enough, they fall and we get rain.

Incidentally, the tear drop shapes used for taps and weather symbols and stuff is pretty much only seen when a drop hangs off something and drops off. Once falling the drop starts to pull toward spherical again.


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

[User]
[Superman in general] Wasn't it a bit dumb for Superman to tell everyone he is from another planet?

Since he made his debut he has stated to the press that he is in fact an alien from another planet.

Wouldn't that bring many many complications in the long run?

The religious and political aspect would not take it kindly (this happened in Batman V Superman) and would be shaken by something that defies the logic of that world (take into consideration that many superhumans prior to Superman  were seen as local legends or believed to be part of news hoaxs)

More so, what is there to say people would believe him? What if he actually was just a cover for a highly complex gubermental operation?

I think he should have been a bit more reserved at the start of his carreer.

And yes, eventually that also bit his tail. His enemies used this information to delevelop ways to stop him (the famous kryptonite and the use of red solar lights based on the coordinates from planet krypton that superman himself gave to Star labs)

So yes, should Superman have been more careful about giving away so much from the get go?

[Assistant]
It's just the truth is all.

>The religious and political aspect would not take it kindly

Let 'em take it however they want. It's true.

>what is there to say people would believe him?

Maybe they don't. What's that matter to him? He knows it's true.


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

[User]
[Top Gun] Why didnt Viper yell at Jester for going below the hard deck, the way he did to Maverick and Goose?

The hard deck is what they define as ground-level in each exercise. So if the hard deck is 10,000 feet, and you go below that, it essentially means you just crashed into the ground. In real life, youd be dead, and per the exercise, youd get in a lot of trouble.

So why didnt Jester? Hes an instructor who should really know better.

[Assistant]
Because Maverick is a snot-nosed kid who is going around pissing everybody off.  He did a high speed flyby of the control tower, and Viper just got screamed at by *his* boss.

Meanwhile, not only is Jester his buddy, but he's also an instructor, and he's doing what he's supposed to do.

You see, military training exercises aren't about fair play.  They aren't about an honorable duel to see who is better.  They're about making you better.  The instructors are *supposed* to cheat.  Maverick is a more talented pilot than Jester, but that doesn't mean he can't learn something from the engagement.

Jester can dip below the hard deck, get Maverick off his ass, and then re-engage.  Perhaps it represents a second enemy plane that you didn't see before.  It's common that OPFOR (Opposing Force) is given hefty advantages, because you're trying to make them hard to beat.

And anyway, the purpose of the meeting is to curb Maverick's ego.  He's a great pilot, but he just might get somebody killed, if he doesn't get himself kicked out of the Navy first.  Jester, on the other hand, is apparently a model officer.  He doesn't need yelled at.  Even if he wasn't supposed to go below the hard deck in that particular engagement, a simple "watch it next time" will be sufficient.  Maverick doesn't listen unless you scream at him and threaten to kick him out.


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

[User]
CMV: The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis is right - language does have a large influence on thought

I've read things like "Russian doesn't differentiate between light blue or dark blue" or something similar and also that people are more likely to blame someone in English due to the way its set up, i.e. "John broke the plate" rather than another language which would say "The plate was broken".

This theory is probably the basis of political correctness, which can change people's opinions based on phrasing, "are you gonna murder your own unborn child you monster" vs "termination of pregnancy" and also in the army, 'collateral damage' rather than 'exploding innocents into hamburger'

Of course people can still see blue and thoughts exist without language in 'mentalese' as Pinker calls it. For example on LPT I saw something about the word 'sonder' that was made up to express the idea that everyone you see has a full and complicated life just like you, having the word allows you to think of this idea more, although of course you probably had this thought before but just couldn't express it.

Language has also helped in the way minorities are perceived, for example, one thing I noticed was the increased popularity of the Paralympics. Perhaps this is due to increased advertising and coverage, but also the positive terms used for athletes with a disability like 'superhumans' has helped IMO.

Of course one concession I will make is that whenever a word is changed to be more politically correct, that word will then become pejorative and have to be changed to a new word if people use it pejoratively. This does not stop there being some influence that words place on our thought however.

[Assistant]
It sounds like you misunderstand the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis to some extent.

First, it's important to know whether you're talking about the strong or weak form of the hypothesis. To quote Wikipedia,

> The strong version says that language determines thought, and that linguistic categories limit and determine cognitive categories, whereas the weak version says that linguistic categories and usage only influence thought and decisions.

Also, most of the examples you're using are unrelated to the Sapir-Whorf hypothetisis.

> This theory is probably the basis of political correctness, which can change people's opinions based on phrasing, "are you gonna murder your own unborn child you monster" vs "termination of pregnancy" and also in the army, 'collateral damage' rather than 'exploding innocents into hamburger'

Those are intentional wording choices rather than products of the rules or structure of language. Same with your paralympics example.

Also, just as a side point in case you were wondering, Russian has two separate words for light and dark blue.


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

[User] ELI5: Why is the novel Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck so famous?

[Assistant]
It's FAMOUS because many teachers use it, which means that many people have read it.

They do that because it's superbly well written, has depth that makes it interesting to discuss, and uses themes that are important to a very broad audience.  Also, because it's relatively short and easy, which makes it readable by high school students who would have trouble with Shakespeare or Chaucer or even Twain.


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

[User]
[Fallout] Could the Fallout world ever regain its pre-Great War splendor? Or is humanity only slowly dying?

I'm aware that, out of universe, the Fallout's creators don't like that parts of the Fallout world have advanced to where they are and so they'd never want the Fallout world to advance but...I still wanna know:

Would it be possible for humanity to resettle and repopulate the world and have a society on par with the pre-War world? Or, as some have speculated, is it just slowly dying? (Like, is it inevitable that humanity will be destroyed by the effects of the Great War)

[Assistant] Exactly the same?  No.  But the would eventually recover.  People are alive, farming, building, trading, and procreating once again.  New nations are rising up out of the ashes of the old.  They don't have the same access to resources or industrial might as the USA or the USSR did, but they haven't lost all of the scientific understanding and are working to regain what was once known.  The New California Republic is actively rebuilding old world infrastructure even as they have begun to build their own.  The NCR isn't a failing effort to recover what was lost, they're living proof that humanity is going to rebound.


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

[User]
[MCU] Did Captain America need to lift Mjolnir first in order to be able to summon it to his hand? Or does him being worthy mean he could summon Mjolnir if he needed/wanted to?

The scene implies that Cap picked up Mjolnir befor yeeting it towards Thano's face. If, say for instance, Mjolnir was farther away at that point in time, could Cap have been able to summon the hammer to his hand?

[Assistant]
Theres no definitive answer shown, but it seems most likely that he would have had to lift it first. Before lifting it, Steves only superpowers are generally enhanced physical traits. It isnt until he grabs it and lifts it that satisfies the conditions of the enchantment:

1) Whosoever holds this hammer

2) If they be worthy

3) shall possess the power of Thor

So he needed to hold it be worthy to have the power of Thor. Summoning the weapons to his hands seems to be an aspect of that power.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why do decks have two joker cards even though they're usually removed whenever playing a game? And why two when everything other card has four types?

every not everything

[Assistant] Remember that cards are printed in large sheets and then cut.  If you want to make just 52 cards, your closest option to making them square is 4x13.  With 54 cards, you can print a 6x9 sheet which has much more manageable dimensions.  Many decks these days are printed on 7x8 sheets giving you 56 cards in the pack.