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

[User] What makes some plates, containers, etc. "microwave safe"?

[Assistant]
Microwaves create oscillating electromagnetic fields. These fields will create electrical currents in materials with free charge carriers, ie basically they act as an antenna. They will also cause polar molecules to rotate with the field which leads to heating. Polar molecules are common in food, most notably water, so this is how a microwave heats. The effect is called dielectric heating. If the material is neither conductive nor highly polar, it won't absorb or interact strongly with the microwaves. So what is unreactive to the microwaves? Most ceramics, glasses, plastics, paper.

If you have a metal, conductive materials due to a lot of free charge carriers, the electrons will move the with field. This leads to multiple undesirable and dangerous effects;

* Small air gaps between metal, like the wrinkles of tin foil or the prongs of a fork, will cause sparking. Sparking will ignite anything flammable.

* Any metal with current flowing through it is going to heat up. This is non-ideal because you want to heat the food, not the dish. Beyond wasting energy on the wrong thing, heating the dish can again lead to high temperatures igniting something or cause burns to the user when goes to remove it. Some things like microwave popcorn bags intentionally have small metal foil layers to get hot enough at the surface to cook the popcorn properly.

* Metals will also reflect the microwaves if oriented correctly. You'll note the walls of the microwave are metal. Reflecting the microwaves in unintended ways can damage the microwave by reflecting them back into the magnetron (microwave generator) and overheating it.

Containers with metal are not always obvious like a stainless steel bowl. Some ceramic dishes contains traces of metals, especially in any glazing or shinny accenting wires they have. This makes some ceramic containers/dishes not microwave safe. Some paper products may also have a metallic foil layer. Don't microwave your tatrapaks for example. If the food is in paper, be careful for any sort of metallic water insulating layer. Wax water insulated paper is fine.

While most plastics do not strongly react with microwaves, they will be heated in the microwave simply by contact with the food. Some plastics will melt at low temperatures, others will leach chemicals into the food even if they aren't melting. Whether a plastic is marked microwave safe depends on whether it will melt or leach. Most plastics that are microwave safe have a clause stating up to 100C or something, which is hard to avoid locally, especially with dryer food, and after time you will start to notice little white deformities where they slightly melted. Pretty much all plastic will leach slightly, but how much and how toxic it is depends on the plastic. Polycarbonate bottles with BPA were largely banded and discontinued a few years back as they were leaching even at room temperatures.

So what is safe? Glass always. Ceramics most of the time, though check if they are marked. If they aren't marked, be weary of glazes and shinny strips. Try them out and see if they get hot. Paper most of the time, though if may get flimsy from steam and don't put in any with a shinny metallic foil on it. Plastics (or styrofoams) if they are marked safe, but note they still might leach some stuff and avoid getting them too hot.


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

[User]
[Titanfall] [Halo] So I, a pilot, am trained to drop from space into combat in a gigantic armored Titan. The guy across the table is making fun of me and saying his drop pod is cooler. Whats my argument here?

Basically a pilot from Titanfall Canon sits down to lunch with an ODST, how's that conversation going to go?

[Assistant]
Son, any special forces operator worth their salt is going to claim their unit/branch of service/mode of transport/weapon/choice of mess utensil etc etc is the best/most lethal/requires most skill etc etc. Doesn't matter what universe they're from, it's just how they're wired. Give it back as good as you get, maybe have a spot of good-natured drunken brawling and part ways as best of mates.

To answer your question more directly, if we're defining 'cool' as 'firepower', titans (being a 30 ft tall deathmech) win. If we're defining it as 'requires the biggest stones to actually get into', the drop pod (being a titanium/composite coffin designed to ablate just enough on rentry to avoid frying its occupant without falling apart) wins.


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

[User] Can fruit DNA (like from an apple or orange) be traced back to the tree it came from?

[Assistant] Not with the fruit we eat, since most of it is cloned. For example every single banana you have ever eaten is genetically identical. Same goes for some other fruits too. In the best case you could probably trace a fruit to a region or a single orchard, but beyond that all the plants are propagated by cuttings (cloning) so you could never tell which exact plant it came from.


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

[User]
[Harry Potter] If Lucius and Narcissa Malfoy had offered to raise Harry alongside their own son how might events have turned out differently?

I could see a potentially plausible scenario where Lucius might have wanted to do this in order to both demonstrate his goodwill and more importantly have influence over a child who had somehow defeated the most powerful dark wizard of his time. Keep in mind at this point Voldemort was thought to be destroyed and the remaining Death Eaters would be looking to consolidate any possible advantage they had remaining. And while I don't think for one minute that Dumbledore would have willingly gone along with such an arrangement, Lucius had significant influence with the Ministry and could well have gotten his way though you can be certain Dumbledore would have made sure there were strict conditions in place at the very least.

Still, regardless of how the scenario comes about how might things have gone differently if this had happened?

[Assistant]
Dumbledore would not have allowed that to happen since he knew that Lucius was a death eater. There would be no going along for the most powerful wizard in the world, willing or not. He would have stolen Harry and deposited him somewhere long before allowing the Malfoys to take Harry.

Also there is a strong possibility that Voldemort would have killed Lucius for having Harry, dude was not the most stable of people.


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

[User]
[Warhammer 40k] What happens if a ship containing a Space Marine chapter arrives in OUR world? Also they manage to recognize our world as Holy Terra. What would they do?

Would they try to take over the Earth or would they chill since they don't know if the Emperor has been born yet?

[Assistant]
We're fucked. We'd probably be pretty fucked if it was just a single Space Marine company.

They conquer the world, overthrow all governments, and remake the political and social structures in the image of the Holy Terra they know and await the coming of the Emperor.


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

[User]
[Captain America: The Winter Soldier] what would the following couple days look like had Cap not succeeded in taking down the Insight Helicarriers?

And on a related note, what exactly was Hydra trying to accomplish? Sitwell told us that the carriers were to eliminate people who could stand in Hydra's way, but that sounds more like a safeguard than a goal to me.

[Assistant]
Tens of thousands of people would have died within a matter of hours, struck down by a blast from a helicarrier cannon.  The internet and news organisations would have exploded initially with wild stories and panic. Soon, however, the most important counter voices would be eliminated and replaced with HYDRA propaganda.

"Remain calm, go home and stay there," would be the commands.  Many people who would've disobeyed and questioned this new authority would already be dead.

Over the next few days HYDRA would begin feeding the public with their new directives.  Emergency services would go about cleaning up the messes created by thousands of cannon strikes.  People would be stunned and afraid.

However, it would turn out that an algorithm for human behavior written by a 100-year-old Austrian would be woefully inadequate in predicting the reactions of modern populations to mass catastrophes.  New leaders would begin to arise.

 Disparate elements of SHIELD would survive in secure bunkers and with scrambler tech.  Within the first 48 hours they would coordinate a counter strike and destroy the helicarriers.   HYDRA simply would not have the manpower to protect their initial gains adequately.  Then, due to its nature, HYDRA would fragment in factional infighting with groups trying to use the chaos as an opportunity to grab power.

The world would be in shambles.  Civil wars would flare up in many countries as SHIELD got the word around about what was happening.  HYDRA would control many governments and use their resources to hunt down opposition elements, but being accustomed to operating in the shadows, they wouldn't be particularly effective in overt control. SHIELD, being in its element of stealth and subterfuge would have the advantage in sabotaging HYDRA's new-found power where it could.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why is there sand on the coast?

The question might be a bit too vague, so to elaborate... Why is sand naturally present where the ocean and land meet? Why are there no (or not commonly) dirt/mud beaches. How does the sand get there and stay there?

[Assistant]
Dirt comes from decayed plants. Sand comes from broken-up rocks.

When plants die, new ones usually grow. So places where dirt is next to ocean are those places where plants grow right up to the edge, instead of having a wide-open "beach" area.

Plants don't grow so well on sand, so it's easier for beaches to "stay" beaches.

EDIT: Sand gets eroded from rocks and carried by rivers down into the ocean. Then ocean currents and waves carry the sand up onto the land and flow back down without the sand, leaving it deposited. Kinda like how whales or fish can get beached on land if they get into water that's too shallow; sand gets deposited the same way.


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

[User] [Lord of the Rings] So let's assume Sauron isn't active and the ringwraiths are dead or something to that effect. What are the long term consequences of wearing the ring?

[Assistant] Smeagol was the only person that had extended contact with the ring after the fall of Sauron. That contact turned a kindly hobbit into well...Gollum. An emaciated, broken creature that was distrustful, deceitful, incredibly long lived, and absolutely obsessed with the ring.


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

[User]
Why is it easier to walk uphill than to bike?

I got nerdsniped with this one today, and my knowledge of highschool physics is failing me. So I ask, why is it easier to go up a hill if I get off my bike and walk?

[Assistant] On a bike, you have to provide all of the force to keep the bike form rolling backwards down the hill *plus* all the force to move you forwards.  On foot, the force that prevents you from sliding backwards is provided by friction.


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

[User]
[Star Wars] After thousands of years of bureaucracy, corruption, civil wars, Sith manipulation, and gridlock during emergencies: Why did the rebellion reinstate a "new" republic after defeating the empire?

Hasn't the republic proven time and time again to be a poor system of galactic government?

The clone wars showed a massive failure:

* To act efficiently when needed in a crisis

* To root out internal corruption within the republic

* Failure to recognize manipulation by not just a sith lord, but also by the separatist systems.

* Willingly dissolved itself to put a fascist empire in place.

Even going back to the days of the old republic, the senate is still plagued by crippling bureaucracy even when faced with the Sith Empire.

when push came to shove, the republic was a terrible system of government. Why would the rebellion reinstate it after the empire was defeated? Wouldn't they worry that it would just collapse again into a new empire or something else sinister? How could such a slow plodding system possibly clean up the mess left from the empire?

[Assistant]
"After thosuands of years"

You've answered your own question there. It had plenty of flaws, but overall the republic *worked*. It kept the galaxy going in relative stability for millennia. With the empire no longer providing stability they turned to the only other government they knew that would be able to provide it.


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

[User]
Does Expansion of the Universe Happen On Atomic Levels?

I understand that all large bodies of the universe have been expanding from eachother in distanfe since the beginning of time and that eventually it will all be so far apart that nothing new can be formed.

Does this happen on a molecular level too?
Will each atom eventually spread itself so far out from every other atom that nothing is bonded anymore, or do laws of gravity affect that?

[Assistant]
Nope. Definitely not.

It's a very common misconception that the expansion of the Universe is provided by some "expansion force" which acts everywhere, and that gravity "acts against" this force in regions like our solar system.

That's nonsense. The only force relevant here, as far as we know, is gravity. The expansion occurs for more pedestrian reasons - because of something analogous to inertia. That is, at some initial time space was expanding (say, because of the big bang), and because there was nothing to *stop it*, it kept on going. The expansion then proceeded, under the influence of gravity. For the first few billion years, this meant that the expansion slowed down, like a ball thrown in the air slows down on its way up. (It's speeding up now, which means there's something funny going on, but that's a topic for another time!)

But does this mean that the protons and electrons in an atom are expanding away from each other? Well, no, because they're held together by atomic forces. Even if they were initially expanding away from each other, those forces pull them in together, and once that happens, there's no longer any "residual expansion" because there is no expansion force.


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

[User] [The Matrix] Would Morpheus have tried again if Neo took the Blue pill?

[Assistant]
"What happened, happened and could not have happened any other way."

"I'd ask you to sit down, but you're not going to anyway. And don't worry about the vase"

Morpheus would never have offered the choice to Neo if Neo hadn't already chosen the red pill. The Oracle has already told Morpheus what's going to happen, and Morpheus is just following the script.


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

[User]
ELI5: What causes revolutions? How bad do things have to get before such a large number of people agree on how bad things are and come together to fix it?

We hear politicians make promises during their campaigns, yet it seems that even though hardly any of those promises are kept, people don't really hold them accountable. However, there obviously have been times when the people get fed up enough and start a revolution. How come something like this hasn't happened to hold politicians accountable for their promises? How bad does it have to get?

[Assistant] One big condition is common knowledge. In many cases, each individual feels that things are rotten, but worries that they are the only ones who feel that way. It's when something big happens that makes everyone realize the majority feels things are rotten that a lot can get done.


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

[User] ELI5: Why is euthanasia often the only option when a horse breaks its leg?

[Assistant]
Because a horse needs to stand up and move to be healthy.  Horses do not sit down.  They often sleep standing up.

They aren't designed to be off their feet for extended periods of time.

A horse will never stay still long enough for a leg to heal properly. They are just massive animals, whose bones are massive, but fundamentally little different than yours or mine,, and can only heal slowly.

If the break is bad enough, then there is just no way to keep the animal from being in constant torture.  It will put weight on the broken leg. Any healing that may have occurred will be undone.  The horse will be in incredible pain.  Repeat daily until the horse is driven mad.

It has everything to do with compassion for the animal.

It has very little to do with cost. If it were possible to immobilizer a horse long enough for a fracture to heal, they would have figured it out centuries ago.  But there isn't.

These are not 100lb dogs.  These are 600-800lb horses. [Fixed typos]


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

[User] ELI5: How/why does skin moisturiser work?

[Assistant]
A moisturizer as a product is like a soup made of different ingredients.

Some attract and retain moisture, like tiny sponges.

Some act as a barrier to not let water pass (as much), like putting hand in a plastic bag.

Some allow mixing both oil and water together.

Some fill tiny crevices in the skin, making it feel smoother.

Some make skin a little bit puffy which makes it look smoother.

Some reduce skin's reaction to things (which can be getting red or flaky).

Some help the outer (dead) skin layers to detach faster, making skin smoother.

Some change consistency, pH, smell, color.

Some prevent bad things to grow in it, like bacteria.

The goal of the final recipe is to create something that will make money, so as such, this takes priority over being useful or even being harmless.

In practice this could mean for example using too small amounts of useful stuff if they have some less sellable points (like glycerine being very sticky).

Or stuff that is in such tiny amounts that it is likely useless but sounds good on the label (like "silk protein" or "[something exotic] extract").

Or stuff that isn't very compatible, but won't be noticed by consumer. Like stuff that shouldn't be combined because of conflicting pH.

Or stuff that is potentially harmful or under-researched. Or has some benefits at a cost of some issues.


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

[User] [MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE] I just collected my tape player from the dead drop, pressed play and the player exploded instantly instead of playing my mission briefing first. What now? I've got no idea where or what my mission is, it seems silly the fate of the world apparently relies on such old tech.

[Assistant]
You have two options:

1.  Contact the IMF about the problem. There is a clear cut structure for the operatives, so if you need assistance of any kind, you're going to get it.
2.  Ignore it. The message always reads "your mission, if you choose to accept it" means that they don't *have to* take the mission. Reasonably another operative will be contacted if they don't get a response from you. If it *has to* to be, they'll let you know as well, and the problem will solve itself.


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

[User]
CMV: The Executive powers need to be rolled back

The powers of the US president have been expanded bit by bit with every president and the end result is this position with more power than it was meant to have and exceedingly contentious elections.

I think the Legislature, particularly the House, was meant to be the most powerful branch. It was the only part of the Federal government that has always been determined by the direct popular vote, with the Senate eventually following suit. The people of a State voting for representatives of that State seems like it should carry more weight than a single figurehead.

I dont think the Constitution was meant to be a static document so Im not *necessarily* suggesting a roll back to the text of Article II but enough to bring back the balance that was intended.

[Assistant]
You could argue the same exact thing about the (federal) legislature. Look at Wickard v Filburn and its consequences.

Rolling back the powers of the executive would probably just lead to permanent deadlock, if only because 90% of things get done nowadays via executive action.


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

[User]
Does classical thermodynamics hold up at relativistic speeds?

Hi there, undergrad materials engineer here. I was wondering if classical thermodynamics would hold up for matter traveling at relativistic speeds. The idea behind this question started with a friend and I discussing accretion discs of black holes, and wondering how to model diffusion/mixing processes as one nears the event horizon.  Questions like how would the chemical potential for adding a proton to the accretion disk change if the matter of the disk were travelling at .9c and the proton was travelling at v << c  verses  v =.9c?

[Assistant]
Classical thermodynamics holds for relativistic motion basically unchanged, at least if we are concerned with a single local "patch" of fluid. Because of the principle of relativity, we can describe the physics of a blob of material traveling at 0.9 c with respect to the "lab frame" in terms of its properties in a frame moving with the blob, in which it is at rest. In this frame, the velocity is zero so the 1st and 2nd law of thermodynamics are the very same equations you are used to in the non-relativistic context. The only difference for accretion disks around compact objects is that there might be thermodynamical processes (pair creation, nuclear reactions) that are more naturally accounted for by adding the rest-mass contribution to the energy in the chemical potentials (the famous m c\^2).

If you want to describe non-local phenomena like advection and mixing then things become a little bit more involved, because we need to use Lorentz transformation to relate local quantities with quantities measured in a global frame. In other words, the standard equations for, e.g,. gasdynamics, must be replaced by their relativistic counterparts.

Diffusion is even more complex, because the way we describe diffusion in the classical context cannot be extended in a simple way to relativity.


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

[User]
CMV: Art should never be viewed in a vacuum, and should always be viewed as part of the culture surrounding it as well as a production of its creator/s.

My friend believes that art should always be viewed in a vacuum when reviewing it, and judged solely based on its own merits. I'm of the mind that art - **especially** contemporary art - should be primarily viewed as a product of culture and its creator/s, as well as compared to the rest of that creator/s' library of work in order to assess it fairly.

He explained his viewpoint for a while, but I remained pretty much entirely unconvinced, due to, I suppose, how "useless" or rather "not useful" I find it to be when critiquing art, given that I feel when a work is viewed as divorced from a library of work surrounding it (say, divorcing Bloodborne from the Dark Souls games when talking about design), it loses a significant element of context and appreciation, as well as potential for critique.

I'm interested, however, in this philosophy of art that he seems to espouse, and I'm wondering if anybody can convince me of its merits beyond a thought experiment.

[Assistant]
Each has its own merits.

Judging the work as a single cohesive experience tends to maximize the emotional and sensory impact of a work. You don't think about it, you foreground it and let the content wash over you.

Judging the work through its context is a more intellectual sort of appreciation. You'll make all sorts of interesting insights and connections, but the work will feel less immediate, less immersive.

I think the best method is to first experience it "in a vacuum" then experience it in context.


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

[User]
ELI5:What exactly is Publishers Clearing House and how can they give away all that money?

I recently saw a commercial and it was some crazy amount that they were giving away like 7,000 dollars a week for life. I did the math and that's 336,000 dollars a year. For lifetime? Surely there's a catch or something?

[Assistant]
Publishers Clearing House sells magazines(and other products) via the mail. You select which magazines you want, send them money, you get your magazine subscriptions.

They started offering prizes as a way to advertise and increase business. Their main competitor, American Family did the same. Both substantially increased their prize payouts.

The catch? Is that you're odds are about half a billion to 1. So, you probably won't win.

They can give away all that money because it's an effective advertising tool. The same way Pepsi can afford to show commercials during the Super Bowl.


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

[User] What is the function/purpose of a neutron?

[Assistant]
Subatomic particles have no intrinsic purpose. One could argue that the "purpose" of a neutron is to act as a kind of glue that holds protons together in the nucleus.

But then what is the purpose of a tau lepton? Of a top quark? Our universe could work perfectly with just one generation of particles in our standard model, but there are two extra generations. What are they for? Nothing, they just exist. There might be a "why", an explanation for their existence, but they have no purpose whatsoever, at least from a physical perspective, since physical theories are meant to be descriptive and as such they don't deal with any teleological issues.


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

[User] [DC comics] With superman's ability to manipulate his throat muscles, wouldn't this mean he could have been the greatest singer of all tine?

[Assistant] I have no doubt that Superman could hit any note perfectly, but there's more to singing than that alone.  A computer can hit any note perfectly, but it's not necessarily going to evoke the same emotions as a person playing an instrument.  Whether Superman would be a good singer would depend on his musical aptitude, even if he does have a major physical advantage.  The same way just being taller than everyone else doesn't guarantee you'll be the greatest basketball player of all time, even though it does give you a tremendous advantage.


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

[User]
Why major human body organs like kidneys and heart weaken or stop functioning in COVID patients?

I heard that when the virus enters the body it causes septicemia(bloodstream infection) which damages the organs.

[Assistant]
Nurse here, spent the past 12 months working in Covid ICUs.

The primary mechanism of organ damage is NOT direct viral damage from virus being spread through the blood as you mention in your post, but a lack of oxygen to the organs from a terrible combination of several different things that all cause a lack of oxygen by themselves, and when combined cause a severe enough lack of oxygen to the major organs to damage them beyond repair.

The first and most obvious mechanism is lack of oxygenation from the lungs. What laypeople might not understand is that we don't only put people on ventilators because their lungs are full of fluid, mucus, etc. We often put people on ventilators because their respiratory muscles are literally too tired to keep breathing. The ventilator does the breathing for them, so those muscles can get some rest. Ventilators are pretty effective for this.

With Covid though, you can have a situation where someone is on the ventilator, but their lung tissue is literally too damaged by the virus itself to be working properly. So despite being ventilated, they are still not getting enough oxygen. Clearly, this low oxygen can damage other organs and is a major problem. (We can try to mitigate this problem with things like turning the person over to lay on their stomach, which exposes a great surface area on the backs of the lungs to the oxygen being pumped in by the ventilator or by putting the person on a full heart-lung bypass machine called Extra-Corporeal Membrane Oxygenation or ECMO, but these things come with their own set of complications and are not easy, guaranteed solutions.)

The second thing related to damaged lung tissue is the failure to remove CO2 from the blood. Dissolved CO2 in the blood causes the blood to become acidic (called "respiratory acidosis"). Acidic blood and acidic body tissues do not function very well. Body proteins (enzymes, etc.) don't work in a high-acid environment.

Adding to the acid problem is the fact that in the absence of sufficient oxygen, your body cells resort to an alternative method of producing energy called lactic acid fermentation. Obviously the buildup of lactic acid further exacerbates the problems caused by bad pH levels. This acidosis itself can cause organ damage and organ failure on top of the organ damage from lack of oxygen.

Acidosis can also contribute to low blood pressure, although primarily the cause of the severely low blood pressure that we see in Covid is a medical condition known as sepsis. Sepsis is not quite the same as septicemia as you mentioned in your post. Sepsis is a medical condition of wildly out-of-whack immune responses, the precise mechanisms of which are very complicated and not 100% understood. The results of sepsis are tachycardia, tachypnea, both of which can just tire a person's body, but the real killer in sepsis is profoundly low blood pressure.

Low blood pressure *again* exacerbates the problem of lack of oxygen to the major organs. Not enough blood flow means that even if the blood had enough oxygen in the first place, that oxygen isn't flowing into the organs like it should, so that oxygen isn't getting to where it's needed.

All of the above mechanisms *are not unique to Covid.* These processes can occur in any situation where a person's lungs are not working properly (things like Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome or ARDS), although they are much much worse in severe Covid just due to the sheer amount of damage to the lungs. And the sepsis reaction in Covid is profoundly worse than what we see in other infections for reasons we don't understand yet - complete speculation might be because this virus is completely new to our entire species? maybe because Covid has direct effects on the immune system? We don't know for sure yet.

But we do know that if we treat people with immune suppressants (steroids specifically) about a week into a Covid infection, they are less likely to develop the severe kind of sepsis that causes people with Covid to die. It's possible that this immune system dysregulation itself is causing some damage to major organs in ways we don't fully understand yet.

Additionally, ON TOP OF the above problems, Covid also directly causes blood clotting through mechanisms that we don't entirely understand. Kidneys in particular are extraordinarily sensitive to even microscopic blood clots, and this is thought to be one way that Covid causes kidney damage. Again, blood clots block blood flow, which prevents delivery of oxygen to the organs even if there is enough oxygen in the blood.


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

[User] ELI5: What is different with sport bikes that make them sound so high pitch compared to cruisers that sound so deep?

[Assistant]
The RPM (rotations per min) at which the different motors operate, and their respective power bands, because of their different uses.

Cruises tend to have larger overall engines, working at a relatively low RPM to keep the bike, well, cruising.  They have a wide power band (to oversimplify, the same amount of power at most RPMS)  That is to say, best in a straight line, with few dramatic changes in speed or direction necessary.  They They're build for style and comfort.

Sport bikes, in contrast, operate at a very high RPM range, with a narrow power band (meaning it makes most of it's power in the high RPM range, so it needs to stay revved up).  They're build for speed and agility.

TL;DR the two engines are doing two very different things, so they sound very different.


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

[User]
[Marvel] Can the Infinity Gauntlet edit itself?

Let's say I have magically acquired the Infinity Gauntlet along with all the infinity stones. Can I make the gauntlet morph into armor, or a different weapon?

[Assistant] The Gauntlet has not power. Its just a glove with spots for the stones. Using the power of the Infinity Stones, it can be converted into anything from Infinity Armor to the Infinity Tiara to the Infinity Cock Ring.


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

[User] [Logan] In the movie, will the mutant kids eventually lose their powers because of the corn syrup poison in processed foods?

[Assistant]
The mutant blockers don't prevent people from using their powers. What happened was that new mutants stopped being born. The mutant population not having the best standing in the world, people quit or died fast.

The real question is - can you start conceiving mutant children again if you isolate yourself from the blocker, or is it a permanent alteration?


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

[User] [Star Wars] In Episode II: If the LAAT gunship was out of rockets, why not just use its frontal blasters to take down Dooku?

[Assistant]
A missile is a rather more reliable way of killing a Force-sensitive: It follows them, and the explosion cannot be so easily dodged. Hardly perfect, but far better than the alternative: For Dooku, blaster fire is little more than an inconvenience.

A surprising fact is that Dooku's speeder actually has a slightly higher top speed than an LAAT/i. The pilots were probably pouring everything they could get out of the power core into the engines just to keep up with him, and wisely recognized wasting energy on weapons fire wouldn't be worth it.


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

[User] ELI5: If cardio is done by raising the heart rate to a high level and sustaining it, why does the heart not constantly improve its health since it never stops beating?

[Assistant]
If your heart needs to get stronger it will, that usually means you are in trouble.

Look into the physiological mechanics of most cardiac problems and you will see that most of them aren't the heart muscles failing the body, it's the other way around.

High Blood pressure? Your heart muscle is fine, the problem is that it is working too hard because your body is in bad shape, narrow arteries, obesity, reduced kidney function. It will keep working too, but your arterial walls aren't strong enough to withstand the extra pressure and over time will weaken.

Heart attack? That's a clot or blockage in an artery that starves your heart of oxygen, again it is your body failing your heart muscles.

Low blood pressure? Hormone imbalances mostly. Your heart muscle is normally fine but it keeps getting orders to beat slower and weaker than it is capable of.

Your heart muscle is so amazing compared to the rest of your body that managing your cardiac health is mostly about getting your body closer to the efficiency of your heart to make its job easier.

Cardio expands your blood vessels and improves your circulation. It improves your bodies efficiency at using oxygen and dealing with the by products of anaerobic exercise. It means that your heart gets to take it easy.

An incredibly healthy cardiovascular system is one you are likely to find in people with low excess body weight, active lifestyle, and a good diet that doesn't tax their metabolic systems. This hypothetical person will have a slow heart rate with a strong "beat" but not high blood pressure. Because the body is up to snuff and will have vessels large enough to allow blood to flow easily and a body efficient in using it.

TLDR; You heart is so powerful, efficient, and sexy that it mostly doesn't need to improve, it's your scrub-ass "everything else in your body" that fails your heart.


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

[User] ELI5: why is someone who carries messages a messenger and not a messager

[Assistant] As with most circumstances where this occurs in English, it's because the two words actually come from different roots--"message" is derived from Latin, but "messenger" is from Middle Ages French. In some cases they fiddle with the spelling to make the word association that much clearer (see: "isle" and "island", where they added the s to the second word to make it more similar to the first), but in others, they don't.


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

[User] ELI5: Why do posters and advertisements (when left in the sun) lose colour but keep prominent blue colours?

[Assistant] UV light causes the pigments to decay. Different chemicals react differently to it. Some decay quickly, some are more stable. The blue pigments happen to be more stable compared to the red and yellow pigments.


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

[User] ELI5: How Dual-Clutch Transmissions and Continuously Variable Transmissions use clutches but do not stall.

[Assistant] standard manual transmissions leave the operation of the clutch to the driver.   dual clutch tranmissions have a computer thats controls the clutch thru vacuum and hydraulic systems.  the computer doesn't make the mistake of misengaging the clutch .


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

[User]
Since bacteria are so plentiful on everything on earth, how does NASA stop any potential bias of even dead bacteria on the Mars Rovers?

If there are bacteria on everything, how do they stop the bacteria from biasing any potential results, even if they are dead?

[Assistant] Me and a buddy of mine at a NASA internship got a chance to get inside the JPL cleanroom the Curiosity was assembled in. He had to take 2 special showers before he went in, and wore a special anti-static robe, mask, and hairnet. Before they let us in they detailed the extraordinary precautions they take before letting any employees in. They check for cold sores, open wounds, pimples, a case of the sniffles, anything. Suffice to say they are 100% dedicated to preventing even the most minute causes of error.


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

[User]
[AtLoA] Why was the Earth Kingdom lossing?

It seems to me that an army that automatically has the advantage of terrain would be *very* difficult to defeat.

 A small squad of earth benders would be able to build a reasonably sized wall in a few seconds. Which would mean that the Earth Kingdom's armies would always be fighting from a fortified position. That is a massive advantage. What's more is that they can rapidly expand, repair, and even move their fortifications.

Also, an earthbender can block a firebender's attacks but a firebender cannot block a earthbender's attacks. This doesn't matter much in one on one combat as most benders prefer to dodge rather than block but in a large scale battle situation, where there is little room for individuals to dodge, it is very important.

What I would expect the Earth Kingdoms armies to do before each battle would be to build a defenses and then pound the attacking troops with stones.

If I were an Earth Kingdom noble and general, and not a shopkeeper from Omashu, I would have my army fight like an army from the "First World War" from that fiction book I read once. A strong defensive force that would decimate attacking forces with small stones fired rapidly by my weaker benders, and large rocks that would be fired high over the enemy and shattered by my stronger benders. My non benders would mostly perform garrison duties, protect supplies, reinforce weak points in my lines etc.

I am really just wondering why are we losing. This war should have been over decades ago.

P.S. does anyone know how much it costs to get a ferry from Full Moon Bay to Ba Sing Se? I want to make sure I don't have to risk The Serpent's Pass.

Edit: I just noticed the spelling mistake in the title. I feel stupid now.

[Assistant]
The Earth Kingdom is a decentralized agrarian society, with the king holding little power in the provinces. This makes it a logistical nightmare to mobilize an army. Meanwhile, the Fire Nation is an authoritarian industrial powerhouse. They are also a naval superpower while the EK doesn't even have a navy. So the FN can pretty much conquer the entire coast of the EK with impunity if they want to.

Also, you are overestimating the power of the average earthbender. Not everyone is Toph or Bumi. For the common Joe, moving a boulder might be an extremely difficult task that requires multiple benders.

Furthermore, the EK has the lowest ratio of benders per capita. (It goes Air Nomads pre-genocide Water Tribe  Fire Nation  Earth Kingdom.) So you're saying your non-benders would mostly perform garrison duties and protect supplies? Well, guess what? The majority of your army are non-benders. Furthermore, few of these earthbenders are even going to join the army because, again, the EK is completely decentralized and not much recruiting effort is going on. You might have a couple of special earthbending squadrons like the Terra Team or maybe your own personal retinue and/or house guard but fielding an entire battalion of earthbenders is out of the question. Compare it to the FN, whose army is mostly comprised of firebenders thanks to their strong recruiting policies.

Honestly, the question shouldn't be why the EK is losing but why the FN still hadn't won after 100 years. The answer is because the FN was honestly more interested in colonizing and imperialism than just exterminating everyone for the lulz (not counting the Air Nomads, that genocide had...strategical importance).


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

[User]
If both the liver and the kidney are filtering organs, what are their different responsibilities? Are there other organs that perform similar functions?

I know that the liver does about a million different things and secretes bile, while kidneys remove urea, but are there any overlapping functions?

[Assistant]
Under the constraints of evolution, each organ it typically highly specialized to a specific role or set of roles. There are some redundancies in the body but implementing them is usually part of a pathological process.

The liver acts to metabolize molecules to make them more easily excreted. Sometimes this detoxifies the molecule, sometimes the metabolite is more toxic than the original substrate. The liver also produces many proteins, clotting factors, helps regulate glucose, ammonia, and cholesterol levels, stimulates platelet production, and aids in the digestion process.

The kidneys serve to help remove soluble wastes from the body. In doing so they also remove water from the body. They also serve as a monitor of your total blood volume, stimulating red blood cell production and/or water retention if necessary. Some drugs are metabolized and excreted through the kidney as well.

Both the kidney and the liver are involved in the urea cycle, and in heme degradation, but their roles are sequential, not parallel.


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

[User] Eli5 Can people die from something being too spicy? How does that work if its just a taste?

[Assistant] Excessively spicy can cause your throat to become to inflamed that you can't breath and suffocate. The chances of this happening are very slim because anything high enough on the scovile scale to do that probably isn't food.


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

[User] Does the discovery of gravitational waves mean that eventually we will be able to detect and map dark matter as gravity is the only evidence of its existance?

[Assistant]
First, we can already use the paths of light and motions of objects in space to map out dark matter.

But will gravitational waves let us do more?  From what we know of dark matter, it seems unlikely that this will help us, at least for some time.  To be detectable, we need gravitational waves produced from some cataclysmic event, and dark matter seems unlikely to be prone to such events.  But if it is, now we'll have a way to know -- and that's exciting!  And maybe there are effects we have not thought of involving dark matter to look for, but people will no doubt be giving this some thought.

Eventually, if we get to a point where we can measure the relic gravitational waves from just after the Big Bang, that may give us some insight into the behavior of dark matter.


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

[User] Is there a website to practise statistics methods like programmers do on leetcode?

[Assistant] Ive always wished there was a website that was just tons of stats examples where you are given data, some background information, and a hypothesis and you have to run a test and report if the data support that hypothesis or not. And once you answer an example, it would share the correct answer along with an explanation/code of the best method for testing this specific example given the data.


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

[User] ELI5: What is actually going on when you hit your funny bone?

[Assistant] You're hitting the ulnar nerve, which is a big honkin' nerve that runs down your arm. Most of the time, it is cushioned beneath lots of fat and muscles, but at the elbow joint, it is exposed and relatively close to the surface of your skin. As such, it is vulnerable to impact which makes your arm feel all tingly as the impact causes it to fire off impulses.


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

[User]
ELI5: The difference between the Taliban and Al-Qaeda!

Often it seems like I hear these two terms used interchangeably. Are they one group under different names? Are they two completely different groups with unique ideologies? Do they operate in different areas of the world, separately?

Edit: I appreciate the answers given. Thanks for the discussion.

[Assistant]
The Taliban is an Islamic Fundamentalist and political movement principally in Afghanistan. Among other things, it was temporarily the ruling political force in the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan from 1996 to 2001, which controlled roughly 90% of the country.

Al-Qaeda is a global militant Sunni Islamist organization, that largely functions as a decentralized armed force. They frequently instigate sectarian violence against other Muslims through pronouncements of takfir, where essentially Muslims with variations from what they consider ''appropriate'' Islamic practice (liberals, Shias, Sufis, etc) are considered apostates.

They have offered support to one another, have had shared, and differing goals, and even within Al-Qaeda itself there are groupings and splinter groupings with numerous different motivations and even occasionally conflicting goals.


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

[User] ELI5 what actually happens with a spam call and no one is in the other line, only a few clicks or beeps?

[Assistant] What they call an autodialer. Computer calls people and when they answer call gets routed to an available agent. If there are no agents available, you get what you experienced. This happens when the so called 'abandon rate' is set too high. This happens only with aggresive sales call centers. We call them cowboys. Avoid at all costs. If you hear nothing: hang up.


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

[User]
ELI5: How do erasers work?

How do erasers erase the markings a pencil makes? Furthermore, why can't it erase pen marks?

[Assistant]
Pencil lead is graphite.  Pencil marks are  fine graphite powder solids.  To a small extent the eraser abrades the paper surface while abrading itself. The tackiness of the eraser dust picks up the graphite and it gets rolled into eraser and paper dust boogers.

Ink, on the other hand, is applied as a liquid.  It soaks below the paper surface.  It can also be erased, but only with heavy abrasion that removes a lot more paper.


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

[User]
If you've lost a limb like a hand or foot, what do your muscles do when your brain sends the signal to move that limb?

Obviously there's no hand to move but is there still muscle contraction? Will the "stump" (for lack of a better word) move slightly? Will it hurt?

[Assistant] Therapists have used mirrors to make it look to a patient like they were viewing their missing opposite limb. This enabled the patient to scratch or un-clinch the fist on the missing arm and relax it for the first time in years.


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

[User] ELI5 What is it, physically or psychologically, that makes direct eye contact so intimate and/or uncomfortable?

[Assistant]
Besides the people who are shy or socially anxious, for which the reason is simply that, anxiety, other than that, evolutionarily, eye contact, especially in primates, is seen as a sign of direct confrontation and challenge.

For example in some apes, direct eye contact means challenging the leader of the group to a fight, to take over his position or banish him etc. Thats why apes avoid eye contact, especially with the leader of the group.

And i guess same got transferred to us. Eye contact is uncomfortable because its a signal of im not afraid of you. Which causes tension as you may guess.


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

[User]
[Batman] How much of Two-Face's life is governed by the coin?

Is it every decision he ever makes? Like when he wakes up, does he flip to see whether he has eggs or bacon? Or is it just big stuff, like what crimes to commit and who to kill?

[Assistant]
Dent is wrapped up in the idea that chance can alter the course of your life, and his coin flips are limited to events on that magnitude. Does he shoot Batman or let him go? Does he ally with the Joker or turn against him? Does he blow up Gotham or leave it in peace? Stuff like that.

Even the fact that he is a criminal was decided by the coin. After his injury, he flipped to see if he would continue to be righteous or go down a path of evil.

This is probably why he *plans* crimes without flipping the coin, but only decides whether or not to execute those plans after consulting the coin.


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

[User] ELI5: What does Neanderthal gene sequencing actually tell us about human-Neanderthal interactions? And is there any other evidence of interaction?

[Assistant] The first archeological sites where we found Neanderthals they were buried under newer evidence of Homo Sapiens. So the theory was that over time Neanderthals were displaced for Sapiens. However the more sites we found and the more we were able to explore of these sites the more complex things became. We did not just find Neanderthal remains under Sapiens remains but sometimes it was the other way around and sometimes they were buried right next to each other. And this suggests that they were not simply competing with each other and over shared resources but they appeared to be living together in the same caves at the same time. And that is quite uncommon for different species to do. And when we were able to sequence Neanderthal genes we discovered that some of the unique mutations in Neanderthals which were not present in Sapiens at that time are now present in modern day humans. That means that modern humans have some Neanderthal ancestors. And that explains the previous archeological finds where we see Neanderthals and Sapiens living together because they were actually together and able to reproduce with each other.


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

[User]
[Pokemon] Can a Pokemon just leave their trainer?

I mean, you're a pokemon, you get captured by a pokeball and the next time you wake up you're in the middle of a battle, can't you just simply say 'lmao, nope' and leave the battle?

[Assistant] It's incredibly rare, since allowing itself to be caught is a choice that Pokmon make. Pokmon appear before trainers that they think would make a good partner. Choosing to abandon them in a battle is a lot less common then simply ignoring a trainer's command (or just taking a nap) A trainer would have to be really abysmal or abusive for a Pokmon to straight up leave.


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

[User] ELI5: Why are cells so small and why can't they be huge?

[Assistant] Because as cells get larger, their interior mass increases faster than the surface area of the cell membrane. This means that at one point, the amount of membrane would not be sufficient for servicing the entire cell interior. Not enough oxygen/water/sugar could enter the cells through the limited protein "doors."


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

[User] ELI5: What is Toto's "Africa" about?

[Assistant] According to David Paich (keyboards and vocals) the song is about "a white boy trying to write a song on Africa, but since he's never been there, he can only tell what he's seen on TV or remembers in the past".


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

[User] ELI5: How does ADHD affect the brain?

[Assistant]
You know the story of the ant and the grasshopper? The ant works hard, plans for the future, prepares and stores food for winter. Grasshopper fucks around all summer, procrastinates, does whatever he wants and when winter comes he's caught off guard and underprepared.

Well, in the brain of an ADHD person, the ant is having a nap and the grasshopper is running the show. They have difficulty with executive function (future planning, seeing how decisions will impact them later, foreseeing consequences, benefits of delayed gratification and things of this nature.) Basically the part of the brain that tells you "that's a bad idea" or "you shouldn't do that" or "you should be doing..." is under active. This is why stimulants are used to treat ADHD.  They give the ant part of the brain a jolt and help him rein in the grasshopper.


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

[User]
ELI5: How do different resolutions work?

Like, say you have a 1920x1080 pixels monitor. You play a 1920x1080p youtube video. All is well. Now you want to set it to a lower resolution. The way I can think of to do that, is to take four pixels in a square and take the average colour and brightness of that pixel and make that the same for all four. Now you've devided the amount of pixels in each dimention by two, so you have 960x540, unless im making a mistake here. So ELI5 how do you get 720p resolutions and other ones, and how do they translate to physical pixels in your screen, a number that doesnt change.

[Assistant] Imagine a grid of ~2M cells, going 1920 across and 1080 down. Now, make a grid of ~1M cells, going 1280 across and 720 down. Then, stretch the second grid uniformly until it's the same size as the first grid. For whatever cells overlap, you take the average color.


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

[User] ELI5: How does weather work? Where do weather fronts come from and why do they interact the way they do? Do storms only happen when two fronts meet? What the heck even is a weather front?!

[Assistant] The sun heats up half the Earth while the other half cools. This creates pressure differences in the air. Furthermore, the rotation of the Earth itself causes large cyclic currents of air. Combine these, and air is moving all over the Earth. Different temperatures result in different amounts of water being absorbed or condensed, affecting humidity and causing precipitation.


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

[User]
If atoms never truly "touch", how is heat transferred?

I understand that heat is just the average velocity of all of the atoms. So if the atoms never truly "touch", how is the kinetic energy transferred? Virtual particles?

[Assistant] The concept of atoms "touching" is not very well-defined, because they are not solid. Regardless, atoms can exert forces on each other, so they can exchange kinetic energy. In addition, in metals electrons moving through the lattice also carry kinetic energy.


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

[User]
[GotG2] Spoilers: Regarding Peter's Heritage

Is Ego actually a Celestial? We've seen footage of a Celestial (Eson the Searcher) wielding an infinity stone, as well as the severed head of a dead unnamed Celestial. It makes sense to surmise that Celestials are a race of colossal, immensely powerful humanoids. Where does Ego fit into this? We see his brain, but it's clearly not massive enough to support a booming organic mining operation like the one at Knowhere.

[Assistant]
A. He's got the biggest ego in the universe, claiming to be a Celestial when he's actually leagues below them wouldn't be surprising.

B. He's a baby version of a Celestial, with the adult version looking more like Eson and the Knowhere Celestial. This is similar in the comics on how Celestials reproduce, by placing an embryo at the center of a planet.

C. The term Celestials is used in the MCU to cover a broad spectrum of powerful cosmic characters. Lesser Celestials include beings like Ego, the Collector, and the Grandmaster. Greater Celestials are like Eson.


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

[User]
[ELI5] Why are all the T.V. stations that were for so long true to their origin suddenly all changing to the same, "rigged reality" shows?

Even Animal Planet now has "Mud lovin rednecks". Do the general audience really prefer this cheap entertainment? It seems so sad in a way, like a person who's hit hard times and now works the street.

[Assistant] Ratings and profit!  Reality shows are *very* cheap to make and get very good ratings, that makes them a good choice for any station who wants to make money, which means all of them.  Their goal is cash, not content.


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

[User]
Why is Indigenous ancestry a source of pride in the United States but a source of shame in Latin America?

After watching Spanish-language soap operas and then visiting Latin America, I noticed that dark skin and other indigenous characteristics are viewed as undesirable and associated with lower socio-economic status. My first-generation Mexican American friend tells me her parents constantly pressure her to marry a *gero* (white person) in order to *mejorar la raza*, meaning bless her posterity with more desirable features.

In the US, by contrast, many people claim to have indigenous ancestry and wear it as a badge of pride. Even if it's something as insignificant as being 1/16th Cherokee, people will flaunt it. So I'm wondering, given the history of racism against Native Americans throughout this continent, what accounts for these differences in attitude?

[Assistant] It hasn't always been that way. There is a documentary called Reel Injun that discusses both the appropriation of native ancestry, and the history of its social desirability in a more broad context of cinema featuring native american characters.


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

[User]
Marxs great contradiction ?

Marx said that value was created by the labour power and materials put into a product.

But wouldnt that mean that his theory predicts that profits will be higher in labor-intensive industries than in capital-intensive industries, which would be contradicted by measured empirical data inherent in quantitative analysis.

He did a poor job of explaining this contradiction in vol 3.

Is there another way to approach this?

[Assistant] That is not a contradiction. Capital is accumulated past (dead) labour, and therefore the past labour that this capital represents is what gives that large part of the value not made by present labour in these capital intensive industries.


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

[User]
ELI5 Why our eyes get "cloudy" when we are waking up. What physically is the "cloud" in our eyes?

I'm talking perfectly healthy eyes, when I'm still waking up they get cloudy every few blinks.

[Assistant] Your tear film has three layers: mucous, water, then a lipid layer on top. The lipid layer keeps the water from evaporating off your eyes too quickly. As you sleep, if your eyes are open even a little bit, that water layer can evaporate so when you wake up, all that is really left is mucous and the lipid layer. Without the water layer, your tear film is thicker and is more difficult to see through, hence that cloudiness. But when you blink a few times, it clears up as the lacrimal gland releases tears to add to the water layer.


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

[User] ELI5: We breath the through the lungs. The air goes in and out of our lungs. So why is it that most of the time it's our stomach that inflates rather than the chest?

[Assistant] Your body can expand the lungs 2 ways, the ribs can stretch out to expand your chest, or the diaphragm under the lungs can expand into your gut which pushes your gut outward. You have probably been breathing with your diaphragm.


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

[User]
Can somebody give me an example of a predator and prey duo that have a very recent common ancestor?

(Sorry if this is a dumb question.)

-not counting cannibalism

I was just thinking about how long it would take for two species to diverge from the same organism and become predator and prey. So, I wanted to see if someone could let me know which predator and prey duo are most closely related, with the knowledge that is available at this time.

[Assistant]
Fireflies are a great example. Nearly every species is poisonous to some degree. Except for those in the genus photuris. This group has lost its ability to produce poison. To compensate, the females of this genus can reproduce the light patterns of the closely related fireflies in the genus photinus. When the male photinus approaches the female photuris doing her mimic flashes, she grabs and devours the male. Her tissues then accumulate the poison the male had produced.

Thus, an otherwise non-toxic firefly genus regains its poisonous heritage by seducing and eating her genetic cousins.


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

[User]
How to look for an open PhD position with a specific idea in mind?

Hi!

I'm looking for an open PhD position connected to the labour market innovation. I would like to work on how to remodel the whole employment system.

I have been browsing websites for open positions. Most of the time they are pretty vague and it takes a lot of time to check everything. Not to mention, I find it quite confusing that sometimes I find relatable topics in different fields, such as economics, business and management, politics and social sciences departments.

Should I contact professors directly for some recommendations?

The university I graduated is not that helpful about it as they don't have anything similar.

Any recommendation or tip is welcomed. Thank you!

[Assistant]
Hunt around in journals and academic books, and make a list of people whose work is, or is close to, what you want to do. Find their *current* home institution and see if it has a PhD program. If so, email them introducing yourself, and explain your interest. Ask them if you can do that work in their program, and if not, if they would recommend a program that *would* support the work you want to do.

Good luck!


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

[User]
CMV: There is no democratically legitimate reason not to implement vote by mail

It seems to me if were expecting people to stay home generally, we cant just continue to expect people to go gather together in polling places. Were talking people to work from home and avoid crowds. And fortunately, technology has made it so that for some jobs, working remotely is possible.

Well it also seems that mail makes it possible to vote without exposing people to crowds. Five states already have vote by mail, and it works. Its not a new or untested system at all. So any municipality that has an election coming up, can and should make that an option for people.

When you arent actively trying to disenfranchise people, the response to the increased risk associated with crowds is straightforward. We should implement vote by mail. And the only motivation behind the rationalizations for not doing so are naked attempts to favor the Republican Party in spite of the will of the electorate.

It seems to me that the most parsimonious explanation for why any given district wont embrace this proposal is that they are republican controlled and want to disenfranchise voters in order to maintain power illegitimately. There isnt a democratically legitimate basis for opposing these efforts.

[Assistant]
Im guessing the issues are as follows:

1)	It costs money to implement

2)	It takes longer to count votes and may lead to votes that are unclear (not unique to mail in voting)

3)	People without mailing addresses are unable to use it (Im not sure if you want vote by mail exclusively or as an option, your title is ambiguous and but your body says its an option)


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

[User]
What does it mean for a black hole to be rotating?

It seems unintuitive to me to describe a single point as rotating. In what direction does a singularity rotate?

[Assistant]
Rotating black holes are believed to have a ring-shaped singularity, or Kerr singularity, because as you suspected a point cannot have angular momentum in classical physics.

However, quantum mechanics does allow for point particles to have angular momentum. This angular momentum called spin is an intrinsic property of fundamental particles like electrons and quarks as well as composite particles like protons and neutrons.


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

[User] ELI5: What makes "Rubber Duck Debugging" psychology work?

[Assistant]
Its very common to go an explain a problem to a coworker and realize part way through what you were doing wrong like using AND instead of OR or checking the wrong input or something of that sort.

When you read something its easy to skip over your typos and not notice them, but when you start talking about them it can become more obvious that you flipped something around.  You don't actually read all the the words in a sentence, your brain isn't a precise machine and runs off of a lot of fast and dirty rules.  When you have to transfer it into another communication scheme you have to reform everything, you're not just going to read the ducky the code, you're going to say "The printer should stop when someone opens the door AND presses the cancel button....crap...OR...." not if(Door_Open && CancelPressed){}, turning your variable names back into what they mean helps you process it in a words again like your brain wants

The rubber ducky comes into play because it gives you something to talk to an explain your problem to so you can resolve your issue yourself before breaking someone else's train of thought to bring them into a problem you're going to resolve yourself.


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

[User] ELI5: Why does swiss cheese have holes in it? Does it have to do with how it's made it is it just a gimmick?

[Assistant]
During production of the cheese, the bacteria consumes lactic acid and produces carbon dioxide. The carbon dioxide gas forms the holes.

Or for a real ELI5: Imagine you're swimming in a giant pool of jello with fresh fruit floating around in it. You love fresh fruit, but it makes you fart a lot. So you start swimming around eating up all this fruit and you also start to fart. Well, since the jello is kind of solid, your farts can't quite escape and the gas just creates pockets in the jello. You eventually run out of fruit to eat so you just enjoy floating around in the jello for the remainder of the time.


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

[User] ELI5: why are energy prices rising in the UK, when their main sources is its own North Sea gas?

[Assistant]
Where the gas comes from doesn't matter that much as the UK doesnt actually own its gas supplies  rather, privately owned corporations such as British Gas control the gas and are allowed to export it to whomever they please.

If the price that other countries are willing to pay goes up then those companies will simply sell to those countries instead.


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

[User]
[Witcher] Why are the Nilfgardians steamrolling the North?

Most of the books, games, and adaptations of the Witcher saga show Nilfgard as an unstoppable powerhouse, with battles like Sodden that hold them back only miracles achieved by great alliances and great sacrifice. What is it about Nilfgard and its armies that make them so easily able to conquer? Do they have better generals, better technology, better magic, what?

[Assistant]
**Nilfgaard's Advantages**

*  Nilfgaard is larger, wealthier, and more populous than the North, so they could muster up a massive army for an invasion. ~300,000 troops during the 3rd Northern War.

* Nilfgaard's military is far more professionalized compared to the Northern realms. The Empire likely provides standardized state issued arms and armor, with a standard military organizational structure and fighting doctrine. The North relies mostly on a very small corps of elite knights, a few mages, and mostly feudal peasant levied men at arms.

* The North is extremely disorganized and politically fragmented. Exacerbated to a greater extent by the 3rd Northern War due to the assassinations of multiple Northern monarchs, most notably Foltest.

* Nilfgaard is led by Emhyr var Emreis, someone who is very intelligent and very ruthless.

* Emhyr enlisted the help of Elven guerrillas such as the Scoia'tael who were instrumental in weakening the Northern realms' logistics and economy.

**That being said....**

The North still won 2 out of the 3 wars, and it would have most likely won the 3rd one too. Here's a few key reasons why Nilfgaard continues to lose.

* Besides their Emperor, their leadership was just not as good as the North's. King Foltest, Jan Natalis, and King Radovid V were absolute geniuses when it came to military strategy and tactics.

* The North had the home field advantage. It was their land, and they knew the terrain, and their people much better than the Nilfgaardians ever would. Invaders will always have the disadvantage.

* The mages were largely aligned with the North due to Nilfgaard's tight control over their mages. Nilfgaard actually made very little strategic use of magic. This advantage was flipped entirely during the 3rd War, but both Radovid and Djikstra would have won if they were leading Redania.

* Nilfgaard wasn't very stable, and was suffering from severe war exhaustion. Emhyr had lost two wars, and had no heir. The Empire was on the brink of an aristocratic coup by the time of the 3rd Northern War because their finances and manpower had been stretched to the limit by years of constant warfare with very little to show for it.


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

[User]
[Star Trek] Hass a member of the Federation ever been kicked out of the Federation?

I don't mean denied entry or voluntarily left. I mean a full on member of the Federation of Planets was removed because of something they did or some disagreement.

Is there even a process to leave the Federation once you join? Is there a vote or something? A trial?

What about the technical aspects? Like shared resources, technology, assets, space, and personnel?

[Assistant] It's hard to imagine there isn't a way to leave the Federation. Certain domestic policies and societal structures (like Bajor's caste system) preclude Federation membership. Surely a member wouldn't be allowed to end a caste system, join the federation, then re-implement their caste system without being booted.


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

[User]
What's your general reading strategy in the context of a daunting reading list?

Hi all, a bit of a meta discussion here.

I've always been one of those people who has insisted that if you didn't read something carefully, you didn't read it at all. In my academic life, I've prided myself on being someone who maybe hasn't read as much as some of my colleagues have claimed to, but for the things I did read, I read them very well--I think there's some moment during a Derrida interview where the interviewer points to the expansive bookshelves in his office and asks him, "how many of them have you read?" and he replies in jest, "just these three--but I read them really, really well." That's sort of what I mean. I take my time to understand every sentence, I take voluminous notes, and as a result there's a relatively small number of texts that I am very familiar with.

However, over the course of the writing of my MA thesis, I've come up against the limitations of this way of doing things--namely, my very sparse literature review and general lack of serious engagement with secondary sources. I have a lot of (what I think are) profound things to say about the book that is central to my thesis, but it is largely my own reaction to the text with very little engagement with the surrounding scholarship.

Now, for the MA thesis, I was sort of able to get away with this insofar as the particular topic I chose had to do with a topic that was almost entirely neglected in my area, such that there were really only maybe three or four papers that were directly related to what I'm working on.

For the PhD, however, I am jumping over to a totally different area, and this is an area that has arguably been one of the most hotly debated topics in French intellectual life for the last 40 years. As a result, I'm faced with a reading list that, with my reading style, I will never be able to even come close to touching in the span of four years. I'm hopefully beginning my PhD next winter semester, and there's already over 350 items in my Zotero folder for this project--many of them are short papers, but a significant number of them are long, dense books that would take me, at minimum, a full semester to read through "carefully".

Has anyone been faced with a similar issue before, and if so, how did you adapt your reading style to match this new challenge? What's the best way to intelligently skim a long, dense, complicated book?

**EDIT: Thanks for all the great words of advice, everyone! This has certainly helped me put a few things in perspective. I think the main takeaway for me, personally, is to continue to narrow my topic until the relevant reading list is much less daunting. I have a habit of being overly ambitious (I'm currently feeling the sting of this as I struggle to finish my MA thesis) and when I first described my dissertation idea to my future supervisor, he told me that it wasn't a dissertation, it was a life's work. The project is significantly more narrow now but not narrow enough, I think.**

[Assistant]
Prioritize and change your reading technique according to this prioritization. There will be secondary sources you really only need two paragraphs from, there will be others that are central to an issue you're discussing. Develop an ability to switch between careful reading for what is important and quick surveys to look for what is important. Don't feel shy to use the references someone else gives in a paper or literature review you think is important as a guide for what to focus on. Don't feel shy to read abstracts, scan tables of contents, and ctrl-F for key words as techniques to survey large bodies of literature in search of what looks to you like stuff of the most importance.

On widely discussed topics, no one can read everything. Be confident in defending this principle, with reference to your reasoning for how you select what to focus on. If that's not enough to get you through, strongly consider narrowing your thesis topic until it *is* enough to get you through.


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

[User]
How do people get headaches if the brain doesnt have pain receptors?

Unless it does. Then the answer is obvious.

[Assistant] Headaches are caused by the tissue and muscles surrounding the brain, not the brain itself. It depends on the type of headache what is causing it. Tension caused by muscles, sinus caused by swelling of the sinus cavities and swelling of the tissue around the outside of the brain. The meninges (coverings around the brain), periosteum (coverings on the bones) both have pain receptors.


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

[User]
Is there a possible scenario where two events, A and B, can occur as: A then B, A and B simultaneously, and B then A, all using three different relativistic frames?

~~It's been a while since I've caught up with GR.~~ Say two events occur: A and B. Is it possible to have a frame R experience A then B, a frame R' experience A and B simultaneously, and a frame R'' experience B then A, all within our universe of physics? I am unsure if this would imply that it is simply three frames with three different accelerations, or if one frame would require time to be moving in the negative direction.

EDIT: Thank you for the well put responses.

[Assistant]
Let's answer this in SR. Forget about GR.

Given two events A and B, we can consider the invariant spacetime interval between them:

> (s)^(2) = -(t)^(2)+(x)^(2)+(y)^(2)+(z)^(2)

The notation "t" means the difference in the time coordinate between the events, and similarly for x, y, and z. The two events can be classified into three categories (assume that A and B are different events):

* timelike separated: (s)^(2) < 0
* lightlike separated: (s)^(2) = 0
* spacelike separated: (s)^(2) > 0

Timelike separated events are those events for which a massive particle can, in principle, travel between them. Lightlike separated events are events connected by a light signal. Spacelike separated events are events so far apart that not even a light signal could have traveled between their spatial locations in the required time. Note that the number (s)^(2) is the same in all reference frames. So if A and B are timelike separated in one frame, they are timelike separated in all frames. (Similarly for lightlike and spacelike separated events.)

Now to answer your question:

* The temporal order of A and B is the same in *all* reference frames IF AND ONLY IF the events can be joined by a signal traveling at or below the speed of light.

 * It follows that if A and B are timelike or lightlike separated, then their temporal order is the same in all reference frames.
 * It follows that if A and B are spacelike separated, then given any temporal order of A and B (A before B, A and B at same time, or A after B), there is a reference frame in which that temporal order occurs.

There are some other interesting properties these events must satisfy:

* If A and B occur at the same space location in the frame *S* (from which it follows that A and B are timelike separated), then their temporal order is the same in all reference frames and the least time separation between A and B occurs in that frame *S*.

* If A and B occur at the same time in the frame *S* (from which it follows that A and B are spacelike separated), then there is no limit on their time separation (it can be any real number) and the least space separation between A and B occurs in that frame *S*.


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

[User]
CMV: All guns sold in the US should be hot pink

Pink is invisible to most game, just like orange.A pink gun would be easier to see for everyone involved.It might deter some people from buying guns.It would be completely legal within all interpretations I can find of the 2nd amendment.

Not picking pink because of the relationship with feminine traits. It is a bright and obvious color. I would be open to other colors like neon orange, but I would think there is a valid argument that it should be invisible to deer but visible to humans. But, the benefits of a single bright color to distinguish firearms would be incredibly useful. You could even require that all existing firearms be converted to this color.

I believe I even remember Penn Gillette suggesting this 20 years ago.What is wrong with this idea? At the very worst it wouldn't increase gun violence, and at best it might prevent some.

QUICK NOTES:
\-All guns would be required to be pink, even older guns. Painting a gun to a different color would be a felony.

\-**Conceal carry**: This isn't part of my core view, but I guess I would say that conceal carry should be banned and only open-carry allowed

\-**Color**: I am not strongly attached to the specific color. I chose it because it is highly visible and some might find it undesirable. I am open to any visible/ugly color. I've awarded delta on this point already.

\-**Could we still customize?** No. Every surface of the gun would need to be the same color. No exceptions for cosmetics. You want mother of pearl plates on it? Paint them pink. You bought an agar wood custom shoulder stock? Paint it pink. You want to put pretty stickers on your gun? Nope. All pink

\-**"This would impact legal gun owners, etc"**. Yeah, this is the point. I am explicitly not trying to stop criminals. I am trying to stop legal gun owners. If you have a gun in your house, that gun is far more likely to kill an innocent person than a bad guy. That is what I am trying to prevent
\-"this wouldnt stop crimes/mass shooting/school shooting". Yeah, I know. Not my intent

\-**Why not just ban all guns?**. I have zero desire to ban all guns. I own guns. I am simply trying to think of ways to make guns less attractive to casual gun owners, who are significantly more likely to do something dangerous.

\-FYI: pink is actually my favorite color.

[Assistant]
>What is wrong with this idea? At the very worst it wouldn't increase gun violence, and at best it might prevent some.

I think a worst case is that it looks like a toy to children. Like a hot pink nerf gun.


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

[User] [ELI5] What happens in the brain of someone suffering from bipolar disorder that creates such a divide between moods and why does it happen in cycles?

[Assistant]
In our brain we have several different areas, many of them are called cortexes for example the central motor cortex is where the signal to move body parts comes from.
With mood disorders such as bipolar disorder we want to think about where is our "mood" or emotion coming from. Thus, we find ourselves talking about a less well known deep part of the brain called the limbic cortex. The limbic cortex is the part of the brain commonly associated with processing emotion.

A major function the limbic cortex performs is allowing the reward pathway of dopamine to occur. Dopamine is in short the chemical that your brain produces to make you feel happy, if it's there in excess you might feel elated, be less socially restricted, and very excitable. If dopamine is not as present you might feel less happy, less excitable, etc.

Normally your brain regulates all of the chemicals in your body with relative accuracy due to various fail-safes and sensors throughout the body, this regulation is called homeostasis. Bipolar disorder is basically the answer to what happens if the system for maintaining dopamine's homeostasis in our body was broken.

Basically in someone with bipolar disorder there brain might not get the signal to stop producing or receiving dopamine, so it becomes present in excess in the body resulting in an extreme emotional high. Then their body might eventually figure out "oh, it's time to turn down the dopamine" so the system returns to normal and the person returns to baseline. Or it could get to the point where the body exhausts the resources to produce dopamine triggering an absence and therefore an extreme low. Hence the divide between the moods and the cycling.

In sum, the ability for the brain to manage the level of dopamine is likely broken somehow and so the levels fluctuate widely. Why the states maintain for a while or you can cycle back to baseline is basically the brain desperately trying and failing to achieve homeostasis.


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

[User]
CMV:The relative progressiveness and acceptance that most diasporic Judaism supports is the result of historical marginalization, not fundamental differences from other Abrahamic religions.

I write this as a Jew, a fairly observant one. I love that Judaism, particularly diaspora Judaism, supports acceptance and tolerance. However, I believe that these good qualities are the result of historic marginalization, not fundamental differences in doctrine compared to other Abrahamic religions.

While it is absolutely true that Jewish religious texts support charity and kindness, so do the texts of Christianity and Islam. It can also be seen that in the instances where a Jewish kingdom or majority society has been established, these principals of kindness are often ignored. This can be seen as far back as the Hasmonean Dynasty(founded by the Maccabees). The Maccabees did not rebel to create religious freedom. They rebeled to impose Judaism on those in the kingdom. You see similar trends in many states that are dominated by Christians and Muslims. That is to say, in nations with a heavy majority of any Abrahamic religion, features of religious doctrines that call for charity and acceptance are often ignored.

Rather, I propose that the acceptance that much of mainstream diasporic Judaism promotes is the result of historic marginalization and discrimination suffered until the mid twentieth century.

[Assistant] Can you elaborate on what you mean by acceptance and tolerance? Do you have any evidence that Jews are actually more accepting than Christians? It sounds like you might be comparing progressive Jews with average or conservative Christians.


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

[User] ELI5: Why is there such a loud sound when we clap?

[Assistant]
You're compressing the air between your hands rapidly, creating a pressure wave. Which is, you know, what sound is.

The best, loudest claps involve cupping your hands to trap more air between them. Your hands squeeze that air together before it rapidly expands again out through the gaps between your hands.  That rapid compression and expansion is the sound wave that your ears detect. The more air you compress, the faster you compress it, and the harder you compress it, the louder the sound will be.

Compare that to, say, clapping with wide open hands, palm against palm, and you won't get much of a sound, not matter how hard you clap, especially if you can get the heel of one palm into the center of the other so very very little air is trapped.  You'll get a smacking sound, but that's mostly the sound of your skin smacking and vibrating the air, rather than a good solid compression of air like in a proper clap.


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

[User]
ELi5: Why do small animals (birds, squirrels, etc.) have such "faster reflexes" than humans?

I understand they are smaller and can move faster than humans, but why can they wait so long before moving?

For instance, when you're driving and a bird is able to wait until the absolutely last second before flying away and avoiding getting hit. What allows animals to have such better reflexes?

[Assistant]
Birds sit there and almost get hit because theyre actually pretty bad at gauging the speed of an incoming object.  They dont really understand that your car is moving faster than anything in nature could ever move.

They instinctively fly away when something gets too close, but for a speeding hunk of metal that range is much too small and many definitely do get hit by cars.

More generally, small animals can have very quick twitch behavior because they have such little mass to accelerate.  Youre a muscle and bone battleship compared to a sparrow, youre not stopping on a dime.


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

[User] [DC Comics] Superman gets bored one day and asks Black Canary to train him in hand to hand combat. Assuming they find a way to power scale so Superman doesn't accidentally turn Canary into a pretzel, will this have any effect in how Superman can tackle threats in the future?

[Assistant]
Sure, having martial arts capabilities can be a big advantage in fighting, especially when Supes has enemies that are on his insane level of abilities. Not to mention if he gets depowered or weakened later on.

Superman actually does know some forms of martial arts, at least in some continuities.


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

[User]
CMV: The State should have no right to tell me what I can and can't put into my own body.

This is a post relating to drug prohibition. To me, it seems to be a glaring inconsistency in the law. The State is not there to protect me from myself. Law is there to ensure order between people and my personal right to consume something does not necessarily harm anyone else. Bodily autonamy is a key Tennant of law that comes up when discussing many other issues.

The argument I can see against this is one of public health/wellbeing. Recreational drugs can be dangerous when consumed in an unsafe manner or when bought in an unregulated market. My counter would be twofold:

1. We allow many dangerous acts anyway (driving, drinking alcohol, certain sports etc.) It seems odd to make this distinction.

2. If public health is your concern then surely policy should be guided by public health experts. There is a wealth of evidence to suggest that prohibition makes recreational drug taking less safe and does not reduce the prevalence of it. The way to make it safer is to educate and to regulate.

I am not necessarily against the regulation of the drug market and the regulation of the sale of drugs I just think that fundamentally the State has no business telling me, on threat of imprisonment,what I can put in my body. I also believe that it leads to the opposite of what that policies are supposedly aiming for.

My view could be changed if someone could provide evidence that prohibition reduces harm to both individuals and society or if someone could provide a sound moral and logical argument for why the State has the right to govern my body in this way.

 Genuinely interested to hear counter arguments as I live in a bit of a bubble where this opinion is prevalent and I therefore haven't heard a single credible counter argument.

EDIT: A lot of people are using the argument that drugs cause people to harm other people. If someone commits a crime they should be arrested. If someone does not commit a crime, they should not be. Harming other people is already illegal and the prohibition of drugs does not need to be part of that.

[Assistant]
Let's say that there's a substance that when consumed has a 50% chance of making you violent, to the extent of being a danger to others. Maybe in theory it would be more correct to simply punish those who commit crimes, but there is immense practicality in outlawing the use of said substance. Would you really consider it wrong?

Of course, no actual drug functions this way, but if you concede the point about the hypothetical drug, the discussion moves away from theoretical principles, and into the concretes of the effects of various drugs.


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

[User]
ELI5: How is a game converted to a rom for emulation purposes?

I'll just ask about Dolphin's Game Cube since I use it. How does the rom process work in allowing a GC game to be played on Android?

Does the process have anything to do with why there are only a limited number of roms?

[Assistant]
A rom is just a copy of the media.  In case of GC it's a copy of the data stored on the CD.  Some roms are encrypted, like on the 3ds and you need to decrypt them before use on a device.

They're called ROMs because originally they were the *dumps* of Read Only Memory chips found in cartridges and arcade cabinets.

Today however, they are more akin to directory structures found when browsing a PC/Mac rather than binary dumps of a single chip.   If you're emulating the GC for example, it's more appropriate to call the games you're emulating "images" - "disc images".


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

[User] ELI5: How was it possible to orally record mythologies and other literature thousands of years ago, without the use of written scripts, and still have the almost similar elements in various versions?

[Assistant]
People's memories were a lot better before writing became commonplace.

Also, part of what makes something great poetry is that it *is* easy to remember.  "Poetry" that fails at this is, in a pre-literate society, never going to become popular in the first place, and poets who don't put an effort into it are going to find themselves out of a job.


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

[User]
CMV: Relaxed or even open borders are not compatible with a strong welfare state

I personally believe that strong social programs are essential to deterring many negative features of late-stage capitalism. We have the resources, so in my view there's no reason for citizens to not have food, water, healthcare, education, and housing. People who are not struggling just to survive could be more productive in their society and be able to spend their expendable income on nonessential luxuries, stimulating the economy. I see many leftists advocating for open or deregulated borders, and while I would like to live in a world where everybody, no matter their nationality, has access to resources they need, I do not think a laissez-faire approach to border security is sustainable as our resources to provide for citizens would be spread too thin.

[Assistant]
It's not very difficult to exclude recent immigrants from benefits.  Right now in the US you're excluded from most income-based benefits for the first 5 years you're resident as an immigrant.  Virtually every country distinguishes between citizens and noncitizen residents, usually requiring a substantial period of residency before applying to naturalize as a citizen.

Why couldn't a country allow people to immigrate as noncitizen residents, and exclude them from benefits for a number of years, and then allow them to naturalize after they've put down roots and shown they can be a productive part of society?


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

[User] [Comics]Crazy or zany characters like Deadpool or Shehulk have guessed or realized they are in a comic book. Have any mentally sound, serious characters ever deduced they are in a comic due to the weirdness of their world, if so, who?

[Assistant] I mean, She-Hulk was mentally sound and serious when she was breaking the fourth wall. She wasn't wacky or zany, but just made snide comments and did things like help civilians escape from a villains lair by ripping a hole in the page, and taking them through an ad to get to safety.


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

[User] [DOOM] Hayden says that Argent (Hell) energy is the only solution to an energy crisis that "humanity has no answer for". What has gone wrong with renewable energy to make it unfeasible? Does it just provide orders of magnitude less power than humanity needs?

[Assistant] In this case, the problem is energy *storage*. Renewable energy can meet daily power demands, but saving that energy for later is problematic. Argent is kinda like a new super-fossil fuel, it's transportable and has an incredible energy density.