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

[User]
[Star Wars: Episode III] Did Palpatine make a tactical error with Order 66?

Hey all, I was rewatching Revenge of the Sith recently and a thought struck me as the Order 66 scenes were taking place. Allow me to share my train of thought.

After Anakin is baptised as Vader, Palpatine begins to enact his plans to destroy the Jedi and assume power. He orders Vader to march on the Jedi Tenple and kill everyone there. Vader rightly points out that many Jedi are scattered across thr galaxy. Palpatine assures that they will be "taken care of".

Enter Order 66, a purge of Jedi enacted by their Clone allies that proves to be incredibly effective because the Jedi, who's senses are clouded by the Dark Side and who's trust in the Clones has led to complacency, fail to sense the danger in time and are killed.

With the sole exception of Yoda. Who, upon sensing the death of his fellow Jedi across the galaxy realises the danger in time to turn on his Clones.

My question is. Why didn't Palpatine order the death of Yoda sooner? With the possible exception of Obi Wan no other Jedi is more dangerous  (or has a greater chance of sensing the trap) than Yoda. And while it did ultimately prove inconsequential for the rise of the Empire, failing to recognize Yoda as the highest possible Jedi target seems like an uncharacteristic error from an otherwise shrewd and cautious tactician.

[Assistant]
Making a move on Yoda before Order 66 would have warned the Jedi and let the prepare. Even if it was a secret assassination, Yoda was in constant contact with all levels of Jedi command and would immediately have been missed.

All in all, it was the right move. The only reason Palatine fell was because he got arrogant and didn't forsee Vader turning on him in that moment.


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

[User]
CMV: There is no excuse for people who leave their shopping carts in the parking lot instead of rolling it to a designated area.

I visit different grocery stores throughout my week and witness an alarming amount of people too lazy to walk their cart an extra 10-15 yards and just leave it in the parking lot. How fucking lazy can you be? You just spent the whole time rolling the cart around and you can't push it another 10-15 yards to a safe area? Stray carts in a parking lot dont generally roll fast enough to ever dent a car, but they often scuff up cara because most carts have plastic shielding for this very reason. Im still not pleased to come outside and see plastic scuff marks. Granted, my car is in supermarket parking lots a LOT more than the average person, so I underdstand this can happen to me more often than the regular person.

[Assistant]
What if someone was pushing their cart with 100% intention to be responsible and put it in the designated area, took a phone call, found out their wife was in the hospital after a car accident and *forgot* about their cart? That seems like a legitimate excuse with full intent to do the right thing where circumstances made it almost physically impossible because of where their brain was at.

Granted, that's a rare scenario. But you said *no* excuse.


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

[User]
[Avatar: The Last Airbender] How does Toph know when a projectile is flying at her?

Although she is blind, Toph "sees" by using her feet to feel vibrations through the earth.

It's clearly established in her very first fight with Aang that if something isn't touching the ground, then it's invisible to her.

However, she constantly blocks or dodges projectiles coming at her through the air, and not creating vibrations of any kind, with perfect timing.

This already doesn't make *complete* sense with rocks and boulders being thrown at her, but it ***really*** doesn't make sense when she's apparently able to see fire blasts, lightning, and arrows.

[Assistant] She can still sense the person who threw/shot the projectiles. She doesn't know the exact position of the projectile but she can guess based on distance it was launched and from which direction direction it's coming.


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

[User] Is it possible to find four different numbers a, b, c, d that a*b=c*d and a+b=c+d?

[Assistant]
No, and you can prove it yourself!  Start by solving one equation for one of the variables, then substitute it into the second equation.  Here are the full steps, but maybe it would be best to try to work further on your own after reading one before reading the next.

First, if any of a, b, c, or d is 0, then another one must be 0.  Why?  So, if we want different numbers, none of them can be 0.  Let's assume this is the case.

Start by solving the first equation for a: a = cd/b.

Then the second equation becomes cd/b + b = c + d.

Move everything to one side: b + cd/b - c - d = 0.

Multiply through by b: b^2 - b(c+d) + cd = 0.

Factor: (b-c)(b-d) = 0.

What does this tell you?


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

[User]
What does the R_0 value really mean?

Hey guys,

I'm currently reading up on viral outbreaks and I'm asking myself how I need to interpret the R\_0 values for different viruses that you can find online.

It is the number of people that get infected by one person when no one is immunized and no measures are being taken to contain the virus. So far, so good.

But at which timeframe do I need to look at?

Let's say that the R\_0 value for measles is 15. Does this mean that one person infects 15 people in one day and on the second day 225 people have been infected?

Or do I need to take the incubation period into account when looking at the various R\_0 values? Assuming that it takes four days for a person that has just been infected with measles to become infectious. Would that mean that it would take 8 days for 225 people to become infected?

Thanks!

[Assistant] R\_0 refers to the total number of other people a patient will infect *before either recovering or dying*. There's a separate number, typically referred to as "generation time", which tracks how long it takes from exposure to (on average) infecting someone else. You need both numbers to model a pandemic.


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

[User] ELI5: How does a landfill work? Does it compact and compact or does it just keep piling up until its eventually taller than the buildings around it? Is it ever at risk of bursting or damaging anything around it?

[Assistant] Modern sanitary/municipal landfills (at least in most of the developed world) are highly engineered structures.  Holes are dug on flat ground or scraped out of the side of a hill, and "cells" are filled with highly compacted waste, ostensibly picked through to remove the worst environmental offenders (things like car batteries, drums of industrial waste, etc.).  Each cell is lined with special barriers designed to last for decades that allow bacteria to thrive and break down most of the waste, while at the same time preventing contact with groundwater and channeling runoff (from rain percolating through the ground) into a collection system for treatment.  Cells are sealed and buried as they fill up, and new ones are opened.  This continues until the landfill is filled, then another barrier is placed on top and the whole thing is covered by a layer of soil.  Sometimes the landfill will be built up higher than the original land, sometimes it's at the same height, but it's not a good idea to leave it as a depression - then water will fill the depression, and a lake over a landfill is a bad idea.  Usually a system to vent gasses produced during decomposition is installed as well - they're largely passive venting systems (think pipes sticking up from the ground that allow lighter than air gasses to vent upwards).  Some systems catch the vented gas and burn it to generate (a small amount) of power.  Properly designed and properly maintained, there's no significant risk of bursting or collapse.


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

[User] [general] What's the difference between a witch, wizard, warlock, sorcerer, and mage?

[Assistant]
*Note - This varies hugely by canon

Wizard - Your classic finger wiggler.  Wizards are generally trained, though some element of natural talent is required.  Years and decades of study have given these individuals immense power to bend reality to their will.

Warlock - Typically Warlock's manifest different powers than other spellcasters, which makes sense given their source.  Warlocks made a Deal (yes capital D).  They sold their soul, someone else or perhaps much more for power.  Who gives them that power is up for grabs though Demons, Eldritch Abominations and Fey are the popular options.

Sorcerer - Baby they were born this way.  Sorcerers are born not made, though even the most powerful sorcerers will tell you that practice makes perfect.  Where the Wizard learns by study and the Warlock is simply handed power a Sorcerer channels the magic of their blood/lineage.  Typically this means someone in their ancestry diddled a dragon or something but sometimes it could just mean that a big ol pile of magic found its way into the womb and infected them.  In either case, they've got a lot of power.

Witch - This one is probably closer to a slur than anything else.  A Witch could easily be any sort of female spell caster.

Mage - Typically a word to describe a wizard or sorcerer.


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

[User]
[X-Men/X-Men CU] Did the Nazi's perform any experiments on Magneto when his powers firstmanifested themselves in Auschwitz? If so, what?

Just saw the opening scene of the first X Men movie again for the first time in years and it made me wonder. They were pretty gung-ho about experimenting on weird/unique people, so I was a wondering if they did anything to him, and what.

If this cannot be answered within the Cinematic Universe, i'd be interested to know if this was ever explored in the comics.

[Assistant]
In the movies, they show more about what happens in *First Class*, though they don't detail his escape it's assumed that he leaves before much is done to him, personally.

In the comics, his family lives in Germany until 1939, when they move to Poland and get captured. His family is killed, but he spends a long time in Auschwitz, working as part of a slave group clearing bodies from the gas chambers. Aware that, as witness to Nazi crimes, they would be put to death themselves, the Sonderkommando of Birkenau Kommando III staged an uprising on October 7, 1944, during which Max Eisenhardt and the Romani girl Magda escaped.

They moved to Ukraine and had a daughter, and Eisenhardt adopted the name Magnus. His powers were discovered, and an angry mob burned down his home and killed his daughter. His pregnant wife left, later bearing his twin children Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver, before she died.

Eisenhardt changed his name to Erik Lehnsherr, and soon ran into Charles Xavier. His discussions with Xavier crystallized his views, and he realized they were incompatible. So he left and started working towards protecting Homo superior from the inferior (but numerous) people around them.


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

[User]
CMV: "Pay-it-forward" chains are pointless and unnecessary.

You've all heard or experienced going to a coffee shop, ordering your drink and finding out the person ahead of you has paid for your drink. Then the cashier says "This has been going on for 30 customers so far!" You then normally "Pay-it-forward" for the person after you since you don't want to be an asshole and break the chain.

My question is this: What is the purpose of keeping the chain going if everyone is basically paying the same amount of money or more than they would just by paying for their own order? How is that generous?

[Assistant] It's not meant to be generous in the sense that someone is gaining financially at the end of it, it's meant to feel good.  In the end, everyone is spending roughly the amount they would have spent anyway, but in addition to whatever product they receive, they also get the pleasure of A) receiving a gift from the person in front of them and B) feeling generous in buying a gift for the person after them.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why does the UK Government want to abolish the Human Rights Act?

The newly formed UK Government wants to scrap the Human Rights Act and replace it with the British Bill of Rights. What is the difference between these two and what is there in the Human Rights Act that they're paticularily keen to get rid of?

Thanks!

[Assistant]
One reason is because in the old bill the highest human rights court is the European Court of Human Rights, which means that the British Supreme Court has to take the European Court's judgement into consideration, and if the European Court thinks a judgement or law is wrong it can fine the UK.

They want to change so that UK courts don't have to listen to the European Court's judgements and that the ECHR can't fine the UK for laws it thinks break human rights.

This comes from many high-profile cases where the UK government hasn't been able to deport foreign nationals who've committed crimes and served prison sentences because they either have family in the UK or would face torture in their home country, and also where the ECHR ruled that the UK must allow at least some prisoners (eg. people in prison for minor offences) the right to vote.

(Edited as Lord_twisted suggested to make the exact power relationship between the UK Court and European Court clearer.)


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

[User]
When you rotate a glass, why does the liquid inside not rotate as much or at all compared to the glass?

I've always been confused by this and needed an answer so I can show off and tell them about my new founded science wisdom.

[Assistant]
Friction - or lack thereof. The water molecules are naturally attracted to each other - but not all that strongly - you see two drops next to each other touch and form one larger drop - BUT, you can drag your finger through and smear it all up with ease.

You spin the glass and the water molecules in contact with the glass are pulled along at a ratio of about 1:1. One molecule in from that one is affected, but not as much - the next one turns but not as much as the one before it... and it keeps going for a little distance (according to our visual exam - there are actually millions of molecules involved!). If you were to continue to spin the glass, the interior molecules would slowly be dragged faster and faster until the whole quantity of water is spinning at the same rotational velocity.

STOP the glass, and the water keeps spinning - the molecules in contact with the glass would slow first, slowly dragging each molecule inside to slow down until the whole works would be sill.

Howzat?


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

[User] ELI5: What are the effects of carbon monoxide poisoning to the brain and the body? How can it affect someones life after recovery?

[Assistant]
Carbon monoxide binds to oxygen transport molecules in the blood and effectively suffocates you internally.

Acute toxicity that is promptly addressed will leave no permanent damage, the broken oxygen transport molecules are replaced over time and youll recover to full capacity quickly.

Surviving more prolonged exposure will have effects similar to any other lengthy lapse in oxygen - irreversible damage to the brain.


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

[User]
Is it worth taking multivitamins?

Do vitamin supplements provide any real health benefits for the average person? Or are they just a waste of money?

[Assistant]
We've had this discussion before, please search.

tl;dr: Not really worth the cost, for people who eat healthy in a developed country.  Maybe, for the trace minerals.  But generally, you're just making your piss more expensive.


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

[User] How does the body's immune system create an antibody to a novel virus it has never encountered yet? Is there some machanism of trial and error (creating random molecules)? Can those attempts create molecules that are harmful to us in the process?

[Assistant]
Until a more thorough answer comes around, yes and yes. The body creates random antigen-binding antibodies, around 10 billion all together, each capable of binding to a distinct epitope. One of the key mechanisms for this is V(D)J recombination. Basically, there are several regions of DNA that are randomly selected and recombined in developing B cells, which are then used in the creation of the pieces of an antibody. So, this now genetically unique B cell with its unique antibody all over the surface goes out into the bloodstream and, if it finds something binding to its antigens, will check to see if that something is "self", that is if it's attached to a human cell, or not. If it doesn't recognize it as self, it will then communicate with another type of immune cell, and eventually produce more and more copies of itself. This process of proliferation is highly variable, and will result in a population of similar antigens with variable binding affinities, some weaker, some stronger. That process is called somatic hypermutation. Stronger binding affinities will outperform weaker ones, and over time the antigen sensitivity increases in a process called affinity maturation.

Occasionally, these processes can result in the aberrant creation of antibodies against human cellular structures. In these cases, autoimmune diseases can be developed.

Edit: for mobile typos.


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

[User]
ELI5 Why Muscle Mass  Strength?

People with larger muscle mass lift less than people with smaller muscle mass at my gym, why? Steroids are not a factor. I know these people are clean.

Edit: In both cases perfect form is used.

[Assistant]
Like you're 5;
You have two balloons: One is filled to be bigger but is filled with air. One is smaller but filled with water instead. Which one is going to have more impact when thrown?
Some people work out to make their muscles bigger, some work out to make them more dense.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why are certain drugs (Ex: Methotrexate) better to take once a week and not daily?

Specifically for methotrexate, why is the dose six pills once a week and not a pill a day for six days of the week?

[Assistant] To allow a higher (efficacious) dose and then recovery from (horrible) side effects. In the case of methotrexate, it is highly toxic. You take it once and then spend a week recovering from the damage it has done before having another dose. There would not be enough time for recovery otherwise. This is the same reason some other chemotherapy drugs are taken intermittently too.


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

[User] ELI5: Why do we tend to view mammals and furry/soft animals, even predators, with a positive physical connotation (cute, pretty, regal, etc) but scaly animals, insects, arachnids etc are viewed with a negative physical connotation (gross, ugly, fearful)?

[Assistant]
Mammals all kind of have the same idea of cuteness. A human values big eyes, playfulness, and soft fur as a sign of infants, which are adorable because nature wants us to give us as much incentive to protect babies as possible.

Reptiles and insects have no need for cuteness, nor do they have the usual "cute" traits. That being said there are plenty of people who find those things cute. Geckos, for example, are sometimes and exception.


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

[User]
[Marvel/DC] What are some things characters are known for but were only added in later on to their characterization?

Like Mr.freeze and his wife, or Superman and his flying.

was Barbara Gordon always a genius hacker, was Spider-Man always almost as smart as Reed Richards?

[Assistant] Hank Pym hitting his wife. There was one story like 20 years after he had debuted as a noble heroic character where it happened amidst a mental breakdown and he's unable to ever live that moment down. Now Hank is always slightly mentally unstable and tends to be a bad husband when that's not at all how the character started out.


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

[User]
[Wonder Woman]Does the Lasso of Truth make them tell the truth or make them honest?

In other words, if bound by the Lasso, could they say something that believe to be true but is actually false?

[Assistant]
A little bit of both.  As the other poster said, the Lasso can't make you reveal information that you don't know.  But, the Lasso has also been shown to burn through illusions or other deceptions.  So for instance, if someone was under an enchantment that made them forget information the Lasso might be able to remove the enchantment allowing them to remember.

But, with magic it is hard to say in general.  It would depend on the specific spell and who cast it.


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

[User] ELI5 how are micro SD cards able to store entire TV shows, albums and movies without any kind of electricity to keep them "active"?

[Assistant]
imagine it's like those little push buttons on the top of a soda cup.  The ones that indicate if it's diet, or Dr. Pepper, or whatever.

An SD card has millions of those little buttons. They can be pushed back and forth, showing up or down, (0 or 1).  They stay in the position they are in regardless of power.


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

[User]
What are the 'most important' contributions to philosophy from the last 50 or so years?

It's an absurd ponderous question but I'm mostly trying to get a sense of what people find important in contemporary-ish philosophy.

Also, why do the suggested contributions matter?

[Assistant]
Rawls, *A Theory of Justice* - basically revitalized Anglophone political philosophy and has been influential among non-philosophers too.

Kripke, *Naming and Necessity*.  In addition to arguing for a view on the semantics of proper names (which might not sound all that exciting), it revitalized certain kinds of metaphysical topics about possibility, necessity, essential properties, and arguably ushered in an era of appealing to possible worlds and modal arguments (for better or worse).

EDIT: I'll add:

Nagel, "What is it like to be a bat?" - Influential argument that materialists have a problem accounting for consciousness.


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

[User]
ELI5: How does our immune system decide what substances it should produce antibodies for?

I've been reading about red meat allergy from lone star ticks (on wikipedia) and read that the cause was supposedly from a substance from most mammals called alpha-gal entering the bloodstream and our body producing antibodies. These antibodies in turn make us allergic to alpha-gal when we eat it in our food.

I've gotten lemon juice in a cut before and I'm not allergic to lemons, so what makes our body decide to produce antibodies against specific substances in our bloodstream?

[Assistant]
Your body makes antibodies completely randomly.

Imagine a child playing with some building blocks. Each B-Cell builds a little tower of blocks by randomly rearranging a special part of it's DNA when it develops. If the antibody it's made sticks to something that's "self", then it gets the message to stop making antibodies, and the cell dies and gets recycled.

The BCells which don't react to self then merrily wander around your bloodstream brandishing their antibody and seeing if it sticks to anything. If it finds something it sticks to, it goes to the spleen and asks around to see if any T-Cells think the thing it sticks to is foreign. If it gets the signal that it is, then the BCell reproduces a lot, and each child BCell randomly tweaks it's antibody blueprint by randomly mutating it's DNA.

These child BCells then compete to see who's antibody binds the thing they'be found best, and the process repeats until you've evolved a really good antibody which binds strongly to it.

If you get alpha-gal in your blood, you may or may not have a BCell who happens to have made an antibody which binds to it. The building blocks the BCells use to make their antibodies are inherited, so if you have a building block which already nearly binds the alpha-gal, you'll be more likely to have a BCell make an antibody against it than someone who doesn't have that building block.

If the BCell gets given the right messages from the T, it can decided that the thing it's killing is a *serious* threat. Then it does a process called *class switching* where it keeps the same antibody building blocks, but essentially sticks a landmine on the end. This is now an IgE antibody. The BCell will then produce this in large volumes, and the surrounding tissue cells will take it up and coat their surface with it. When the target approaches one of these cells, the IgE antibody will bind to it and trigger the land mine, creating a lot of inflammation and damage. This is what causes serious allergies to produce lots of swelling, and is naturally used to kill large, multi-cellular invaders such as parasitic worms. This is your bodies equivalent of "kill it with fire."


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

[User] [Harry Potter] One thing always emphasized is that James didnt have his wand when Voldemort killed him and then Lily. Would it have made any difference? How powerful was Voldemort at that point? Could anyone or any combination of people aside from Dumbledore have defeated him?

[Assistant] It might have bought some time.  And even a few seconds can make all the difference.  As for whether or not it would, who knows?  Voldemort was one of the most powerful, talented wizards of his time, after all.


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

[User]
[Jurassic Park] What was Dodgson's plan?

It's been 30 years since I read the book, but the movie is slightly fresher in my mind...

Nedry was hired to get 15 embryos off the island ("***viable*** embryos"). So let's say he succeeds... then what?

Dodgson and/or his company now have embryos... of dinosaurs that are already available at Jurassic Park. Is his plan to create a competing park? If so, what's the point? He'd just have 15 of the same dinos, with InGen still in posession of the underlying technology to make more.

Even if he created a competing park, couldn't InGen have prove that Dodgson's dinos were created from stolen (likely patented) DNA? They'd be sued into oblivion... right?

[Assistant]
> Is his plan to create a competing park?

He wanted to steal the embryos for his company, Biosyn, so that they could clone their own dinosaurs.  There's no indication that Biosyn wanted to create their own dinosaur park, it's more likely that they were looking to use them as test subjects or other lab applications.

> He'd just have 15 of the same dinos

They'd have embryos from 15 different species, and Biosyn was capable of cloning them so that they wouldn't be limited to 15 individual dinosaurs.

> They'd be sued into oblivion... right?

Biosyn, and Dodgson in particular, was very good at stealing other companies' intellectual property, reverse engineering it, and then producing their own version that was different enough to avoid a lawsuit.  That's what they were planning on doing with Ingen's dinosaur biotechnology.


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

[User]
What conclusion can be drawn from statistically insignificant results? (Layman question and text provided)

Hello guys, I just wanted to ask you if somebody could give me very
basic (layman) explanation about one question.
If for example you did an experiment on yourself where you tried a drug to see if it helps you with your condition, you took it 100.000 times but it only helped you 3 times. What conclusion can you draw from this? Is the result statistically not significant and therefore the hypothesis that a drug helps you can be rejected (so you can conclude that this drug doesn't help you). I know this is a very lame example, but try to give me an explanation for this particular scenario. It seems logical for me to conclude that a drug doesn't help, but I want to see it backed up by science. Thanks in advance!

[Assistant]
The example you gave is not quite enough to explain the meaning of statistical significance. You took the drug 100 times and it helped you 3 times so it worked 3% of the time and there is not much else to say about it.

To use statistical significance you have to compare the drug to something. So you would also have to take a placebo 100 times. Let's say the placebo "helped" (you got better) 1 time. Now you have 2 sets of figures: drug worked 3% of the time, placebo worked 1% of the time - and with this you can do some maths.

Basically the question statistical significance attempts to answer is: is this 3% vs 1% difference due to chance, or to the drug actually having some effect?

Now we have to back up a bit and explain what is meant by "chance". "Chance" arises because you cannot take the drug (or the placebo) every day forever. If you could, by some stretch of the imagination, take the drug every day forever and find that it worked (say) 6% of the time, and then (maybe in a parallel universe) take the placebo every day forever and find that it worked 4% of the time, there would be no need for statistical analysis: the drug works better, 6% vs 4%, no further calculation required.

Unfortunately you can't do that - we have to analyze the 100 times you took the drug and the 100 times you took the placebo - and so, statistical analysis.

The "by chance" refers to the fact that the 100 times you took the drug and the 100 times you took the placebo can be considered *samples* of the situation in which you took the drug or placebo everyday forever.

Let's say that the "actual" response rate when taking the drug everyday forever is 6% (NB we have no way of knowing the "actual" figure, this is just for illustration) - a sample of 100 from this scenario could produce a response rate of 5% or 6% or 4 % or 3% or 2% or indeed any number. It is more likely to be close to the "actual" 6% than not, but it *could* be anything from 0 to 100%. In short, the response rate in your sample of 100 is affected by chance, because of the fact that you can only take samples, and never know the "actual" response rate.

What statistical significance does is this: it assumes that the "actual" (everyday forever) response rate to drug and placebo are *the same*, then it asks *what is the probability p that the figures we got (3% vs 1%) are purely because of the fact that we are restricted to taking samples of 100?*

The maths will then crank out a figure - say p=0.06. This means that the probability that you got the 3% and 1% figures despite the "actual" figures being equal is 0.06. Before turning the maths crank you should have already decided on what "p" you would consider statistically significant. Let's say it was p=0.05. That being the case, the figures show that there is no statistically significant difference between the drug and the placebo. In other words you have concluded that the figures your experiment has produced have come about by chance and the *"actual" figures for drug and placebo could be identical*.

TL;DR: "Statistically not significant" means that the figures your experiment produced could have come about by the fact you that have to sample, rather than from an "actual" difference between the the two treatments.


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

[User]
Why are we not immune by now to the itch from a mosquito bite?

Why do we have to feel the itch if mosquito bites are so damn common?

[Assistant] We do develop an immune response to the proteins in the mosquito's saliva, this is what actually causes the itching. Our immune system produces antibodies to the proteins in the saliva and when we are bitten a localized inflammatory response is generated.


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

[User]
[Star Trek] Why do the Borg seem to not utilize cloaking devices?

I'm pretty sure they've assimilated some Romulan ships at least that should have had the things, if no one in the delta quadrant had them.

[Assistant] Aside from the potential practical limitations in employing a cloak on a ship so large, why would they bother? They don't dissemble. They don't employ tricks. They send a cube and assimilate. If somehow they are stopped, they adapt and send another. A cloak would be as irrelevant to the process as negotiation.


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

[User]
PhD - Finland vs Germany?

Which country would you pick for your PhD?

List your pros/cons below please.

(Looking for answers related to a PhD in the biological field, but happy to hear about experience, work culture, programme structure, difficulties and benefits in general from others)

[Assistant]
Finland, like the rest of the Nordics, prioritises a healthy work-life balance. You will find a high quality of living and a fairly decent salary even as a PhD student. Oh and you get a sword if you graduate from a Finnish PhD program.

The most important factor is the prospective supervisor. They can make or break your whole PhD experience.


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

[User] CMV: High schooler here. Life is fantastic right now. Next year, the "rest of my life" starts, and I'm having trouble seeing the appeal. PLEASE, Change My View!

[Assistant] Hs is like being in a small bubble. After 4 years of getting to know what is in that bubble, it pops and your in a bigger bubble called college.  Then you will explore that bubble for another 4 years and find that bubble was only in an even larger bubble. Basically you think you already explored a lot of the world but you are barely touching the surface of life.


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

[User]
Do housing prices fall with raising interest rates

I know there are a lot of factors but should we expect home prices to fall as the Fed raises rates? Why or why not?

[Assistant] It's probable that they will fall in relative terms, but house prices are by and large driven by other factors. It depends on how much the fed ultimately raises rates over the year, but what you can ultimately expect is that house prices could increase more slowly compared to a scenario where the fed doesn't raise rates, although it's uncertain if that effect will be particularly significant. You shouldn't expect a fall in absolute terms.


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

[User]
What would happen if I ran a microwave without a door on it and stood in the same room?

Would it harm me to be exposed to the open machine from a few feet away? Would it cause damage to the room itself?

[Assistant]
You might feel a bit warm, but would probably be pretty safe due to several factors; loss of confinement of the RF energy, scattering, and dissipation.

Just like you can look at a red hot oven heating element from a few feet away, but would not enjoy the view from a few inches. The energy is spread at the inverse square of your distance. So if you go from 2 feet to 8 feet, you will have 16 times less energy hitting a given area.

Microwave ovens often have a scattering device between the microwave source (magnetron) and the cooking chamber. It helps evenly distribute the energy and prevent hot spots, which are areas that the energy has been concentrated due to multipath reflections, and is reinforced. But half a wavelength away the reflections could cancel each other out. At microwave frequencies that is only a few inches away. As a result of the scattering device, hot spots in your room will move around like light from a very fast disco ball.

As for the room itself, some items will heat up a bit, and other will reflect the energy. All your 2.4 Ghz Wifi and Bluetooth devices will probably be unusable while it is on, and may experience permanent damage some components depending on the gain and coupling efficiency of their antennas.

If you really want to cause some microwave damage, you should get a nice large parabolic reflector and direct the energy directly from the magnetron. It will behave just like the reflectors in flashlights and headlights. It will concentrate the beam and allow significant heating at some distance.


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

[User] [Harry Potter] Did Harry and his friends know basic science and mathematics? Did their magical education cause them to lose out on the basic skills taught to muggle students?

[Assistant]
At Hogwarts, the only explicitly mathematical subject is Arithmancy, an elective subject that involves studying the magical properties of numbers, and telling the future using 'complex number charts'. Other than that, there doesn't seem to be much more maths involved at Hogwarts beyond things like measuring amounts for Potions class.

There's also not much in the way of Muggle science, likely because science doesn't work the same to wizards. Astronomy class is presented as being virtually identical to Muggle astronomy, as they don't use any magic (beyond possibly enhanced telescopes), and do everyday things like fill out star charts or write essays on planets or moons. Herbology, Care of Magical Creatures, and Potions are similar in concept to Biology, Zoology, and Chemistry, respectively, but don't follow the same natural laws. Muggle Studies involves studying how Muggles live, including parts of their science (Hermione has to write an essay about 'Why Muggles Need Electricity'), but it presumably doesn't go into much depth, except possibly in later years.


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

[User]
[Beverly Hillbillies] Let's get serious for a minute. What's the best way to swindle these rednecks out of their money?

I mean really these guys just moved into town and have started to spend like crazy. These rubes have literally millions! Whats the easiest and best method to scam them out of their money before they have a chance to waste it?

[Assistant]
IIRC, there was a conman (called Honest John, maybe?) who showed up in a few episodes and "sold" them, among other things, *Washington, D.C.* He almost got away with millions on several occasions, but his conscience got the better of him and he'd always give them their money back.

Basically, you can use any old scheme you can think of, as long as you don't feel give into your guilty feelings afterward.


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

[User]
[MCU] How did Wakanda industrialize?

Unlike most of the rest of the world, Wakanda developed its technology with little to no input from the global science/engineering community.

Wakanda is a tiny nation, with only six million people, but this rapid development is plausible because of their access to the miracle material Vibranium.

Im guessing that the prosperity from Vibranium made Wakanda rich enough that they could invest large amounts of time and resources into technical/scientific education and research and development.

Coupled with mass automation, maybe Wakandan society is such that a good half of the entire population are the equivalent of PhD holding experts in various fields, which lets them remain competitive against a global population of 7 billion. (Population is roughly 6 million, 3 million experts and their robot/AI assistants is nothing to sneeze at)

So far, so good.

The problem comes from the intermediate steps in between going from a primarily agrarian society (like the vast majority of pre-industrial societies) to an industrialized one.

In the rest of the world, this was made possible by better agricultural techniques and crops from the New World like potatoes and corn, which allowed for much larger populations, leading to mass urbanization and factories that took advantage of economy of scale.

Improved metallurgy and wood shortages led to the heavy use of coal in Britain, which led to the development of the steam engine, trains, electrification, the Haber Process, Green Revolution etc.

Im grossly oversimplifying, but I think you get what I mean, tech is somewhat evolutionary, you dont jump straight from mechanical looms to moon landings, you have to go through the requisite intermediate steps first.

Having a material good for advanced technology doesnt mean the area will develop rapidly - China wasnt making microchips back in the Shang Dynasty even if they had tons of rare earth.

People didnt develop steam engines because one day that would lead to satellites and Internet, they developed it because they wanted to pump water out of mines easily.

Presumably, Wakandan technology developed along vastly different lines. Im pretty sure they skipped right past the steam engine stage, but what gave them the necessary push?

In other words, what were the transitional technologies that Wakanda developed in order to transform into an industrialized society?

Like, maybe they started out by automating farming with crude, magnetically levitating tractors? Nothing complicated, just a big vibranium plow that floated and drove itself forward.

Or maybe some sort of hyper effective vibranium enhanced fertilizer/plant growing aura or something.

Then the increased crop yields led to more robust logistics and transportation infrastructure, like vibranium maglev wagons and carts that can haul massive amounts of food back to the cities, fueling urbanization.

The large urban population quickly figures out how to turn vibranium into a power source or solar panel or whatever, and they electrify everything.

From there, they develop vibranium factories, trains, cars, telecommunications, and its all downhill from there.

Is that a plausible path to development? It still sounds a little strange to me.

Like, everything is totally plausible once Wakanda develops a solid manufacturing base.

But Im not sure about how they got there in the first place, not sure floating plows and fertilizer is sufficient to make that jump.

Any ideas? Like, a rough (speculative) timeline of Wakandan technological development? When they hit major milestones, how one technology transitioned into another etc.

EDIT:

On that note, Im also wondering what the DC universe Atlantis tech tree would look like. Being underwater means no fire, and smelting is tough. How did they go from primordial slime to hyper advanced underwater civilization?

[Assistant]
I like to think of it like this;

First off, Wakanda didn't actually industrialize as quickly as the rest of the world. They just started a lot earlier, and took a lot longer. This is why their culture is still so traditional - they never had a big 'shake-up' caused by rapid technological development, because they sat on 'transitional' technologies for so long.

Basically, Vibranium is such a complex, miracle material that simply learning to work it necessitated they develop the rest of the 'tech tree', so to speak. Vibranium was also the lynch pin of every culture in Wakanda - any tribe that figured out some new way to use it would have an advantage over everyone else, fueling a sort of endless technological race that probably only cooled in modern, more united times.

The true Wakandan advantage is not just that they have Vibranium, but that Vibranium and their unique environment/starting conditions necessitated that they develop their own version of the scientific method all the way back in pre-history. Wakanda had something no other culture had - a concrete, physical 'mystery' they based their entire culture around trying to understand. Vibranium gave Wakandans an almost religious tendency towards science. Wakandans have been doing 'experiments' and conducting 'studies' for longer than some cultures have even existed, all in the service of understanding and using Vibranium. Wakanda has been 'scientific/academic' for so long (at least in the comics) that they actually are ruled by a Philosopher King/Emperor Scientist right out of Plato's wildest dreams - The Black Panther.

This process was quite slow. Whatever the Vibranium equivalent of the Steam Engine is, they probably 'sat' on that technology for so long their culture was able to adapt to it fully before they moved on to the next big thing. This is not only because Vibranium is hard to work and understand, but also because a Vibranium 'Steam' Engine is probably so much more useful than the 'mundane' version that they had no real pressing 'need' to improve on it (except for the aforementioned cultural pressures).

And yet Wakanda started this process so early that they still managed to reach the modern age (and the resultant acceleration of progress) long before the rest of their world, cementing their place as the most advanced nation on Earth. Their unique circumstances led them on a pretty distinct technological path that let them preserve their original culture to a remarkable degree even as they became hyper-advanced.


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

[User] A vaccine for the 2009 H1N1 virus was developed in 3 months (from when it was declared a pandemic). What is different about COVID-19 that makes the required time to develop a vaccine 12-14 months?

[Assistant] H1N1 is a flu-variant and flu vaccines are developed every year. So researchers could base their work on existing flu vaccines. On the other hand, there is no such tested & safe vaccine on which to base the covid19 vaccine. There was some work done on a vaccine for SARS, which could be used as a starting point, but this work never led to a completed product because SARS was effectively contained and funding dried up because the need for a SARS vaccine went away.


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

[User] Can someone please explain Peak Oil?

[Assistant] Peak oil just means we've reached a point when you can no longer extract oil faster than we previously could.  Given that demand for oil has traditionally increased over time, if we reach a point where we can no longer pump more oil in response then we will need to have alternate energy sources available or risk global oil shortages.  The US reached peak oil on internal sources in 1970, which has lead to the US importing increasing amounts of foreign oil.  Global peak oil prediction range significantly, but generally within the range of "sometime soon" and "sometime in our lifetime".  There are some technologies (tar sands extraction, shale oil, biofuels) that could significantly delay the onset of peak oil, as well as alternate fuel sources that could decrease demand and lessen any effect that peak oil might have.


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

[User]
[Harry Potter] why didn't Voldemort create a new horcrux?

 when he heard that harry was hunting his horcrux, why didn't he make a new one?

[Assistant]
Maybe there wasn't enough soul left?

The fact that his soul was so unstable that he made a horcrux out of Harry without even trying to, might mean the recipe doesn't work for him anymore.

Or he was too arrogant to think they'd be able to find all of them.

I think he was more focused on complete domination than ending up as a shadow in the forests of Albania again anyway.


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

[User]
If light didn't get redshifted because of the expansion of the universe, would our nights be bright?

So from what I've understood, we can only see the cosmic background radiation by tapping into the X-ray/microwave spectrum. But what if light didn't get red-shifted due to the expansion. Would our nights be as bright as in the beginning of the universe to our naked eye?

[Assistant]
The temperature of the blackbody radiation of the universe is T=To*(1+z) where z is redshift and To is the temperature now (~3K).

At a redshift of about z=2000 (~133,000 years after big bang) the temperature of the universe was the same as the surface of the sun.  The entire sky would have looked like you were standing on the Sun.

Edit:

Too answer the question directly, if there were no expansion, the redshift would be infinity.  Yes, the entire universe would be nothing but high energy particles.  The only reason we have stars and galaxies is because the universe was able to expand and cool.


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

[User]
CMV: Blind Applications are the best way to eliminate any hiring discrimination

What I mean by blind applications is that until a certain point in the hiring process, an applicant is simply a number with his or her relevant information attached to this number. Companies can then eliminate these anonymous candidates before they know any traits that could be used to discriminate against any group. After a company has filtered out many of these anonymous applicants, it can then do things like interviews that require familiarity.

Obviously, this system isn't perfect. One could dispute what information would have to be initially omitted in order do keep the process fair. Also, some of the information that is probably necessary to determine if an applicant is qualified might allow one to garner some of the hidden pieces. For example, if the applicant when to Merideth College, she is certainly a woman, and if the applicant attended Morehouse College, he or she is almost certainly African-American.

However, this system would help eliminate unconscious or snap-judgements that certainly contribute to hiring discrimination.

[Assistant]
If there's *any* point in the process where the candidate meets with company hiring them in person, they can be failed for a discriminatory reason.  Like they do now, companies can say that they're not hiring someone because they were bad at the interview, when in fact it's because they're black or a woman or have tattoos or whatever.

If you're suggesting that companies should *never* be allowed to meet face to face with the applicants for their jobs, it seems like a recipe for companies not hiring qualified people, since there is a lot more for being qualified for a job than where you went to school and what your last job was.


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

[User] [War of the Worlds] Knowing the Martians are vulnerable to Earth pathogens, is sending space probes to Mars that haven't been thoroughly sterilized a war crime?

[Assistant]
No, because the restriction on biological warfare is controlled by International Human Rights Law.

Mars is not a recognized nation so their soldiers are considered unlawful combatants. As such, they're not subject to protections.

Furthermore, regular human diseases are not considered biological warfare. To be considered under the Biological Weapons Convention, the material must be delivered specifically, not carried by the soldiers or their normal equipment.


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

[User] Why did the Pilgrims come to america?

[Assistant]
They came to America because they didn't like the people in England and the people in England didn't like them (with a brief interlude where they had the same problem in Holland). In both cases, this was the result of the Pilgrims' religious beliefs.

America was populated based on the idea of moving away from people that you don't like. This continued until we reached the Pacific.


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

[User]
[Soylent Green] So, how long have things been so shitty?

Since next year is the year Soylent Green is set (50 years since its production in 1972), just thought I'd ask. Edward G. Robinson's character remembers meat, fruit, a world that seems unrecognizable in Soylent Green's dystopia. How long have things been this bad?

[Assistant] Probably started getting bad not long after Nixon (based on when it was filmed and fact he hadn't resigned yet). B/w the problems caused by DDT, the Love Canal toxic waste dump, smog & all the other pollution problems that at the time were out of control - it was only going to get worse in such a dystopian world to the point where everyone would have to live in domes eating algae eventually.  Thankfully we did the bare minimum to make sure things don't get that bad (though nowhere near enough).


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

[User] ELI5: Why does an empty/abandoned house deteriorate faster than an occupied but also neglected house?

[Assistant]
Abandoned houses deteriorate faster because they aren't used.

The temperature of the homes isn't adjusted to human living standards which leads to the materials being subjected to harsh temperatures.

The faucets aren't used regularly enough to wash away the mold spores that accumulate from the air. No one is there to kill the mosquitoes or flies that grow from the stagnant water.

No one is there to throw away any moldy or rotting food.

No one is there to shut the windows when it's cold or to turn on a dehumidifier when it's humid causing more wear on the materials.

Of course, this only applies to modern buildings, which are generally wooden structures. Stone structures are generally more resistant to change and may look the same 50 years after abandonment if there is nothing rotting inside.


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

[User] ELI5: Why does my cat sometimes run around the house like a maniac?

[Assistant]
Cats are made for a world that punishes unecessary use of energy. They sleep to save up energy for their hunt, usually hunting is done at night. In a domestic enviroment the cat doesnt "need" to hunt but its energysaving ways are hardwired.

All that energy needs to go somewhere and they will handle it by running around like crazy furballs on speed. In some cases it will help to play more with your cat, letting it use its huntingreserves.


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

[User] ELI5: The whole "Kim Dotcom"-Thing from the beginning till now.

[Assistant]
Kim Dotcom owned a pirate site called megaupload. Pirate sites are those which derive income from sharing games and movies that they didn't make, and they don't have the right to distribute.  In Megaupload's case, this is by selling premium memberships to upload and download anything you want, as well as advertising revenue.

Megaupload also did a fair amount of legitimate business, hosting files that the users weren't in violation of copyright law.  They also complied with the letter of the law as far as respecting copyright laws are concerned.  This is why people on the internet are very angry Kim Dotcom getting prosecuted, his website wasn't much different from Youtube as far as copyrighted material is concerned.

He was targeted for two specific reasons:  The first is Megaupload was often especially blatant about its business model revolving around copyright violations.  The second was the FBI gained access to a number of internal E-mails and memos which implied Megaupload was violating copyright law *knowingly and intentionally,* as opposed to Youtube, Google, and a large number of other sites which are very careful to never admit (internally or externally) how much they benefit from violating copyrights.

Because Kim Dotcom was in New Zealand, and the US Authorities are only in the US, the US authorities attempted to work with the New Zealand Authorities to get Kim Arrested.  Because arresting someone across international lines is an extremely complicated legal procedure, and the authorities making the arrest didn't quite understand each others legal systems, *a lot* of mistakes were made during his arrest.

Furthermore, every criminal investigation makes mistakes, but there were even more than normal on this one.  Warrants for the collection of evidence and arrest were not properly filled out, the actual arrest was conducted in what was arguably an illegal manner, and there was an open question of whether or not New Zealand Authorities were even supposed to legally comply with US authorities.

Kim Dotcom's lawyers pointed all of this out, and judges agreed with them.  As a result, huge amounts of evidence were thrown out, the criminal case collapsed, and Kim is entitled to sue the police department for violating his rights.


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

[User]
Does Feminism's Patriarchy entail falsifiable claims? If not, should it aspire to do so? How can we be certain it exists?

Im reading Johnson's Gender Knot right now, and while it has done a great job to help me understand the concept, I feel  underwhelmed from its lack of convincing me that it *does* exist, how patriarchy *best* explains what we see happening, and what exactly we see that we can attribute to patriarchy.

As of now, the whole concept is very fuzzy to me on what it exactly entails. Im not sure I have yet seen anything described in what I ought to expect from the existence of patriarchy, which leads me to my title question: Does Feminism's Patriarchy entail falsifiable claims? If not, should it aspire to do so? And how can we be certain it exists? If we cant be certain of its existence, what reasoning do we have to believe in it? Feel free to recommend any further reading on the subject, I have scarcely read anything authoritative on the subject except for this book.

[Assistant] Patriarchy is a sociological concept. Sociology doesn't operate by a strictly hypothetico-deductive method in general. Instead, sociology follows either quantitative or qualitative research programs, e.g. statistical research from sampling data or observation of social phenomena, case studies, etc.


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

[User]
[Hellboy] What would happen to Hellboy's soul when he dies?

He's a demon so would he just go straight to Hell?  He also does heroic things on the regular so would he get to go to heaven even as a demon?

[Assistant]
[](/evilsunsetidle) In traditional theology, demons are evil and barred from Heaven because at the moment of creation they made a conscious choice to rebel against God. This choice is absolute because demons and angels exist outside of time, and do not experience the linear life and changes that go along with life that mortals experience. So a heavenly being that goes against God becomes a demon permanently, and a heavenly being that chooses to side with God becomes an angel permanently.

Hellboy is a mortal being who goes through linear time. He is capable of changing throughout his life and making many different conscious choices instead of just the one at the beginning of his existence. And with those choices he decides on a daily basis to help the needy by protecting them from evil.

God's not racist. He doesn't care if a being is technically of demonic heritage so long as they seek to do good in the universe. Hellboy would almost certainly be admitted into heaven.


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

[User] ELI5:how do we determine how good an animals eyesight is? And how do we compare it to our own or another animals?

[Assistant]
There are a variety of studies that can be done. Some are observational. You see an eagle swoop down from one thousand feet high to catch prey and you have to assume it was able to visually detect the prey from that distance. Lab tests can be run in a similar fashion, putting something desirable at various distances away and recording how far or close the animal has to be to notice it.

You can also learn stuff by analyzing the eye itself via dissection. Like humans, other animals have rods and cones in their retinas, and scientists can observe the density and types of these structures to get an understanding of what types of light an animal might be able to detect and how well. For example, nocturnal animals will typically have more rods and fewer cones to adapt to low-light vision. Meanwhile, the aforementioned eagle's eyes have a larger variety of cones compared to humans, indicating that they see differences of color much more precisely than humans which helps detect prey at long distances.


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

[User]
[General superheroes] Out of the heroes who regularly work as part of a team, who is considered to be the worst or most difficult to work with?

Basically the title. The general consensus seems to be someone like Spiderman is the best to work with and is generally well liked, but which hero is regularly part of team lineups despite being hard to work with at the best of times?

Alternatively, which heroes on the teams are good to work with because they can handle themselves when the chips are down, but are disliked because of their personality?

[Assistant]
Batman is often accused of mushroom management: keep them in the dark and shit on them. In many iterations, he's paranoid, keeps everyone at arm's length, and always has ulterior motives. Less so recently, but this if often his characterization.

Deadpool often finds himself on teams, and nobody's happy about that, because, well, Deadpool.

Tony Stark is often an egomaniac, and some of the stuff he's done in the comics borders on super villain territory.

Reed Richards is kind of a dick. Really, the whole Illuminati are pretty bad at playing nice.

But the absolute *worst* person to be on a team with is probably Amanda Waller, because she will blackmail you into doing what she wants, and has no remorse about sending you to your death if it makes some other task slightly easier for her. She is wholly amoral, and will cross pretty much any line, burn any bridge, and sacrifice any life if it gets the job done.


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

[User]
What are the main differences between Marxism, Stalinism and Leninism?

How did their views on communism differ, and how were they the same? And what other deviations of communism are there?

Thank you, I truly love this subreddit.

[Assistant]
One of the major differences between Marx and Lenin is in their individual approaches to the revolution itself.  For Marx, the revolution was to occur organically, on a grassroots level through the awakening of the class consciousness within the exploited proletariat class.  Lenin argued that essentially this wasn't happening quickly enough in Russia and they needed a leadership structure - a revolutionary vanguard as he called it.  The vanguard party is not separate from the proletariat, but rather it is a group within that leads the proletariat organization and revolution.

Stalin altered Marx's rather opaque notion of the dictatorship of the proletariat to justify his rule over the USSR.  Basically, while Marx argued that the dictatorship of the proletariat would occur in the transformation phase between capitalism and the lower form of communism (what we now essentially refer to as socialism), Marx believed the dictatorship would wither away.  Stalin argued against this premise and used this notion to justify the punishment and/or death of anyone who he deemed as a threat to his rule.

Those are two of the biggest differences, although there are others.  But it's hard to blame Marx when both Lenin and Stalin so grossly misinterpreted Marx or altered him for their own personal benefit.


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

[User]
[WH40K] Hypothetical regarding psykers and the warp

So there's a risk of an untrained (and to a certain extent trained) psyker falling insane/exploding etc when calling upon their warp powers.

My question is this:

If the warp was super calm (like 100% calm with no chaos or demons) would psykers be able to call upon more power than usual? Would the Emperor (pre-heresy) be able to wield even more warp power if it was dead calm?

[Assistant]
Imagine you're capable of juggling apples. But every time you do a whole bunch of people show up to scream into your ears while you try and juggle. Hell, if you do a really poor job of focussing on your juggling, one of them might just shoot you in the head.

Then one day there's nobody left to yell and scream at you. You still can't do anything more than juggle apples but you'll probably do a better job of it and maybe even be able to juggle an extra apple or two.


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

[User]
ELI5: How did objects that require practice get invented? E.g. why didn't they decide that bicycles weren't usable when they couldn't ride it immediately?

Edit: things like chopsticks, musical instruments, and the like.

[Assistant]
You have to appreciate the history of the bicycle. We didn't leap from nothing to the penny-farthing. The first historically verified bicycle was a German invention that was called a "running machine". It had two wheels and was steerable, and you sat in a saddle and walked. The bicycle allowed you to glide and save effort. It looked much like a modern bicycle with two wheels of equivalent size, a frame, handle bars, and a seat between the two wheels.

The penny-farthing eventually evolved because people realized that driving the wheel itself might be more advantageous. At this point, if you can glide on a running machine, it doesn't take much more to drive pedals, you can already maintain balance. They used a gigantic wheel because machining and materials were not sophisticated enough to build chains and gearing, the large wheel allowed you to build appreciable speed. The style of bicycle of the penny-farthing is called a "Standard" bicycle.

There was a strong desire to build a modern bicycle, called then a "safety bicycle", because the standard was quite dangerous in a few scenarios - it had the inclination to pitch you forward and drive your face into the ground. The only thing that held it back was the gearing and chain mechanism, because small wheels under direct drive can't go fast.

It was all an evolution, from one working concept to the next, and only a little daring. A lot of early innovation was like this, that the concept is sound, you just have to figure out what you're missing.


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

[User]
ELI5: how government officials corrupt the wealth of a nation

Since when I was a kid, i've been hearing that there are a lot of corrupt government officials. What I don't understand is how they steal from the people for their own personal gain.

Now that I'm older, I can compare that to where I work. In the office, everything is listed. Money comes in and the company use it to pay their employees and also the for some of the "other" expenses. These are all recorded by our account department. And they'd know if the company is spending more than it should. No more no less.

Aren't there any record of how much the government gets out of taxes? Where they spent it and how much more they have? Don't they have an accountant of some sort? How does it end up to the politician's pocket and not back to the people?

[Assistant] Usually this happens through the use of companies. The government routinely hires companies to do jobs -- anything from paving roads to building airplanes to printing tax forms. A corrupt official may direct the government to buy from a company that a relative owns, even though their prices are bizarrely high. That's a way of sending out government money to a private family.


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

[User] ELI5: Why does it take time for my phone to charge? Why can't the charger instantly fill my battery?

[Assistant]
Imagine your battery is an empty water tower that needs to be filled with water (charge).

If you want to fill the water tower quickly, you need to increase the amount of water to the water tower. However, the pipes leading to the water tower are of a limited size so you have to send higher pressure water (more current). As you increase the pressure, there is a point where the pipes can't take anymore and will break (in the case of wires, they will overheat and melt).

Assuming that the pipes can hold, the water tower itself has to be able to accept that much water pressure. If the pressure is too high, the jet of water will erupt upwards and blow off the top of the water tower (batteries will explode)! Thus, the water pressure has to be low enough to not damage the water tower when filling it up.


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

[User] If entropy always increases then why/how did the universe produce complex life?

[Assistant]
The second law of thermodynamics doesn't say entropy always has to increase everywhere all the time, it says than in an isolated system, entropy must increase.

We'll first look at a simple system, a bunch of blocks in a box. The blocks in a box will never spontaneously stack themselves, but over time, with any vibrations, movements, etc, a stack of blocks will eventually fall over. But, if you reach into the box, you can stack the blocks into a neat stack. Sure, entropy may have decreased in the box, but that's allowed- the box was not isolated.

So now, looking at the Earth, for example, it is far from isolated. Earth has a bunch of energy coming to it, mainly from the Sun. So, the entropy on Earth is allowed to decrease, because there is energy supplied from the Sun.

Now, let's go back to the stacking blocks system. If instead of the box being your system, you and the box are the system, you have to look not just at the entropy of the box, but the entropy of you plus the box. That entropy has went up, even if the entropy in the box has went down, because your motion and thinking to stack the box has created waste heat, which is an entropy increase. So, even in an "isolated system" a small part of that system can have a decrease in entropy, as long as the rest of the system has an equal or larger increase in entropy.

So, going back to to the Earth. If you make the Earth and Sun your "system" then you can't say that energy is supplied to the system from the Sun, but you're still OK. The entropy of the Sun is increasing as it undergoes fusion, so the entropy of the Earth/Sun system is still increasing.


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

[User]
[Looper] - Why have Loopers at all? Why not send people back and "beam" them directly into an incinerator?

Followup:  it's impossible to fake an accident in the future? I mean, just because they 100% always discover the body, even if they know the exact cause of death, that in no way guarantees that the killer will get caught.

[Assistant] "No body, no kill." Without someone to observe and be accountable, you can't be certain the target doesn't get out of it somehow. Maybe the target gets sent to the wrong location, or the incinerator fails, or whatever.


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

[User]
[Rick and Morty] Why was the Morty Party so low in the polls?

Surely they'd have like, half the population on their side? Cos, you know, half of the titular 'rick and morty' is morty.

[Assistant]
A lot of Mortys will do whatever their Rick tells them to do. Because they're Mortys.

And a lot of the remainder would never vote for a Morty, because they know what Mortys are like. You need a Rick running things, not a Morty.


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

[User] ELI5: why do industrial engines (e.g. buses, semi, tractors, generators) use diesel instead of gasoline?

[Assistant] Diesels generate more torque per unit of displacement than gasoline engines, and when you're moving something big torque is what you want. Diesels are also simpler, more robust, and general less maintenance intensive. All of which makes them less expensive to operate.


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

[User]
[Superheroes] Is there a mutual agreement between supervillains and police forces?

A classic questione is why police forces don't seriously fight urban supervillains using anything in their armory. A lot of urban villains are not bullet proof and even if they are quite tough they're not enough for being RPG-proof.

What if police and villains are mutually keeping down the weapon race? Like "Mr. Ock, you know we could take you down with bombs or really heavy fire. But we also know you could build a nuke from a microwave and a trash can. So what about we don't try too hard bringing you down and you stay with your tentacles and nothing more?" "Sounds legit to me, the mighty doctor octopus"

[Assistant]
I recall wondering for years why someone like the Joker wouldnt just be shot by police the first chance they get. Then, in an issue of Gotham PD, the Joker is arrested and takes an officers sidearm while in the precinct. The Joker is shot repeatedly in the body and slumps to the floor, saying Again? That trick never works.

And, what do you know, it didnt. While the Joker killed multiple members of law enforcement, he made a full recovery. No one decided to shoot him a little more in revenge, he didnt bleed to death while other wounded were prioritized, certainly nothing vital was hit with numerous bullets to the torso. In the future he never complains of lingering pain from the wounds, or have any weakness where bullets would have torn muscle tissue or left scar tissue.

In the Jokers universe, we know the Greek gods are real, and powerful beings from other worlds call themselves Gods. The Jokers luck would lead one to believe he has a God-like benefactor who likes having a dark trickster doing evil in the world, some powerful beings who control the setting and desire to see the Joker battle Batman, again and again.


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

[User] What would have been on the land when life first crawled out of the water?

[Assistant]
If you mean 'animals', the first animals to colonize the land were arthropods during the Silurian.

Near lakes, rivers, and the coast, there would have been very primitive plants (think moss and bryophytes) and early land fungi. The rest of the land would have been largely barren.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why does hot water taste so different to cold water?

Drinking warm or hot tap water almost tastes chemically by contrast to cold or chilled water. What is going on in the water, or is it my taste buds?

EDIT: Holy this blew up. RIP my inbox. Sorry I can't reply to everyone but there are some really good answers here from both biological and chemical explanations.

[Assistant] Taste buds. They have a hard time distinguishing the exact flavour of something icy cold. When it's warmer, they're more sensitive and can make out much more, in this case the individual chemicals or whatnot in the water.


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

[User] ELI5: Why must water be boiled to be considered safe while food only needs to be cooked to 165 degrees to be safe? If I washed my ground beef off in the mountain stream, would I then need to cook it to 212 degrees? Mmm...charcoal burgers!

[Assistant]
It has to do with the type of bacteria that live in different parts of the material you are heating.

Water is a fluid so it has bacteria all mixed in. The entirety of the water needs to be boiled so that the entirety of the bacteria dies.

For meat, the majority of the bacteria is on the surface of the meat which gets WAY hotter than 212F. More like 300-400F. When you sear a piece of meat you are instantly killing most bacteria on the surface.

The INTERNAL temperature has to be at least 165 degrees for at least X amount of time to kill off all of the microorganisms that live INSIDE the meat; and even that is just a suggestion. You could eat super rare (but seared) meat 5 days a week for a year and never get sick, then that one piece of meat has something alive inside that didnt get cooked out and you get parasites.

When beef (for instance) is very safely sourced (like a super fancy restaurant), they can offer it extremely rare, because they sear the surfaces to kill the surface bacteria, and they are certain there are no parasites/other diseases inside.


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

[User]
ELI5: How do computers use binary code?

I understand the basic layer of computation: computers work in binary signals (basically electricity/no electricity).

But, what do they do with these signals? To what are they translated if so? What is the 'next layer'?

[Assistant]
The basic structure of a computer is the transistor. It's basically a switch that when it's turned on, it allows current to flow from the input to the output. The real power of transistors comes when you start wiring them together. Now, the output of one transistor can go to the control of another. That means that when you turn on transistor 1, it turns on transistor 2.

By combining multiple transistors in specific ways, you can build simple logic circuits. For example, an AND circuit has two or more inputs and will only turn on if all of the inputs are turned on. An OR circuit will turn on if any of the inputs are turned on.

From basic logic gates you can build calculation circuits. These will take numbers (in the form of binary) and add, subtract, multiply or divide them. These are the basic building blocks of performing useful operations on a computer. From there it's just building more and more complex circuits that perform more specialized functions.

But, since the inputs and outputs are either on or off, 1 or 0, everything works in binary.


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

[User]
ELI5: What math problems are they trying to solve when mining for crypto?

What kind of math problems are they solving? Is it used for anything? Why are they doing it?

[Assistant]
Do you remember when you were young and after solving a simple equation you had to check that your answer was correct? Say you solved x + 3 = 7. You found the answer is 4. But you could also check it by doing 4 + 3 and seeing if it equals 7.

> What kind of math problems are they solving?

They are checking answers that they guess to an equation that is otherwise unsolvable by natural means because it cannot be reversed.

Like in the above solution they would try random numbers like 10, 7, 1, 21 until eventually you'd stumble upon 4 and realize it's a solution.

Whoever finds an answer that checks the solution first is considered the winner. The fact that they found it means that some transactions are considered accepted. Everyone else can check that the answer they found is correct so they move on to finding the next lucky number. That means they have mined something.

As someone else said in their comment, they are basically guessing lottery numbers. The more lucky numbers you can check, the more chances you have for being the lucky winner.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why is the tune "Happy Birthday" found in places all over the world?

I don't know about every language, of course, but the tune is the same in English, Spanish, French, and Korean, as far as I know, so I was wondering why.

[Assistant]
The answer is American pop culture.

It's not a tune with some magical properties that allows it to surface all over the world. It's the influence of Hollywood movies and other American pop culture.

In the countries of the former USSR, for example, it was non-existent until the 90s, when the American-made media flooded the market.


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

[User]
How would a hand gun behave (fire) in space?

I'm thinking both in a "space station" setting (which would fire but what would be the results because of the lack of gravity?) and in "no oxygen" setting (what would happen, would it fizzle or fire, and with the lack of gravity, what would happen?)

[Assistant] Nitric Acid (main ingredient of gunpowder) contains oxygen - the casing of the bullet would also have air sealed inside it from pressing, so it would still fire. With the lack of gravity & friction - when you fire the gun, the bullet would fire forward, you would fire backwards.


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

[User] ELI5:If our bodies slowly begin to ignore constant external stimuli (Nueral Adaptation), then why does tinnitus exist?

[Assistant] Tinnitus can be cause by a number of things, from ear infections to medication reactions. Long term tinnitus is typically due to hearing loss and isn't really an external stimuli, it's a neurological response to the hearing loss or ear damage. Think of it as similar to phantom limb pain, there's no actual physical stimuli but the nerves still send the signals.


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

[User] ELI5: Why are the Paris Catacombs so hard to map.

[Assistant]
First off, theyre dangerous for a number of reasons (the difficulty of navigating/mapping them is just one reason) so there arent many professional organizations spending time down there or otherwise devoting major resources to exploring them. Im sure there are plenty of people who explore them on their own time but they arent part of a well organized or regulated mapping effort.

Because theyre underground and tunnels could be at different depths, you often wouldnt have a reference or hint at your location when different tunnels cross each other like city streets must do because theyre all at the same elevation.

Compasses work down there so you can track direction but distance is tricky, especially if youre counting distance but your direction is constantly changing.

GPS definitely does not work underground.

You also cant use an aerial photograph or a number of other visual techniques that youd use above ground.

Actually, its super hard to map underground tunnels *anywhere*, and renovations of subways and sewers in other cities rely heavily on records of where existing tunnels were built. And they can run into serious problems when those records are incorrect or missing.

So when you have a large, complex system of tunnels like the Paris catacombs, and its too old for there to be a complete record of exactly where all the tunnels are, its going to be very difficult to map or navigate.


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

[User] ELI5: Why is it that I enjoy listening to a song I like on the radio more than I like on my phone/personal music player?

[Assistant] There's an element of good luck to it, or serendipity. You feel like the universe is doing you a little favor. Also, if a song is on the radio, or a movie you like happens to be on TV, you know on some level that you're part of a larger audience. It becomes a sort of rudimentary version of a communal experience, which humans tend to find more enjoyable. That's also the reason why you prefer to see certain events (sports games, momentous political moments etc.) on live TV, as they unfold, even if in fact you're all by yourself.


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

[User]
[general fiction] What would happen if you found a genie in a lamp and then destroyed the lamp?

If you found a lamp that contained a genie or jinn, or really any device that holds such a diety, what would happen  if you broke said containment without making a wish? Can you? Would it have any effect? Any fiction you can think of counts that involves genie or jinn contained in a device.

Bonus question: how do they normally become trapped in these things?

[Assistant]
The original idea was that they were magically trapped in the containers by a wizard or other magic user or magical entity - often in order to get the Djinn to do the bidding of whoever trapped it.

Breaking the container usually breaks the trap and allows them freedom. As a result, they will be under no obligation to do the bidding of anyone. They may grant a favour to the one who breaks the trap, but then again, they may simply be out for revenge - on anyone and anything, starting with the first person they see - or they may simply want to get out in the world again and shoot off immediately.


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

[User] ELI5: How did mars change from having so much potential for intelligent life to to the barren wasteland it is today?

[Assistant]
Better question is why it worked on Earth but not Mars or Venus.

Earth is larger and from that fact alone, our core, assuming similar composition, can get denser and hotter. Also the additional gravity allows us to hold our atmosphere better.

Earth's moon is also abnormally large compared to the moons of other planets(when compared to the mass of the moons' host planets). Meaning our moon is bigger than normal for our planet size. The gravitational effects of our moon affects our planet more than a smaller moon would. The tidal effects that affect our oceans also tugs on our mantle keeping it in motion and also fluid.

The active core generates our magnetosphere that shield us from solar winds that can strip away atmosphere.

It's still debatable, but a geologically active core might be a prerequisite.

Venus is closer to Earth's mass, but is geologically inactive. (correction : Venus is geologically active, but lava hasn't been observed. It does have a young crust, so that is a sign of geological activity)


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

[User]
ELI5: Why do the black and white sequences in modern films never actually *look* like vintage film?

I've seen so many movies that try to replicate an old film aesthetic, or have a sequence with a fictional vintage film, that sort of thing.  The audio and video quality is always way too sharp and modern and never actually convinces the audience that it's a legitimate piece of vintage camera work.  Is it that hard to replicate the effect?  Would you need an actual 80-100 year old camera to achieve that quality?

EDIT: Thank you literally everyone for your responses.  Seems like the general consensus is a mix between technnology and artistry...both the way film handles light/shadow/colour/speed, and the advancements we've made in artistic direction.  I can't wait to watch Mank (as recommended) because just the trailer is fascinating.  I can definitely tell how much of the difference is amplified by the cinematography itself--quick changes into closeups, lingering shots of objects as opposed to faces, just general directorial taste.  Older films utilize fewer angles, quick shots, and camera tricks for longer, more sterile sequences and that a really matters so much.  I loved learning all of this, seeing it firsthand with a different psychological lens, and I appreciate the time you took to help me along!

[Assistant]
There are a few reasons. Let's explore just some of those :

1. Film Grain : Digital cameras provide much, much cleaner images compared to film cameras used back in time to shoot BW films. Film cameras tend to be grainy, have imperfections and have "off-white" and "off-black" colors while modern cameras pick up full spectrum of color and digitally turn it into BW by color correcting.
2. Lighting : Our methods and tech of lighting have changed drastically since the times of OG BW films. You can clearly tell that when comparing a modern and old BW film.
3. Filming methods : Again, times have changed the methods and techniques we use to shoot movies. New angles, new movements, new panning. You can subconciously tell that it is in fact a modern movie.


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

[User]
Since all the plates are constanly moving, will there ever be a time where the continents will move into eachother and form a new supercontinent?

Also can new plates form from one plate splitting?

[Assistant]
Yes. The exact arrangement of the next supercontinent is debated, with layouts such as "Amasia" and "Pangea Ultima" proposed, depending mainly on whether subduction zones form at the edge of the Atlantic Ocean or not. But another supercontinent of some sort is very likely in future.

And yes, rifting can split a plate in two. Africa and South America were once one continent on one plate. In the current era, East Africa is in the process of splitting off from the rest of the continent.


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

[User]
Want to venture to become a entry level developer but not sure how to transition from where I am.

Im 20 years old and currently living paycheck to paycheck working as a field technician for Best Buy. (Paycheck to paycheck because parents moved away and I had to take over the house so I have an extra 1250$ bill every month). Im currently in the process of being hired as a Help Desk Specialist mainly as I feel its a step in my dream career and Ill finally be able to save money. I have about half a year done for a associates in programming and development, I have a few networking certifications under my belt. Comptia, A+ etc. I cant afford to go back to school and really dont have the time already working 50-60 hour weeks. On the side Im working through a java boot camp and Im about 40% done with. My question is how do I properly transition into being ready for a development role. I have a fair understanding of object oriented languages mainly Java and C#.
Thank ya for the responses ahead of time.

[Assistant] Start building a portfolio site. GitHub is a good place to start on that front. Then start building web apps and adding them to your site. Im a self-taught act 2 developer who left the restaurant world for the web. Just build. Give people something to look at that displays your capabilities. Someone will hire you, like someone took a chance on me.


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

[User]
[Harry Potter] What happened to dark wizards besides Voldemort who made horcruxes?

We know that horcruxes bind the soul to the mortal world even if the body is destroyed. Voldemort eventually managed to make a new body for himself after his original was destroyed. It is at least implied that Voldemort himself invented the means for doing this. My question is, what happened to the dark wizards that came before him, assuming their horcruxes were not found and destroyed, when and if their bodies were destroyed?

Are there dark wizards who were slain in battle hundreds or even thousands of years ago living the sort of spectral existence Voldemort did between Halloween, 1981 through Goblet of Fire? Or, assuming they only had a single horcrux rather than Voldemorts several, would their spirit be tied to the object itself indefinitely? Could they willingly destroy their own horcruxes to end their torment? Do they have some other method of re-attaining a permanent physical form?

I just doubt that every dark wizard in history who created a horcrux has had their horcrux destroyed, so Id love to know what twisted version of immortality they actually wound up living.

[Assistant]
They are not stupid and don't go on world domination conquest BCS that's how you end up with little boys who are prophesied to kill you that will somehow manage to find your highly unique and easily recognisable Horcruxes and destroy them.

The average reasonable dark arts practitioner who decides to make a Horcrux or two end up with a nice winnard, a good book collection, a couple of servants and spends his time with loved ones, prostitutes or planning out their next vacation. For all eternity.

Pushing your way into the spotlight is what gets you killed.


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

[User] ELI5: Why does your stomach feel like it's sinking when you're anxious?

[Assistant] Your stomach responds to stress by shutting off non vital systems and pulling blood to your heart and brain. Your stomach isn't considered a vital system, and so it basically stops flexing the muscles keeping everything in place, and so whatever was in your stomach or intestines has one less thing stopping it from leaving.


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

[User]
How is it possible for a single company's bankruptcy to bring down the whole economy?

I've been following the news surrounding Evergrande. Some analyst say that the company going down could have catastrophic outcomes across China and the rest of the world.  They've equated to Lehman brothers in 2008 (which I don't understand).

How is it that the bankruptcy of a single company could have those far reaching effects across an economy as large as China, US or the world?

[Assistant]
Usually the companies in question are major financial entities that lend money to other companies and hold others' investments. So if they collapse it triggers losses, and often a lack of access to cash, in other companies as well. Called a "liquidity crisis" because companies will lack cash flow to pay immediate Bill's due to the shock, and be forced to sell assets... which triggers economic contraction and expands the problem.

However - In 2008, Lehman and Bear Stearns were the first to collapse, but they weren't the only ones. They were a symptom of a broader collapse in the US subprime mortgage market that caused a liquidity crunch in a large number of financial institutions - which  all sold the mortgages, insured them through another branch of the same company, and repackaged the mortgages into securities that they sold on the open market. (Plus, it was real estate values collapsing, which cut into consumer credit access because of home equity loans, triggered foreclosures, plummeted demand for new construction, etc.)

Evergrande - and even Lehman - weren't big enough to do that on their own. But often when one collapses, investors start panicking and looking around at other, similar companies- driving up borrowing costs, etc. or suddenly responding en masse to a problem that was bubbling under the surface for a long time.

To understand financial crises more, and 2008 in particular, I'd recommend looking into Robert Shiller's work on herd mentality/irrationality in investment, and maybe at some of Nouriel Roubini's work on how financial crises operate. You might also look at something like Paul Blustein's "The Chastening" for a more approachable journalistic treatment of the 1997-8 asian crisis that shared important similarities with 2008.


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

[User] [Planescape, DnD] What is the appeal of keeping a community at Sigil, if portals are everywhere, and Sigil inherently has no resources to speak of?

[Assistant]
Sigil is amazing for one word: opportunity.

Certain places in the city of doors function as the bazaar of the multiverse. You can find ANYTHING in Sigil. A berk wants to buy a gibbering mouther from a gnome: 50 stingers. Want to have a go at kickin Nerull in the nether regions? Head to the sensorium.

Who wouldn't want to live in Sigil? Gods can't enter and thrust heir hands into the mix. You may see a pit fiend every few days, but he ain't causing no trouble. You're pretty safe so long as you dodge the hive.

Plus the different factions will give you a place in life you only dreamt of. You get brotherhood, a cause, sometimes even a job. People function in community, and there's no more diverse a community than Sigil.

Sigil has a resource, that resource is opportunity.


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

[User]
I think people who think they shouldn't have to watch ads are immature and self-centered. CMV

With blip.tv recently introducing a 90-seconds-long banner that keeps you from watching the video if you block the video ad (but also long before that), I see loads of people complaining that they shouldn't be subjected to ads.
I've seen people call blip "elementary school bullies", I came across vehement adblock defendants and I've heard the proposition that we should contact companies and tell them that we won't buy their products *because* they advertise.
I certainly understand complaints about the way ads work (ads buffering, obnoxious video ads, pop-ups, etc.) and I like the concept of "pay-what-you-deem-appropriate", allowing the fans to eliminate the need for ads (if the content provider is OK with that).
But some people seem to think that hosting 60 million videos (Youtube) doesn't cost any money at all and this service should not only be free (which it still is), but also ad-free. This is ridiculous (even more than the Piracy argument, because watching an ad takes even less effort than shelling out 5 bucks or more) and would never work in the long run (and barely in the short run).

[Assistant]
It's a principle of lost business.  If you go into a website with the intention of using adblock, you probably don't like ads and don't plan on EVER buying from them, let alone pay attention.  So you were lost business anyway.  Watching the add doesn't make any difference.  Whether you watch the ad or don't watch it, the company hasn't gained a customer, you were always a lost customer.

There's no net gain profit.  People who use adblock aren't within the target demographic of an ad.  An ad has a target demographic of people who will actually look at and listen to said ad.