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

[User] ELI5:Why did our brain decide to turn what we see upside down instead of adapting to original version?

[Assistant] Your brain doesnt know that the image on your retina is upside down, and it doesnt need to know. Your brain has no idea what a retina even is. All it knows is that specific signals received from the optic nerve correspond to specific locations in your field of vision.


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

[User]
ELI5 : Why are distances over water calculated in nautical miles instead of the regular miles?

~ditto~

[Assistant]
**LIKE YOU'RE 12-ish**

A nautical mile is the distance of 1 minute (1/60 of a degree) arc on the Earth's surface.

It was used because it's a lot easier to convert them in to latitude and longitude passed over the surface than regular miles.

The reason it's still used is (I guess) because the change in the unit used "overnight" could create a lot of problems for people that use them for a long time.

It's also used is aviation!


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

[User] ELI5: How do offshore bank accounts work? Why are they used for illegal money or criminal activity?

[Assistant] Because they avoid the local regulations that might easily track where the money came from and who it is going to. Large movements of money say between the USA and Columbia might attract the attention of authorities suspecting that it might be drugs related. However if the money is moved from the USA to the Cayman islands and then from an account in the Cayman islands to another account in the Cayman islands and then to Columbia it becomes impossible to track where the money is going without the cooperation of the authorities in the Cayman islands.


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

[User]
[General SciFi] What's the point of a suspension sentence?

I'm currently reading a collection of short stories by Peter F. Hamilton and the one I'm on right now takes place in the Commonwealth.  It mentions a person being sentenced to 2.5k years of suspension.  What I'm wondering is what is the point of sentencing a person to a sentence of any length where at one end they go to sleep and the other end they wake up without really realizing that any time had happened in between.  As far as a sentence being punitive goes how s that any sort of punishment at all?  As far as the punishee is aware no time has passed and the only thing that happens is society has changed dirastically sense they were put under.  I don't see how this reforms prisoners.

Edit: Thank you all for your responses!

[Assistant]
It's a way to prevent a criminal from ever seeing their family or friends or anything else they may love (or even recognize) again. It's a death sentence without killing.

It's meant to be punitive, but to also act as a deterrent against others thinking of committing a crime, because they'd basically give up their entire world if caught.


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

[User]
I believe that a functioning drug addiction is not a problem CMV

People who are addicted to drugs but still find meaningful relationships in their lives and society are equally as functioning as people who need meds to treat a mental disorder in order to function on a day to day basis.

Functioning drug addiction does not affect the lives of the people around the addict, because no one's quality of life is being diminished.

Of course, if the addiction begins to progress to something that DOES begin to affect the quality of life of others, then it should be looked at, but until that point, it should not be considered something that is "wrong" with a person.

[Assistant]
Do you just mean physical dependence?  The medical definition of drug addiction requires it to cause problems for the addict and for use to continue despite those problems.

Assuming yes, then sure- you can be dependent on caffeine without problems.  But there do exist drugs for which dependence inherently caused problems.  For instance, opiates have ups and downs; someone dependent on heroin is going to have times of irritation, times of poor attention, etc.  Tobacco smokers have an increased risk of cancer and fire.  So those would presumably be problems, no?


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

[User] ELI5:what makes some country prone to military coup while others don't?

[Assistant] Various reasons. Stable countries tend to have civilian control of the military(Elected President is Commander and Chief of the U.S. Armed Forces). From there you could factor in history of coups making a new one more likely, corruption of the government making the general population more likely to support a coup, a lack of history of having a stable democracy amongst others. Also, in the case of the U.S., the various branches of the military are so far removed from each other structurally that it would be difficult for the Army to launch a coup without the Navy and Marine Corps turning on them or visa versa. Most countries have a more centralized control over all their military branches, or only have 1 effective military branch anyway(Functioning Navies and Air Forces are expensive and most countries don't have them)


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

[User]
[Ace Attorney] How much money does phoenix wright make?

having only played the original trilogy, there are many scenes in the game where phoenix is either broke or has JUSSST enough cash. I believe it was implied that he was SOMEHOW able to pay for lotta's thousand dollar camera. miles edgeworth, on the other hand, is seemingly LOADED with cash, having a fancier office and an expensive car.

[Assistant]
It's implied a in one episode that he doesn't take many cases outside of the major ones. They're there for him to take, but he doesn't have any interest in them. He's also not what you'd call broke, but just doesn't have it in him to actively pursue the standard lawyer path of raising his rates, getting a better office,etc. From that, I'd wager that he makes sure to  keep the office afloat and functioning just enough for him to scrape by and have enough money to do his daily tasks and make trips to eagle mountain now and then.

I assume that things get more stable as the games go on, seeing as how he seems to be doing okay in Apollo Justice (despite not having a job). He also seems to be well off in Dual Destinies and Spirit of Justice.


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

[User] ELI5:Why do items that can hold charge like mobile phones take time to gain charge? isn't electricity extremely fast?

[Assistant]
Electricity can be extremely fast, but in this case there is an electrochemical reaction going on, which is not that fast.  Also, the faster they go, the more heat they produce, which can be dangerous.

Incidentally, if you charge your phone using a wall charger, it will usually charge faster than plugging it into a computer.


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

[User]
Professor is asking if I'm willing to pursue a master's degree in CS. What should I answer?

Hello everyone, I finished my junior year of CS degree, and because of covid my freshmen year's second half and sophomore years I could not do Research Assistantship(RA).

I started writing emails to my profs that taught me during my junior year about available RA positions and generally they would say no. But one of them answered yes and is asking what I'm planning to do in the future. I answered I would maybe pursue a master's degree. *Then he asked is that going to be abroad or here at my university?*  What is the answer that I should give?

[Assistant]
Most professors aren't going to spend the time and effort on getting a new RA up to speed on a research topic if they are going to be gone in under a year.
I would recommend being upfront with whatever you really want to do, since if you do decide to go abroad, you will need a (hopefully glowing) recommendation from your professor.


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

[User]
ELI5: If it's possible to build up a sleep debt, is it possible to build up a "sleep credit"? If not, why not?

If I were to sleep more than I needed to during the week, would that enable me to sleep less at the weekend, in the same way that if I sleep too little during the week I have to "catch up"?

[Assistant] We aren't really sure why, but it doesn't seem that something like that can be done. Think about it like your bladder; you can build up a need to urinate, but you cannot urinate so much that your bladder is more than empty.


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

[User] Can someone explain how a two negatives multiplied makes a positive, like I'm 5? Can I get a real world example, instead of a theoretical example?

[Assistant]
Think of a man running at constant velocity, we can figure out his position by multiplying the velocity with the time.

If we want to know where he was five seconds ago, he has to be the other direction.

Now, what if he's running backwards? Where was he five seconds ago now? Forward.


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

[User]
[Warhammer 40k] If Space Marines were to land here on earth, how many could we take out?

...if any at all.

[Assistant]
How many Astartes are there?  A squad?  A company?  A friggin' chapter?  What kind of support do they have?  What are they trying to do?  This is all necessary information to answer your question.

But if you want to know how Astartes would fair in combat with the armies of Earth...well, the Space Marines would slaughter Earth soldiers but would be overcome one by one.  Even small arms fire can eventually overcome a marine; and we have a lot more than small arms at our disposal.  A squad would be destroyed; a company might survive if it forced human military forces to join it.


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

[User] [Marvel]Was JARVIS a real strong AI or just a glorified Siri?

[Assistant] Started as one, ended as the other. Tony describes the first iteration of JARVIS, which was developed some time before 2008, as "a natural language UI" (very much like Siri). Over the course of nearly a decade Tony kept adding new responsibilities and capabilities to JARVIS to the point that, by 2015, he was what we might consider a strong AI. Not as strong as the one hidden in the Mind Stone, mind you, but strong enough that his personality exerted some sway over that of the mind-baby the two formed.


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

[User]
[TLoK] If Avatar's next incarnation was in a fully modern equivalent would benders still be relevant?

Could metal benders deflect automatic gunfire and tank shells? Could fire benders negate the heat from a bomb? Would water benders be able to destroy modern warships or subs? Could air benders also deflect bullets and perhaps the blast waves of bombs? How relevant would benders be in a fully modern equivalent.

[Assistant] I agree but notice how from TLA to LOK advanced bending became more mainstream?  Before only one or two people can lightning bend or metal bend but now its very common.  Imagine if the same thing happened 70 years after LOK.  Lava bending would do a shitton of damage against tanks and the like.  Maybe there would be more combustion benders which obviously can compete with modern warfare.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why does memory come in specific sizes? (i.e.8 GB, 16 GB, 32 GB, 64 GB, etc)?

Sorry if it's a newb  question, I just want to know.

And memory is in the ones on SD cards, MicroSD cards, harddrives, etc.

Thanks!

[Assistant]
Memory takes more than just the physical space. You also have some sort of controller which takes read and write request and applies them to the memory. This controller handles the address of the memory you want to access.

Every byte must be accessible, so they need an address.

You controller will handle a certain amount of bit for an address.

If your physical memory is just 2 bytes, 1 bit of address will be enough. The first byte could be addressed with a 0 and the second with a 1.

If you now add a bit to your address you can address 4 different bytes as:

* 00
* 01
* 10
* 11

If you add another bit to the address you can already access 8 bytes. This is exponentioal growth with 2^x where x is the amount of bits available.

At 30 bit of address you can access up to 1gb of memory. With 31 you can access 2gb of memory... etc. Since every bit you process for addresses doubles the possible access space you get those 1,2,4,8... numbers.

Now why waste valuable address space by not having the possible physical amount? You would also have to handle the possiblity, that the computer will send you an address which will still use only as many bits as your memory expects but at the same time lies outside of the physical memory. That sort of exception has to be handled aswell. Every non 2^x value needs his own controller which knows the max limit for his address space. It is easy to generally just ignore additional bits after a certain one (for example you can just ignore the last bits and start from the beginning). This isn't so easy to do when you have to check if it is bigger than a specific 1-0 sequence.

That specificly built controller is probably more expensive for the manufacturer than just build in a bit more of memory especially since more memory will also sell better.


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

[User]
CMV: All Police Should Have Body Cams and The Tapes Should Be Publically Available Next Day

Every police officer should have a body cam on their person during their shifts, the cameras should be running the entire time they are on duty, and the unedited unabridged footage should be uploaded to a cloud server and available immediately or the next day at the latest. We shouldn't have to wait until September to see what happened in an incident back in March. The police are public servants and should not be doing anything questionable on duty that they wouldn't want people to see. If a police officer is arresting someone in public it is your constitutional right to film the interaction, provided you don't interfere with the arrest. The same logic should be applied to the rest of their time on duty. It should be filmed and publically available immediately. I know this view isn't perfect and I would like to hear the corner cases for why certain aspects of this should be different or modified. From where I sit as of making this post, if you are okay with officers not being extremely transparent with their actions then you are okay with them doing morally, ethically, or legally wrong things in the regular course of their duties. Please, change my view. Is there any reason police either shouldn't be recorded when working or the unedited footage shouldn't be available almost immediately.

UPDATE:: This has been largely successful in evolving my view. I have changed these aspects of my view:: Police should still be recorded all the time when on duty in order to have evidence of misconduct and to discourage misconduct. The release of footage should only be that which is relevant to alleged police misconduct. Remaining footage should be stored when it pertains to investigations of those the police have interacted with. (So like traffic stops, criminal pursuits, investigating a crime scene, interviewing witnesses or alleged criminals) A board of elected civilians would review any footage that has been flagged for review. Flagged conditions would be things like alleged police misconduct, any footage from incidents where people police have interacted with have been injured or killed (whether by police or others at the scene), footage from police finding drugs on a person with no drugs in the system or a history of drug use or drug sales, any interaction police have with protests or protesters, and other conditions I haven't thought of but would be into question if police accounts need to be verified by the body cam footage. Individuals rights to privacy is a concern, so the public version of released footage (which again is only for flagged footage) could be either delayed until after an investigation or have faces, naked bodies, graphic wounds, etc censored to respect people's privacy.

[Assistant]
Imagine that you are arrested and charged with a crime, but during the investigation you are cleared of all charges.  But after your release, you discover that everybody has seen your arrest on video, and think you are a creep, murderer, wife beater or similar. Is that really fair?

Or what about when cops check up on a domestic disturbance and see crying children, and drunken parents in a fight, is this really something that should be broadcast as reality-TV?


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

[User]
CMV: I support the Hong Kong protesters regardless of what atrocities they commit

I believe that the Hong Kong protesters should be supported regardless of what they do in their fight against authoritarianism and tyranny as long as it is nominally for the cause. I will present the most extreme form of my view where I allow for even war crimes and crimes against humanities (if the protesters can ever commit them).

First, China (People's Republic), is an authoritarian state. There is wide state surveillance as well as thought control. Hong Kong is a city which enjoyed many democratic and liberal values and rights. In 1997, the British irresponsibly handed Hong Kong over to China with an unsatisfactory settlement. This unsatisfactory settlement continues to this day.

To look at a few of this unsatisfactory settlement, let's examine the handover and the aftermath. The handover was done between the British and Chinese governments. The Hong Kong people never had any choice to stay with the British or go it alone. This fact alone makes the handover illegitimate. The Basic Law (the city's constitution) deals with national security, and it asks Hong Kong's government

>to make laws to prohibit any act of treason, secession, sedition, subversion against the Central People's Government, or theft of state secrets, to prohibit foreign political organisations or bodies from conducting political activities in the Region, and to prohibit political organisations or bodies of the Region from establishing ties with foreign political organisations or bodies.

This alone goes against liberal values of freedom of speech because genuine political opinions such as secession and freedom of political association (with foreign bodies). Further, the PRC's definition of sedition and subversion are quite different from out western values, they believe that even advocating for the overthrow of the central government is subversion. Hence, this law would implement serious thought control which is patently illiberal.  Note that the NPCSC has final interpretive power over the Basic Law. Therefore, any articles in the Basic Law can be construed in any way the communist government wants, which is highly unsatisfactory.

Next, let's look at the political system of Hong Kong. Hong Kong has a semi-presidential system headed by a Chief Executive (CE). The CE is elected by an electoral committee, of which a majority of seats are inpro-china and business constituencies which elects based on the wishes of Beijing. The CE is then also appointed by Beijing. How could a pro-democracy/anti-China CE be ever elected?

The Legislature of Hong Kong is the Legislative Council, or LegCo. This body has 70 members. Of which 35 of them are elected by proportional representation by geographic constituencies. There are 30 seats which go to mostly pro-China Functional Constituencies, made up of mostly pro-China Business interests. There also exists a 5 seat 'District Council (second)' Functional Constituency which is for the electorate which do not vote in any other constituency. This makes it so that it seems like everyone gets 'two votes'. However, the result of this system is a LegCo make up which is consistently pro-China/pro-Establishment. How on earth should the population seek to make changes to the system when a minority can control both the CE and LegCo.

This problem is compounded by the judiciary. The judiciary of Hong Kong is nominally independent, and I don't seek to imply otherwise. However, the Judiciary is very conservative, it does not seek to safeguard the rights of the Hong Kong people(example of a court actually doing this this could be seen in the UKSC prorogation cases) , it merely seeks to make the safest judgments in law with no regard for the consequences of their decisions. One such example was the oath-taking scandal, in which some LegCo members (all pan-democrats of course) were disqualified because they didn't take their oaths 'properly', and the Judiciary held that to be fine. There is also the situation where anyone who espoused pro-independence views, or even just advocating for self-determination is disqualified, and the Hong Kong Courts held that to be constitutional. If even the courts do not protect against this bare-faced attack against the freedom of speech by the Government and Beijing, who is left to do so?

Therefore, this brings me to the current issue. The issue at hand is the 'extradition bill', allowing fugitives to be extradited to other jurisdictions where Hong Kong does not currently have an extradition agreement (like China and the other China (Republic of)). There are many safeguards built into this, mainly that the crime must also be a crime in Hong Kong, and also in the receiving jurisdiction, as well as requiring the courts to sign off on the extradition order. However, the fact of the matter is this, with Article 23 hanging over their heads (Beijing could easily implement thought crimes and whatnot), and the judiciary not being trusted to protect them, Hong Kongers railed against the bill. In a march numbering 1 million (or less depending on which source you read), the Hong Kongers displayed their displeasure at bill. (NB: 1 million is almost 14% of the population) However, the CE and establishment tried to ram the bill through Legco 4 days later, only to be stopped by violent protesters blocking their entrance to the LegCo building. This just demonstrates the utter futility of peaceful methods, and cites the need for more violent and radical methods to achieve their goal.

Soon after the beginning of the movement, the government failed to take proactive steps to de-escalate the situation, but instead hid behind a police force which is widely believed to be using excessive force. In fact, it has become clear now, that the HKPF is not only a force for enforcing the law, but it is an arm of the government used to suppress dissent. So, it is a widely held view that the HKPF must be held accountable for their actions.

There are 5 main demands that the movement demands from the government:

1. Withdraw the extradition bill (done, albeit 3 months late)
2. Commission an independent inquiry on the use of force by police
3. Withdraw the characterization of the June 12 protests as 'riots' (note, rioting carries a 10 year-maximum prison sentence in Hong Kong)
4. Release all those captured during the movement
5. Immediately implement universal suffrage in all LegCo seats and in the election of the CE and hold elections immediately.

I feel 1,2,5 are easily achievable, and are the *right* thing to do. Looking at whether that police acted unlawfully is clearly necessary, and universal suffrage was promised under the Basic Law (Article 45). Then the question becomes, how can the protesters achieve their demands? One can suggest peaceful protest, but that clearly doesn't work. The only resolution, then, is either to have everyone pack their bags and go home and be sitting ducks for Beijing's taking, or escalate in violence. And escalating is what they're doing.

I don't believe for a moment that Beijing will suddenly see the light and grant democracy and liberty to Hong Kong, and I don't see any meaningful foreign intervention likely. Therefore Hong Kongers are alone, and they have to devise a plan to fight alone. Northern Ireland seems to be a good example of this. There, bombs and guns were commonplace throughout The Troubles. In Hong Kong, there are only petrol bombs and arrows. They haven't gotten there yet, but they're doing their part. As for further escalation, there are some who suggest that they have gone too far already, but I disagree. I believe that the current Hong Kong Government is illegitimate and therefore it is the Hong Kongers' right and responsibility to overthrow, or at least reconstitute it. If, in the end the PLA (People's Liberation Army) invades and kills many people, then so be it. But to give up without fighting at all is not right. Therefore, I support any and all escalations that the protesters do.

As for the lone wolf attacks on pro-Beijing politicians and members of the public who argue with the Blackshirts on the street, I have only one thing to say: Hong Kong is facing an existential threat, pro-Beijing politicians want to make Hong Kong more like China, i.e. somewhere you can be arrested for saying the wrong thing, attacks on them is only giving them a taste of their own medicine. Their actions in favor of China rather than Hong Kong can be seen as treasonous, and treason is punishable by death in many places. Given that the protesters can't change the law, they can only enforce this extrajudicially.

Finally, I end my post with a quote that a read a while ago:

>Rule of Law is only **just** when the Law is **right**, when the law is **wrong**, it is imperative that one **change**, **repeal**, or **disobey** it.

Edit: I think most commenters are getting the wrong idea. The essence of my argument is this: Given that the Hong Kong identity is under existential threat, actions must be taken to preserve it. However, actions short of violence seem not to be effective. Therefore, it seems violence is necessary. In the course of violently resisting, there may be some who are harmed as a by-product of the increase in violence--that is unavoidable. Therefore, I would not stop supporting them if some innocent bystanders are harmed. Therefore, those of you trying to convince me that war crimes are bad are wasting your effort. I don't like war crimes, I don't think anyone does, and that is not the crux of the argument.

I think there are a few ways of changing my mind after seeing your comments:
1. Change my mind to think that Hong Kong culture is not worth protecting
2. Change my mind to think that China (PRC) is good and alligns with my values
3. Convince me that when faced with an authoritarian oppressor, people should just lie down and 'take it'

[Assistant]
From a results standpoint, status quo is the best hong kong can hope for. It has no real foreign support (unlike taiwan), and it has too many economic ties to the mainland. China has drawn some lines that they have no reason to back away from (they wont allow a democratic process for choosing the CE) but they also seem OK with the status quo (withdrawing the extradition bill).

The issue with violence in this case is that it harms their position. It freaks mainlanders out and makes the political climate in china very anti HK. The cccp doesnt have to answer to its people directly, but it has a radical solution in its pocket that wont spark outrage amongst its people. The more violence there is, the less likely hong kong remains as free as it currently is.


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

[User] [General] In a world where universal translators exist, do people still learn other languages? If so, why?

[Assistant]
You don't get the same emotional connection when you're speaking through a machine.  Business and government are two areas that will always need people with that human touch.

There will also be people in cross-cultural areas, living and working with others who speak a different language.  Our brains are programmed to learn, so it would be hard to avoid picking up your neighbors' speech when you hear it all the time.

Plus, machines sometimes don't work.  What're you going to do when you're trying to land a passenger jet in a foreign country and your voder suddenly goes on the fritz?


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

[User]
Mid-career professional considering jump to college professor world

I graduated 13 years ago with a BS in general science. Ive spent the last 10 years as a technical writer / program manager at a FAANG company in Silicon Valley. I love love love the money and benefits, and it has all been a pretty good experience. However,  Ive basically hit my limit climbing the corporate ladder unless I want to get an MBA and attempt to move into management (I dont). Im also experiencing some moderate burnout, partly due to the general lack of meaning at my job and also because I have 2 little kids and want to spend more time with them.

Soooo, Im looking for a new career with more flexibility for my family and in something that I have more passion about. The idea of pursuing a Masters degree and then becoming an adjunct professor seems appealing. My questions are:

1) How difficult is it to make this transition, having no academic or teaching experience at all but with lots of private sector experience?
2) What steps should I take now to gracefully exit my current career and start tip toeing down this path?
3) How easy is it to control your schedule as an adjunct professor?
4) What advice would you give someone considering making this transition?

EDIT: I appreciate all the responses so far! I should clarify that the money is the only thing I currently like about my current career and my family has made me realize that some things are more important than money. My spouse makes enough money to support our household now so money is not the point of this transition. Im just looking for advice on how to transition to a more meaningful part time career. I dont care about salary or benefits or even job security, which I why I thought adjunct at a community college could be a good path.

[Assistant]
Dont do it.

You dont mention exactly what field youre in, but many are so oversaturated that a masters (non-terminal degree) may not be enough even with experience.

Adjuncts make from around $1500-$6000 per course, depending on the discipline and school. You may find higher salaries than that if youre highly qualified and teaching in a professional program (law, business).

Thats for all the teaching time, developing the course, and all the grading, for a full semester. Benefits arent a common part of the package.

If you dont need the income (i.e., second income, early retirement) you might enjoy it, but adjunct isnt isnt a career.


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

[User]
ELI5: How does Nat Geo find and interview criminals, gang members, drug traffickers, rapists, etc?

and how do these guys trust nat geo to blur their faces, change their voices- and not just go to authorities?

[Assistant]
I watched a show about the crack problem in a city. The guy interviewing people was told to drive to a certain spot where he then follows a different car. Then he got in a car with someone, turned the camera off, and put on a blindfold so he wouldn't know where the crack house was. When he got there, he was searched by a couple guys and then he could turn the camera on.

A lot of preparation is put into things like that.


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

[User]
ELI5: Long term effects of high blood pressure

Hi,

I have a question regarding the long term effects of high blood pressure in different situations.

If, for instance, one has a resting blood pressure of  more than 140/90mmHg, this is considered elevated and should be a concern in the long term because of, amongst others, damaged bloodvessels.

Now, during sports or heavy physical (or stressful) activity (work for instance), I know that blood pressure can be a lot higher than 140/90mmHg.

How harmful, in that case, is a heavy physical job, or being a professional athlete with a lot of training every day. Should a high blood pressure for up to 8 hours per day followed by a lower blood pressure (time off) not be worse or just as bad as having a constant "lightly" elevated blood pressure of, for instance, 140/90mmHg?

Many thanks in advance!

[Assistant]
No matter how much training a person does, there are still periods of rest and recovery during that training. No one has an elevated blood pressure level for a solid 8 hours, no matter how much training they do.

Another factor: training elevates your heart rate, making the heart stronger. Elevated blood pressure is usually due to less healthy factors, diet, stress, genetics.  When BP goes up during activity, it's to compensate for the additional needs of the body in action. If your body is trying to "run hot" while resting, something isn't working correctly.


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

[User] ElI5: What is it about a horse's brain that makes one so willing and able to be trained...while they could so easily dominate and are so powerful, they're willing to do what we want?

[Assistant]
Training isn't about fear or power. Do you pick your friends based on who you can beat up?

Training animals involves rewarding them, feeding them, sheltering them, and praising them selectively when they exhibit desirable behavior.

All that really determines an animal's trainability is its ability to associate behavior with reward (or punishment).


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

[User] ELI5: Islands like Hawaii seem to very quickly get diverse vegetation even though they pop up in the middle of the ocean, so where do the first seeds come from?

[Assistant]
Seeds travel in many ways.  Some get there by water, traveling on air currents (think dandelion) or by animals (bird eats seed, undigested seed from excrement finds new home), and by humans.

In Hawaii's case, many of their trees and plants were brought to the island by early settlers.
Edit: removed inaccurate information about the quantity of native flora and fauna. Thanks for correct info!


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

[User] ELI5: Why does gum become harder to chew after drinking water with it in your mouth?

[Assistant]
The gum base is very sensitive to temperature changes.

When you drink water (Particularly cold water), the elasticity of the gum base goes down and it becomes stiff and hard to chew. The temperature range of gum base is very narrow.


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

[User] I want to create Captain America's shield. What is the overall toughest stuff we can make these days?

[Assistant]
No material strength will prevent conservation of momentum for ruining your day when you get hit by a 75+ mm tank shell.  Conservation of momentum guarantees that you'll be destroyed.

Anyway, the best armor material varies greatly by projectile.


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

[User] ELI5: Why is the Greek debt front page news worldwide when the Canadian province of Ontario has an almost equal debt that is twice that of California's and is never written about?

[Assistant]
Greek debt/GDP ratio - 177.1%

Ontario debt/GDP ratio - 48.2%

The dollar value of debt isn't what's important. What's important is your ability to pay it. If a person earning $20,000 is $100,000 in debt they're having a bad time. If a person earning $1,000,000 is $100,000 in debt they're fine.


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

[User]
[Star Wars/LotR] Would a single jedi make it from Rivendell to Mt. Doom?

If a jedi was put into the Lord of the Rings world at the council of Elrond and tasked with destroying the ring, would he/she be able to do it (assume jedi council member strength). Disregard the effect of the ring on the jedi.

[Assistant] Well if the he doesnt need to worry about the ring corrupting him, then yeah it might be rather trivial. now, he wouldnt be a one man army, so he still couldnt just walk into mordor by the black gate. however, sneaking throught shelobs lair and getting to the mountain that way would be trivial. the only risk he faces if he suddenly faces an army on his own, but in low numbers combat he would easily wade throught anyone standing before him. arrows are easy to stop with the force, armours would melt under his lightsaber, and he can just jump up any wall in his way.


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

[User] If salt is Sodium Cloride, then what is "low sodium salt"? Is it just a marketing term or is there more?

[Assistant]
They use potassium chloride.

I also believe there are some sodium chloride based salts that are very coarse so there will be less sodium per tablespoon or whatever.  Itll still be the same amount per weight.  Its just that less will fit in a tablespoon due to its coarseness.


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

[User]
How many more "new" stars become visible each year?

In other words, how many stars join the observable universe each year?

[Assistant] The edge of the visible universe is where we see light from 380,000 years after the big bang, when the universe became transparent. If there were stars back then (and we had telescopes orders of magnitude more powerful) we'd see them emerge. But there weren't any, so all we see is empty space emerging. Stars didn't form until about 200 million years after the big bang, so we can see them where the light was emitted when the universe was 200 million years old. We don't watch stars enter the visible universe. We watch them form.


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

[User]
[DC Comics] Why did the Guardians think Sinestro stood a chance against Hal Jordan who had just taken at least 30 GL rings in Emerald Twilight?

This boggles me. After he tried to recreate Coast City after Mongul and Cyborg Superman destroyed it he went to Oa and took at least 30 Green lanterns power rings and its well known that Hal is stronger than Sinestro and has beaten him on multiple occasions but somehow the Guardians thought an even more ruthless Hal Jordan was going to be stopped by Sinestro?

[Assistant]
The other Green Lanterns were trained to be Green Lanterns, and that meant they had been taught to hold back; at that point in time, it was forbidden for a Green Lantern to kill.

Sinestro wasn't going to hold back. Yes, Hal had beaten him before, but there were no other options. The Guardians were using their last, desperate gambit to stop their most powerful weapon.


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

[User]
What are the party views of the Democrats and of the Republicans to help lower unemployment rates?

I have never fully understood what each side is fighting for on the issue.  I tried to find a place where they basically just listed it out but I can't so I was hoping someone on Reddit would be able to help me.

[Assistant]
To put it simply:

Democrats believe in times of high unemployment, the government should spend more money, especially investing in things like infrastructure. So, for example, if the government builds a new bridge, not only is that putting hundreds of people to work to build the bridge, it's also stimulating the steel industry, concrete industry, trucking industry, etc.

Republicans want to lower taxes on the wealthy. They call the wealthiest people "job creators." The thinking is that if they don't have as much to pay in taxes, they'll spend more on buying stuff and investing in businesses. Ultimately, if a business invests heavily in their company, it has the same effect as government spending and stimulates several related industries as well.


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

[User]
[zombies] wouldn't a zombie infestation solve itself within a few weeks/months as they starve to [another] death?

Speaking about virus/disease/parasite/etc zombies, not paranatural "undead" here: we usually see a handful of non-zombie survivors and hoards of zombies, wouldn't they starve away after a few weeks?

There are not that many humans left, each corpse become a zombie itself, large scale farming is gone, there's not that much wild life to eat in areas around cities...Basically the population should dwindle to numbers of Paleolithic humanity, maybe lower since being a zombie seems pretty straining in the long term. And we don't see them breeding (although that doesn't mean they don't).

[Assistant]
Yes, in a general sense.  That's exactly what happened in 28 Days Later (assuming we include them as zombies).

If you add supernatural elements, though, the answer could be different.  That's why you have to look at each specific universe.


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

[User] [Marvel] So if Secret Wars is supposed to take place in 2015 (sliding timescale means Marvel is always in the present), and that's gonna result in an All-New Marvel universe, how can 2099 exist?

[Assistant]
Marvel has a many-worlds concept of time with one primary self healing timeline.

What that means is there is one main timeline that is full of chronal energy and points in one direction- towards the future. Every action causes an infinity of parallel timelines to emerge, most of which are reabsorbed back into the primary timeline because they don't have enough difference to break away.

This allows for single events to change the past in a way that causes paradoxes, but the future timeline will immediately attempt to heal it by removing the offending portion of the timeline. For example, if cyclops from the past shows up in the future and future Cyclops kills him, the timeline will attempt to resolve that problem by removing future Cyclops. Obviously his loss at that moment wouldn't have changed the future enough to cause a chronal fracture.

But some changes are so critical to the orderly continuation of the timeline that when they happen they fracture it- causing a parallel timeline of the current universe- separate reality that exists on it's own.

2099 is one of those universes. Something happens between now and 2099 that made that universe possible. No matter what happens here, that event happens, and when it does the split occurs. It may have happened a hundred years ago, it may happen in ten minutes. Only people who analyze and catalog chronal energy or have cosmic awareness can ever truly know.


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

[User]
Do you use muscles to open or close your eyes?

What I mean is, when youre sleeping are you using muscle to close your eyes, or are you using muscle to open them during the day?

[Assistant]
You actually have separate muscles that close and open your eyes.

As others have said, the orbicularis occuli muscle closes your eyelid. It is innervated by cranial nerve 7 (facial nerve).

The levator palpebrae superioris muscle opens your eyelid. It is innervated by cranial nerve 3 (occulomotor nerve).

So in truth, at any given moment your eyelids are where they are because of a combination of those two muscles. If you close your eyes, you relax the levator palpebrae superioris muscle and contract the orbicularis occuli. If you open your eye, its the opposite.


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

[User] ELI5: Why does your heart get that sinking feeling when something bad happens?

[Assistant] Fight or flight response gets activated. Your body shuts down digestive system. Your body also opens up blood vessels near the heart to send blood to your muscles while shutting down bloodflow to non survival areas like the skin and intestines. Your heart also starts to beat faster and harder to make sure it's moving blood at peak power.  You also start breathing heavier to get more oxygen into the bloodstream.


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

[User]
[SCP Foundation/Dead Space] How would the foundation deal with the Marker?

The Marker from Dead Space is unearthed in a remote part of Southeastern Europe and the foundation sets out to do its job. How do they deal with the Marker and the Necromorphs it creates?

[Assistant]
After the Foundation would most likely be first made aware of the Marker's location after a researcher in some facility realizes the specific area in Europe has a few too many local superstitions and legends, especially of monsters that attack people that get too close to its location.

The first agents on the scene would just scout the immediate area and try to interview locals as much as they can. It's doubtful they will get much information this way, just whispered fears, prayers and repeats of the same legends they already know. Perhaps one interviewee offers to lead the advance agents to the location of the Marker. For a price, of course. The foundation would cover those expenses.

Once the initial agents arrive at the Marker, which lies in a shallow cave in the middle of a very ancient meteor crater, they call in cargo helecopters and a full fledged security detail. Amnesiatics would be dispersed among the local population to cover the extraction and the Foundation would try to be in and out within the same day. Only one researcher on scene notices the complete lack of life within a two hundred meter radius circle around the marker and the cave.

Darkness falls as the giant cargo helecopter begins to liftoff with the Black Marker in tow. The security team has grown tired of the desolate landscape and the babble of workers and scientists. They don't respond fast enough to the shrieks and cries that emanate from deep in the cave. Before they know it, a dozen twisted and mangled creatures emerge from behind the Marker and begin slaughtering everyone in sight. The commotion is enough to drive the security guards out of their stupor and they respond to the threat with lethal efficiency. It doesn't take long for them to realize standard head and body shots do little to stop the horrors, but they are trained to handle emergencies such as these. After twenty more deaths, the survivors learn the benefits of full dismemberment on their targets and the last of the monsters are put down. (Not long after returning home and giving full reports and video recordings of the incident, the surviving security officers are also put down.)

The Marker is transported to the nearest facility and placed in a sealed room. A new research team looks over the findings from the site as well as the local legends and come to the conclusion that... the Marker is wonderful. The monsters are of no consequence when you really look at it. It's providing limitless free energy! All they need to do is study it day and night and before long, humans can replicate the Markers any number of times, thus ending Earth's growing energy crisis in one fell swoop! Later, many of the researchers begin to show signs of severe depression or mania, leading to three cases of suicide and one case of serial murder before the Foundation sends in a cleanup crew.

The next research team is given orders to only study the Marker remotely. No one is allowed to stand within one hundred meters of the object, save a small group of Class-D personnel specifically chosen to have a wide variety of psychological profiles. The next team does not show the same fervor or dementia as the first, but most of the Class-Ds do. Many begin babbling pseudo-religious nonsense while others report hallucinations of deceased loved ones or friends. One out of a hundred Class-Ds show no effect at all. The 99 others are humanely dealt with, the survivors are taken to another facility.

Eventually, the Marker storage facility becomes devoted solely to the study of the Marker. Too many other artifacts in need of further study are placed within the dangerous circle of "dead space" (as coined by a researcher) and are slowly removed by expendable recruits and other Class-Ds. Eventually, the entire compound is empty, save for the Marker and a small cadre of researchers and doctors. Their lab is one of the quieter ones in the Foundation, but they provide results when asked.

The only oddity worth reporting is the strange wording in the center of each document from the facility. No matter what the document is, from food requisition to data specifically about the Marker, the words "Make us whole again." appear within. Usually without context.


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

[User]
ELI5: What are the pros and cons of mp4, webm and HTML5 video formats? When to use one over the other?

As title. Does one format has a higher quality or compression that the other? What's speed/load difference? Which one would be easier to work with (editing)?

[Assistant]
None of them are video formats.

MP4 and WebM aren't video formats, they're "container" formats. A container is just like a box you toss multiple kinds of data into to keep them all in one place -- kind of like a zip or rar file. When you have a video file, you usually have the video stream, audio stream, chapter index, subtitles, maybe menus, maybe *multiple* video/audio/subtitles. They're all in different formats -- the subtitles can be plaintext or transparencies, the video might be MPEG-2 or AVC, the audio might be MP3 or AC3. To wrap them up together in one file, synchronise timing between them, properly interleave the audio and video so the file is accessed linearly, etc you put them inside a container -- and that container is MP4, or MKV, or AVI, or MOV. But the container tells you nothing about what type, format, or quality of video data is inside. You can take the streams out of an AVI container and put them in a WebM one in under a second without touching the actual video data.

HTML5 isn't a video format either. HTML is a markup language used to write webpages; in HTML version 5, they added support for `<video>` tags. HTML5 video is just video linked in these tags and rendered directly by the browser, as opposed to the older system of using Flash applets to display video. HTML5 says absolutely nothing about the video or container formats used.

Examples of video formats: MPEG-2 Part 2 (used on DVD and TV), MPEG-4 Part 10 (used on Blu-ray, YouTube, and some TV channels), MPEG-H Part 2 (the new format starting to appear everywhere, used for 4K and 8K TV), Theora, VP8, and VP9 (used by Imgur, Gfycat, etc), DNXHD (used for editing).

Examples of container formats: AVI, MKV, MP4, MOV, WebM.

There are a few reasons for varying video formats: some get higher quality at given bitrates (a 10Mb/s HEVC video is a lot better than a 10 Mb/s MPEG-2 Part 2 video), some are better-suited for editing (ProRes and DNxHD store complete frames, most other formats do not), some have widely-available hardware decoders (your phone probably has an H264 decoder in it but not an H265 decoder, so the former will be a lot smoother and lighter on your battery even though the latter is a better format), etc. But the container is mostly irrelevant, you can't make any decision based on container.


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

[User] ELI5:What is OPEC and how is affecting oil prices?

[Assistant] They are a collection of the biggest oil producing countries. They had a meeting to decide whether or not to slow down oil production. They decided not to slow it down and because there is plenty in surplus at the minute then supply is greater than the demand which forces down the price.


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

[User] ELI5: Whats the difference between an engine and a motor?

[Assistant] Mostly equiv nowadays but engine is supposed to use a fuel to translate to motion.  Motor translates one type of energy to motion.  Gasoline engine, steam engine.  Electric motor, pneumatic/hydraulic motor.


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

[User] [Marvel] Does baby Groot have all the memories of the Groot from the original GotG? Or is he more like an asexual copy?

[Assistant]
You'll note that, even though he is a baby.  His linguistic skills are completely intact.  And he knows how to manifest more mass so he still know show his powers work. So his procedural memories are ok.

I bet he lost a episodic memories.  But his core personality and skill set certainly seem intact.

He's not saying "I am Greet" or anything that would indicate a new persona.


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

[User]
[DC comics] What is the speedforce?

Everytime someone asks a a question about the Flash, like how he can see things when running at the speed of light, or how come his hand doesn't brake when he punches things, the answer is always the speedforce. So, to a newcomer to the Comics world, what is the speedforce?

[Assistant]
Quasi-mystical handwave to justify any and all speedster feats that has evolved with about 20 years of stories.

1. It starts as a power source.
2. Then in becomes a semi-sentient force that grants ESP, additional powers, and which favors a particular line of speedsters.
3. Then it becomes a barrier (like the sound, light, or time barriers) which, once broken through, allows access to speedster afterlife, and where villains can be disposed of without technically killing them.
4. Then it became a mess of incoherent bad techno-babble (that didn't even bother to use fictional scientific terms to obscure the counter-factual nonsense, like "negative speed" fundamentally misunderstanding that speed is an amplitude that's always positive).
5. Then it was mercifully rebooted to excise most of 4 and the afterlife aspect (while still serving as a place to dump villains).

It's practically a character unto itself.  At the end of the day, Flash is a modern Mercury only we're uncomfortable making our heroes magic-based gods, but we can't reconcile those kinds of powers and constraints with science... so the Speed Force is a stop-gap that allows us the fiction we want without having to worry about the scientific explanation or having to cede that it is magic.

Much like The Force lets us have Space Wizards and Knights in Star Wars without having to resort to spells and the occult.


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

[User]
[Legends Arceus] What caused wild Pokmon to kinda mellow out by the time of the modern games?

Dont get me wrong some are incredibly aggressive but people feel safe enough to live near Syther herds and its been shown in both the anime and games that even large aggressive Pokmon are kinda chill around humans and several times tried to talk out their problems. So what caused the shift from humans are food to humans give me food

[Assistant]
Couple hundred years of living together tends to make both sides calm down. As Pokmon were caught and trained, more Pokmon most likely went: huh, free food and shelter without having to hunt? And we get friends?? Lets join those weird two-legged humans!!

Couple hundred years later, everyone friends. Except theres still a lot of wild Pokmon who attack humans, humans just have Pokmon of their own to fight back in modern times.


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

[User] [General Fiction] I'm a generic bad guy at Episode 50 of a series. How do I kill the Main character of a series named after him and make sure he stays dead?

[Assistant]
1. If the series has a supernatural setting you could turn the main character into a vampire or ghost. Though they might still get their revenge, dead or not.

2. If the series is named after the character's alter ego or superhero identity rather than their personal name, you could train a replacement. Though again you might be their first target.

3. Failing that you could focus on making a side character vastly more popular than the main one before going in for the kill, resulting in a successful spin off and an Episode 50 finale for the original.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why we don't start making long term memories until around the age of 5.

Most people's earliest memories seem to be from the age of 4-5, why is this?

[Assistant]
Most recently researchers have attributed it to a child's lack of self-perception, language, or other mental equipment required to keep memories.

More in depth: rapid neuron growth during early childhood disrupts the brain circuitry that stores old memories, making them inaccessible. Young children also have an underdeveloped prefrontal cortex, another region of the brain that encodes memories, so infantile amnesia may be a combination of these two factors.

EDIT: Because someone requested a literal five year old explanation: you haven't learned how to remember things yet.


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

[User]
What books to read to get deep into ethics?

Hey I have only recently gotten into philosophy, I started off by reading The Problems of Philosophy by Bertrand Russell, and now I want to learn more about ethics in general.

More specifically, I'm curious in how you ground out a moral statement into something that you can defend against someone who attacks it. Like for example if I say "Causing unnecessary pain and suffering is undesirable", and someone disagrees with you, how do you argue against them? I'm looking for something more or less along these lines of like starting points for moral conversations.

[Assistant] I would look at the Platonic texts "Meno" and "Euthyphro" as a good starting point. They are both dialogues so they demonstrate how to have a debate about ethics. From there look at Aristotle's "Nichomachean Ethics", Mills "Utilitarianism", Kants "Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals" and Nietzsche's "Geneology of morals". These will give you a good groundwork for the major ethical theories.


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

[User] [Warhammer 40k] Is the Emperor alive, dead, both and bouncing between the two every day until he gets a fresh batch of Psychers? Would Ork Weirdboyz suffice as a source of sacrifice for big E? Could he sustain himself with the Warp/Chaos Undivided energies?

[Assistant]
The Emperor is alive, to suggest otherwise is heresy.

The best evidence for this is the Astronomicon, which has been sustained without interruption for millennia.  If the Emperor were bouncing between life and death, so too would the astronomicon.  The mass sacrifice of psykers sustains him like nutrigruel and carboloaf sustains a soldier, but we do not think of getting hungry as "dying" and eating as "living."  Feeding the Emperor a diet of foul Xenos would be as harmful to him as a guardsman ingesting whatever it is the Xenos eat.  >!Some of the novels say this is possible.  Especially Eldar food!<

The mere suggestion of him eating Chaos is heretical.  >!Although he probably does draw on the power of the warp for sustenance.!<


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

[User] ELI5: Could a human survive temporarily being swallowed by a large animal like a shark or whale? What would the process of death be like, and could they survive if they weren't bitten/crushed in the mouth?

[Assistant] The first thing that would kill someone who is swallowed alive is probably lack of oxygen. Assuming you're a scuba diver being swallowed by a whale, if you can avoid being forced into the whale's digestive track and stay in the mouth, you can live as long as your oxygen holds out and you aren't crushed by the mouth. As far as being digested to death, just imagine rolling around in acid and letting it slowly dissolve you, starting with your skin and muscles.


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

[User]
What exactly determines how much sleep different animals need?

i.e. Humans need 8 hours but other mammals will sleep much more or much less.  Does it have a direct correlation to the brain size of the animal vs body weight?  Or neural density?  Diet?

[Assistant]
We actually don't really know. Even within species there's huge variation.

But without going into anything too much:

Your question is a loaded and not an entirely accurate premise.

Prior to WWII, 8 hours of sleep wasn't a standard.

Plenty of countries have had "siesta cultures" where it's normal to take a 2-3 hour nap during the day.

But even in those where daytime naps were uncommon, bimodal sleep seemed to be the standard for most humans:

You go to sleep in the late afternoon or around sunset, wake up in the middle of the night and chill out for a couple of hours, then go back to sleep until sunrise.

Some scientists believe this window is when humans were most likely to procreate, helps strengthen familial bonds without the pressure of a day's work to be done and allows the completion of the small number of tasks or hunts that can be done better at night

Even beyond that, many humans have almost reversed circadian  rhythms and melatonin production with night time promoting wakefulness and responding to blue light in the way most humans do to it's absence - that is to say "night owls" and "early birds" are an actual biological phenomenon.

It's only recently that we've enforced this rigid "8 hours sleep, 16 hours awake" routine and it's often quoted as the reason so many people feel tired throughout the day, struggle to fall asleep or wake up throughout the night - we're going against our programming.

The point being that even our species has a variable and unusual sleep requirement and we're not exactly sure why - it's difficult to predict why there's variance between species when there's so much within species.


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

[User]
[Star Wars] Does the KotOR protagonist have a canon alias?

Obviously he has an identity reveal later, but is there a canon fake name he was given in the beginning?

[Assistant]
No. Revan's canon name has never been revealed, closest that has ever come is *the Revanchist* title from the *KotOR* comics. Malek has a "canon"* name (Alek Squinquargesimus) but Revan does not have one. We do know that Revan is male, and the Exile from KotOR2 is female, however.

*Neither Revan nor Malak are canon, they are Legends.


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

[User] [40k] If we were to apply our current linguistic knowledge, how would Imperial Gothic be classified? What modern languages is it most closely related to?

[Assistant] Imperial Gothic is split into two forms, low and high. High Gothic is an archaic language that developed from several European and Pacific languages mixed together pre age of strife. By now it's mainly ceremonial and the average Imperial doesn't speak a lick of it. Its fills a similar function to how Latin was in medieval Europe. Low Gothic is actually a collection of dialects (not all mutually intelligible) that are derived from High Gothic although they've grown to be almost unrecognizable compared to High Gothic.


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

[User] ELI5: why do gift ribbons curl when you use scissors?

[Assistant] When you press the edge of the blade down and pull, you are stressing and stretching the fabric on only one side of the ribbon.  This uneven stretching causes the ribbon to curl, because one side is stretched, and the other is still tight.


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

[User]
Any resources on the topic of "choosing" and "becoming" who or what we are?

Hi, lately if been interested in the concept of what makes me, me. Things like my emotions, my personality, my interest, values, how I respond to certain situations,... and during this a question popped into my head: "Why?". Why am I like that? Why do I like these things? Why are these my values? Why do I respond to this like this? And how I never really had a say in it. Moreover, how little sense it would make for me to be able to do so, as I would already need to have some sort of values/interest to be able to choose which would only move the question to these values/interest instead. Also, how this is linked to free will, because me being able to choose freely what interest to pursue or how to act loses a lot of its freedom if I never had a say what these interest would be in the first place.

Any information or resources about this topic would be greatly appreciated, thanks!

[Assistant]
I think you'd probably be interested in Heidegger  and Nietzsche; after all, the latter did declare that we must become who we are.

Nietzsche brought an intense suspicion to bear on our values and a major part of his project is a transvaluation of values (or at least paving the way for one).  For Nietzsche, the role that something (a value, a feeling, a belief, etc.) plays in the present has no necessary link to how it initially arose; if we're to subject our values to a revaluation, we must ask what they're good for.  Nietzsche's geneaological methodology provides us with some very powerful tools for interrogating the contingency of the given; if we're to throw these things into question, we could do a lot worse than investigating how they may have came about.  There's obviously a lot of places one could start with on Nietzsche, but for this particular subject, I'd recommend *On the Advantage and Disadvantage of History for Life*.

Heidegger (who was heavily influenced by Nietzsche) addresses these sorts of questions with the concept of thrownness and facticity.  We find ourselves thrown in a world with constraints and a history that we didn't choose; moreover, we find ourselves faced with the certainty of our own death at some point in the future.  Our thrownness gives us a ground to project ourselves out into the future; our certain death means that we are forced to choose between certain possibilities. This is a pretty brutal reduction of *Being and Time* but the topic is one of the central problematics in it.


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

[User] [Star Wars/Warhammer 40k] Which is a more powerful ally the Darkside of the Force or a Chaos God?

[Assistant]
This is going to turn into a flamewar soon. Just saying.

Chaos Gods, because they can warp both reality and the Immaterium to serve their needs. Want to destroy an army? Here's a horde of Bloodthirsters. Need to convert a planet? Tzeentch and Slaanesh do their thing with the government. Nurgle...is Nurgle.

Of course, the Gods require sacrifices and signs of devotion, and there's always the chance of being overwhelmed by Daemonic 'gifts'. The Dark side, on the other hand, is slightly less corrupting in comparison. Sure, you get a bunch of wrinkles and yellow eyes, but at least you look vaguely similar to how you were when you first started. This comes at the price of power, however. A Sith can be brought down by concentrated blaster fire, if their attackers are well-trained.

A Cultist, assuming that he/she managed to come up with the necessary sacrifices/empty promises that are required, can easily show up with a dozen Daemons and take out a good chunk of a force. Though finding the sacrifices for that many Daemons would probably get quite a bit of attention...

Still, having a God on your side definitely helps. Just pray to Khorne so that there's a smaller chance of getting backstabbed/thrown under the bus than say, Tzeentch sacrificing you like a pawn. It's more powerful than the Force, IMHO.


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

[User]
CMV: The lack of conservative outcry towards Donald Trump will ultimately severely undermine future legitimate conservative candidates.

I believe and know many conservative individuals, representatives and officials who privately strongly disagree with the current administration. However their inability to speak out against the administration (which as far as I can tell does not hold conservative values) speaks to their desire for holding office and holding partisanship over doing what is best for the country. I believe this is mostly done for political reasons despite the administration contradicting many of the traditional conservative values such as responsibe fiscal management, free trade, strength against US adversaries, ethical treatment of others, acting in a professional manner. This has ultimately undermined the sincerity and legitimacy of their arguments and will make them unelectable (by sincere conservative voters) in the future. Further the conservative brand has become so heavily tarnished that it will become near impossible in the near future to have a legitimate conservative leader who is not saddled with the legacy of this administration.

[Assistant]
All of this seems to suggest conservatives were tricked into voting for a candidate who didn't represent conservatism. On the contrary, Donald Trump wore conservatism *a la* "The Emperor's New Clothes."

His greatest appeal to conservatives was the appointment of conservative-approved justices to the courts, and in that regard he has performed fantastically.


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

[User]
[Dragonball] In the World's Martial Arts Tournament, Krillin and Roshi have a fight so quick that the naked eye couldn't perceive it. Why weren't other fights in the series this fast?

Bystanders seemed to have no problem watching future fights. And they were between even more powerful individuals.

[Assistant]
The only watchers who can actually tell whats going on, more than mere moments of the fight, are fighters who have trained to perceive the high speed battle that's occurring. Initially Gohan, for instance, was unable to watch the fight between yamcha and the saibamen.

Normal humans are completely incapable of watching the high speed fights going on.


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

[User]
[Invincible] Is Marks full potential the same as Omni-Man?

Mark is only half Viltrumite, and obviously half human, so can he be as powerful as Nolan is in his prime? Because with Superman Clarks son can only be half of kals power because hes half kryptonian. Is Mark like this as well?

[Assistant]
As stated in the show and the comic, because of compatibility with humans Mark is essentially a full blood Viltrumite so he has the same potential. It's just a matter of time and training.

As for the Superman comparison it really depends on time period. Currently, his son Jon is slated to be more powerful than him.


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

[User]
[Batman] What are the advantages of henching for a supervillain (as opposed to a regular suit-and-tie gang)?

So like, beside those cult guys Ra's carries around, pretty much all of these unnamed mooks are Gotham citins, born and bred in the city, yeah?

I know its a shithole and unemployment is probably upward of 45% at any given moment in the bad parts of town, but henching for a supervillain seems...dangerous.

Not so much from fighting Batman, I mean he'll break your jaw and send you to a cardboard prison; unless you've been disintegrated and re-integrated such that touching you will make you disappear he won't do much permannet harm.  But the supervaillains themselves seem to have a penchant for killing their own goons. And they never seem to be able to steal something long enough to sell it.

[Assistant]
Depends on the villian, but usually its case of danger pay and fringe benefits, supposing you have a choice in the matter. If you work for the Joker or Poison Ivy then you're probably being coerced or mind raped into serving them.

Working for one of the more reasonable villians, such as the Penguin (who for all his faults is ultimately just in it for the money, and as long as you don't cause problems he'll pay you what you're worth) or Mr. Freeze (who doesn't especially care about the money and just wants to save his wife and occasionally uses henchmen to achieve this end) is the way to make a living in Gotham.

Working for a reasonable villian you'll be paid what you're worth plus a solid danger pay, and you'll be allowed some leniency to carve out your own slice of pie while on the job. The boss says steal the plans for a death ray from a questionable engineering firm? Well as long as you don't fuck that up the heist and pay their cut then you're golden to take what ever else you want while you're at it. Boss says steal a perfect diamond for his freeze ray? Go ahead and take all the other precious stones in the museum while you're at it, he doesn't care, he's busy monologuing about his frozen wife.

Thats not even getting in to the benefits of working for these career criminal masterminds. You find something valuable? You can bet your ass that the Penguin's fences will give you a good deal less the boss' cut. Some dipshit banger getting up in your face? Your connection to one of Gotham's many supervillains will put the fear of god in them. You get caught and get arrested, or the bat beats the shit out of you and leaves you for Gotham's Finest? Well its a good thing that 95% of the force are on the take, as long as you didn't fuck up too badly, and didn't kill anyone, then the worst that will happen is you spend a relatively short stint on downplayed charges before you're let out on parole or broken out while you're still useful. The majority of the time they'll just cut you a deal for whatever little info you have.

Sure, some people are left dead, and some people the Bat gets a bug up his ass over and ensures you see justice for your crimes, but thats kind of just an occupational hazard. When you play in the big leagues you risk more but stand to gain more.


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

[User]
ELI5: What part of an explosion actually hurts you?

I know when say a grenade goes off, the shrapnel of the grenade itself is what does most of the damage.  When there is an explosion though is the heat doing the damage or is it something else?  If it is the explosion itself how exactly does it do it?

[Assistant] It's the pressure from the shockwave.  When an explosion happens, it creates a large amount of outward force that shoves all the air away from it.  This wave of moving air exerts a lot of pressure on anything it hits.  Now, you may think air is soft, but have you ever been in a pillow fight and gotten hit really hard?  Now imagine that same pillow, but being swung by the Incredible Hulk.  That's how hard the shockwave from a big explosion hits you if you're close enough.


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

[User] Why is it that when I put in my correct password into the computer, it logs in almost immediately, but when I put in a wrong password, it takes significantly longer to reject me?

[Assistant] It's a deliberate pause that serves two purposes. The first is that it makes it take years for someone to try all possible passwords (called a brute force attack). The second is that if the computer always responded as quickly as possible a sophisticated attacker could measure the slight difference (nanoseconds) it takes the computer to reject a password to infer how many characters in the password are correct (called a timing attack); by making all rejections take the same amount of time this information leak is plugged.


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

[User] ELI5: Why is being deaf or blind much more common than say having no taste, touch, or smell?

[Assistant]
Part of it is confirmation bias.  Blind people are really obvious, deaf people are fairly obvious.  You wouldn't know someone couldn't smell or taste just by looking at them.

Localized loss of touch is not uncommon.  But you have so many touch receptors in so many places, there are few conditions that will systemically shut down all of them.


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

[User] [Stephen King] What does Pennywise fear (aside from the Turtle)? Being confronted/stood up to, or going hungry? Or something else?

[Assistant] In the book, IT found it didn't like being physically hurt. Ie from memory, getting shot in the eye with the silver slug the Losers made after they forced IT to take the form of a werewolf came as a nasty surprise.


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

[User]
ELI5: What is a "Chav"? As an American, I hear a lot about them online. Who are they, where did the term come from, is there an American analog, and what are their motives for being the way they are?

I think I have a handle on it, but my girlfriend is asking me to explain it to her and I'm not 100% sure I can.

I'd love to know how the whole culture came to be.

[Assistant]
There is no universal definition for 'chav', but the term is stereotypical and is most commonly associated with people (from the UK) who:

- are young
- seem uneducated
- speak with 'lower class' accents
- are aggressive and potentially violent
- are generally loud, uncouth, and loutish
- have an undeserved sense of entitlement
- show little consideration for others
- generally do not respect or follow culturally accepted norms, values, and standards for behavior (i.e. lack manners)


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

[User]
How common is it to pass a PhD defense with conditions?

I passed my defense last week with conditions. Are conditions the same as revisions? I have an official list of things to address, its much more work than I was hoping to have to do after defending. Honestly I feel pretty downtrodden meanwhile everyone around me keeps congratulating me for passing.  My advisor has stressed that what I have to do is par for the course but hes also not super great at interpersonal relationships so I never know how to interpret what he says. I dont disagree with anything Im being asked to do necessarily. Im just a bit overwhelmed. Plus Ive already started a full time (non academic) job.

[Assistant] Conditions are revisions if rhey are requesting changes to the thesis  and are near universal. A pass with revisions is still a pass. Examiners feel like they have to request some changes to justify their role, and nothing is ever 100% perfect anyway. Minor revisions is as good as it gets.  Congrads. You got a PhD, Doctor.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why doesn't the government hire the unemployed rather than give handouts?

As in have projects in which the government hires the unemployed whilst at they same time they are looking for jobs.

Wouldn't this be more productive on a whole for society?

[Assistant]
They've done it before, i.e. the make-work projects in the Great Depression.

But the thing is, welfare usually pays the bare minimum, just enough to keep people alive. Government jobs typically come with higher pay and all kinds of benefits, plus retirement. It is cheaper to pay people welfare and let them not work, than to hire them to work and spend much more on them.


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

[User] ELI5: If computers can process a billion tasks in a second, what actually happens when your computer gets really slow and takes 2 minutes to open the browser?

[Assistant]
The primary reason you experience these slowdowns is resource contention.

Your processor is rarely the bottleneck in your system. If all you want to do is a simple mathematical operation on a small amount of data, your processor can churn away at billions of tasks per second.

But that's rarely what you want to do. Most of what's going on in your computer is moving data from one location to another - one resource to another. When you have a large number of different processes all trying to move resources over the same limited channels, you often run into problems where multiple processes want to use the same limited resource and have to wait their turn.

Think of it like traffic on roads. Normally, it might take you 15 minutes to get to the grocer. But as you increase the total traffic, that time starts to spike upwards because there are other people using the roads you need to use.


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

[User]
Does plain, black coffee ever 'go bad'?

I often leave disposable cups of black coffee lying around for days still partially full with coffee. I never add creamer or sugar or anything, and I often wonder--would the plain coffee ever go bad? I imagine it would evaporate at the same rate as water and leave behind the coffee grounds that dissolved in the water, but would it ever actually become, you know, bad to drink, or lose its potency or flavor, or anything?

[Assistant] It won't really go bad in the sense that meat spoils, although mould can and will grow on it. The flavour does change however, as molecules that impart flavour are oxidized. This is not unlike how wine ages except you end up with bland coffee instead of a nicely aged red. You won't reconstitute the grains as only about 20-30% of the dry mass of coffee grounds is soluble.


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

[User]
ELI5 Why is there an "expiration date" of any sort on the ISS?

I keep hearing things like "The ISS will operate through 2024 or 2030", etc.

Why?  Why is there some "end date" in sight?   Seems like it's eternally and exponentially useful to keep it up there and keep it operating.   Why not just keep refitting and refurbishing it as needed?  It certainly seems more cost effective.   It has the ability to keep boosting it's own orbit as needed.   What am i missing here?

[Assistant]
For the same reason that anything has to be replaced. Eventually it will wear out enough to the point where all the maintenance required just won't be worth it anymore.

They won't be ditching the whole thing though. A lot of the newer modules are planned to be reused for other applications.


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

[User] [harry potter] I transfigure a small box into a large box, and a large box into a small box, then place one inside the other, what happens when they refigure?

[Assistant]
Objects don't Untransfigure by themselves in canon (they do in HPMOR). You need to cast the *reparifarge* counterspell to return a Transfigured object to its original form.

Anyway, in your example, the boxes will just break down when they collide.


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

[User]
why dont people want to be plugged into the experience machine?

lots of people dont want to be plugged into the experience machine, but the happiness from in the machine are still real, just like how people play video games and get happiness out of it. the experience may be fake, but isn't the happiness real?

[Assistant]
Have you looked at Nozicks Anarchy State and Utopia? He suggests the experience machine thought experiment and then gives three reasons why one would not want to be attached to it.

1. We want to do certain things, rather than merely have the experience of doing them. So someone who aspires to climb Mount Everest is invested in actually doing so, not merely experiencing what it would be Ike to do so.

2. We also value certain ways of being. For example, if you are in love and find out that it was all an illusion because your partner was manipulating you for your money, the experience of love is tainted even though at the time you wrongly thought it was real, it was pleasurable. It matters to us that we are genuinely friends with our friends, that we are genuinely kind or courageous.

3. We also want to discover how things really are. Being plugged to an experience machine limits us to a man made reality. There is no contact with anything deeper, to anything significant such as discovering who one really is, discovering what gives meaning to ones life, etc.

So in those three senses there is some happiness in the experience machine but it is not valuable because it is not genuine.

Edit: thank you for the award!


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

[User] [StarWarsMovies] What was Palpatine's end game? What was he actually trying to achieve? What was his goal?

[Assistant]
He says what he wants quite clearly: "Unlimited power!"

Palpatine wanted nothing less than immortality, mastery of the dark side, and possibly ascending to godhood.

The Empire existed primarily as a means to get Palpatine whatever he wanted. If he wanted to explore the secrets of a long-forgotten Sith temple that sat underneath a thriving city, he could have the Imperial Navy exterminate the population and excavate the ruins until he could walk into the temple. It was also supposed to bring the galaxy to heel, to prevent further wars from igniting, so he could study the secrets of the dark side in peace.

We saw a few hints in both legends and canon that if the Empire had existed for any longer, more overt cults of Palpatine would have started popping up. Already the Imperial education system was rewriting narratives to make Palpatine even more powerful and grandiose than he already was. He projected an image of a wise and strong leader even after disappearing from the public eye. The First Order's method of indoctrinating children into stormtroopers might have become an Imperial reality if it went unopposed, just to force the entire galactic population into a mindset that thought nothing less than absolute fealty to their emperor.

He never wanted to exterminate all life in the galaxy, because even the Sith know that the force flows from life. But he absolutely wanted to control it, and to dictate the course of all events according to his will.


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

[User]
[ MCU] How did Thor not know he could generate his own lightning?

Did he never generate lightning before getting Mjolnir?

[Assistant] We don't know when he got it, but given that it was meant as a focus for his power, it may have been a gift when he began training, so probably at  adolescence.  This would mean that he learned to use his power with the hammer and it became a crutch to him.  He was meant to outgrow it, but never did.


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

[User]
[Home Alone] Does Kevin disarm and disclose the location of all the unused booby traps after the cops get the Wet Bandits?

It would be bad if the cops or Kevin's family got a serious injury or fatality from an active booby trap. Does he keep detailed records of trap locations with instructions on how to safely disarm them? It would be similar to leaving behind landmines which is a war crime.

[Assistant] We see the crude drawing he made prior to the traps being laid out. Every one of them was used and cleaned up by Kevin before going to bed. The police never interview him and his family is only aware of the broken ornaments and buzz's room. The wet bandits story of being maimed by a child is laughed at by police and only Kevin the bandits and the neighbor know of what really happened on Christmas eve.


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

[User]
[The Good Place] So is seeing The Red Hot Chili Peppers in concert actually a 1-way ticket to Hell? SPOILERS

So in Season 1 Michael mentions various things that subtract points from your score when weighing whether you get into The Good Place or not, and mentions that seeing The Red Hot Chili Peppers in concert counts against your total.
But then in Season 2 we learn >! That the Good Place IS Hell. !<
So was he lying?

[Assistant]
*Everything* is a one-way ticket to hell. That's the flaw in the system.

It's not just going to see some shitty band, it's the fact that you're supporting that shitty band paying their roadies shitty wages, or selling merch made by sweatshop labor in Cambodia, or their drug-fueled orgies with girls of an unverifiable age.

Just like eating organic food is a one-way ticket to hell, because that organic food was grown by a robot who displaced a worker who needed that job, on land that used to be owned by a family farm.

Or eating *non* organic food is a one-way ticket to hell, because the pesticides are killing the bees which will cause global ecosystem collapse.

You can't win. That's the point. But some actions are still worse, points-wise, than others. Michael doesn't know *why* seeing RHCP in concert causes such a massive drop in points, but he knows that it does.


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

[User]
ELI5: Whats a transistor do?

In all my technology classes everyone is like "yeah transistors make modern computing possible, now we don't need vacuum tubes" but no one bothers to say what a transistor does, even in my digital electronics class in high school, it was just like this is what a transistor looks like.

So what the heck does it do?

[Assistant]
A transistor is like a switch that can be turned on or off by applying a voltage to it.

There are three terminals: source, gate, and drain. The gate is the switch bit, and it can be either closed or open depending on the voltage applied and the type of transistor. Transistors are useful because a very small change in voltage can control or switch a large current. This means they can be used to amplify signals.

In terms of computing, individual transistors aren't so interesting as the structures you can make from them. Different collections of transistors can be formed into logical gates - things with multiple inputs and a defined output for any particular pattern of inputs. For example, an XOR logic gate has two inputs, A and B, and it will only output a value of 1 if A and B are of different values.


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

[User]
CMV: The Rayshard Brooks shooting was a tragic loss of human life but mostly justified by his actions.

Ok, I almost guarantee this has been posted on here before but after I skimmed the new section for a few minutes I didnt see it so I figured sure why not.

Im gonna start this by saying I completely stand behind BLM and the peaceful protests across America and the world in their fight for equal rights and just protection under the law. I think there are many instances of police brutality and blatant homicide by LEO but this is not a very good example. Im just gonna break it down from my POV to start. the confrontation started with them politely asking a man to move his car out of the drive through because it was in the way of everyone else. After he failed a sobriety test, clearly showing he was drunk, they did what theyre taught to do and calmly tell him hes under arrest and that he needs to come with them. As they surround him to put him in handcuffs, not showing any kind of aggression or hostility that is common among LEO, he tries to shake both of them off.

He proceeds to physically engage both officers, punching them and throwing them off him, they discharge their tasers but he seems relatively unaffected. He then steals one and manages to get by both officers, running away. He points the taser at the officer chasing him and the officer shoots him to stop him.

Its tragic, no doubt, and to be fair Im not even trying to defend the officer, he deserves some reprimand for his actions but he shouldnt be charged with multiple, serious offenses leading to many years of jail time. I think yes, the situation couldve been handled much better, and he should be fired for his hasty actions but I think there is a place where we need to draw the line.

In my eyes, the officer, highly trained and armed, is taught to stop the criminal no matter what, in his eyes, this man just drove drunk, assaulted two officers, stole a taser, and attempted to discharge the weapon on another officer. A weapon that has been described by the state as potentially deadly and which, he has been told to take as a direct threat. I dont think this is not so much on the officer rather the system and the state.

Im not trying to discredit the protests or their fight, nor even this mans life. I completely respect all of those, but I mean, what was he supposed to do? He didnt have a secondary weapon, he wasnt likely to catch him on foot, I think, again, its excessive, and he should be fired, but his alternatives was to watch a criminal run away with a lethal weapon. You can even hear him on the video trying to say things to brooks like stay with me and dont stop breathing so I definitely dont think its a lack of moral or humanity on the part of the officer.

Tbh Ive had it explained so many different ways, Im not even sure what to think rn, but this is the best way I think I can put it from my view. Feel free to completely discredit me, I welcome any and all criticism, if with some hesitation, as thats how we grow as people. Thank you for attending my TED talk.

[Assistant]
Mr Brooks obviously did several things wrong, but please don't get confused and think that means the officers were automatically in the right. It's very possible for both parties to be in the wrong at the same time.

Specifically, he was shot in the back as he was running past parked cars that may have been occupied. Officers are strictly forbidden from shooting in either of those situations. The only possible exception could be if they were dealing with an imminent threat such as an active shooter. In other words, it doesn't matter if Mr. Brooks had resisted arrest or had been drinking. Neither of those things are an imminent threat that would justify recklessly endangering bystanders while shooting him in the back.


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

[User] ELI5: Why do college applications and job applications even ask for your race, ethnicity and gender? Wouldn't it be more fair to screen applicants without that knowledge?

[Assistant]
For colleges there are scholarships and grants that are limited to specific races, ethnicities, and genders.

For both jobs and colleges they need to know that information for legal purposes in case they get sued for discrimination in the future.


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

[User]
[DC Comics] How would Gotham be different if Bruce became a cop instead of batman?

say in that all after shooting Bruce's parents the mugger aims the gun at Bruce . . . and is taken down by Jim Gordon. Thankful for his life being saved Bruce trains for years and once he is old enough he joins the GCPD.

[Assistant]
He probably still ends up a vigilante at some point after being either frustrated by the bureaucracy of formal law enforcement (ala his first Post-COIE origin story where he applied then dropped out of the FBI), or because he becomes overwhelmed by the hardcore corruption in the GCPD (ala Thrillkiller universe Batman who worked as a GCPD detective before becoming Batman).

If the extent of his training is just conventional police academy stuff though, his and Gordon's chances of survival are not going to be very promising.


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

[User] CMV:The damage Batman costs in damage to property is why Gotham is so poor.

[Assistant]
Batman, as a largely investigative and street level vigilante, does not cause the types of mass destruction commonly associated with super heroes. His impact on the finances of his city seem relatively small.

Additionally, there does not appear to be any evidence that Gotham has significantly more poverty than Metropolis, Coast City (Green Lantern), or Central City (Flash). The reason it appears to be depicted as such is because Batman most frequently interacts with the more mundane criminals borne out of that situation while other heroes concern themselves with cosmic level threats.


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

[User] ELI5: Why are some people seemingly born with good time and money management skills while others need actual training to become decent at it?

[Assistant] People have different life experiences. If you had parents who discussed money in front of you, gave you an allowance and encouraged you to save to get things you wanted - you would likely grow up to manage money well. Likewise, if you grew up and had to beg your parents for money, needed to spend it right away before a sibling stole it - you would probably suck as money management as you grew older.