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

[User]
[ASOIAF] What exactly did Davos (and other smugglers) smuggle?

Aside from onions, of course.

Davos was renowned as one of the most infamous smugglers in the world prior to entering into Stanniss service. But what exactly did he smuggle? Westeros does not seem to have restrictive laws on trade and there is no real reference to a black market for prohibited goods/contraband (nor is there is a suggestion that many goods are outlawed). So what exactly was he smuggling?

[Assistant] There are reasons to smuggle besides moving prohibited goods. He could have been smuggling stolen goods, working with pirates to sell their loot. Or he could have just been avoiding paying various taxes and berthing fees.


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

[User]
[Edge of Tomorrow] Why was Cage forced to participate in Operation Downfall?

I was just minding my day, and then I see the face of our war effort, William Cage, go inside the general's office. A few minutes later the general tells us to arrest the guy! He's knocked out, and me being at the bottom of the food chain, was made to assist other guys to "railroad" Mr. Cage.

I dunno what's going on here. I mean, here's the guy who makes this war more bearable for most people, the face of this entire operation, and suddenly we're turning this seemingly untrained pretty boy into a soldier? That's a bit excessive, and that's a lot of money to get somebody out of the way.

[Assistant]
Hey man, you don't threaten a general and expect to get away with it. It's pretty clear General Brigham had carte blanche as far as ordering around the armed forces under his command.

Having said that, out-right killing a guy is bad for PR, so busting him down to private and putting him in the front lines is the way to go.


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

[User]
[Dungeons & Dragons] Prime Material denizens go to the outer plane of their alignment when they die. Where do Outsiders go when THEY die?

(I'm thinking of edition 3.0/3.5, but other edition explanations would be great also.)

I'm a strictly lawful good guy from the Prime Material, then I'll end up becoming a petitioner of Celestia. But where do I go after I die if I'm a Celestial?

Bonus: where will my dog go? He's not intelligent enough to have a true alignment.

[Assistant]
Planar creatures and beings return to their home plane when killed in the Prime Material plane. If you kill them *there,* they die for good.

Your dog will likely go to the Beastlands, also called the Wilderness of the Beastlands or the Happy Hunting Grounds. It's a neutral/chaotic good plane.


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

[User]
[Doctor Who] Whats stopping the Ninth Doctor from bumping into a Time Lord from BEFORE the Time War in their time stream (like an early incarnation of The Master)

We know from Big Finish and the comics that the Doctor and Master meet out of order (Five and the Alex MacQueen Master & Twelve and the Delgado Master).

So whats stopping the Ninth, Tenth or Eleventh Doctor from bumping into an early Master, or Romana or the Monk etc.?

[Assistant]
I mean, nothing in particular. But also, space-time is really big.

There's nothing *stopping* them from bumping into an early master, but it's perfectly reasonable that that the two simply haven't crossed paths. It's like walking around a city and not bumping into anyone you know, except the city is the entire universe from the moment of its conception to its end.


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

[User]
[LotR] What happened to the lesser rings?

There are rhymes and stories about the Great Rings, the Rings of Power, but what about the lesser rings? The first ones made in Eregion which according to Gandalf were only "essays in the craft before it was full-grown, and to the Elven-smiths they were but triffles" though many in number.  What could they do? What happened to them?

[Assistant] All of them (great rings and lesser rings) but the 3 fell into saurons hands as he invaded eregion. the 3 were saved, and sauron later gave the rings to beeings he thought easily corruptable (first dwarfes, that did not work out too well, and the 7 he gave them were lost to fire or returned to him, 3 he still has, 4 burned, then men, the 9 he gave them all did what was intended, and made the nazgul), what he did with the lesser rings is not known... some say that the ring of mordor, that gothmog wears, is a lesser ring of power, Saruman and Lurtz both had Rings, too, but it is unclear if Sauron gave some to Saruman to corrupt him, or Saruman succeded in trying to rediscover the art of ringmaking and made them himself... else they are somewhere with sauron, together with the 3 "dwarfen"- Rings he still has.


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

[User]
ELI5 Citizen Kane is such a big deal in film.

I hear a lot of talk about the movie and would like a little primer before I jump in and watch it.

[Assistant]
It's considered big in part because Welles was an innovative cinematographer that really used camera angles in new ways and to give the movie depth.

It was also fairly controversial in that it was based on William Randolph Hearst, who owned like half the papers in the country at the time.


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

[User]
[The Matrix] How far out into the universe does the Matrix try to imitate?

I don't remember much from the sequels, but is it ever touched upon just how much of our universe is actually explorable by humans plugged inside the matrix? Are there astronauts? Are they sending space probes to explore other parts of the Solar System? Could someone plugged into the Matrix fly a manned craft to the Moon, land and collect samples to take back to Earth? I guess I'm wondering if the machines felt the need to incorporate much outside of our planet in terms of spaces humans could physically interact with. Like the Truman show has a limit where he can explore until he eventually hits the wall of the giant studio. Would the same happen in the Matrix?

*edit* Thanks for the comprehensive answers!

[Assistant]
Probably just shy of the exosphere. Namely because Assuming space exploration in 1999 is relevant. Also HOW much of the world is prevelant in the matrix when only ONE city is ever mentioned.

A large number of facsimiles of other parts of Earth also apparently exist within the Matrix even though most of the Matrix trilogy is set within the Mega City.    The computer screen in Neo's apartment during his first appearance shows his research. One of the news articles places Morpheus at Heathrow Airport which is in the United Kingdom.    The protagonist of the short story Goliath visits many other locations in the United Kingdom, including Edgware, North London, Tottenham Court Road, the Northern Line, the Euston railway station, and a house near Dartmoor, all of which are implied to exist within the Matrix (or a future version of it). The protagonist also mentions foreign powers such as the USSR and the Iranians.    Another such story was from a website of Al-Nahar.    In the webcomic Dj Vu, a stockbroker's wife who has the ability to see into the future of the Matrix warns the public that a major earthquake will strike San Francisco. When the earthquake happens, hundreds of lives are saved because of her prediction.    The ending of The Animatrix short film World Record has a crippled Dan Davis in a wheelchair pushed by a chatty bluepill nurse talking about her aunt "living in a villa in France".    The Animatrix short film Beyond is set in a part of the Matrix that resembles a contemporary, urban Japanese metropolis highly akin to or quite possibly being Tokyo or Kyoto.


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

[User] ELI5: Why an arm or leg transplant isn't as commom as a heart or kidney transplant?

[Assistant]
Because to reconnect a arm or a leg you need to reattach:

Ligments

Tendons

Blood vessels

Possibly some muscles

Neural connections

Nerves

The bone marrow needs to produce the same blood cells as the rest of the body.


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

[User]
[The Simpsons] Luann Van Houten here. Give me one good reason why I should let my precious Milhouse play with that awful Bart.

You'll have to speak up, I'm wearing my jacuzzi suit.

Bart is a reckless troublemaker who has committed fraud, theft, vandalism, and even created international incidences. Often, he drags my Milhouse along with him.

Milhouse is a sweet boy who would never get into trouble on his own. I got him a fish to encourage his interest in marine biology, and the fish went missing. I overheard that Bart boy saying there never was a fish, but why'd Milhouse have the bowl, Bart? Why'd Milhouse have the bowl?

[Assistant]
Mrs Van Houten.

I have seen your son around town, as well as the young ruffian Simpson and they seem really close to each other, please dont take offence, but your son does seem a bit weedy and ill prepared for this world, having someone with the street smarts of Simpson might not be the worst thing in this crazy world.

Think of the world we live in, That hank Scorpio guy runs the west coast (he does seem nice), our small town attacts all manor of calamities from nuclear meltdowns to asteroids (thank god for pollution) and dont forget the time the rouge environmental department covered us up in and impenetrable dome - it sucked.

your son has found a lifelong friend, i would just be happy he has managed to find a decent human relationship when he has two such irrelevant parental units as you and that weed you called a husband.

by gloyvin, look around woman, Millhouse needs this, suck it up.


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

[User]
[General] What is in your opinion a misuse of technology in a fictional world?

What piece of technology from a fictional world do you think isn't used to its full potential? What would you build with it?

[Assistant]
The goo gun from Ant Man (early prototype of the shrink gun). Use it to kill anyone without leaving a trace other than 5ml of goo. And thanks to the nature of Pym particles, you could use it to kill even overpowered beings like the hulk or any asguardian you wanted to.

Seriously, they need to use this gun against Thanos when he comes to earth.


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

[User]
How do we solve problems that don't have constant acceleration?

I understand basic physics and how we solve motion problems using kinematic equations, but these all rely on a constant acceleration. How do we solve problems where this isn't the case, such as a rocket leaving Earth's gravity(since acceleration due to gravity gets smaller the further away you are).

[Assistant]
Calculus! Lots of it.

We solve Newton's second law which is a second-order ordinary differential equation. Solution methods for finding analytical solutions for several sub-classes of such equations are typically covered in a course on differential equations. Such sub-classes of equations include separable equations, exact equations, linear equations, etc. There may also be so-called *integrals of the motion* which may be exploited to reduce the order of the differential equation, which often makes finding a solution much easier. (Exploiting energy conservation is an example of this last method.)

For a force law of the form **F**(**r**) = k(**r** - **a**)/|**r** - **a**|^(3) (e.g., gravity), there are well-known analytical solutions in terms of conic sections, and these solutions are examined in more detail in a first- or second-year mechanics course.

For general force laws, there is no known method to find an analytical solution (and there may not exist such a solution in terms of elementary functions and their integrals). So we have to use numerical methods to solve the equation approximately. There are many such numerical methods, which vary in accuracy, robustness, and complexity. The basic numerical methods (e.g., Euler's forward different method) are covered in a course on differential equations. More specialized methods are covered in a course on numerical analysis.

Finally, sometimes we are not able to find an analytical solution but we don't really care. For many problems we may only want to find the solution "for small angles" (or some other approximation) or we may only want to know some general dynamics about the long-term behavior of the system. Questions like that can often be more easily treated not by appealing to Newton's second law directly. For instance, if a system can be described by a suitable *Lagrangian function*, then we can extract a lot more information, particularly about the fundamental symmetries of the problem.

In high school or introductory physics, a problem like a rocket launched from Earth would most likely be treated using energy conservation. You can perfectly well answer questions like "what launch speed is required to get the rocket to a certain height?" without having to find a full analytical solution for the rocket's trajectory.


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

[User] [Avengers] Are the Avengers or Agents of Shield paid for their work or do they simply have all their expenses from food/board taken care of? Are they eligible for benefits, what about their families?

[Assistant]
Agents of SHIELD are either federal employees or employees of the UN, depending on the continuity, so they are paid and receive benefits fitting of their profession.

Avengers are either employed by SHIELD (like in the early MCU) or are part of an independent foundation (like in the Comics/ late MCU). The Avengers do get food and board, but mostly so they can go into action faster like you would see with Firefighters but more luxurious.


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

[User] ELI5:why is water best for putting out a fire? is it the physical nature or the chemical nature of water which is more important?

[Assistant]
Water is best for putting out *certain types* of fires. Others, it's horrible for. Since the most common types of fires have to do with wood and plastics burning, it's generally the first thing that comes to mind as an extinguisher.

How it works is through a number of means, and they have more to do with heat and physical properties than with chemical reactions.

- It steals a LOT of heat from the area, both because the water itself is much much cooler than the combustion temperature of most wood-based fires, and because it takes a tremendous amount of energy for it to instantly convert to steam and leave the area of the fire. This massive drain is why kettles take so long to boil dry even after they reach boiling point.

- It splashes over and immediately places a film on the area it's applied to. This film cuts off access to air, and the oxygen that's in that air, reducing the fire's access to that oxygen.

- As water is a liquid that absorbs into porous stuff quite easily, it immediately soaks into porous substances, helping to extinguish the fire at the material's core (such as the black porous coals in a campfire)

Why it's bad for some fires is because it can splash around the components of some dangerous fires, such as burning grease or oil. They don't dissolve in water and burn at very high temperatures, so the water hitting them actually can explode into scalding steam, and the force of that explosion can spread the inflammable liquid, and the fire itself, even further. This is why you should never throw water on a grease fire.


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

[User]
CMV: There is no such thing as "love at first sight"

So-called love at first sight is based on just that - sight.

Now I know some people are going to jump in with anecdotes about grandparents who married after three dates and were together for 70 years and whatnot. But that is a form of commitment and usually (in older people) a response to a society that did not really allow for divorce. Can two people make it work if they fall in love based on sight and quickly marry? Sure, sometimes. But that doesn't mean that real love, deep love like you have when you know all parts of a person can form immediately upon seeing them. You can't truly love someone without knowing about their personality, their thoughts and their feelings.

[Assistant] Don't you think that if someone who is in love comes and says to you they fell in love at first sight is, at minimum, extremely presumptuous of you, someone who can have no idea how they feel, to question it?


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

[User]
[Batman] What would prompt someone to live or invest in Gotham City?

It's a crime ridden hellhole. What the hell drives people to live or invest there?

[Assistant]
A lot of people have been living there all their lives, with their families having lived there for generations before. Quite a few of these people are simply too poor to move out, so they live in shitty apartments or rotting buildings while their corrupt landlords overcharge on rent.

Other people know Gotham is the best place to live if you want to escape the law. All it takes is some money in the right pocket and you can completely disappear while still living it up in the few sections of the city that are still decent. Doesn't matter that these places are mostly kept afloat with dirty money, classy is classy. Some of the wealthier people who go to Gotham to disappear tend to also spend their assets on the city to make it look nicer from their fancy lofts and hotel rooms. This has the benefit of making sure two-bit landlords and other land owners are firmly under their influence.

There's also the fact that Wayne Enterprises is still inexplicably headquartered there. It brings an unimaginable amount of wealth to the community through simple jobs in its multiple buildings to charitable donations. Lots of people come to Gotham to work for Wayne, and thus a lot more come to support the business with businesses of their own. There's a prime market for restaurants and fast food near the high-activity office buildings and warehouses owned by Wayne, for example.

And to top it all off, Gotham is a great place to run false front businesses and shady operations. Related to the above points, people can go to Gotham for a while, set up a TOTALLY LEGIT investment firm, then begin doing the paperwork and money handling of various mob families and super criminals. As long as the right cops and city politicians get paid, no one will ever look deeper than their surface accounts and street-corner locations. It just so happens that a lot of these business facades also happen to aid the rotting community much the same way Wayne does. It's just that the crooks tend to eventually take the money away from people at the worst times.


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

[User]
(Why) does philosophy tend to focus on key thinkers moreso than topics/concepts, compared to other fields?

This might just be my limited experience, but I've noticed both in this sub and in some of my conversations with others who have dabbled in philosophy that this is a field that puts a relatively heavy emphasis on specific thinkers.

Example 1: I remember talking to a friend (a dabbler in philosophy) about some things I'm curious about, and said I was interested in metaethics and the mind-body problem and identity. She gave me a weird look and said people should start by reading Plato (sidenote: wouldn't Hume or Parfit be a better pick here?). Nobody would say "If you're curious about physics, start by reading Newton" (even though the first thing you learn in physics is usually Newtonian mechanics). They'll just say "start by learning about classical mechanics."

Example 2: For the field I actually studied in undergrad, I can remember the names of maybe 4 or 5 people and their key contributions, whereas even my very limited dabbling in philosophy has brought more than a dozen thinkers to my attention.

Am I imagining this, and if I'm not, why is this?

[Assistant] Philosophers care about precise details of arguments. For instance, there are many skeptics who think we cant know anything. But they have different precise reasons - Hume worries about induction, Zhuangzi worries about dreams, Descartes worries about the possibility of an evil demon deceiving us, Pyrrho worries about the impossibility of giving a reason for every reason. Even when people say they accept a view for the same reason, there are often subtle differences in the details of the argument. Thus, we often recommend people see the actual details of the precise argument, and thus focus on the specific thinker.


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

[User]
[Star Wars] Why do Storm Troopers bother wearing armor?

In Rogue One, during the scene where they're in the town on Jedha, we see Chirrut knock out fully-armored Storm Troopers using only his walking stick, and Jyn whacks a few with a blaster and knocks them out as well, leading us to believe that the armor is not equipped to protect against blunt-force trauma. This would make sense, as the Troopers would be expected to fight mostly against enemies wielding blasters and not blunt object weapons. However, throughout the series, especially in Rogue One, we see Storm Troopers get taken out by a single blaster shot. Does this mean that the armor isn't able to protect against blaster fire? If not, why do they bother with it? Why doesn't the empire just issue Mandalorian steel or Durasteel armor that can withstand all kinda odd energy-based weaponry? If they can't afford to do that, why bother giving them such clunky, unwieldy armor, when they could have given them something much more practical that would improve mobility? What is the armor that the Troopers wore from Rogue One to Last Jedi ment to protect against?

[Assistant] Imperial Stormtroopers are intended to suppress (and oppress) civilians, so their armour is made to withstand civilian-grade weapons that they most commonly face. The protagonists of the Star Wars films are using military-grade blasters, which pack more energy into each shot.


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

[User]
ELI5: A true police state

I hear all this talk about police states and debate over whether America is turning into one or not. I'm not saying we are or aren't, I'm just trying to grasp what the definition and life of a true police state is.

[Assistant]
Some examples of police states in the past are the USSR, Nazi-era Germany, the Khmer Rouge, Pinochet's regime, stuff like that. It's when the government (usually led by a dictator) uses the military and police to enforce a very strict and repressive set of laws.

The things that typically go out the window in a police state are freedom of speech, freedom of expression, freedom of thought, and the right to a fair trial. If the police are coming around and throwing anybody who doesn't agree with the ruling party's politics in jail, that's a police state.

The people who believe that the US is turning into (or is) a police state point to things like the NSA surveillance and Guantanamo Bay. They'd argue that the fact that our government is snooping on people who potentially are terrorists is a form of "thought policing," and that since you can be thrown in Guantanamo without a trial, they could start (or already be) arresting people for "suspected terrorism" without a trial. There are also people who feel that the government will unfairly target people with certain political views and try to arrest them for spurious reasons: it happened a lot in the civil rights movement, for instance, and a lot of people in the legalization movement right now would tell you that people who are pushing for legalization get an unfair level of scrutiny from law enforcement.

This is also something that gets mixed up in a lot of conspiracy theory type stuff. Plenty of people would be more than happy to tell you that the government's been disappearing people for decades and that there are secret CIA-run brainwashing camps and stuff.


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

[User] ELI5 - An anechoic chamber at Orfield Laboratories in Minnesota has negative decibel levels (lower than -9db). How is this possible?

[Assistant]
Because 0 decibels is not the same as 0 sound. Decibels are a logarithmic scale. Every time you increase the decibel value by 6, you double the sound pressure level. This means that 0 db cannot represent absolute silence. If you double 0, you still get zero. Negative infinity would be no sound at all, whereas zero is a sound that is incredibly quiet.

The zero point was chosen to be something quiet enough that humans cannot differentiate it from silence. But cannot actually represent zero sound, as zero because logarithms can't do that.


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

[User]
[Futurama] What wer some of the more absurdly specialized robots, such as Hedonismbot, originally designed for?

It seems unusual that anyone would ever need to order a robot designed to lie around like a Roman emperor and act debaucherous.

Also, if they were created by Mom's Old Fashioned Robot Factory, why does there seem to be so many one-of-a-kind robots? it seems as though it would be very expensive to create and build a single robot of a design.  Or is there another, smaller company making them?

[Assistant]
In answer to your first question, hedonism bot was designed to add flair to rich people parties. He's a piece of entertaining furniture that they could all laugh at and a great conversation starter.
To answer your second question, they aren't one of a kind, you might think they are because there was a limited run of robots in that series but they are all mass produced. Look at Bender and Flexo!


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

[User]
Is deflation the real concern now?

Let's be real here, there is no way in h\*ll that the bank of Canada would let our country end up like Venezuela. If it needs to jack up rates like crazy, it will be a heavy pill to swallow but it will be done.

In the meantime however, while the central bank is in the process of monetary tightening, say there is a recession due to everything being so expensive.

People simply cannot afford it anymore and there is a pullback in consumption. Less consumption = less profits for companies = layoffs = higher unemployment = recession.

In ordinary circumstances, the central bank lowers rates and turns on the printing machine.

We, however, are not in normal circumstances and are instead in a high inflation environment.

In such a scenario, the central bank will have no tools to fight the recession, they can't lower rates when we are already struggling with high inflation.

Is deflation, hyper-deflation, and a great depression the real concern here now?

[Assistant]
>they can't lower rates when we are already struggling with high inflation.

>Is deflation, hyper-deflation, and a great depression the real concern here now?

You're contradicting yourself. In this hypothetical situation is there high inflation where central banks can't lower rates anymore or is there deflation?

Also if a recession were to happen now and inflation fell to 0 or even negative what is stopping central banks from providing more QE.

>In ordinary circumstances, the central bank lowers rates and turns on the printing machine.

>We, however, are not in normal circumstances and are instead in a high inflation environment.

Your second statement doesn't match the first. The first states in normal times we could use QE. But the second statement says we have inflation and therefore don't even need monetary stimulus. It doesn't explain why we couldn't use monetary stimulus if we needed to.


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

[User]
What are the mechanisms by which mass protests influence political actors?

Ok -- so there's a ton of people out on the streets. Why and how and who precisely does that affect governmental leaders?

Is it that certain certain business leaders fear a loss of business, and so pressure the political leaders? Is there a fear of international sanctions if protests are simply violently squelched? Or is there some actual sympathy with the bravery and demands of the protesters? Or something else?

What are the mechanisms by which boots on the street lead to changes in the decisions of particular political actors?

[Assistant] This is a very broad topic, but theres a good book on it called *Understanding Revolution* by Patrick Van Inwegen. Theres several different paths and methods that social movements go through to effect change. If youre interested Id recommend it.


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

[User]
Why are Little Caesar's cheese pizzas the same price as its pepperoni pizzas?

It seems like the pepperoni ones should be more expensive, given that the pepperoni pizzas are just cheese pizzas with pepperonis added to them.

Additionally, the pricing scheme leaves them open to arbitrage. Someone could buy pepperoni pizzas and then sell the pizzas and pepperonis separately. As long as the pepperonis sell for a positive value, this is guaranteed profit.

[Assistant]
There are a number of possible reasons. It might be for consistent corporate branding--they want "$5 Hot n Ready" to be right no matter what pizza you buy. You can imagine customers are annoyed if they arrive only to find out every pizza *except* cheese costs more than that.

Another (more likely) explanation is that their pizzas are loss leaders. They could break even or even lose a little bit of money on every pizza but make it all back plus more on extras like soda and sides.

As for arbitrage:

1. No one wants to buy used Little Caesar's pepperoni

2. Even if they did, it's only arbitrage if the price of pepperoni > opportunity cost of removing it from a pizza. You probably make more per hour working at a Little Caesar's than you do reselling their pepperoni.


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

[User]
[MCU] Jarvis is uploaded into Vision and has to be replaced by Friday. Who's defending the missile codes from Ultron now?

Did Ultron just give up once he decided to drop Sokovia? Awfully lucky.

[Assistant]
Just because Jarvis was uploaded in to vision doesn't mean Jarvis couldn't exist simultaneous in the internet, he is a computer program and could exist in multiple places at the same time the same as ultron.
We do not know why Friday was put in to use. Maybe necessity, maybe to avoid confusion, or maybe Stark felt uncomfortable using Jarvis after putting him in vision.


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

[User]
ELI5: Africans are discouraged from eating bushmeat because it can cause diseases like HIV and Ebola to jump from animals to humans. But Africans have presumably been hunting since time immemorial. So why didn't these practices wipe out humanity a long time ago if it's so risky?

And why isn't it risky for a North American hunter to kill and eat rabbits, deer, and turkeys?

[Assistant]
If 20% of the people who eat Bushmeat on a regular basis die, that's totally unacceptable as a risk to a modern society.

But to an animal, losing 20% to a disease to gain access to a broader food source is fine.

That's why we don't still live in the wild forests of Chernobyl. As a population they'd survive - lifespans would be shorter but past the breeding phase, infant mortality would be higher but not past our ability to breed, and more people would get cancer.

It would be unconscionable not to move those people somewhere where they don't have to live like baby machines to ensure some survivors, but that is reality for all animals in the wild - you try to survive long enough to have enough kids that one of them makes it as far as you did.


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

[User]
[Warhammer 40K] Is there any place in the universe that's safe for a human that doesn't want to worship the Emperor?

Setting aside the logistics of actually getting there, is there anywhere a human being could go if they didn't want to worship the Emperor/Imperium?

[Assistant]
You could join up with the Tau, and they already have a sizable human population. However, a number of them still keep faith in the God-Emperor, but are not as fanatic as the rest of the Imperium.

You could travel to a newly discovered world where the Imperial Dogma isn't as harshly enforced, but you'd still be expected to praise the Emperor in some way, however minor.


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

[User]
[Predator] Do Predators value killing prey who are currently powerful in combat or are currently socially powerful?

In Predator 2, the Predator targets and kills King Willie but King Willie doesn't appear to be particularly good at combat, although he is socially powerful as the leader of the Jamaican gangs.

[Assistant]
Predators prefer worthy combatants over status prey. But someone like King Willie are seen as viable prey as well. Willie led an entire gang with violence and fear. While one on one he may not have been much, getting to him would be a challenge and claiming him as a trophy tantamount to besting the gang as a whole. When faced between getting a good fight or a good kill the hunters will always choose the fight first.

It should be noted that according to OWL the city hunter and lost clan were likely new to the urban hunting environment and seeking out any and every opportunity to determine the rules and possibilities of the concrete jungle.


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

[User]
[Star Wars] Did Vader have cognitive dissonance that he became Palpatine's slave?

Or at least was aware of the full circle irony?

[Assistant] He was fully aware of his situation. There's a scene in the Darth Vader Marvel comic series from 2015 where Sidious, after trying and failing to replace Vader with stronger apprentices, goes into a long grandiose speech about how all the work the Sith had done for centuries had led to the two of them taking over the galaxy once and for all. When he finishes, Vader non-chalantly replies he knows Palpatine would have given the same speech to his replacement had his attempt been successful, but says it just doesn't matter. He's conscious of Sidious' backstabbing nature, he knows he's a dog on a leash, but the Empire and the Dark Side are all he has.


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

[User] ELI5: If Hitler was such a terrible strategist, how come he never passed on or got input by more seasoned generals?

[Assistant]
He did get input. But his word was final. The military never actually likes Hitler as much as the general populace, if at all. They frequently voiced their disagreement, but were shot down. Paulus wanted to try a breakout at Stalingrad. Hitler said to hold ground and wait for a break-in that never came. On the morning of d-day, before the sun was up, Runstedt was awake and trying to take charge of the situation. He knew the airborne invasion was just a prelude to beach landings and wanted to mobilize armor to prevent them from establishing a beachhead, but high command refused to allow it without Hitler's approval, which he first denied then finally came at 14:30 the next day, by which time the allies were fully established on the beaches. Even Rommel disagreed with Hitler's never retreat mantra, it runs completely counter to modern maneuver warfare, and they made their discontent known. Hell, it was the seasoned, high ranking generals who attempted to assassinate Hitler.

So, he got input, but often disregarded it, because Hitler was quite convinced that he knew best.


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

[User]
[Marvel/MCU] Does Thor gain power from prayer and belief towards him? If so, could you weaken or kill him by refusing to believe he exists?

If so, is that the case for other gods as well?

[Assistant]
In the comics, No. He can hear prayers and such, but he doesnt gain anything from them. So making everyone forget he exists wont do much. Refusing his divinity will at best insult him a bit, but then he will just call you ignorant.

However, becasue he hears prayers, you could use that to quickly contact him anywhere he is in the universe, if you needed to tell him anything. to bad his teammates doesnt know about this. its also possible that you acutally need to believe in the prayer for him to hear it, so you cant abuse it unless you are a true believer.

In the mcu they are just magical aliens, so belief does nothing for him there.


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

[User] CMV: Private Prisons should be abolished in the US.

[Assistant]
Private Prisons aren't the problem - it's what they are being paid *for* that's causing problems.

E.g. instead of being paid to house prisoners, which incentivises the private prison to get and retain as many prisoners as it can, we could be paying private prisons based on how many years a prisoner *doesn't* re-offend. This might incentivise prisons towards creating a prison environment that rehabilitates rather than turns bad eggs into rotten eggs.


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

[User]
[MCU] [Far From Home] What was Mysterio's long-term plan?

Assuming he got away with it and everyone believed him to be a superhero  what then? Did he plan to make a lot of money? Also how did he fund his illusions and pay his team?

[Assistant]
Mysterio says it more than once...the plan is to be "the next Iron Man".

That is a very specific sort of goal.  Not just any superhero, but specifically Iron Man.  Why Iron Man?  Because (from the perspective of Team Mysterio, at least...) Iron Man never had to sacrifice anything to be a hero.  He's a regular guy with advanced technology that made him into a global celebrity.  He privatized world peace.  He negotiated with world leaders, he lived in a palace, his money and power were legendary.

With Tony gone, the world is going to be looking for the next billionaire-genius-playboy-philanthropist.  If somebody stepped up and took over the role as hero, and played their cards right, they could be set for life.  After all, Mysterio is from another dimension - no shame in letting a grateful world fund his operations, right?

The other motivation you have to remember is that the entire Team Mysterio hated Tony Stark.  Even if the project fails, or they don't manage to get rich...  If they can upstage Tony and make a Bigger, Better hero, it's a slap in the face to what he accomplished.  Prove that he was never anything without the suit, and make sure he's forgotten.


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

[User] [DC Comics] Do any of humany's government have representation on the Justice League? Like even as an observer or ambassador?

[Assistant]
The League makes it pretty clear they don't take orders from any world government, but on occasion they do accept liaisons from various government agencies (mostly American since that's where they primarily operate).

In the DCAU their liaison to the American government was King Faraday (who has long held the distinction of being DC's answer to the Steranko's Nick Fury). For a time they also had to put up with Maxwell Lord as their liaison. The European branch of the League had a UN liaison named Catherine Cobert.


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

[User] ELI5: Why does tea infuse better in hot water rather than cold water?

[Assistant]
Infusion of tea just means that the tea is spreading out and dissolving in the water.

Things dissolve quicker in hot water because hot particles move faster. That's what temperature is - how quickly particles vibrate. So if particles are vibrating faster then they move around quicker.


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

[User]
ELI5: The concept of the 'Demiurge'

I'm not going to beat around the bush - I've been listening to a lot of metal, and the concept has continued to pop up as a theme. I've done some research (read: wikipedia) but I'm not well-versed enough in theology to totally understand what it all means.

From what I can grasp, the 'Demiurge' is the divine architect of the universe, but is not 'God' per se? I was hoping reddit could enlighten me.

Thanks!

[Assistant]
Namaskar!

In Christianity the idea is common due to the presence, seemingly, of two different gods in the Christian Bible. In the Christian Old Testament there is YHVH, the ineffable God of the Hebrews who selects them as His chosen people - and no other - and who, while merciful and slow to anger, is also violent and vengeful. Then there is the god of the Christian New Testament, represented by Jesus. This god is loving, kind, merciful, never (or rarely) violent, vengeful, and so on.

There have been attempts to reconcile these two depictions of the Christian idea of God and one of the earliest came from Marcion of Sinope; this idea would come to be known as Marcionism. Marcion proposed that there were actually two different gods: the true god, represented by Jesus in the New Testament; and the Hebrew god who was a separate and lower entity than Jesus and the god he represented.

In this idea, Marcionism shares a link with Christian Gnosticism. Christian Gnosticism is a separate following which believes that Jesus, as a manifestation of Sophia (wisdom), came from the true God's realm to deliver mankind from the clutches of the tyrannical god of the Hebrews. The god of the Hebrews, as per Christian Gnosticism, is either ignorant at best or malevolent at worst; he believes that he is the only god and his works are all that are. He forces men to submit to his will and blinds them with the illusions that are our "reality". Jesus comes from the true world to share gnosis (knowledge, enlightenment) with mankind so that we can see through the illusion that the demiurge - the Hebrew god - pulls over our eyes. He shares this with us because the true god recognizes our potential as beings who possess wisdom and power the demiurge does not have and, as such, recognizes that it is unfair that anything with such capacity does not deserve the true hell that is the wise being ruled by the ignorant or incompetent.


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

[User] [Bioshock] How was Rapture kept a secret?

[Assistant]
Rapture employed a system of fog emitting shrouds to keep people from finding the lighthouse which served as its entrance. Of course, during the initial startup phase, there were problems: mass dieoffs of fisheries, oil slicks, and the like. However, as Rapture's defensive systems (torpedoes, mines, inferred anti-air capabilities) resulted in disappearances of shipping and aircraft that remained unexplained to the wider world - coupled with the extremely inhospitable nature of the frigid North Atlantic meant that a large swatch of sea was left quite avoided: cursed to the superstitious and commercially dead to the rational.

As it was never a particularly well travelled region of ocean in the first place, nobody really felt the loss for this and, by design, Andrew Ryan's shining utopia achieved perfect isolation from the outside world... barring the errant daredevil diver or a domestic situation that would make Jerry Springer gasp. Otherwise, Rapture marches on.


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

[User] ELI5: What causes the testes to produce more sperm? How does the body know not to produce more when they are full?

[Assistant]
So, a lot of guys have this idea that there is a finite amount of room in your testes and that your body can only produce a limited amount of sperm.

In truth, your body is almost always producing sperm. While yes there is a finite amount of room in your testes for sperm to be created, in practice it is near impossible to ever reach this cap. One, because your testes can expand slightly, vastly increasing sperm storage. Two, because the amount of sperm your body can actually store, even before the aformentioned enlargement, is a pretty crazily high amount. And three, because older sperm are usually broken down and 'remanufactured' into newer sperm.

Your body nornally (Outside of a few diseases/nutrient deficiencies) does a pretty remarkable job of breaking down old or improperly formed sperm, absorbing the remnants, and then creating new sperm.


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

[User] [The Thing] If the Thing was in a non-frozen area, could it affect botanical life also?

[Assistant] yes, the thing is from space, by all logic its biology should be completely alien and more different from humans then humans are from grass, if it is comparable with humans  it should be compatible with all life on earth(and presumably all carbon based life on all worlds)


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

[User] ELI5: How does "Glow in the Dark" work?

[Assistant]
This is called phosphorescence. It's when a material absorbs high energy light and slowly emits lower energy light over time. edit: An example of phosphorescence that you may not know of is in CRT TV screens. This is why you'll see an afterglow in a dark room when you turn the TV off. There's a layer of phosphors on the screen that light up when the beam of electrons from the ~~cathode ray~~ *electron* gun at the back of the TV hits them.

Or if your talking about glow sticks that's chemiluminescence.

There's also fluorescence: materials that glow under black light but ~~don't emit their own light~~ emit light much faster and don't glow after the black light/higher energy source is removed (sorry bad wording).

And bioluminescence: fireflies, angler fish, some bacteria (Pyrocystis fusiformis--the glowing water you see in Life of Pi), basically anything living that creates it's own light.

I can't explain any of the chemistry behind any of these but maybe someone else can..


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

[User]
[MCU/Spiderman: Far From Home] What would Mysterio have stated his fake powers came from?

We all know Quentin Beck and the Mysterio persona is entirely fictitious. He has no real powers and is merely using special effects. But for the purposes of the ruse, when people asked him "hey what exactly can you do?" what is he likely to say? If I were a lay person guessing I'd say his powers are a mixture of magic and tech. He seems like he has some kind of Dr. Strange thing going on with the way his green aura would contort in to glyphs but his suit seems to be Iron-Manesque.

[Assistant]
Most heroes are never asked to explain their powers.  Many couldn't do so even if they were asked.  For example, when you ask Thor about his powers he'll yammer on about how his hammer makes him worthy to wield lighting, but even he didnt know he could shoot lighting without the hammer before Ragnarok.

So for a showman like Beck, it'll be easy.  He comes from another dimension where science is more advanced.  That which you call magic is just another kind of science.  But, he's a warrior, not a scientist, he can't explain his weapons, only use them to kick ass and take names.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why are the recommended portion sizes on food so small?

For example, I bought a average size chocolate bar from the store today and the portion size on the back said half of the chocolate bar. I've never never seen anyone eat just half a chocolate bar.

[Assistant] Laws require companies to put calorie labeling on packages, so that people can tell how bad for them something is.  Lots of studies have determined that a "splurge" item like a candy bar sells best if it has 200-250 calories in it.  So, the companies started making the bars smaller.  People didn't like that, they felt they were getting cheated (mostly because the price didn't go down).  So, the companies started making bars the regular size, and then dividing the calories by 200 and saying 2.5 servings per bar.  This is legal, and it leads ot the most sales.  No problem.


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

[User] ELI5: Why do companies like Redbull and Monster spend so much money on sponsorship and advertising when everyone knows them?

[Assistant]
Part of marketing and advertising is to generate impulse desires in consumers. You see a commercial for McDonald's, they talk about a Big Mac, you want a Big Mac, you go out and buy a Big Mac.

Even if they can't compel you to go out and buy a can immediately, Red Bull and Monster are just trying to keep themselves at the forefront of your mind the next time you're shopping for an energy drink.


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

[User] ELI5: Why I almost don't sweat while walking in a hot weather, but when I stop, sweating intensifies like 5 times.

[Assistant]
Anaerobic respiration in certain types of muscle leads to something referred to as an oxygen debt. This primarily applies to fast twitch muscles (stronger) as opposed to slow twitch (endurance).

Once you stop exercising, you start 'paying back' that oxygen debt, which generates heat. This extra heat combines with the hot weather to increase sweating.

Watching professional short distance sprinting (say 200m) you frequently notice they cross the line with no visible sweat, but several minutes later have a distinct layer of sweat.

This is also why you keep breathing heavily after you finish an exercise, your body still needs the oxygen to 'pay off' the debt.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why do toddlers enjoy making people smile and laugh so much?

Almost every small child I have been around will repeat over and over again something that they did that made you laugh, and they will keep doing it as long as you keep laughing.

[Assistant] Positive feedback. It's just like the rat who keeps pushing a lever to make food come out of a dispenser in his cage. The rat (or the toddler) doesn't understand the mechanism that produces the positive result, only that the action produces the result, so they keep repeating the action.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why does Central/Eastern Russia seem to be so sparsely populated?

Its always seemed strange to me that central and eastern Russia is so sparsely populated, given how populated China/Japan/Mongolia/Kazakhstan are. Why given I assume a temperate livable climate have large cities and settlements not developed there?

[Assistant]
It's a region known as Siberia,  which,  for the most part,  is incredibly inhospitable.   It is home to one of the coldest places outside of Antarctica,  with winter temperatures as low as - 90F.  It is tremendously huge, and the only realistic way to get regular resources is the Trans siberian railway that connects to western Russia,  where the vast majority of the Siberian population lives.  Prehistorically, it was tremendously volcanically active which could be responsible for the sparse animal life.

Outside of the railway area is most inhabited by the many varying indigenous peoples of Siberia, whose populations range from just a few hundred to the hundreds of thousands.   Nevertheless resources are very difficult to come by and the area is massive,  so many villages are very very small.  In the 19th century when Russia colonized Siberia,  many indigenous people were killed in a similar fashion to Europe's colonization of the Americas.

Siberia is very rich in oil and minerals and a large portion of the Russian population works in these fields along the railroad.   These are mostly small towns and are extremely rural.  Siberia also contains many of Russia's nuclear power plants,  and is home to the Mayak incidents,  one of the worst nuclear accidents in history.  The Soviet Union also conducted many nuclear bomb tests throughout Siberia.

So yeah,  Siberia is not the most comfortable place to live.   Despite this,  40 million people still live there which is a similar population density to Australia.


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

[User]
Did trees bear fruits before there were mammals to eat them?

As per my understanding (which is limited), fruits exist so that mammals will eat them and spit out the seeds far away from the parent tree, spreading the seeds around. Because of this, would it be biologically viable/possible for fruits to exist before mammals had evolved to the point where they could eat them?

[Assistant]
The first angiosperms (flowering plants that all fruit trees are a subset of) evolved about 160 million years ago with their ancestors going back to 250 million years or so. Mammals first appear about 225 million years ago. Fruit trees and mammals evolved hand in hand to arrive at the mechanism you are describing of dispersal.

Fruit does not require a mammal to eat it and disperse the seed however. That is just one mechanism for dispersal. Fruits can be dispersed by water (coconut), wind (maple), clinging to fur or feathers, being defecated not just spit out, or buried as part of hoarding behavior (nuts and squirrels). So yes there could be fruit trees in an environment lacking mammals. The Pacific islands are a good example, the only native mammals on many are bats but there are plenty of fruiting trees of different types; like coconuts that don't rely on the bats.


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

[User] If a planet has multiple moons, why don't they ever hit eachother? Why don't they get pulled into the planet?

[Assistant]
The reason you see stable orbits with moons and other natural satellites today is that these are the survivors. In the history of our solar it is likely that many did strike each other (forming larger objects or obliterating each other), many flew out away from the planet, and many probably were pulled into the planet's atmosphere.

Just out of chance, a few remained, safe in stable orbits.


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

[User]
[LOTR] How do elves change species to men like Arwen did?

Can any elf do this? Why aren't men allowed to turn into elves?

[Assistant]
Only half-elves are granted this choice, i.e. the decendants of Beren (man) and Lthien (elf) and Tuor (man) and Idril (elf). Pure elves and pure men aren't given this choice.

Elrond chose to be an elf, and his brother Elros chose to be mortal. Elros descendants weren't given this choice though. It seems that once half-elves have made the choice to go mortal they can can never go back.


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

[User] ELI5: why does grass thrive even after being trampled on, but other plants wouldn't survive?

[Assistant] It's flexible and soft enough that it doesn't get damaged so much with regular traffic. Other plants tend to break because they are built different. Flowers have a tube like stem. Trees are made of wood that will snap. And so on.


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

[User]
[Marvel's Spider-man first hour spoilers] What do all of the NPC's think when Peter Parker always walks in through the roof entrance?

Doctor Octavious, Martin Li, May Parker & the rest of the folk at F.E.A.S.T are all curious why & how Peter constantly enters the building through the roof entrance.

How does Spider-err *cough* Peter respond?

[Assistant]
For FEAST, he just changes on the rooftop. He enters and exits through the front door.

For Octavius Industries that seemed to be the only entrance to the lab which also connects to a flight of stairs.


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

[User]
[Doctor Who] does the Doctor actually have a doctorate or any degree of higher education?

he's a genius, he's really old, and i am pretty sure that at some point he was even teaching in some college.

[Assistant]
"Time Lord" refers not just to the Gallifretyan race, which are mostly much more normal people.  At a subjective 8 years old on an unspecified regeneration he was inducting into the Academy - the most elite school in the universe ans studies there are said to last "centuries."  He seems to have attended the Prydonian Chapter

Known subjects he studied were include Botany, Mond-shielding, thermodynmics, cybernetics, cosmic science, vertan & vintage vehicles, Gllifreyan flutterwing piloting, paradox declension, stellar engineering , spatial cartography, medicine and old high Gallifreyan (languages).   There were a few sports

He passed the test and graduated.  You only get to test once and the bass rate is 51%, so it must he a hell of a tough test.    It does not seem the Time Lords go for higher laurels in the academic sense.   The subject once came up that the Master boasted he got a higher grade in Cosmic Science.

Because of how advanced his society is, his education far exceeds any humans in everything except local fields particular to earth.  Even then, he's actually visited a lot of earth's history and actually met many historical figures.

By his eleventh incarnation his response to"Doctor of what?" was "of  everything."  Which is apparently how The Master considers his title as well.

As the 10th Doctor he taught at a boys school as  John Smith while hiding form t he Family of Blood in his .  The 13th Doctor spent decades lecturing at St Luke's University in Bristol.  The is little doubt he taught on many other occasions during his 2000+ years meandering around the universe.

It is perhaps helpful to keep in mind that, in universe, he predates human scholarship.   Doctors *are* literally him inf act named after him.   So he as the Doctor long before there was ant human one, and humans wouldn't be using the word or even have exactly the same concept of a Decree or Doctorate without his efforts.


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

[User] [ELI5] If chemotherapy kills all rapidly dividing cells including healthy cells then how do the patients maintain health?

[Assistant]
They often don't.  That's the problem with chemotherapy.  They get mouth sores, their hair falls out.  Their wounds don't heal well.  They can get nerve damage.  Some chemo can cause heart damage.  Some of the indiscriminately suppress your bone marrow and knock out your blood cells.

It's a game of getting a dose and duration that kills the cancer as much as possible, with as little toxicity to your other cells as possible.


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

[User] ELI5: Why is the water at Banff such a light blue?

[Assistant]
It has glacial milk in it.  Glacial milk is a very fine silt produced by the action of glaciers slowly pulverizing stone into flour.  It's so small that the particles remain in a near colloidal suspension instead of settling out.

The glacial milk reflects light in such a way that it makes the water almost look like light blue paint.


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

[User]
[Halo] The stupidity of a Warthog.

How is it that one of the main vehicles that UNSC ground forces employ is essentially a glorified technical? Even in the 21st Century military forces will employ up armored vehicles that at least attempt to the crew and gunner. So what gives?

[Assistant]
The M12-LRV (Light Reconnaissance Vehicle) has a multitude of options and its flexibility allows it to be a staple in any ground based engagement the UNSC takes part in.

As a scout vehicle, its open air cab allows for extreme visibility and access, as well as lightens vehicle permitting a quick acceleration.

The modular nature of the M12-LRV allows role flexibility as the armor piercing chain gun, gauss cannon, and rocket pods allow it to mesh with a armor division, giving the division a fluid force within its ranks to move with the battle.

While it does lack full armor plating, the standard UNSC soldier is quite safe in the seated area, with the only real risk being from above while stationary. In a pinch, the vehicle can be used as cover as the armored areas are quite bullet proof, and if flipped provides an ample frame to hide behind.

But nothing beats the raw speed the M12-LRV, its lightened, hardened, titanium-A frame gives this vehicle great acceleration and power to plow through any terrain. In the hands of an experienced driver can drift deftly through the tightest city corners in urban environments, while maintaining speed due to the independent hydrogen powered motor in each wheel.

The M12-LRV has a spot of honor in the UNSCs motorpool.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why did the U.S. government need a constitutional amendment to ban alcohol, but didn't to ban other drugs?

This has always bothered me.  Was there a reinterpretation of the constitution in between that gave congress more authority or something?

[Assistant]
The temperance movement sought a constitutional ban, not a legal ban, so as to prevent the ban from being easily repealed. A super-majority of the members of the 65th Congress favored prohibition -- but that was really an oddity. Many in politics opposed prohibition, and anti-prohibitionists might retake a majority at any time. The temperance movement enacted a constitutional ban to ensure that, without a 2/3 majority, Congress couldn't repeal the ban on the sale, transport, and manufacture of alcohol.

Opponents of prohibition also preferred the constitutional ban -- because it didn't include any provisions for enforcement. They thought they could deliver prohibitionists a moral victory, while still using their power to block good enforcement. Ultimately, they succeeded -- alcohol was banned, but everyone still drank. Of course, this ended out being a huge disaster, but that's another matter.

Daniel Okrant's *Last Call: The Rise and Fall of Prohibition* details the nitty-gritty of the prohibition battle including the risk that Congress might repeal.

For the record, Congress claims the authority to regulate drugs today under the interstate commerce clause, given that most drugs include components traded across state lines, or are sold across state lines, or are sold by groups that operate across state lines, etc. etc. etc. See *United States v. Lopez* for more information.


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

[User] ELI5: Why does brown not appear in a rainbow (or on a color wheel)?

[Assistant]
Brown isn't a color in its own right. It's a phenomenon of our brain interpreting a certain mix of colors.

Edit: brown can be made from mixing any two colors on opposite ends of the color wheel: yellow and purple, blue and orange, red and green.


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

[User]
ELI5: How does a Hotel determine how large or how many rooms to build when constructing a new building?

I live in the suburbs near a major american city and my job requires me to travel often thru the entire regional area.  I have notice a lot of new hotel construction in the suburbs, particularly among the large chain hotel (ie. Embassy suites, Best Western, Courtyard, etc.)  I often think, how does the hotel know what is the optimum number of rooms to provide so the hotel stays profitable?

It seems like most hotel developments plan on having their building stay in operation for many decades, but at the rate they seem to be building, hotels locations seem to be on almost every corner.  When the economy is good there is always new hotel construction, so it makes me believe the hotel companies think their is some need for them to build another location only a few minutes away from a current operating location.  Their must be a formula or process the hotel brands use to analysis the need for another hotel in an area.  And once they determine a location how do they determine how many rooms to provide?

[Assistant] Marketing folks analyze the likely travelers to an area, what they are likely to spend, and what there expectations are.  Investors bet money that those assessments are right by building a property.  The failure rate is pretty high, so this is a known risky venture.  Your expectation of "optimum number of rooms to provide so the hotel stays profitable" is unlikely.


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

[User] ELI5: Why do humans have a system for eating and breathing that intersects?

[Assistant] Evolution only has to come up with something that works not the perfect something. As long as people and animals live long enough to breed and raise their young to breeding age then whatever physical traits they have will get passed on. The human body has many poor design faults such as the optic nerve in the eye being where it is which causes a blind spot which means the brain has to guess what is there and lie to the brain. That's why the optical illusion with the cross and spot works.


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

[User] ELI5: Why do all mammal infants sleep 90% of the time, yet human spawn screeches for hours on end at night?

[Assistant] There is a hypothesis (I am not sure it is enough to be a theory) that infants cry at night in order to keep the parents tired enough that they are less likely to have sex and therefore get pregnant again too soon.


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

[User] ELI5: Why do nonprofit colleges & universities with absolutely huge endowments still charge so much in tuition?

[Assistant]
Universities exist not only to educate but in order to conduct research.

Students are willing to pay market rates for the degree and a healthy endowment funds all sorts of  programs thst are not covered by tuition.


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

[User] ELI5: How do they make tape sticky? And how do they make duct tape even more so?

[Assistant] Imagine the tape is a massive flat piece of wrapping paper, they spray adhesive onto one side if it and then roll it up tightly, the adhesive is on the inside of the roll. This long tube of adhesive covered wrapping paper is then sliced up into thin slices and you have your roll of sticky tape. Differing adhesives and tape materials change the properties, like electrical tape doesnt stick to much but itself, masking tape sticks to a lot but with less adhesion, duct tape isnt really more sticky if you buy low quality stuff, but good stuff just has more/better adhesive - probably tuned to the expected application of ducts... so tape to metal.


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

[User] ELI5: Why do you sometimes wake up with a headache if you've slept for too long (i.e. more than 9 hours)?

[Assistant]
It's usually dehydration.

When you go 9 hours or more without drinking water you become dehydrated regardless of whether you're awake or asleep. Try drinking a glass of water before you go to bed and keeping another full glass by your bed so you can drink if you wake up during the night.


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

[User]
[Marve's What If...? episode 8] How did he get that thing, if SPOILER hasn't happened to SPOILER yet?

So. In episode 8 of Marvel's What If...? series, >!Thanos teleports in after Ultron destroys almost all life on Earth via launching every single nuke. Thanos has every single stone besides the one in Ultron's head. Ultron, absolute Chad version of Vision that he is, cuts Thanos in half and melts through the Infinity Gauntlet using the mind stone's laser.!<

Now, my question isn't how he did that or why it was so strong, but...>!how did Thanos get all of the stones? In the scenes afterward, we clearly see that most of the universe hasn't had its shit shoved in and Gamora is still alive. One of the stones is on Xandar, another in Asgard (I think?), the time stone is with Dr. Strange, the reality stone with the collector and the soul stone *has* to still be in Red Skull's backyard, because Gamora is still alive.!<

>!So how the fuck does Thanos have all of them? Xandar is very much intact (so much so that they lasted longer than anyone else, I think). Even if Dr. Strange was killed in an atomic blast, his spell is still unbreakable (**Edit:** and if he wasn't the Sorcerer Supreme yet, it seems somewhat unlikely that The Ancient One would allow herself to get killed via nukes. Not impossible though, obviously.) And, most importantly, ***Gamora lives.*** We see her fighting off Ultron drones once Ultron has the stones for himself and attacks the Gold People's planet. So where'd Thanos get that last stone from?!<

[Assistant]
Ultron won, which means the Earth was open for the picking and Thanos moves up his timetable.

* Time Stone - New York City. Most of the Avengers are dead, which means no one is around to save Dr. Strange when the Black Order shows up. And it's doubtful his spell is all *that* unbreakable - that could've been a bluff.

* Reality Stone - Knowhere. The Collector couldn't stand up to Thanos the first time around, so it's doubtful they'd fare much better.

* Space Stone - Odin's Vault on Asgard. Loki knew hidden ways into and out of Asgard, so it is possible to sneak in, especially with the abilities of the Black Order.  Gamora found Quill on Xandar and the Soul Stone on Vormir, so they've got some expert investigators. The nice thing is with the Tesseract, you don't need to have an escape plan. Grab it and teleport out.

* Power Stone - Xandar. Once they have the Space Stone, it's a snatch and grab operation.

* Soul Stone - Vormir. Thanos seems to care for Ebony Maw too and that guy would willingly throw himself off a cliff to appease his father.

* Mind Stone - on Earth with Ultron.  *ZZzzzaap!!*


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

[User]
I remember times when we all eagerly played Flash games, my PC at those times (mid-end) did not start coolers or eat too much RAM for those games and websites. Now any light html5 canvas rendering seems to send my PC to space mission, due to the sound of the coolers. What has changed?

My friends also noticed this.

Canvas basically runs as it was some kind of Unreal Tournament 3 game or something.

Maybe I'm missing some settings checkboxes in browser or something?

I generally try to avoid canvas at all times now, because it just makes my notebook and PC lagging and heating, but at those times when Flash was popular I was pleasantly viewing and interacting with games and state-of-the-art websites build upon Flash.

[Assistant]
WebGL happened. You can actually get at the graphics card through a standard web api now, hence games can be a lot more graphics intensive. There's also a lot of game engines for the web now (Unity for example) that makes it easier for developers to make games, especially if it's just Joe Shmoe in his free time. The downside is you get a lot of extra things that the specific game in question may not need, leading to extra computations eating up your computer.

Some combination of those things, along with websites, in general, being more heavyweight now will add to those problems.


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

[User]
ELI5:Why is some food "aged" and still edible while others are rotten and tossed out?

Basically the title, why do we age some foods (some cheeses, wine, some meats) and it's still edible or even delicious, but other foods are thrown out when they hit two days old?

[Assistant]
Rotten food is an uncontrolled explosion of microorganism activity, which is almost always going to produce toxins or at least make the food entirely unpleasant.

Aging food is a more controlled process. Conditions such as temperature, humidity, salinity, etc are tuned to allow some bacteria, yeasts, etc to grow and to inhibit others. Somethings are fermented, because we want yeast to turn sugar into alcohol, or other things are aged to become super dry so nothing can grow on it.


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

[User] Do transsexual individuals (specifically male to female) suffer a 'phantom limb' sensation where their penis used to be?

[Assistant] You appear to have a misconception about Sex Reassignment Surgery, as the appendage is not amputated, but inverted and used to create a vaginal cavity, preserving the nerves and presumably any sensation who's absence might cause phantom limb issues.


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

[User] Eli5: In movies people instruct bleeding out characters to stay with them and to keep their eyes open. Does falling asleep/ blacking out actually accelerate the process of dying or is that just a movie cliche?

[Assistant] Unconsciousness doesn't accelerate the process of dying, it's just more helpful if people stay conscious so they can answer questions that first responders might have for them or just generally help people trying to help them. The way movies do it is almost always for dramatic effect.


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

[User]
Is there a safe, available set of liquids that would be luminescent after being combined, but not before?

I hope that today is not the wrong day to ask. I understand that it is April 1st, however I'm trying to find out for my wedding ceremony.

The desired result would be in a unity ceremony, my fiance and I pour two liquids (not glowing) from our containers into a third, larger container, and that liquid begins to glow after. We are getting married at midnight on a full moon night in September on the water. And we thought that the glow would be a nice touch.

Ideally it would be phosphorescent or fluorescent afterwards. But the luminescent property is more important.

We were told that we would be able to take apart glow sticks and dilute the parts in ethyl acetate, but I'm not sure how that would work, since part of a glow stick is a solid substance that is broken.

Thank you for your help.

[Assistant]
That's a fun idea.  Glow sticks would work, and they come in a variety of colors.  The interior of a glowstick contains two compartments that mix when you bend it.  You can drain out the two parts into different containers and combine them later.

Alternately, you can make your own glowing solutions by buying a luminol kit online.  It is pretty easy to work with.  You need a peroxide solution and another solution containing luminol and an iron or copper salt catalyst. There are plenty of instructions online, and the kits usually come with an instruction sheet.

Regardless of which route you take, you'll want to practice a few times because variables such as temperature, pH, peroxide concentration, and catalyst can make the difference between a quick, bright flash of light and a longer-lived dim glow.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why are deer suited to almost everywhere on the planet?

The biodiversity of the planet is amazing, everywhere you go there's millions of different species to discover.

Simultaneously, almost everywhere you go there's a deer population except for Africa and Australia.

How are deer this generalized that they can survive practically anywhere? How has this type of creature become so dominant in its niche almost planet-wide?

Edit: Apparently they are basically everywhere including Australia and Africa.

[Assistant]
Bit of a correction, there are deer in Africa too!

In general this is probably because deer are fast, grazers, can defend themselves somewhat, and reproduce fairly quickly.

All of these things meant that deer, over time, were pushed to every continent either by predators or food scarcity and were able to make those travels to disconnected continents when they were still connected by land bridges.


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

[User]
Why are humans psychologically satisfied by blankets?

Even when it's warm, I can't sleep as well without a blanket, and I don't think I'm alone there. Why are they so comforting to us psychologically?

[Assistant]
It persists out of the swaddling effect, where infants quiet down and sleep better if swaddled. Without swaddling, a noise or touch or other stimulus will cause the baby's arms to jerk and flail (Moro reflex) and swaddling keeps them from waking up completely.

Adult EEGs show similar rousing responses (vertex waves and K complexes) and your banky is a proxy for swaddling.


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

[User] How do scavenger birds locate the carcasses they want to eat while flying?

[Assistant] Turkey vultures have an extremely sensitive olfactory system, and they can detect a single molecule of cadaverine or other compounds given off by dead animals.  Then they cast back and forth the way a tracking hound does, until they detect a gradient and can follow the gradient "upstream" to find the source.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why is it when I wear 3d glasses on top of my glasses, it works. But, when I wear my glasses on top of the 3d glasses, it doesn't?

Glasses is spelled weird.

[Assistant]
3d glasses work using polarized light.
The projector shoots light a the screen with two pictures, one using lines that go up and down and the other with lines that go from side to side. The 3d glasses sort the lines, so that your left eye sees only lines that are side to side and your right eye sees only lines that go up and down.  That means each eye gets a slightly different picture, the way they would if you were looking at an actual 3d object. That's what fools your brain into thinking the flat screen is 3d.
Your glasses then bend the light so that it hits your eye with correct focus. To do that well, they have to be the correct distance from your eye.
Putting your normal glasses outside the 3d glasses likely messes with the distance. Some glasses also have coatings that affect the polarization (the up/down and side-to-side) of light.
So you could be looking at 1) a picture that is improperly focused and fails to fool your brain, or 2) a picture where the polarizing effects of your normal glasses ruins the sorting function of the 3d glasses.


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

[User]
ELI5:What are doctors looking for when they check your ears?

Just got a physical and it got me thinking. What are doctors looking for in your ear? Please help.

Edit: Thank you guys. Some really informative explanations. Reddit never fails me.

[Assistant] Doctors look for fluid in the ears, what the tympanic membrane (ear drum) looks like to look for inflammation, and overall condition of the skin inside to make sure there aren't cuts or full of cerumen (ear wax)


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

[User]
CMV: Religion's focus on female sexual purity is not because of "God," but based on male sexual fetish (kink) and likely an evolutionary paternity insecurity

Purity culture is sexualization.

It's not been ordained by a deity above.

It's because straight male humans are horny and have obsessive inclinations toward female sexual access. This is probably because of some evolutionary insecurity regarding paternity, which has materialized as an intense sexual desire of straight men.

Telling women in those cultures it's because of "God's will" is a slap in the face to those women. They truly believe that which is probably why those cultures thrive on keeping women in the dark as much as possible.

They should be more explicit and let them know it's primarily because some man out there wants to have sex with her "first" to 1) increase his psychological pleasure and 2) ease his lizard brain.

I'm open to **root** reasonings that don't lead to the above because I'm struggling to find other rationales.

**TLDR**: Invoking God for your sexual desires and impulses is distasteful.

[Assistant] In a time before reliable birth control, it's pretty obvious why sexual abstinence would be more of a concern for women, and this doesn't require any male involvement or "keeping women in the dark" or anything like that.  Raising a child is a significant economic burden, particularly in a culture practicing sustenance agriculture.  If there is a child, the man might be able to escape responsibility by pretending it isn't his or by running away, but the woman definitely cannot.  So the tendency will be for women to think through the consequences more than men.  Religious "purity" is just a cultural artifact that grows up around this basic biological fact.


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

[User]
Is there something hardwired in us that results in a more significant portion of people being right-handed?

Maybe this is a common misconception but as a leftie I've noticed I'm one of the few in my classes who suffers from smudged writing and bumping elbows with people at the table. Is there a reason behind right handedness being the default?

[Assistant]
We don't really know *why* this is the case yet, but we do know the shift did occur in early humans

Some have argued that it all comes down to language. Just as most people are right-handed  a trait, remember, controlled by the left side of the brain  so do most people do the bulk of their linguistic processing in their brains left hemisphere. Indeed, this left-brained specialization for language is even more common than right-handedness  which might suggest that as the left hemisphere evolved for language, the preference for the right hand may have intensified simply as a side effect. This is called the Homo loquens hypothesis: lateralization in general was driven by the evolution of an upright, bipedal stance, while the rightward preference was driven, some time later, by the evolution of language.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why can I pour oil into boiling water, but water poured into hot oil explodes into the air?

I was making pasta and sauteeing chicken recently.  I poured olive oil into the pasta water and it was totally fine, and then a drop of water fell into the chicken pan and popped up into the air.  Why, science, why?

Edit: Thanks for all the responses, people!

[Assistant]
The main thing that's going on is that water boils at 100^o Celcius.

Hot oil is often much hotter than 100^o C. Typically oils will start to burn, depending on the oil you're using, at around the 200^o C mark, give or take. So when you see smoke coming from the oil you're at those sorts of temperatures.

Typically you don't cook with the oil actually burning (unless you're a bit of a dodgy chef), and you're likely going to be at around the 160-180^o C sort of area.

What this means is that when you drop water into hot oil it evaporates pretty much instantly. The temperature of the oil is above the boiling point of water. The explosion is the rapid generation of steam caused by this near-instant evaporation. This steam throws some oil up into the air aswell, just because the gas expands so quickly.

Also, oils tend to have a relatively high heat capacity, and you've got the heat in the metal of the pot/pan aswell. This means that you can evaporate a fair bit of water without losing too much heat in the oil. So there's some potential for relatively large explosions if you drop a lot of water in.

Obviously, in the reverse situation, the water can't be hotter than 100^o C (for pure water anyway - adding salt does change the boiling point a bit). Oils won't evaporate (edit: or decompose) at that temperature, so no gas is being generated, so no explosion happens.


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

[User]
What is going to be the next big thing in Sociology?

What I mean is this, what do you think is the next stage in the evolution of the field?

Are there any issues are at the edges of the field right now that you see becoming important to the field as a whole in the near future? What areas of research do you think are going to become significant to Social Science? Are there any sorts of new methodology changes or advancements in types of measurement or programs (like SPSS) that are going to push the Social Science in a different direction?

Thanks in advance!

[Assistant]
Big data: extracting correlations from large data-sets on human behavior and verifying them.

A deluge of data will be coming and it will dramatically change everything about how sociology will be conducted.


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

[User]
[Predator] Do the Yautja have any conservation laws?

The Yautja seem pretty content on keeping honor in the hunt. They have several rules that they strictly follow.

So would a species being nearly completely wiped out count as enough reason to not hunt a species?

[Assistant]
They have at least some interest in sustainable prey, as they cultivate/harvest xenomorphs from time to time.

Then again, they're also willing to kill Xenomorph Queens, so they're fully willing to exterminate entire populations for the hunt.


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

[User]
[Fallout] Can Ghouls die of age?

I mean Raul was born in 2047 and, other than Mr. House, is by far the oldest person I've ever heard of. He seems to be affected by his age, at least a bit. So even if it takes hundreds and hundreds of years, they must eventually die right?

[Assistant] No, they can't. That is the whole idea behind them; since a large portion of there body is effectively dead, they can devote there bodies' rescources toward there vital organs. This means that, while there cells do degrade, they degrade a lot slower in the places where it counts (heart, lungs, etc.) Not to mention there ability to use atomic radiation to heal what little cell degradation they DO receive. Ghouls where so obviously meant to live eternally, that many in New California speculate that the FEV experiments that made them where created so that the Enclave higher-ups could command there forces forever, there's nothing behind these theories obviously, but it gets a body thinkin...


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

[User]
[Star Wars vs Deadpool] Would the Death Star be able to kill Deadpool?

Direct impact shot?

[Assistant]
For a while. And then all the vaporized bits of him, all the scattered atoms and quarks, would slowly be pulled back together, eventually forming a pink, fleshy blob, that would develop tiny hands, little legs, and then sarcasm, and would eventually fully coalesce into a naked, pissed off deadpool, stuck floating in the middle of nowhere.

A better option might be dropping him into a star, where presumably he would be trapped as scattered atoms until the star went away.


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

[User]
[Mass Effect] How does the Council chart the destination of dormant relays?

There's the Council rule about not activating a relay until you've found its destination 'partner', to avoid incidents like the Rachnii war. How do they locate the partner without activating the known relay?

Presumably there are several discovered dormant relays that the council keeps track of, but how do they correctly identify their destination(s) without switching one on?

It can't be just general orientation (eg, follow the pointy end and see if there's another relay in that line of sight before the edge of the galaxy) since there could be more than one connection, and another unknown relay could be lying active in hostile territory.

[Assistant]
In short? They can't.

After the Rachni war, the Council forbade the activation of any primary relays unless they already knew where it was going. But you've hit upon the obvious issue; how the hell do you do that? It might be possible if you *also* stumbled upon the other side, but that's literally astronomically improbable.

So that Council decree more realistically means "no more primary relay activations". It's a hard freeze on future exploration of the galaxy.

(Note: Primary relays operate over longer distances, but only to a specific "paired" relay. So they would never have multiple connections. Secondary ones connect to multiple relays, but they're also always shorter range, so they're less of a risk.)


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

[User] ELI5: Why do some foods taste better hot?

[Assistant]
Things like texture and aroma play a large part in what we consider the taste of food.

Heat changes the texture of many foods
for example, take a fatty food like a cut of steak or a piece of fried chicken. when the food is hot, the fatty parts of the dish are moist and almost like liquid, so that they pleasantly melt in your mouth.  If you were to eat fatty steak or fried chicken cold, it would not be as good because the fat would just taste hard, cold and greasy (think of how a stick of butter feels in the fridge compared to room temperature).

Another thing that contributes to our experience of flavor is smell, so a bowl of soup would taste better hot because its giving off pleasant aromas with all the steam but if you ate the soup cold, you would not experience this sensation.

So those are just two reasons/examples.


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

[User]
[LotR] How did Denethor turn out to be such a rotten apple?

Aragorn fought along his fathers side so he mustve been a decent person. His sons were great. His forefathers mustve been good since the city has stood for so long in the absence of a king. So what went wrong? Was he troubled by Boromirs death?

[Assistant]
Denethor was not a rotten apple.

Denethor ruled well as a steward for decades. He used a palentir to see far, and there came in direct contact with Sauron.

Unlike Saruman, Denethor did not submit his will, and held fast. But Sauron poisoned his mind by controlling what things he could see. There were no lies in what Denethor saw through the palentir, but many half-truths to cause despair.

Denethor was one of the strongest humans of the third age. He was just hopelessly outmatched against the might of Sauron.


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

[User]
[Batman] I am the curator of the Gotham Museum, if I put my own Bat Signal on the roof will Batman respond to it and will it keep supervillains away if I turn it on during high value exhibitions?

Next month the Gotham Museum will have an exhibit on the history of clowns and jesters complete with some very valuable ruby studded clown noses and Italian leather gag shoes from the court jester of the French Monarchy, across the hall I am also displaying valuable Egyptian cat statues made of solid gold, and our conservatory will be bringing in some rare black and white hummingbirds and some rare and endangered plants to make them feel at home before they will be sent to the Gotham zoo after our exhibition is over. Now my insurance company feels these exhibits, particularly all at the same time, are tempting fate and is refusing to cover potential losses, I think he might have a point so I'm wondering if I just put my own bat signal up on the roof will Batman show up for it? Could I just leave it on as a deterrent until the exhibits are done with public display?

[Assistant]
It would probably be better to simply get in touch with the police, who will pass it along to Batman. He can't go chasing after any Bat-signal in the night sky unless he wants to be stumbling into traps every other night.

...which he sort of does anyway, but you get the point.


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

[User] ELI5: Sperm are often referred to as swimmers. What exactly are they swimming through? Are the uterus and Fallopian tubes filled with liquid, or empty?

[Assistant]
They are travelling through cervical fluid. When a woman ovulates and is most fertile, her cervical fluid becomes clear and mucous like, perfect for sperm to travel along. The consistancy of cervical fluid changes throughout the month and becomes less easy for said swimmers to travel along when she is not fertile.

The cavities do contain these cervical fluids but it's not as much as you think, its just enough to coat the surface of the womb. Aside from this, it is empty.


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

[User]
[WH40K] If one of the Traitor Primarchs had remained loyal, which one would have been the biggest help to the Loyalist Forces?

Discounting Horus, because that's too easy.  And discounting Alpharius (because we all know he's secretly loyal).

[Assistant]
Magnus

The only Reason Magnus turned traitor is because Horus Tricked Leman to kill him, forcing him to side with Tzeentch to save his legion.

If Magnus was loya (aka: never tried to use his Warp power to warn the Emperor and just send a messenger ship). Leman and Magnus would be free.

Meaning they could come and help Terra far faster then the Ultramarine who were busy fighting the Alpha Legion. Alternatively, they both would help the Ultramarine defeat the Alpha Legion faster, allowing them to reach Terra far faster.


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

[User]
Why do psychiatrists/psychologists ask if you've completed high school in a psych eval?

What is the point of asking this? What substance does this answer provide? Genuinely curious.

[Assistant] Not finishing high school could be a clue to a ton of mental health issues and environmental factors. Things like ADHD, substance use, or an unstable home environment growing up. The question on its own mostly helps us decide what other questions to ask. Of course any of these things can be present in a person who did complete high school. But it helps us know to ask if there are things impairing ones ability to complete school.


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

[User]
ELI5: How can Steam afford to sell games at such high discounts?

I worked in retain for five years and understand how little mark up there was on video games (10-15%). I also understand the concept of vendor funding, where a company would reimburse the retailer during a sale. But I can't see how steam can afford to sell so many games when, I assume, they're buying copies for more than what they're selling them for.

[Assistant]
In physical stores, you have a limited supply of a physical game.  It cost money for the developers to make it, and it also cost money to make the disk, make the case, make the box, and ship it.  That physical game has costs that MUST be made back.

With Steam, you have an unlimited supply of a digital item.  Besides server storage and network bandwidth, there is practically no cost is distributing a digital game.  Any money made does straight to the developers (after Valve's cut).

This means Steam and the Devs can play around with prices, as no matter what is sold, it's profit.  For example, say you have a game priced at $60.  During your average week (way after release), only 10 copies are sold (resulting in $600 profit).  If they decide to discount that down to $5, people jump on it and 2,000 digital copies are sold (making $10,000).  Because there is an infinite supply of the games, they don't have to worry about running out and can easily distribute 2,000 copies.


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

[User]
what type of therapy should be sought for trying to get in touch with suppressed emotions from childhood?

To be able to understand how they manifest now in adulthood.

[Assistant] This is a very explicit issue in psychodynamic and psychoanalytic psychotherapy. But insight of such links between past and present could happen in any framework of therapy where emotional experience is the focus of the work.


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

[User]
[Marvel] How hard can Spider-Man hit at max power?

So it seems that Spider-Man consistently holds back when facing his foes, as shown by the Superior Spider-Man arc where he was possessed by Doc Ock, he he punched Scorpion so hard in the face that his jaw flew off. So it got me thinking, what is Spider-Man's maximum striking power when he really cuts loose and says "fuck it!".

[Assistant] Spider-Man has been graded as Class 10 strength, meaning he can lift 10 tons. When he was younger and inexperienced, he tried to pull his punches but was not always successful. It was later revealed that when Doc Ock, who despite the robot arms is only a normal human, had taken so much traumatizing damage from Spider-Man over the years, it was atually killing him. His body was slowly dying, why is why Ock transferred his mind to Spidey's bodt for the Superior Spider-Man arc. If Spidet really hit full force, picture getting slammed with a ten ton weight.